Minnie Dean Executed

Southland Times, Issue 13286, 13 August 1895, Page 2

Minnie Dean Executed

DEATH INSTANTANEOUS.

The woman Minnie - Dean, convicted at the last sittings of the Supreme Court in Invercargill of the murder of a female infant named Dorothy Edith Carter, was executed iu the Invercargill gaol yesterday morning. The only persons present were the convict’s spiritual adviser (the Rev. G. Lindsay), the medical officer of the prison (Dr Macleod), the sheriff (Mr Martin), the gaoler (Mr Bratby), the gaol officials, and the representatives of the press. At three minutes before 8 a.m. the sheriff, in the manner provided by law, demanded from the gaoler tho body of Minnie Dean for execution. The gaoler complied, and the sheriff called upon the executioner to do his duty. The procession from the cell to ■ the scaffold was then formed. At its head were the gaoler and the surgeon, next came the chaplain reading the burial service, next the doomed woman with a prison officer on each side, next the hangman, and last of all the sheriff. To the slow and solemn tolling of a bell they marched through the yard and ascended the steps of the scaffold, the convict walking firmly and erectly, looking around. her with apparent equanimity, and at last taking her stand upon the fatal trap with marvellous composure and extraordinary self-control. The hangman adjusted the rope, completed the pinioning of the woman, and the sheriff asked her if she had anything to say before she left this world. She replied “ No, I have nothing to say, except that I am innocent.” The sheriff signalled to the hangman, the latter put his hand to the lever by which the apparatus of the trap was controlled. The woman said “Oh God, let me not suffer.” The last word was on her lips when the trap opened and a second afterwards all was over. Death was instantaneous, the neck having been broken and the spinal cord snapped. As throwing some light on the unhappy woman’s protestation of innocence it may bs stated that prior to her leaving her cell she told the Rev. G. Lindsay that while admitting the jury could, have come to no other veidict than they had upon the evidence,she had not been guilty of any criminal intent or forethought, although responsible for the death of the child. She claimed that she had only given the child an overdose of "laudanum, and that unwittingly. Prior to leaving the cell she also said she would die like a woman and not like a coward, and expressed her thanks to the Sheriff and Mr and Mrs Bratby for the kindness and consideration with which she had been treated.

After hanging the stipulated time of one hour the body was lowered and, Dr Macleod having satisfied himself as to the actual cause of death, it was placed in a plain black c oth-covered coffin which the sheriff had in readiness.

Afo mal inquest was held in tho afternoon before Mr J. W. Poyntoo, coroner, and a jury, consisting of Messrs T. M. B. Muir (Foreman), R. Blackham, W. F. Williams, W. Searle, John Kirwan, and A. J. Rankin. The following verdict was returned “ That the said Minnie Dean was, on the 12th August, 1895, within the common gaol at Invercargill, in due course of law, hanged by the neck until she was dead, in execution of the sentence passed upon her by Joshua Strange Williams, Esquire, a Judge of the Supreme Court of New Zealand, at a fitting of the said Supreme Court, holden at Invercargill, in the said colony, on the 21st day of June in the year aforesaid.” The consent of the Government having been obtained tbe body was delivered to representatives of the woman’s husband, Charles Dean, and was taken to Winton by the afternoon train. The scaffold used on the occasion has been stored in the Dunedin gaol for many years, it having originally been constructed for the execution of Captain Jarvey a quarter of a century ago. The hangman brought his own rope with him from the north, the same rope that was used to hang Scott in Auckland some two years ago. ' This is the first case on record of a woman being hanged in New Zealand, although others have been sentenced to death. Mrs Dean is said to have written an account of her baby-farming transactions, but it will be for the Government to decide whether or not it should be published. She was an able and educated woman, and as already stated maintained a remarkably composed and serene demeanour from the date of her arrest until the final scene of the terrible tragedy. Ou the night before herexecution she slept for about three hours and a half. At 3 a.m. she rose from her bed and wrote a letter. She refused breakfast and only touched with her lips a glass of spirits with which the medical officer supplied her. Whatever her crimes may have been, however incredibleher protestations of innocence, she comported herself courageously throughout, met her fate without flinch or falter—in short died a brave, a wonderful woman.