SAVED FROM GALLOWS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 4407, 20 October 1934, Page 4

SAVED FROM GALLOWS.

WOMAN GRANTED REPRIEVE

ABERDEEN MURDER CASE

Quito unexpectedly official information was received in Aberdeen last month that the sentence of death passed in Edinburgh recently on Mrs Jeannic Donald, aged 39, wife of an Aberdeen hairdresser, had been commuted to penal servitude for life. The announcement was unexpected, because only the previous day, following a week of anxious conference and consideration by eminent Scottish lawyers, an appeal had been lodged against Mrs Donald’s conviction and sentence. With feelings of relief, therefore, they learned through the Scottish Office of the merciful intervention of the King on the advice of the State. Notice of the withdrawal of the appeal was subsequently lodged.

Practically every woman north of the Tweed feels relieved at. Mrs Donald's reprieve. As the date fixed for Mrs Donald’s execution drew nearer, so their apprehension and misgivings increased; nor was their anxiety lessened by the knowledge that two. Aberdeen justices had been warned to attend the death scene.

Mrs Donald has been confined in the 'Craiginehes Prison, Aberdeen, since the day she was found guilty of the murder of Helen Priestley, the eight-vear-old daughter of a neighbour living in the same tenement block in Aberdeen. Until the morning of the reprieve her relatives in Aberdeen, Glassel and Banff had refrained from visiting the prison. They were afraid that the ordeal of final parting would be too much for the unhappy woman. Wardresses from Glasgow stayed constantly in the condemned cell, and each morning and evening Mrs Donald was visited by the Chaplain, the Rev. Charles E. Forster. The murder of little Helen Priestley and the atrocious illusage of the victim of “The Sack Crime” still remain the topic of conversation in Aberdeen and the surrounding district. In spite of the demonstrations outside Edinburgh Court of Assizes during the trial, few women could bring themselves to believe in Mrs Donald’s guilt. They said that a woman who is a mother could not have acted with the “unspeakable cruelty” which Lord Aitchison, the presiding judge, spoke of in his summing-up.

Friends in Aberdeen who knew Mrs Donald as a bright, happy wife cannot imagine her as the woman found guilty of a. murder which it was stated could only have been committed by a maniac or a moral pervert. One of her acquaintances said that just a few days before the crime Mrs Donald was the brightest member of a social held by the Church Women’s Guild. “I spoke to her about another event taking place soon,” said this friend, “and asked her if she would be there. She replied that she was going on holiday, but gave me a donation toward the fund.

“Willingness to assist a- good cause Avas characteristic of the Mrs Donald I knew. She Avas devoted to her oavii little girl of nine and lavished upon her all the love and care any mother could slioav her child.

“To most people All’s Donald aauis a reserved Avoman, although she mixed freely Avifch .them at church and social functions. Only on rare occasions, hoAvcAmr, Avere any of us invited into her home.”