THE WALTON SUICIDE PACT

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XX, Issue 6794, 19 December 1922, Page 2

THE WALTON SUICIDE PACT

FUTILE APPEAL FROM DEATH SENTENCE,

SYMONDS TO BE HANGED

United Service Telegrams.

(Received 10.30 a.m.) LONDON, Decemb.’r ro. Tho appeal has been dismissed of Symonds, a 22-yoay-old baker, who was tfeiit-enccd to death for tho murder of a fifteen-year-old girl named Martha Vail, a daughter of his employer.

Symonds and the girl entered intfl a compact to commit suicide, and tho girl s mutilated body was found on tho railway near ‘Walton. Tho man, wlio w»s found near by with his two feet so badly crushed that both legs had t oho amputated at the knees, stated during the trial that ho changed Ids mind about committing suicide and tried to prevent tho girl from throwing herself in front of a train. After he had been found guilty ho said to the Judge, “I have not, (fhurdored anybody,” and when being carried out of court after the death sentence had boon passed he cried out to the crowd, ‘T hope some of you peopf.o will take this kind of thing up.”