Finger Cut Off Each Week And Sent Home

NZ Truth, Issue 1168, 19 April 1928, Page 1

Finger Cut Off Each Week And Sent Home

it a small piece of paper, upon which he had scrawled m lead-pencil: "This is the first finger of my left hand. As each week goes by, if you do not write, or come and see me, I will lop off another finger and send it to you; and when my fingers are done I will start on my toes." This terrible missive and its frightful adjunct he wrapped m the form of a parcel and carefully addressed it to his wife. Under cover, he passed the parcel over — with the necessary fee— to the man who was arranging for it to be taken outside and posted. In due course Hatfield's finger was tossed here and there. It passed under the stamper, rubbed with the thousand and one articles that daily go through the post offices, and, m time, reposed quietly m the bag of an innocent postman, who duly delivered it to Mrs. Hatfield. She opened the little parcel as soon as the door closed. With a piercing shriek she dropped the grisly-stained enclosure and fainted away. She was by herself m the house at the time except for iher.little .boy. „.,.. .ri. iv J WhW"Mkli?y* ; 'H^^ sciousness some minutes later, she saw and read the sinister scrap of pencil scrawl — spongy, red and difficult to decipher — which explained the terrible thing that lay there on the passage floor. At first she was distracted, interpreting the note as a fiendish scheme of her husband's to torture her. The terrible part of it all was that Mary Hatfield could not hope to verify whether this was a cruel hoax or actually what it purported to be. She had been compelled to earn a living for herself and her child while her husband was m prison. Then the old, old story of the lonely wife repeated itself. She sought

His Wife's Lover

sympathy and affection — and found it. The man with whom she became friendly was debonair and had money . . . ere Mary Hatfield knew it, she was m love with him. Followed hours of happiness for her, though they were haunted constantly by the spectre of discovery which ever hovered near. Then the day came when it was no longer possible for Mary Hatfleld to make denials and no longer possible for her to visit her husband m Pentridge without revealing her guilty secret to him. She was m a delicate state of health when the first finger of her husband, Donald Hatfield, came to her from Pentridge gaol. Too terrified to tell "her- relatives what had happened, Mary buried her husband's finger deep underground m the backyard and kept her secret locked m her heart. The following week the next dreadful parcel came bearing the same note and a similar ghastly enclosure — the second earnest of a desperate man's intention to mutilate himself to death. It was too muCh for the woman. Almost wild with hysteria, she went to the police and passed over the notes and made her confession of shame, begging them to intervene and stop this terrible butchery. All thi3 passed apart from the knowledge of Hatfield, but the one-legged man knew everything and had advised his principal, who, m turn, sent the word out to Pentridge. So it was, according to eye-witnesses, that all Pentridge was expecting the visit of the detectives when they entered the big gates last week to question Donald Hatfield concerning his dreadful actions. The officials will not discuss the matter m any shape or form. Their lips are sealed. The whole of the details, so far as they have reached official knowledge, together with the reports of the detectives, are m the hands of the prison authorities, with whom it will rest to take action against Hatfield should they feel inclined.

But there is much that they will never hear.