DEATH SENTENCES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22434, 2 June 1936, Page 9

DEATH SENTENCES.

CASES REVIEWED NEW SOUTH WALES MURDERS FIVE COMMUTATIONS GRANTED By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received June 1, 7.15 p.m.) SYDNEY, June 1 The New South Wales Executive Council has reviewed the cases of six men who have been condemned to death for murder." The Council decided that James Leighton Massey, aged 21, who uliot and killed Norman Stead after attempting to rob a service station at Darlinghurst on February 10, should be hanged. His execution will take place on June 15. Aubrey Potter, agecf 22, who was convicted with Massey for the Darlinghurst garage murder, but who did not shoot or carry arms, had his sentence commuted to imprisonment with hard labour for 15 years. James Earsman, aged 67, who was sentenced to death for the murder of John Hewett, 94 years old, who was found battered to death in a hut at Gilgandra on January 19, had his sentence commuted to imprisonment for life with hard labour.

In the following three cases, sen« fences were commuted to penal servitude for life:— Lionel John Roberts, aged 17, who murdered Robert King, aged 22, grazier, near Tamworth, on February

Hoy Malcolm Souter, aged 17, who shoe Christopher Bolger, aged 22, grazier, near Wagga, on Decembar 30, and threw the body into a well. Peicival Henry Thompson, aged 55, ■who was sentenced for the murder of his wife and mother-in-law at Parramatta on December 27.

MURDERER EXECUTED KEPT SILENCE ON SCAFFOLD MELBOURNE, June 1 Arnold Sodeman, aged 35, the selfconxessed murderer of four small girls, whose appeal to the Privy Council was dismissed last week, was hanged this morning. He did not speak on the scaffold. Sodeman played draughts last night with another condemned man, Edward Cornelius, aged 29, who killed the Rev. Cecil Laceby at his vicarage in Fitzroy last December.