RELEASED FROM A LIFE SENTENCE.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 160, 8 July 1922, Page 19

RELEASED FROM A LIFE SENTENCE.

SISTER'S LOVE FOB CONVICT BROTHER. Charles Smith, aged 41, who was sentenced In 1907 to penal servitude for life for the attempted murder of Eddie Guerlu, the man who escaped from Devil's Island, the French penal settlement, has been released from Dartmoor Prison, and left England for America. He is a native of Virginia.

For the past twelve years Smith has been at Parkhurst Prison. One of the chaplains there, the Rev. T. F. Eraithwaite, recently drew the attention of Mr. J. >M. Savage, the American Consul at Southampton, to the case of Smith, mentioning that he saved tne life of one of the warders who had been, attacked by a convict.

The Consul saw Smith, an* enlisted the interest of Lady Astor in the case. Ultimately the (Home Secretary was asked to grant the release of Smith on a deportation order, and this has been done.

Interviewed on his release, Smith «aM lie was going home to Virginia. He tad cut out of hie life all his previous associations. iHis sister had stuck to him all through.

Onerin wae sentenced to imprisonment for life for a burglary in Paris over twenty years ago, and was sent to Devil's Island, in 'French Guiana, from which he escaped in 1905. In 1006 he was betrayed to the London police by "Chicago May," with whom he had been formerly associated. The French Government asked for his extradition, but this was refused on the grountt that he was born in London. On the nlgnt of hie release from custody "Chicago May" and Smith tracked him down and fired at him In Russell Square.

May" was sentenced to 15 years . Imprisonment.