The murder was investigated by Constable Tom Gough who had only arrived a few months earlier.  Believing he had a just reason, Karo made full admissions of the murder and was confined in the Badili (Koki) native prison.  He was committed for trial and appeared in the Central Court in November charged with wilful murder under the provisions of Section 302 of the Queensland Criminal Code.

Owing to leniency due to tribal customs, the charge was reduced to manslaughter. Karo was sentenced to five years hard labour and, after serving four years and nine months, he returned to his Gulf village.

In September 1935, Karo and some fellow villagers were questioned on suspicion of breaking into a trade store east of Port Moresby and taken to the coastal government station of Rigo. Here, in late October, Karo was charged with minor offences and fined.  On 12 November the office safe at the government station was stolen.  No other government safe had been stolen in the history of the territory; such a crime was unthinkable. The safe was later found, broken open in a creek bed with a large sum of money in notes and coin missing. Suspicion centered on Karo and other villagers.

When news of this crime reached Port Moresby, Sergeant Bagita, the constabulary’s ablest investigator, was sent to Rigo. He spoke several local Papuan languages as well as Police Motu. Meanwhile in Port Moresby, Constable Gough was making extensive enquiries about local natives in possession of large sums of money. A conspirator eventually led Bagita to where some of the money had been hidden. He confessed to the crime and named Karo as the principal offender.

On 21 January 1936, Karo was brought before a magistrate and sent to Port Moresby by government trawler where he again faced Constable Gough.

After committal Karo faced the Central Court charged with stealing and burglary and was sentenced to ten years hard labour at Koki prison. In February he escaped from a working party and was arrested a few days later by Bagita, subjected to strict discipline and transferred to the most distant  prison on the island of Samarai.

Feigning blindness (self-inflicted by rubbing a native plant into his eyes), Karo was returned to Koki prison for treatment. Here, apparently blind, he did no hard labour but embarked on schemes to make money by gambling, sleight of hand and sorcery.

Karo quickly established his position at the top of the prison hierarchy. He was believed to have magical powers and had considerable influence extending to the senior warder, Sergeant Ume Hau. Ume was an inveterate gambler, although gambling was strictly prohibited by Papuan law.

Fellow prisoners knew of the considerable tension between senior warder Ume and prisoner Karo. But not being a Motuan language speaker, European gaoler George Gough was unaware of this. He would have known little of the belief in the powers of sorcery (puripuri).

The last time Sergeant Warder Ume was seen alive was after the evening meal on Monday 6 June.  He was absent from the Tuesday morning prisoner inspection line-up.  Constable Gough had a search made of the prison area without success.  He extended it to Ume’s village and beyond, also without success.

The search continued until late on the afternoon of Wednesday 8 June, when the humid tropical climate revealed the decomposing presence of three bodies, all with their throats cut. They lay under the rarely used European section of the prison.

Suspicion quickly centered on Karo, and after extensive questioning of other Papuan prisoners who implicated him, and the finding of blood-stained clothing and knives by Constable Gough and Sergeant Bagita, Karo and a coconspirator named Goave Oae were arrested.

Other prisoners implicated Goave (serving life for a 1931 murder) in handing Karo a knife during the Monday evening of the murders. Karo made an admission of guilt to Bagita and both offenders were charged with wilful murder. They were committed for trial in July and sent for trial before a judge alone, as was the law for Papuans..

After the trial, which concluded in the Central Court on 18 July, Karo was found guilty of wilful murder and sentenced to death.  The lesser conspirator, Goave, was acquitted and returned to prison to continue his life sentence. Neither was charged with the murder of Ume’s wife and child.

Since Karo’s earlier murder when a police mailman and his earlier imprisonment on a lesser charge, there had been a change of Australian government and Karo’s fate was sealed.

The death penalty was confirmed by the Papuan Executive Council and five days later on 8 August 1938 was carried out.

Karo, who was also suspected of several other murders, was executed outside the Koki prison behind a high hessian structure of the enclosed gallows and before a large crowd of Europeans and Papuans, an armed guard of the constabulary, the brothers Gough, a Catholic priest, a medical officer, Sergeant Bagita, and the acting Sheriff to whom the duty as executioner fell.

Karo’s execution was only the second in Papua since 1916 and was the last in Papua before World War II atrocities were dealt with in war crimes trials. On 15 January 1934, Sergeant Stephen Mamademi Gorumbaru of the Armed  Constabulary, with 15 years service including at police headquarters, had been convicted of the rape of a European female child.  He was hanged at Badili Prison, Port Moresby, on Monday 29 January.

From the early years until early 1942, police were extensively involved in the carriage of mails throughout the separate territories of Papua and New Guinea. Police runners carried mail from Port Moresby to Kokoda, with the exception of the war years, until October 1949, when Qantas commenced weekly air services. The “police runner” covers are now a very scarce philatelic item.

On 26 August 1985, the centenary of postal services in Papua was commemorated by the re-enactment of a police mail run from Kokoda. At the top of the Kokoda track, a specially issued pre-stamped commemorative cover was cancelled.

Covers were conveyed on foot to Port Moresby by a party of seven Papuan New Guineans under the command of Sergeant Peter Baiagau of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary. After the five day trek the covers were again cancelled at the Port Moresby post office on 31 August.

Compiled from personal conversations with Sgt Major Bagita, recollections from other long serving native police, notes from Rita O’Neil (daughter of T P Gough), assistance from Rick Giddings, a former long serving district officer and magistrate, and from “Karo the life and fate of a Papuan” by Amirah Inglis, ANU, 1982, to whom I extend my thanks.

Photo: Karo Araua (right) in custody