CRIME CONFESSED.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 142, 18 May 1936, Page 7

CRIME CONFESSED.

RUXTON CASE REVELATION. FALSE PLEA OF INNOCENCY. Received May 18, 9.45 a.m. LONDON, Mav 17. Dr. E. L. Ruxton, who was executed on May 12 for the murder of his wife and maid, left a Jetter to be opened after his death. The letter states: “I killed Mrs Ruxton in a. fit of temper because 1 thought she had been with a mail. 1 was mad at the time. Mary Rogereon, the maid, was present and I had to kill her. —Ruxton.” The News of the World, publishing this remarkable confession in a facsimile in Ruxton’s bold handwriting, explains that Ruxton, on the night of October 12, was taken to the police station. He received a friend in his cell on October 14 and gave him a sealed envelope, saying that it must not be opened until after bis death, but if be was acquitted, as he thought he must, it was to be returned to him. The friend locked the envelope in a safe. Ruxton, during his trial, spoke to the friend and told him that “in the impossible event of a verdict of guilty,” the envelope was to bo handed unopened to the editor of the News of the World. The friend complied half an hour after the execution on May 12. The News of the World adds: Even to his own solicitor, Ruxton protested his innocence to the last, yet he knew from October 14 that the confession was in tho envelope.