KILLER SAVED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 303, 22 December 1937, Page 9

KILLER SAVED.

"PEAKLAND OTHELLO."

REPRIEVE RECOMMENDED. MURDERED HIS SWEETHEART. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, December 1. Three days before he was to have been executed for the murder of his C sweetheart, Ronald Smedley, 25-year-old li "Peakland Othello," was recommended a by the Home Secretary for a reprieve. "Thank heaven he is saved," exclaimed Mrs. Smedley, his mother. / Playing in the kitchen were Ronald's two little nephews, Norman, aged 12, and Peter, 7. Twelve Days' Hunt. Thousands of women were among the 30,000 people who signed the petition asking for the reprieve. Smedley has been in Leicester Prison since November 12, when at Derby Assizes he was sentenced for killing 23-year-okl Jessie Ball at her home in Ashover, Derbyshire. I Hundreds of police, civilian pursuers , and bloodhounds took part in the 12l days' hunt which preceded his arrest. Hiding on the moorlands by day, > eating blackberries and drinking from ' streams at night, he was discovered > asleep, bearded and worn out, on'a farm at Cromford. At the trial, Mr. R. O'Stillivan, K.C., prosecuting, drew a parallel between ' Smedley's crime and the murder of I Desdemona by Othello. j r The motive, he said, was "that green-1 P eyed monster jealousy —most powerful] jof human motives." On the nijrht of the murder Smedley quarrelled with his j sweetheart after she had mentioned _ going out with another man.

The petition pointed out that the jury strongly recommended Sniedlev to mercy and that the condemned man was full ipf remorse. .