DIARY OF A HANGMAN Scaffold Confessions

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 201, 26 August 1939, Page 9

DIARY OF A HANGMAN Scaffold Confessions

One of the Most Amazing Documents in the History of Journalism.

Everyone Has Wondered What the Man With the World's Worst Job Really Thinks!

By the late William Willis, British executioner, who dispatched scores of notorious murderers, including Crippen, Vaquier, Byrvaters and Mahon. The diary has been specially edited by the distinguished psychologist and criminologist Dr. Harold Dearden, n>ho says of the book from which this series has been abridged:

•e This book is an impressive documentary contribution to three things that d concern us all—the human mind, death and capital punishment. / believe 3, that, properly presented, it should be made available to the public. k Nothing like it exists in any legal or scientific library 1 £non\ and nothing a as gripping can be found on the shelves of a fiction library.

THERE, have been few more brutal and cold-blooded murders than that of Irene Munro, a 1 7-year-old typist, which took place in August, 1920, on a lonely stretch of beach outside Eastbourne, known as the Crumbles. Miss Munro harl gone to Eastbourne, alone, on holiday. She was a pretly girl, looked more than her ape, and wm undoubtedly over-fond of male society. It was natural cmugh, therefore, that within two day* of her arrival she should have been seen in the company of two young men. Casual friendships of this sort between young people on holiday are frequent and in mi>-*t, c.min harmless, but it was Mi«s Munro's misfortune to have accepted the companionship <>f two utterly worthless and dissoluti' men. William Gray ami .Tack Field were well known to the Kast bourne police as boon companions who spent most of their time iff bars and cinemas and the conduit of sordid amorous affairs. Gray. "-N, ft Kin. and l">2lb weight,'' according to Mr. Willis, was a perfect specimen of the unemployed blackguard. His 17-year-old wife went out daily as a servant; and on her earnings, together with an army disability pen*inn of !•/ a week, he was content to lead the life of a man of leisure. He was almost entirely uneducated, and could neither read nor write. Fielil. on the other hand, though no less a wastrel than Gray, had at least some pretensions to breeding and culture. His parents, respectable and moderately prosperous residents of the town, had done their best for him in every way, but he had already been convicted of a number of minor offences, and in the previous April had been dismissed from the Navy. Since August he ha<l be*n in receipt of unemployment benefit amounting to 20/ a week. "Five feet six find 1301b in weight," according to the diary, he was moderately good-looking, and the same could be said for his friend Gray. Both were engaging talkers, too. Tanned with whole days spent lounging

on the promenade, and decked in the cheap and excessive '"smartness" of their type, they must have struck Miss Munro as delightful companions. Shortly before lunch on the day after she had met them, Field and Gray entered the public bar of the Albermarle Hotel, one of their usual haunts on the Parade at Eastbourne. They were well known to the barmaid, Miss Ducker, who. with very good judgment, intensely disliked them. It was clear to her at once that they were out of fund*. They drank one each of the cheapest brand of beer, and then asked Miss Ducker if they could have a second glass for nothing. "Certainly not,'" said Miss Ducker indignantly, to which Gray replied: "All right, wait until evening. We'll have more money then." When they left the bar Gray was carrying a walking stick, the handle of which, as Mi*s Ducker noticed, was carved into the semblance of a dog'-j head. The time was then '2.30. A short time later they were seen the company of Miss Munro, all three laughing and talking gaily, walking • along the road which led to the Crumbl33. Still later they were also seen by some ' men at work to leave the road, walk some distance towards the sea, and fin • ally disappear into a deep pit in the shingle. > At (i.30 Field and Gray again entered , the bar of the Albermarle Hotel, but this time, as they had so confidently ! prophesied, they were unmistakably in i funds. They stood drinks all round, smoked ; expensive cigarettes, paid off several ) debts which were long overdue, and tinally, somewhat the worse for liquor, went on to the Hippodrome, where they were seen during the intervals, still I lavishly throwing their money around. On the following day at 3.30 in the . afternoon a little boy, playing with his ; parents on the Crumbles, tripped over

something half-hidden in the shingle. Childlike, lie proceeded to scrape the shingle away from it. His father, in response to his terrified cries, discovered the body of Miss Munro. The police were called at once, and the medical examination not only revealed the ca lse of death, but strongly suggested the motive for her murder. A blow on the side of the face with some pointed object such as a hammer or the handle of a walking stick had been delivered with sufficient force to produce immediate unconsciousness, when a heavy stone, found nearby, had been smashed down on her defenceless face to produce a fatal result. Her handbag was missing. There was conclusive evidence to eliminate the possibility of an assault on her virtue. It was therefore reasonable to suppose that the motive for the crime 1 had been that of money. Scotland Yard were called in, and a • description of the dead girl widely cir--1 culated. Within a day or two sufficient testimony was forthcoming from the various persons who had seen her walking with Field and Gray towards the Crumbles, to justify their arrest. They at first attempted to set up an alibi, but this was easily proved to be false, and a verdict of "wilful murder" against both of them was delivered at the inquest. I In Maidstone prison, while waiting ; their trial, Gray made a fatal mistake. With that lack of wisdom which comi monly characterises the type to which he belonged, he told a fellow convict of I the name of Smith that he was in for 1 murder. Smith expressed his sympathy, - whereupon Gray said: '"But they cannot , prove it. Although I was with the girl ' ai.no6t to the hour she died, that does 1 not nean to say I done it-" The.r trial Lewes before Mr. Justice Avory was almost a foregone conclusion. The evidence agaimst them was overwhelming.

Tie hopeless breakdown of their attempted alibi, their presence in the £ dead girl's company when she was last ' seen alive, their shortage of money in .. the morning and their comparative afflu- i ence later, and tlie fact that the handle i of Gray's walking stick was exactly of the size and nature to have produced , some of the injuries, left their counsel | with no prospect of success. They received tlieir sentences calmly; and at once, on their return to prison, each made a cowardly and futile attempt to save himself by throwing the whole responsibility for the crime on the shoulders of the other. Of their behaviour at the last, Mr. Willis writes: "Prisoners are generally asked if they will have a drop of brandy, and in this j case they said they would and did. "It was not usual to see two condemned prisoners in the same cell. These two were. "Gray was walking up and down the cell with his braces hanging down his back, and Field was sitting at the table writing . . . "It is not generally known that what the prisoner says about the crime is taken down by the permanent officer, who passes it to the Governor after sitting with the man. If it is anything worth sending, he sends it by special messenger to the Home Office, and if there is anything in it in the man's favour for a reprieve, lie gets it. "Neither of these men said anything worth while. "Both walked firmly. Death inst." It is surprising to notice, throughout this diary, the extent to which an exaggerated self-esteem, having driven a man to commit murder, is capable thereafter of supporting him in wh-it most of us would expect to be circumstances of crushing anxiety. Exaggerated Self-esteem Most of these murderers seem so blinded by the sudden blaze of notoriety in which they find themselves as to be wholly unaware of their dreadful situation. For the first time in life they see themselves playing the leading part in a drama which is thrilling the whole country; and in their intense enjoyment of the limelight their last shameful exit seems of no account. This attitude of mind is well illustrated in the case of Abraham Goldenberg, who was executed at Winchester 011 July 30, 1924. Mr. Willis describes him as: "23, sft 4in, and 1391b," of precisely that type of undersized man in whom, as I have already pointed out, one would expect to find an exaggerated self-esteem. And that he was indeed vain there

can be no doubt. He was a lance-corporal in the Army, and, like so many of his race, he had a somewhat abnormally developed nose, a fact which exposed him to a good deal of friendly chaffing from his mates in the battalion. He resented this bitterly, and finally purchased a "nose machine," which was guaranteed to mould that organ into whatever shape was desired.

He -was engaged and wished passionately to marry. But in his own words: Tt is impossible to save money in the Army," and he therefore began to look about for some alternative method of acquiring sufficient capital. He went to considerable trouble to make friends with the manager of the branch bank at Borden Camp, through which passed the pay for 6000 men. Their friendship at length reached such a stage that Goldenberg would ( frequently drop in for a chat when the ( bank was closed for ordinary business. The money for the pay was sent down ' from the head office on Thursday after- < noons, and it was on one of these days i that Goldenberg decided to act. j Fatal Shooting of ' A Bank Manager He stole a revolver and ammunition i from an officer's kit, secreted a haver- ; sack under his tunic, and choosing a time when he knew the bank would oe empty, walked casually in and greeted the manager The manager went quietly on with his business. Suddenly Goldenberg produced his revolver and shouted "Hands up!" The manager made an attempt to reach a weapon in a drawer by his lian l. Goldenberg shot him dead. He then locked the door of the bank, filled his haversack with £700 in notes and about £.j0 in silver, and returned to camp, where he sat down at his desk, the haversack by his side, and calmly went on with liis work. When the crime was discovered he went at once to the police and, with a highly dramatic display of grief, offerad his services in tracking down the murderer of his friend. His detection was due to the astuteness of Company Sergeant-Major Elliott of Goldenberg's battalion. The sergeant-major had noticed that, on the day of the murder, Goldenberg had returned to duty 20 minutes late. In view of what had happened, the memory of this aroused liis suspicions and he kept a close but discreet watch on Goldenberg. Observing one day that Goldenberg's pockets were bulging when he went into a certain room and no longer bulging when he came out, he searched the room carefully, and, at length, found £.300 in notes wrapped in paper and hidden in a corner. He at once placed Goldenberg under arrest. I have a photograph before me of Goldenberg on his way to court, and it is only paralleled in my experience by one taken in similar circumstances of Fritz Haarmann, the German mass murderer. He was striding along like a soldier on parade, his arms swinging, his chest thrust out, and his boyish face wreathed in smiles. Compared to his expression of youthful joie de vivre the policemen on either side of him seem pitifully glum and self-conscious. This delight in his new-found fame supported him to the endMr. Willis writes of him: "Intelligentlooking young fellow and powerfully built. Good looking. Walked firmly, in fact swanky, with his hat on. "On the scaffold he shouted. 'Father, forgive me!' Death inst."