A MODERN BLUEBEARD

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2504, 3 July 1915, Page 8

A MODERN BLUEBEARD

SMITH SENTENCED TO DEATH FINAL SCENE AT THE TRIAL OP WIFE-MURDERER By -Aseociation-Oopyrislit London, Jul.y 2. George Joseph Smith,. charged witli the murder, of tlireb women, lias been sentenced to death. TIIO Hon. Mr. Justice Scrutton, in summing up, pointed out the absenco of eye-witnesses. There ivas 110 direct evidence of what liad .happened in the bath-rooms.''..The jury, 'could act'with reasonable certainty. ■ Smith had several outbursts. Once ■he cried: ; "You will hang me the way you. are going'on." ■After the verdict Mr. Justice Scrutton said he entirely- agreed with it, ancl felt that exhortation to repcntence •would be wasted. Smith was originally accused of causing a false entry to be mado in a. marriage register at Bath, and in ■ the course . ol- the subsequent proceedings, extending over several weeks, evidence was given .showing that between the years . 1898 and'l9l4 he had married five different women, of whom two had died in their baths,/one on-the day following,' and' the other within a, few weeks of the marriage ceremony. It was also a matter 'of public knowledge that a third .woman had met with a similar fate. ' These live marriages in which tho prisoner, under various names, was said to have figured as bridegroom, were as follow January 17,- 1898.—George ' Oliver Love aiid Caroline Beatrice Tliornhill, at. St. Matthew's. Church, Leicester. August 26,• 1910—Henry Willianvand Beatrice Constance Annio Munday, at Wolmouth Registry Office. November 4, 1913.—George Smith and Alice Burnham, at Portsmouth Registry Office.. September IS, 1914—Oliver Charles James and Alice Beatrice Reavil, at Woolwich Registry Office. December 17,, 1914. —John Lloyd and Margaret Elizabeth Lofty, at Bath Registry .Office. Subsequently the prisoner was charged with tho murder of three women: — Beatrice Constance Annie Munday, on July 13, 1912; Alice Burnham, on December 12, 1913,-and, Margaret Elizabeth Lofty, on December 18, 1914.