CONDEMNED PRISONER

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 11955, 27 May 1933, Page 9

CONDEMNED PRISONER

COMMITS. 'SUICIDE IN CELL

CASE IS UNIQUE IN CRIMINAL

HISTORY

Samuel Furnace’, the man found guilty recently of the murder of his Fi;ien'd, Walter Spatchett, .in what. I s known as the blazing 'sbe-d mysteiv, created criminal history when' he deliberately took his own life.

So far as I am aware, no - person once, charged and i n custody ,of the police, for murder has ever before succeeded' in committing . suicide, before being brought to trial, writes F. TY. Memory. in an English exchange. When' Air. William AVhiteley, the universal provider, .was shot in his store at. Bays water, London, in' January, ' j 007, his assassin. Horace George Rayner, did attempt to commit suicide, aud for weeks hovered between lifo and death, under police guard, but ho shot himself before the police, were called in. He was nursed hack to health and strength only to be condemned to death after a long trial, but the sentence .was never carried out. . ,

• Many murderers have 1 committed suicide immediately after their crime, but'.none bag, succeeded in-doing, so after arrest and heforo-trial—at Jcastnet in England,

There have, however, been many eases in which a convicted man lias escaped 'tho terrors of bis punishment by ending his life.’ Hie most notorious is perhaps that of TVhitakoi Wright, the fraudulent financier and company promoter. That wa s in January, 193-1. Ho had been sentenced to seven years’ penal servitude for frauds in connection with the London and Globe Finance Corporation. and lmd been placed in a room at tho Law Courts—his trial took place in the King’s Bench Division—to await removal to prison. 1 nc.er the cover of lighting a , cigar, he swallowed prussic acid and died, immediately.

Another prisoner committed snicks© almost within the precincts .of the court in which he was sentenced. Tliis was Solomon Bnrmash, who in December, 1902, was sentenced to 15 years'’ penal sen-unde at- the Old Bailey for conspiracy to forgo Bank of England notes. Ho ban boon placed in a cell adjoining Newgate Prison, but within two hours of leaving the dock ho shot himself with a revolver. How he obtained possession of tho weapon was -as great a mystery as that which envelops the possession of spirits of salts by Inina on. > There, was another suicide at the Old Bailey some years ago—or, to Rve it its correct name, the Central Criminal Court-Unit not committed there. This occurred during Die war years. Anton Knepfcrle was a German S p V and was being tried -as such at the Old Bailey in Alay 1915—this, in eicleutally, was the first secret, trial hold in England for many years. The first day's hearing was concluded at Kuperforle taken hack to Brixion for {.ho night. He never entered the dock again; next- mojgung he • a ‘- fon rid hanging dead in his cell. I think everyone agrees 111 at Kiiepferlc was a. brave man who did not fear being condemned to death -fer his country, but, according to a message he left written on Ins cell date, lie dreaded bringing disgrace on the Masonic Brotherhood bv dying on the scaffold. Probably on©-of the most notorious cases of suicide by a. suspectcf*’ person is that of Colonel Henry, one of the leading figures of the Dreyfus case. After Dreyfus, despite his protests of innocence,, had been convicted of selling Franco's military secrets to Germany, Henry is alleged to have confessed that bo forged ma-ny of the incriminating documents. He was arrested by order of the' French AVar Minister, but next day August 31, 1898-was found .with his throat out in his cell nb Alounb Valerian. To tins ony there are those who assert that Henry did not. commit suicide, but was murdered because bis confession; of forgery would have implicated too many people in n. conspiracy against Dreyfus. • Another suicide in France which attracted a great deal of attention ,-vvn.s that of Miguel Almereyda m 1917. It was known as tho Bonnet Rouge ease. Almereyda was editor of a paper-of that name, and it was alleged that.he was in the pay , of Germany. He was arrested and put. in prison. One morning he .was found dead in his cell. ’ His-widow protested that lie had been murdered, but the doctors said he ban committed suicide by strangling himself with a bootlace.