In the early hours of July 13th 1871 Alice Frapple left her room at a friends house in Sofala and could not be prevailed upon to return. She said that she had seen a dead man in her room. Upon entering the room, witnesses saw no sign of a body. The next day, the body of her father was discovered 24 miles away lying on a remote stretch of Hill End Creek. The mysterious circumstances surrounding his sudden death were put down to ‘temporary insanity’.