A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 74, 6 April 1885, Page 2

A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE.

Throe Unsuoooasful Attempts to Hang a Murderer.

London, February 23.—0n0 of tho most singular incidents ovor connected with an execution or an attempted execution for murder happened to-day at Exeter, on the occasion of carrying out a death sentence passed upon John bee, recently condemned to be hanged for the murder of Miss Emma , A. W. Koyse, at Babbacombe, near Torquay, November 15th last. Three attempts were made to execute Lee, but each attempt proved futile, the drop failing to work successfully. The execution was consequently postponed. Details of the futile attempt to hang Lee make the case the most horrible that ever degraded the gibbet in England. At first Lee was perfectly firm, and went to the scaffold undaunted, When the first attempt to hang him failed the prisoner's spirits remained unbroken. / He was led from under the gailows, and marched back to his cell with a firm stop. When first placed upon the trap he resigned himself completely, but firmly, into the hands of the executioners. He stood motionless during tho preliminary proceedings, and when the noose was placed and the spring was about to be touched he made an apparent effort to adjust his body to the expected drop, so that death might be as quick as possible. When the murderer was made to realise that the gibbet had not done its work and ha was not yet hanged,ho appeared to start as if from a nightmare, but quickly recovered himself. The machine was thon carefully overhauled,and the woodwork was found wet and swollen, so that the trap refused to work. Aftor being oiled and tried until thought all right, the prisoner was again brought forth,and the same scene as before was then enacted. Once again was the wretched man led away and the trap a second time examined and oiled and for the second time pronounced all right, and for the third time the prisoner took his stand upon the trap.and the third time did tho gibbet refuse to do its work.

The strain and suspense now overtaxed Lee. He sank down in a swoon.and bad to be carried away from the place. No wordß can give an adequate idea of the painfulness of the scene. A kind of overpowering dismay, like that of superstition, seemed to take control of the sheriffs and officers. The gibbet was deserted and no one made any more attempts to put it in working order. The roan who was to have been hanged was limp, motionlosp.and in a most pitiable condition, lying in his prison coll dazed and stupified and physically exhausted. The sheriff decided to abandon his task. He closed up the execution yard and went down to the Post-office and telegraphed Sir William Vernon Harcourt Home Secretary, the full history of the horrible failure to execute Lee and asked for instructions.