Ritchie devised a disposal method: burn the victim's body along with that of a large animal, sift any metal fragments out of the ashes, dissolve them in acid, pound any remaining bone fragments into dust, then discard the remains into the wind.

On 5 October 1929, Upfield, Ritchie, Rowles, the son of an inspector of the fence, and a north boundary rider for the fence, were all present at the Camel Station homestead when the murder method for Upfield's book was again discussed.

[5] In December 1929, Rowles was in the company of two men, James Ryan and George Lloyd.

On Christmas Eve, 1929, Upfield was with a colleague in the small town of Youanmi when he met Rowles, who told him that Ryan had decided to stay in Mount Magnet and had lent him his truck.

A New Zealander named Louis Carron had arrived in the Murchison area in 1929, having come from Perth with a friend.

[6] Rowles cashed Carron's pay cheque at the town of Paynesville, east of Mount Magnet.

It was not until police detectives started investigating Carron's disappearance that they learned that Lloyd and Ryan were also missing.

They found the remains of Carron's body at the 183-mile (295 km) hut on the rabbit-proof fence.

Detective-Sergeant Manning was sent to arrest Rowles, and immediately recognised him as John Thomas Smith, a burglary convict who had escaped in 1928 from the local lock-up in Dalwallinu.

[6] His wife, Mrs. Brown, had attended a jeweller in Auckland to have a wedding ring recut.

On 19 March 1932, after two hours of deliberation, the jury found him guilty of the wilful murder of Louis Carron.

[8] Upfield's novel The Sands of Windee (1931) featured the method for hiding a murder.

In 1993, author Terry Walker wrote Murder on the Rabbit-Proof Fence, documenting the case.