SAVED FROM GALLOWS

Evening Star, Issue 22720, 6 August 1937, Page 2

SAVED FROM GALLOWS

LAST MINUTE MERCY LABOURER GUILTY OF MURDER Ijess than three days before be was to walk to the callows for the murder of his 20-year-old sweetheart, “ Merry ” Myrtle Parker, of Bradford, William Edwards, aged 26, baker’s labourer, of Bradford, learned, as he lay in Armley Gaol, Leeds, that the British Home Secretary had recommended his reprieve. Edwards was sentenced to death' at Leeds Assizes following the discovery of the girl’s body at a lonely spot near a disused railway cutting at Bierley. She had been stabbed to death. Subsequently the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed his appeal against the capital sentence. Locally an appeal was prepared, and moro than 4,000 people signed it, including the Lord Mayor and tho four Bradford M.P.s. This was presented to the Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, by Edwards’s solicitor, Mr R. M. Priestley. When Mr Priestley saw Edwards in Leeds Gaol after the reprieve tho man asked him to see that his property, including diaries, Army papers, and other personal belongings, should be handed to his sister. Ho also expressed his gratitude to all who helped to gain him his reprieve, and added: “ I hope some day to be a healthy man, and that in timo Myrtle’s parents will not think too hard of me. “ I was very much in lovo with Myrtle. 1 had no quarrel with her. If I did kill her 1 cannot understand win- I did it.” Of his life sentence Edwards said: “ 1 know I shall bo in prison a long time. I am prepared and anxious to do it. Perhaps with proper treatment and a properly regulated life 1 may become a member of society again.” An entry in one of his diaries, dated January 4,19 JG, reads: “ Met Myrtle.” A second entry of January 18 reads: “ Met Myrtle second time, and acquaintance followed.”