A SUICIDE PACT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19009, 3 November 1923, Page 9

A SUICIDE PACT

TRIAL OF ROBERT SHEPPARD. DEATH SENTENCE COMMUTED. Pros* Association—By Telegraph—CopyrlgV , LONDON, November 1. (Received Nov, 2, at 7.50 p.m.) Robert Sheppard, who was found guilty of the murder of Florence Jones, has been reprieved.—A. and N.Z. Cabl/. At the Old Bailey on September 20 Alfred Sheppard, 23, hotel porter, was tried for the murder of Florence Lilian Jones, 20, cook, unmarried. It was stated for the prosecution that Jones lived with Sheppard as his wife. They were apparently a devoted couple. Cn the morning of July 7 Jones was found dead from coal gas poisoning. The allegation was that they had agreed to end their lives by inhaling gas. He left her in the sitting-room, but, regretting the act they had contemplated, returned to her. By that time she was dead. At Reading last year he gave himself up for murder, but inquiries . showed his confession to be untrue. Mr Hardy, for the defence, said that the point for the jury was whether Sheppard took part in the matter or whether it was -unaided suicide. Mr Justice Swift, in summing up, said that it was a striking thing that Sheppard was a man who was not very particular about making charges against himself. The lies he told in confessing to murder last year were either for ‘the purpose of improving his position in regard to some charge against him or from an abnormal and depraved sense of vanity, which made some people desirous of being identified with crimes and sensations. It was, he said, a frame of mind difficult to understand, but they knew people frequently gave themselves up for murder or wrote saying they had been a party to a crime when they could not possibly have had anything ito do with it. The jury found Sheppard guilty of murder and added a recommendation to mercy. Sheppard, when asked whether he had anything to say, replied: “I have had a fair trial. lam rather glad of the verdict.” In passing sentence of death, Mr Justice Swift said that the recommendation to mercy would be forwarded to the proper quarter. Sheppard declared that he refused to appeal.