PENALTY UNALTERED

Southland Times, Issue 21576, 14 December 1931, Page 7

PENALTY UNALTERED

COATS TO BE EXECUTED ON

THURSDAY. (Per United Press Association.) Wellington, December 12. The execution of G. E. Coats has been fixed by' the Sheriff, Mr Samson, to take place at Wellington Prison, Mount Crawford, at 8 o’clock on Thursday morning next. The warrant signed by the GovernorGeneral stating that his Excellency did not intend interfering with the sentence of death being carried out, was received by the Sheriff this morning and within a short time of its arrival, Mr Samson, in company with the Deputy-Sheriff, Mr Rhodes, left for the prison, where Coats was informed of the Governor’s decision. “Coats took it quite nicely and calmly and said “thank you,” said Mr Samson to a reporter on his return from the prison. It is over eight years since a person connected with murder was executed in Wellington. The last hanging was in the old Terrace Gaol (since demolished) in May, 1923, when Daniel Richard Cooper, found guilty in the Ncwlands baby-farming case, was executed.