In February 1937, the small community of Balranald was shaken by a tragedy that would be remembered as one of the darkest moments in the town's history. The deaths of two people near the racecourse brought grief, questions and profound sadness to a close-knit community where everyone knew everyone else.

On Thursday, 11 February 1937, when Jean Reid, a 17 year old housemaid employed by Mr K Boynton, failed to report for her midday duties, her employer grew concerned. This was unusual behaviour for the young woman who was known throughout the surrounding districts as an enthusiastic cyclist. When she didn't appear, Boynton informed the police that something was wrong.

What followed was a search that began with careful observation. Police and other searchers picked up the tracks of a bicycle in one of Balranald's streets and began following them. The tracks led about two miles outside town, where they linked up with the tracks of a motor car that appeared to have been stationary for some time. Following the car tracks, the search party continued for another half mile until they came upon a vehicle in an isolated spot.

What they discovered there brought the search to a tragic end. Jean Reid and Robert Leslie Crees, a 43 year old married road contractor with five children, were found dead near the car. Both had suffered fatal gunshot wounds. The young woman had been shot through the left temple, while Crees had a bullet wound above his right temple. A revolver lay on the girl's chest containing two empty cartridges.

The coroner, Dr R H Kelly, examined the scene and the bodies. He concluded that the pair had been dead for less than 12 hours when they were discovered. The physical evidence and circumstances led to a grim determination about what had occurred in that isolated spot.

At the formal inquest held on Saturday, 13 February, the coroner, Mr A S Collins PM, delivered his findings. He recorded that Jean Reid had died from the effects of a revolver shot wound to the head, feloniously and maliciously inflicted upon her by Crees. The verdict stated that Crees had feloniously and maliciously murdered Miss Reid, and that Crees himself had died from a revolver wound to the head, wilfully self-inflicted.

Among the evidence examined during the inquest was a diary kept by the young woman, found in her bedroom. The diary apparently provided some insight into the events that led to that Thursday morning tragedy, though the specific contents were not detailed in the newspaper reports of the time. The discovery of the diary led to headlines referring to a "death pact," though the coroner's verdict of murder and suicide told a darker story than mutual agreement might suggest.

Those who knew Jean Reid described her as having a bright and happy disposition, making her death all the more shocking to the community. She was known as an active young woman who enjoyed cycling through the district, a familiar figure on the roads around Balranald. The contrast between that vibrant life and the tragic end was difficult for the community to reconcile.

Robert Leslie Crees was described as a well-known road contractor in the area, a married man with responsibilities to a wife and five children. The circumstances that led to the events of that February morning remain largely unknown beyond what was revealed at the inquest, lost now to time and the discretion that communities often maintained around such tragedies.

The location of the tragedy, three miles outside Balranald in an isolated spot near the racecourse, suggests a deliberate choice of somewhere away from the town, somewhere unlikely to be disturbed. The evidence of the car that had been stationary for some time, the bicycle tracks leading from town, and the revolver with its two spent cartridges all painted a picture that the coroner used to reach his conclusions.

For a small town like Balranald in 1937, such an event would have reverberated through every family and every conversation. In communities where everyone knows everyone else, where families are interconnected through generations, a tragedy of this nature affects the entire town. The grief would have been compounded by the questions that inevitably arise in such circumstances, questions that often have no satisfactory answers.

The newspapers of the day reported the facts with the directness typical of the era, though even then there was recognition of the sensitive nature of what had occurred. The headlines spoke of murder and suicide, of bodies found near a car, of a girl's diary and its revelations. But behind those headlines were real people, real families devastated by loss, and a community struggling to understand what had happened and why.

The formal record tells us what the coroner determined, what the physical evidence showed, and what the legal finding was. But it cannot fully convey the impact on Jean Reid's family who lost a daughter described as bright and happy, on Crees' wife who lost a husband and whose children lost a father, or on the wider Balranald community that lost two of its own in circumstances that defied easy explanation.

In the years since 1937, Balranald has experienced many changes, seen generations come and go, and witnessed countless moments of joy and sorrow. But some events remain part of a community's memory, passed down through families and remembered in local history. The tragedy of February 1937 is one of those events, a dark moment in the town's story that serves as a reminder of the fragility of life and the sometimes unfathomable nature of human actions.

The bicycle tracks in the street, the isolated spot near the racecourse, the revolver with its two spent cartridges, these details are part of the historical record. They tell the story of what happened on that February day when a search for a missing housemaid ended in tragedy. But they also stand as a memorial to lives cut short, to grief experienced by families and community, and to the kind of sorrow that small towns carry quietly through the generations.