THE FALLEN IDOL.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 128, 6 July 1914, Page 10

THE FALLEN IDOL.

GIRL'S GOOD-BYE KISS TO HER SLAYER. For the murder of his sweetheart, after a discovery of her past,. Walter James White, 22, of Swindon, was sentenced to death by Mr Justice Ridley at the Wiltshire Assizes last month. The victim waa Frances Priscilla Hunter. Mr Rayner Goddard, for the prosecution, 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 in service in Wales, would not have her in the house. The couple returned to Swindon the same night, and discussed Mrs Blewitt'a objections. Then the man received a letter from Mrs Blewitt, in consequence of which he went alone to Wales to probe the matter fully. There he bought cartridges and showed some people a revolver. He returned to Swindon on April 29 and wrote lotters in the afternoon which 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 tlic coal-house, and two shots were heard. The girl was found huddled on the floor.

Mrs Blewitt, of Giifach, Glamorganshire, said she wrote to the prisoner: '' 1 don't want by name disgraced by harbouring Frances here. . . . If she is not the gul to tell you what happened when she iived down here, it is a sftame. . . . You are a very tidy young fellow, and it is a shame." bhQ, 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 KtSS.

Inspector Cowdry read the statement made by White after the murder:

'' She confessed she had disgraced me and hoped God would forgive her. £ told her 'she would never deceive anybody else, as 1 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 slight cast upon the love he had given her and the shattering of cherished ideals of her purit/ and chastity. He was a man, perhaps, not with a very strong but a very sensitive mind, and the circumstances. were those which might easily have led to his mind becoming unbalanced. The judge taid there was not a tittle of evidence of insanity in 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 with it. He held out no hopes in that direction.

White listened in a dazed manner to the sentence of death and then collapsed, and had to be carried from the dock.