“GLAD TO DIE.”

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143839, 13 July 1912, Page 4

“GLAD TO DIE.”

Clarence Eicheson, the- pastor who murdered his sweetheart, Miss Avis Liuriell, was'executed in tlje gaol here (Boston) early in the morning of May 21. It was intended (sapvs the Daily Chronicle’s correspondent);' to place him in the electric chair yesterday, but ho was so stupefied from the opiates that had been administered to jhim owing to his hysterical condition wnen he learned his fate, that the execution was postponed until to-day. Contrary to expectation, the condemned innn met his death with considerable (courage, and went to the- electric ■ chair singing a hymn. Last night he tcid his gaolers that he had become resigned to his punishment, and was.glad to (lie. He spent the. whole of the night up to the moment of his execution in reading his Bible and singing hymns. | He asked the attendants not to stray him in the chair, as he had compose*! himself, and promised not to make may demonstration.. He was, however, (strapped, as is customary, and death instantly followed the turning on of the .electrical current. ''

The crime for which Clarence Virgil Thompson Richeson, who; at the time of his arrest was pastor of) the Immanuel Church of Cambridge, was sentenced to die .was the confessed .murder of his former sweetheart, 19 years old l , Avis Linnell, of Hyannis, a p«ipi! in the New England Conservatory cjf Music at Boston. This girl stood in. (the,way of the minister's marriage to Miss -Violet Edmands, a society girl awd heiress; Miss Linnell was deceived inipo taking a poisosf given her by Richeson, and she died in her rooms at the If ou'ng Women's Christian Association on the evening of October 14, 1911. Richeson was taken into court •to plead to j the charge of murder on the day whea he was to have been married to Miss , Edmarids. Interest in .the case (says Reuter) was intensified on December ,20, when it became known that Richeson had mutilated himself in his. cell ;at the Charles Street gaol. The public apparently lost all sympathy for the jri/isoner after his strange act, which w»« interpreted as a confession of guilt. In Boston a conference of Baptist ministers was called, and Richeson was fornplly deprived of his title of reverend. JHe confessed his guilt in a statement which he wrote on January 3. ' i