NO REPRIEVE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 10, 13 January 1936, Page 7

NO REPRIEVE

HAUPTMANN TO DIE COURT OF PARDON’S FINDING EXECUTION ON FRIDAY GOVERNOR NOT SATISFIED BUT IMPORTANT WITNESS IS MISSING HAUPTMANN PROFESSES INNOCENCE [By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright] Received Jan. 12, 8.40 p.m. TRENTON (New Jersey), Jan. 11. The Court of Pardons to-day denied Hauptmann’s plea for clemency and now, unless Governor Hoffman grants a reprieve, he will die in the electric chair at eight o’clock next Friday evening. For five hours in secret session the Court reviewed the evidence, including inspection of the alleged kidnap ladder, and after an hour’s deliberation rejected the accused’s petition for the death sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment. Despite this apparent end to Hauptmann’s long legal battle the case continues to have its fantastic angles. Today Governor Hoffman, who has repeatedly intimated that he is not fully confident of Hauptman’s guilt, ordered Condon to be detainer] for further questioning. This followed a revelation that Condon sailed secretly for America yesterday, apparently like the Lindberghs, wishing to be out of the country when Haupmann was executed, as he will not touch land until the boat arrives at Panama, which is the very day the execution is scheduled for. It appears that Governor Hoffman plans a reprieve. On the other hand the State prosecuting officials said that there was no way of forcing Condon to return and they would not attempt to do so. When attorneys brought word to the death house that his plea was refused they urged Hauptmann that now was the time to confess, if he had anything to say or wished to name accomplices, to which he responded: “I am innocent. I have never changed my story and I never will.”