ACTOR’S DEATH.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 101, 31 March 1937, Page 14

ACTOR’S DEATH.

MURDERER’S PASSING. 40 YEARS IN BROADMOOR. The death occurred at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum on January 26 of Richard Arthur Prince, aged 71, who in 1897 stabbed and killed William Terriss, the famous actor, as lie was entering the Adelplii Theatre, London. On being tried Prince was found guilty but insane and was ordered to be sent to Broadmoor. Prince was an actor, and the motive for the crime was insane jealousy, which is believed to have been inflamed by a practical joke played upon him by others. Terriss, the father of Lady Ella line Terris and father-in-law of Sir Seymour Hicks, was at the time of the murder the idol of players—the hero of the many melodramas for which the Adelplii was then famed. It was In a play at. the Adelplii that Terriss and Prince first met —Terriss m the lead; Prince filling his usual small part. Despite the fact that Terriss assisted him with gifts of money and by helping him to find employment. Prince conceived a violent hatred for Terriss and laboured under the delusion that the gieat actor was preventing him from getting employment. ■■■•' Piince broke down during rehearsals at Newcastle some time later and returned to London, where he suffered a period of unemployment and consequent poverty. TWICE STABBED. One night while Terris was chatting with a friend outside the stage, door at the Adelplii, Prince crept out ml the shadows of the narrow street arid stabbed him in the back. ; ' The knife struck Terriss’s shoulde?-’ blade and glanced aside, causing only a superficial wound. As Terris turned round Prince struck a second blow, the knife piercing his heart. Within an hour Terriss was dead. On January 13, 1898—the crime was committed .just before Christmas, 1897 —Prince was arraigned before Mr Justice 'Channel I at the Old Bailey on a charge of murder. The facts of the case were not disputed, hut the defence called evidence to prove insanity. It took the jury only half an hour to return their verdict of guilty but insane.