Canberra - An undertaker's letter confessing to a murder more than a century ago has been uncovered during renovations to a home near the South Australia state capital Adelaide, sparking a police hunt for human remains.
In the letter, dated March 1932 and written on a page from a ledger book, Gustav Adolph Maerschel confessed to stabbing an unnamed Englishman in the 1800s and then burying the body under a pear tree in the backyard, according to reports.
"That incident has always been on my conscience but I have told no one. I'm now hopeful this confession will somehow ease my conscience," Detective Senior Constable Bob Sharpe read from the letter on Australian television on Monday.
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The letter from Maerschel, an undertaker, was found hidden behind a mantelpiece during renovations to the historic home in Birdwood, around 35km north of Adelaide.
| The letter from Maerschel was found hidden behind a mantlepiece |
"The letter says that shortly after the gentleman moved here to Birdwood, he had several arguments with an English gentleman as he calls him, a gentleman from London," Sharpe said.
"During one of these arguments, the man from London has taken out a knife and there has been a bit of struggle. The fellow writing the letter then took possession of the knife and stabbed the victim, one stab wound as we believe."
Sharpe said Maerschel wrote that he was not a suspect in a police investigation at the time.
Police searched the backyard of the home in Birdwood for human remains. They found a small piece of bone, which has been sent for analysis to see whether it belonged to a human.
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