STRANGE MURDER CASES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2797, 23 October 1907, Page 78

STRANGE MURDER CASES.

THE DROP WOULD NOT ACT.

Twenty years ago a monster of ferocity was respited because even to the public opinion of that day it seemed horrible that he should be played with on the scaffold as a mouse is played with by a cat. A more unprovoked and atrocious murder was never committed than that of Mise Keyse by John i^ee on the night of November 14, 1884. Lee'e half-sister at his trial swore that he said to her he would have his revenge for his discharge from the old ladv/s service* "that fie

would set fire to the place, and then go on the top of the hill Snd~ watch it burn." Before" setting fire to the place he murdered the old lady with horrible brutality, according to evidence 6o overwhelming that the jury took but Kttle time to bring in their verdict of "Guilty." In passing eentence the judge said: "I am not surprised that a man who could commit so barbarous a crime should maintain the calm appearance that you have maintamed." "Please, my Wd," repleid iiee, the reason lam so calm is because I trusted to my God, and God knows that lam innocent, my lord." Then he walked out of the dock with a, jaunty step and a smile upon his countenance. — A Charmed Life .. "On February 23, 1885," according to the Rev. Evelyn Burnaby's "Memories of Famous Trials" (SisieyV, Limited), "Lee was brought out for execution on a newgallows erected at Exeter gaol. At a signal the lever was drawn, but the trap did not falL Another pull at tbe lever and a stamp from the warders' feet 4# either side failted to make the trap- move. Lee was marched off with the cap stiH over his face. No sooner was Mb weight removed than the drop sprang all right. But when, six minutes later, he was again placed upon it, it once more refused to> work. He was marched back to €6e cells while the edges of the drop door were cut away; and 1 again, at 10 minutes past o, Lee was brought out but again the drop failed to act. This time Lee was taken Jback to the cella, and the Home Secretary was communicated with. I happened to be in the House af Commons the same night that the attempt to carry out the sentence on Lee had failed. A question was put by Mr Cross to the Home Secretary, Sir William Barcourt, as to whether any further attempt would be made to carry out the sentence. The reply, given in a crowded House eager to i debate the conduct of the Governmentr ' with reference to the death of General ' i .Gordon — * No, sir ; no, sir* — met with unanimous approbation." — Respited in a Dream. — Mr BurnSby, who had known Lee well when he was footman to Colonel Brownlow, of Torquay, notes two strange coincidences which marked this strangest of respites. "The night before the day fixed for the execution Lee, who knew the prison well, for he had been in jail before, dreamt a dream that three attempts wou'cf be made to carry out the sentence of the law, and that his life would be preserved. This dream, which, he revealed to Warder Bennett in the condemned cell, was reported to the Governor of Exeter prison «arly in the morning. Despite, however, every precaution which wae taken in consequence, Lee escaped the. gallows. The sequel of the story is stal* more rmarkable. The Governor was in the habit of carrying a little pocket almanack with, a scriptural text _ affixed to each date, and on the ' day in February, 1885,. when the convict ought to have been hanged', appeared this record r ' Surely it is the hand of the Lord' which has done this.'" Nevertheless, no one who knows the case against Lee: can doubt, for a moment that he- committed one of the least provoked and most appalling murders of that century. — Another Narrow Escape. — When an Italian named Peluzioni was convicted before Mr Baron Martin of the murder in a Saffron Hill tavern of Michael Harrington, the judge, in passing sentence, said : "lam as satisfied that youv committed this murder as if I had seen you do it with my own eyes." The defence of the prisoner's counsel, that the murder had been committed by another Italian who closely resembled Pelizzioni, was scornfully pooh-poohed by the judge, who remarked, " I never heard more direct and conclusive evidence than that against the prisoner." Mr Negretti, however, the founder of the famous firm of Negretti and Zambra, was so far from being as assured as Baron Martin of his countryman's guilt that he was resolved to save him, if possible, from the gallows, on which he was. condemned to be hanged in three weeks. • Making the most of these , three weeks, Mr Negretti discovered in a carpenter's shop in Edgbaston street, Birmingham, a cousin of Pelizzkmi's, namp<i Gregorio Mogni, whom he charged pointblank with being the, murderer of Harrington, and upon whom he at last prevailed to, confess the crime. —Evidence from the Condemned Cell.— | "In English criminal annals," says- Mr Burnaby, from whom I have been quoting, " Pelizzioni's case is unique, since it i» the only one in which a convict under sentence of death has been cited to give evidence against another prisoner." In-, deed, there was a sensation in court when Pelizzioni, upon being sworn, replied from the witness box to Sergeant Ballantine, "My Christian name is Serafino^ lam now under sentence of death at Newgate.'* Even after Mogni was convicted and sentenced to five years' penal servitude for the manslaughter of Harrington, poor Pelizzioni still remained beneath the shadow of the gallows. No sooner was he reprieved for the Harrington murder than he was put upon his trial for the murder of the potman" of the tavern, who had been stabbed the same night in the same brawl. As Pelizzioni had been brought from his cell to give evidence on Mogul's trial, so now Mogni was brought from bis cell to give evidence upon this second trial of Pelizzioni. His evidence was^conclusive, since he confessed that it was he himself who had stabbed not Harrington only, but also tbe potman. But in sucbr a case as tjris there is always a danger that the confession may be false on the old "I may as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb" theory. — Mjfijndged Judges. — I do not envy the feelings of Baron Martin when this case, upon which he pronounced so dogmatically, was in the balance ; for judges, as Mr Burnaby, testifies, are human, and sometimes, in> deed* amongst the most humane of mgß-i

"I always thought Mr Justice Byles a severe judge ' and without much feeling, but when I happened to say so to my old friend and my father's physician, Dr Henry Bullock, he exclaimed, 'How little you can judge a man by appearances ! I am Mr Justice Byles's doctor, and as sore as I read thai he had passed the capital sentence at the Old Bailey, so sure was I to receive a telegram from Lady Byles, asking nje to come down to see the judge and give him a narcotic.' " "Two lawyers talking in Mr Buraaby's hearing about a trial in which Judge Wightman had «hed tears in condemning a prisoner to death, laughed at his emotion as histrionic. The judge, who happened also to be within hearing, interrupted them to .say: "I can. tell you, gentlemen, he felt.it very much- You do not seem to recognise him without his rdbes and wig."