This Day in History: 1947-07-29

Former resident and Mahwah native Myron Sutherland was buried in the Airmount Cemetery. His badly decomposed body had been found by Georgia police in an abandoned cabin at the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp. He had been shot in the back of the head by a .22 caliber rifle. Florida and Georgia police assumed that he had been murdered by his hunting companion, Wayne F. Woodruff. The two men had left Jacksonville, Florida where Sutherland worked at a machine shop and Woodruff at a shipyard to go hunting near the swamp, only 25 air miles from Jacksonville. Both men were known as hunting enthusiasts. When Sutherland did not return to work or to his rooming house Jacksonville police investigated. When his body was found on the 20th there was little to identify it since it had been exposed to wild hogs and vultures. It was the circling of the vultures which led police to the cabin. The police recognized Sutherland who had been seen in the area before on previous visits. Woodruff was apprehended in El Paso Texas with his bride of one week. He claimed that the shooting had been an accident, but police suspected murder, with robbery as the motive. Sutherland, 35, was a graduate of Ramsey High School, where he had been a star basketball player. He had worked as a machinist for three years in Jacksonville. He was an amateur gunsmith and was known to carry large amounts of money with him. His abandoned car was found on a Jacksonville Street but witnesses said that Woodruff had driven around in it for the week after the shooting, trying to sell it twice. Both of Sutherland’s rifles were in Woodruff’s possession when he was picked up by police in Texas. (Bristow)