ECHO OF A MURDER

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 3901, 11 June 1929, Page 7

ECHO OF A MURDER

MAN WHO SAW HIS COFFIN. By the death ab South Shields, at the age of 79, of Joseph Turnbull an echo has been provided of a murder at Williiigton, Durham, as long ago as 1873. Turnbull, who lived with his parents at Wlhngton, and worked as a coal miner, was tried for the murder of a man named Hagan at Williiigton. He was sentenced to death, but before the day fixed for his execution the sentence was commuted to one of penal servitude for .life. Turnbull often referred to himself as the man who had seen his own coffin. Largely through the efforts of the late Sir Joseph Pease, M.P., Turnbull was released on ticket-of-leave in 1887, after serving a little over fourteen years in prison. After his return home the people of Willington helped Turnbull to establish a general dealer's business, but it was not successful, and he went to work in a Brancepethpit. A few years later he went to Ave on Tyneside, where he died.