A FALLEN IDOL

Otautau Standard and Wallace County Chronicle, Volume X, Issue 481, 11 August 1914, Page 2

A FALLEN IDOL

» DECEIVED^OVER SLAYS HIS FIANCEE. For the murder of -his sweetheart, after a discovery of her past, Walter Jaihes White (22), of Swindon, was ' sentenced to death by Mr Justice Ridley at the Wiltshire Assizes last month. The victim was Frances Priscilla Hunter. Mr Rayner Goddard, for the prosecutiou, said the young couple were engaged to be married. Four days before^ the crime they went to South Wales to see some friends of the girl's brothers, who lodged with a Mrs Blewitt. Mrs Blewitt, who had known the girl when ,she was m service m Wales, would not have her m the house. Tlie couple returned to Swindon the same night, and discussed Mrs Blewitt's objections. Then the man received, a letter from Mrs Blewitt, m consequence of which he went alone to Wales to probe the •flatter fully. There he bought cartridges and showed some people a re-, volver. 'He returned to Swindon on April* 29 and wrote letters m the afternoon, Avhich he did not post, and which showed that he had formed the deliberate intention of killing the girl. Mr Goddard then described the shooting the same evening at the hotel where the girl was employed. They were seen to go into the coal house, and two shots were heard. . The girl was found huddled on the floor. Mrs Blewitt, of Gilfach, Glamorganshire, said she wrote to the prisoner: " I don't want my name disgraced by harboring Frances here. ... If she is not the girl to tell you what happened when she lived down here, it is a shame. V . . You are a very tidy young fellow, and it is a shame." She now stated that the girl ran away with a married man and lived with him for three months, separating about . June of last year. — Confession and a Kiss. — , Inspector Cowdry read the statement made by White after" the murder: She confessed • she - had disgraced me, and hoped God would forgive , her. I told her she would never deceive anybody else, as I was going to kill her. She kissed me good-bye, and I then shot her and waited for someone to come. Mr Trapnell, for the defence, said the prisoner had formed a very deep and romantic attachment for this girl, and keenly felt the sKght cast upon ithe "love he had given her and the ; shattering of cherished ideals of her purity and chastity. He was a man, perhaps, not with a very strong but a \ery sensitive mind, and the circumstances were those 'which might easily have led to his mind becoming unbalanced. The Judge said there was not a tittle of evidence of insanity iv the case. In returning a verdict of "Guilty" the jury recommended the prisoner to mercy on account of' his youth. The Judge said the recommendation would be sent to the Home Secretary, who alone could deal Avith it. He held out no hopes m that direction. White listened m a dazed manner to the sentence of death, and then collapsed. He had to be carried from the dock.