WOMAN REPRIEVED

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 138, 8 March 1945, Page 7

WOMAN REPRIEVED

Murder Of Taxi-driver

(Received March 7, 10 p.m.) LONDON, March 6.

Tlie Home Secretary, Mr. Morrison, has recommended a reprieve for Elizabeth Jones, but decided that there are no, grounds for similar action in the case of Hulten, her partner in the murder of a taxi-driver.

The American appeal for clemency for Hulten arrived in London by air from Boston today. It was immediately sent to Mr. Morrison.

Mrs. Jones, who is in Holloway jail under sentence of death, broke down and cried when she was told that the Home Secretary had reprieved her. She asked: “What about Ricky? What is going to happen to Ricky?” When she learnt that llullen would hang tomorrow at Bentonville she fainted. A wardress revived her, and she asked for a pen and paper, and began writing to her parents. Believing that the rereprieve meant that she would be set free, she asked her mother to get out her best clothes in readiness for a homecoming party, whereas actually she will have to serve 15 years. Mr. John Paton, secretary of the National Council for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, described Mr. Bernard Shaw’s letter to “The Times” as nonsense, says the “Evening News.” He added that the suggestion that it was possible to devise some form of euthanasia more civilized than the rope and the drop was an illusion. The death sentence was a savage punishment, however it was carried out.