Sommerlad was a nurse living at Coonabarabran. She had been visiting her mother and other family members at Glen Innes before travelling by train to Tenterfield to stay with her older sister and brother. She continued her journey to the farm by car where "the shocking tragedy" was revealed. When police attended the scene, they found a blood-stained axe and discovered that a Studebaker utility truck belonging to Eric Sommerlad was missing. Police suspected the killer was the farm-hand, John Trevor Kelly. His description and details of the utility truck were sent to police stations in New South Wales and southern Queensland. That evening detectives in Brisbane located the green Studebaker truck in a Brisbane garage, left there for repairs. Detectives also interviewed a taxi-driver who had earlier picked up the driver of the utility truck from the garage, a man answering the description of the 'Hillcrest' employee, Jack Kelly. In the early hours of Sunday morning, detectives arrested John Trevor Kelly in a room at Astor-terrace, in the inner Brisbane suburb of Spring Hill and detained him for questioning. At the Brisbane C.I.B., Kelly admitted to the murder. He told detectives that he and Eric Sommerlad had gone into Tenterfield on Friday evening, February 3. He said they had arranged to meet at midnight to return to 'Hillcrest' together, but Kelly claimed Sommerlad did not turn up, so he engaged a hire car to return to the farm. Kelly told the Brisbane detectives that upon his arrival, Sommerlad gave him notice to finish up work on Sunday, "because owing to drink he could not depend on me carrying out my work satisfactorily". Kelly claimed this caused him to lose control of his temper. He then went outside, grabbed an axe and struck Eric Sommerlad, who was on his bed on the verandah. He then heard Eric's sister coming from her room along the hallway. Kelly met her near the door to the dining room and bludgeoned her with the back of the axe. Kelly was returned to Tenterfield in police custody where he gave a different version of the events to Detective-Sergeant Snowden of Lismore. After he returned to 'Hillcrest' soon after midnight on February 4, Kelly recounted that he went to Miss Sommerlad's bedroom to give her a letter and a packet of A.P.C. powders that she had requested he get for her in Tenterfield for headache relief.