PLEA FOR REPRIEVE

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 20132, 12 June 1935, Page 9

PLEA FOR REPRIEVE

THOUSANDS SIGN PETITION United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph —Copyright (Received June 11, 11.45 p.m.) LONDON, June 11. A petition asking for the reprieve of George Percy Stoner has been signed by scores of thousands of people throughout England. It is expected that when the petition closes on June 13—which is five days before the execution—soo,ooo persons will have signed it. [George Percy Stoner, aged 19, a chauffeur, was found guilty at Old Bailey, on May 31, of murdering Francis Mawson Rattenbury, aged 67, a retired architect, and was sentenced to death. Alma Rattenbury, the dead man’s wife, aged 31, who was also charged with murdering her husband, but who was already acquitted, showed no emotion when she heard the verdict, but when, later, the foreman pronounced Stoner guilty, she swooned. The prosecution alleged that Mrs Rattenbury and Stoner stayed together at a London hotel for four days as brother and sister. On March 24, two days after their return to Bournemouth, Rattenbury was found battered and unconscious in an armchair, and died in hospital. A mallet was found near the chair. Both confessed to the crime, but at the trial, Mrs Rattenbury gave evidence that Stoner had killed her husband with a mallet. She denied planning to murder her husband. After the trial Mrs Rattenbury committed suicide.}