A CALLOUS CONFESSION.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16036, 29 January 1920, Page 8

A CALLOUS CONFESSION.

‘ ‘STB AN G LED ’ ’ SWJfiETHEA BT

Callously admitting - that lie murdered liis sweetheart and then went home 1,0 bed, William Wright, a Lincolnshire ex-soldier, was committed for trial on the capital charge at Caister. Wright had been keeping company with Annie Ivilbcck, who lived in a well-furnished cottage near the horse market, and gained a living by acting a * sewing maid and domestic help. The woman was found murdered in her

When Wright was arrested the con- ■ iaide questioned him about his last visit to the girl. ••Was she alive when you left her .- pointedly asked the officer. He was astonished when the man coolly replied; “No. We had a few winds about a brooch she was wearing, and I strangled her with my hands. 1 left her for dead, put out the lamp, and went home. I had had a lot of drink.” This statement led to the man being detained and charged with murder. He thereupon made a confession, which he signed, in which he said that when at the dead woman’s house the previous night he asked her where she got a brooch which she was wearing. She replied that it was given to her by her dead mother. He said that he did not believe that, and he thought it was given to her by a “fancy man.” When she protested that it was not, he said “If you fLon’t tell me who gave it to you, I’ll finish you.” She would not tell me,” he concluded, “sol strangled her.” Brought up at the little courthouse, Wright strolled into the court with his hands in his pockets. After calmly looking round the court, he seated Himself comfortably in the dock, and throughout the protracted proceedings betrayed no interest. He was the calmest, least-concerned person in the building. To an interested court a witness named Campey told how the night before the murder he was in the Talbot Hotel when prisoner entered. They had drinks together, and prisoner, looking curiously at him, said: < ‘Sweep; black cap; three weeks; rope; hanged by the neck; finish.” It was an odd phrase, and prisoner repeated it with a sort of mournful relish. Wright, who offered no defence, was committed for trial.