Miriam Walters crossed to the light by Katische Dionne Haberfield at 10:52am 30th July 2022.

Miriam Walters (also known as Marie Bruno) was 40, when she was raped and sustained fatal head injuries, including a broken jaw as she was beaten to death with a smashed bottle in an empty and partly demolished building at 253 Stanley Street South Brisbane, Australia on 18th February 1939.

Her body was found with clumps of hair in her hands, evidence that she struggled against her attacker. She died due to inhaling her own blood and because of head and brain trauma. 

Brisbane Courier Saturday 26 April 1890, page 5 accessed via the National Library of Australia via Trove. Also Tuesday 22nd April 1890 page 2 and the Telegraph Thursday MArch 20, 1980 p 4.

Miriam was a regular drinker at the Plough Inn. She had a hard life, and her husband Charles Joseph Walters, who she was separated from, was doing time in Brisbane’s notorious Boggo Road Gaol.  He was a known thief who was in and out of goal. She was known to local police for drunkenness and stealing but was described by the newspaper as a “woman of unfortunate class” and “inoffensive”.

On the day that she died, she had been kicked out of the pub in the morning for drunkenness. Newspaper articles from the time state that “when she went to walk out she fell down in the hallway and Johnson carried her out to the backyard and left her there to sleep.” Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld. : 1872 - 1947), Wednesday 15 March 1939, page 6 (2)

She was last seen at 1:30pm walking down the laneway with Leonard Ernest Ryan. Leonard Ernest Ryan was charged with her murder after he ran out of the dwelling where her body was found, covered in blood asking for someone to call an ambulance.  He was not drunk at the time.

She was not publicly known to be “haunting” the Plough Inn and did not feature in any of the newspaper articles, or books about ghosts that I read on the Plough Inn.

My experience crossing Miriam Walters Over:

Miriam was the shyest of all the spirits at The Plough Inn and the last that I crossed over. I think it was because she felt such shame around what happened to her, as though she believed society would judge her for having a “role” to play in her own death.

I remember feeling confused as to why Miriam would be attached to the Plough Inn, when her body was found in a different location in South Brisbane, near what is today known as “The Gabba”- a 2 kilometre walk from the pub.

https://de-de.facebook.com/Lost.Brisbane/photos/a.403969296380844/4387048691406198/

But it is the etheric chords that attached her to the pub, as it was the last location that she remembers being at before her death.

She also felt a moral responsibility to look out for the women who drank at this historic pub.

She told me that she couldn’t possibly cross over whilst women were at risk of being raped and dying as a night out at this pub.

Helping Miriam Understand Why it Was Safe to Go:

I could understand why she would feel this way, however, I needed to show her something that she couldn’t possibly know existed.  In 1939 security cameras did not exist. I pointed out the security camera above my head in the pub, and she commented that this was fine but what about when girls left the pub. 

I then pointed over into the laneway of South Bank and showed her the security cameras. I told her that someone monitored all the cameras 24 hours a day.

And with that, she was freed of her responsibility and she crossed over.

A chance to talk to Miriam again via Medium Megan:

Miriam came through in a mediumship session with another soul- Ivy, however she chose not to speak that day. She was shy and believed that although it was different her story was similar enough to Ivy’s to let Ivy communicate.

Miriam is buried in a mass paupers grave with no headstone at the Toowong Cemetery. She was buried shortly after death, after coroner inspections on  21–02-1939 grave location 15-10-46. She had no children, no siblings and no one other than her husband, who remarried, to remember her. There are no photos of her. Like many others, Miriam has fallen through the cracks of time.

We remember her.

Post Crossing information about Miriam Walters:

My mind has searched for the reason that I was to be involved in finding and crossing over the traumatized aspect of Miriam Walter's consciousness.

Miriam was assaulted and murdered and her murder trial was highly publicised in the papers in Brisbane. Her husband was in Boggo Road Gaol at the time and she was known according to the papers to be “of a lower class” and well known for drunkenness although “harmless”. 

At the time of her death she had been sleeping in a vacant house after being twice evicted from the Plough Inn during the day for drunkenness. She lived in the region where the little boy ghost Harry lived, so this was why Harry sent me to the Plough Inn, because of the energetic connection to both where he lived. It was interesting to find the connection through marriage to  the ghosts of Boggo Road Gaol.

Why was Miriam in the Plough Inn? - because she was drinking there before her death later that day. She was known in the pub as Marie Bruno. 

Miriam came to talk to me in the mediumship interview with Megan, which was featured on The Infinite Life: Consciousness Raising, Spiritual Transformation Podcast. However, she was reluctant to talk and effectively hid behind Ivy who talked on their behalf. When questioned, Miriam said her life lessons were very similar to Ivies and had nothing further to say on the matter.

Photos below were taken by me during a walk with my friend Louise.

Additional sources of information and quotes for this article.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/118458024?searchTerm=miriam%20walters%20murder