WIFE PUT TO DEATH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17437, 8 April 1931, Page 7

WIFE PUT TO DEATH

ITALIAN IN THE DOCK JUDGE’S LENIENT VIEW LONDON, April 2. A young Italian, Piero Martinucci, having stabbed his wife to death, wrote: “1 have killed a frivolous little doll, pretty and powdered like a butterfly.” Before the murder Martinucci took his wife to a restaurant, where ho sat, trembling and sobbing. But they toasted each other in champagne, and left for their flat in Bayswater, apparently reconciled.

Then Martinucci appraoched the Anglican curate who had married them last year and suggested a divorce, saying his wife had been unfaithful to him while he was away, and was unworthy to bear his name. He considered that the clergyman who had married them should untie tho nuptial knot.The clergyman advised Christian forgiveness, but Martinucci killed bis wife the same night. When he was arrested on a charge of murder, he said: “I am glad of it. It is an old custom in our land.” '• A’

At the end of the trial, Mr. Justice Humphreys said Martinucci had a rather beautiful nature, because he took such a high view of the sanctity of the marl iage oath. The judge added that he would-not express any opinion upon Martinucci’s view that a wife who merely kissed another man was false to her marriage vows, because she was, mentally, an adultress, and that she no longer was her husband’s if her heart was elsewhere. Martinucci was certainly not insane.

The jury returned a verdict of manslaughter. The judge, citing Martinueci’s “terrible provocation,” agreed with the verdict, and sentenced him to seven years’ imprisonment.