HICKMAN HANGED

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 85, 20 October 1928, Page 9

HICKMAN HANGED

LOS ANGELES MURDER AMERICAN JUSTICE SLOW CRIME OF A YEAR AGO Australian Press Association. (Received 20th October, 10 a.m.) SAN FRANCISCO, 19th October. At San Quintin Prison, California, Edward Hickman, a youth in his 'teens, was hanged for the murder of Marian Parker in December, 1927. Hickman walked calmly to the gallows, apparently quite self-possessed, before over 200 witnesses. The young murderer prior to execution spent a considerable part of the night talking to his guards. He reiated the story of his life, and said that he killed the girl for greed because lie wanted the ransom. "If they should not hang me," he exclaimed, "then they should never hang another man. My crime was one of the most gruesome in history." Hickman slept little on the final night, spending his time playing the gramophone, when not talking to the guards. Hickman embraced religion following his conviction. Marian Parker, aged 12, the twin daughter of Perry Parker, a wealthy Los Angeles banker, was lured out of school by a well-dressed young man, who said that her father was ill. Within an hour the parents received a delnaud for a ransom of 1500 dollars. The entire detective force of Los Angeles was set to work on the case, and, after the distracted father had received several notes, including two from his daughter, who said she waa undergoing' torture, advised the acceptance of the kidnapper's terms. Under instructions. Mr. Parker drove to a certain place, where he handed a man in a car 1500 dollars. The man drove a short distance, lifted the girl, who was rpparently sleeping, out of the car, placed her on the ground, and drove off. When the father came to pick up the prone figure of his daughter, he found, to his horror, that she was not only dead, but in pieces. Then followod a man-hunt through the Western States, and Hickman was finally arrested at Pendleton, Oregon. Later, he confessed, declaring that he had at first no' intention of killing the • girl, but, fearing detection, decided to do so. He strangled her with piano wire, cut the body to pieces, and put it together again for presentation to the father on claiming .the rausom. At the trial the plea was raised of; insanity, and Hickman's relatives had sufficient money to keep him alive, un dor the American system of slow justice, for nearly a year. The trial of Hickman, as of Fukunaga, the Honolulu murderer, recently convicted and sentenced to death in a similar case, indicated the influence of sensational journalism on persons of weak intellect.