DEATH PENALTY

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11415, 11 January 1923, Page 5

DEATH PENALTY

ILFORD MURDERERS WOMAN CARRIED TO SCAFFOLD UNCONSCIOUS. CURIOUS CROWDS. By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. Australian and N.Z. Cable association. LONDON, January 9. Mrs Thompson and Bywaters made no statement before their execution. Both had previously reaffirmed their innocence. Mrs Thompson told the chaplain: “I leave the world with a clear conscience regarding my husband’s death.” Large crowds gathered outside Holloway and Pentonville prisons. A conspicuous figure at Holloway, where Mrs Thompson was hanged, was a woman carrying a sandwich hoard reading: “If this woman is hanged, the judge and jury are murderers also,” and on the other 6ide, “Murder cannot be abolished by murder.” Mrs Thompson was prostrate all night long, and continually under the doctor’s care. At 5 o’clock she was unconscious. In moments of consciousness 6he asked for Bywaters. At 9, the hour of execution, she was only partially conscious, and had to he carried to the scaffold.

Bywaters passed a fairly good night at Pentonville, awoke early, and breakfasted lightly and smoked a cigarette. He sent a message of thanks to the Governor and officials. He walked firmly to the scaffold. It is stated that the crowd outside Pentonville was unprecedented in size.