ARMED HOLD-UP

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 134, 3 December 1938, Page 9

ARMED HOLD-UP

MELBOURNE MURDER

TWO YOUNG MEN SENTENCED TO DEATH

MERCY RECOMMENDED

,'By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyrights

MELBOURNE, December 2,

After a trial which lasted five days Herbert Jenner, aged 22, and Selwyn Wallace, aged 23, were found guilty of the murder of Frederick William Sherry, who was shot in the heart last September in a busy street in the suburb of Clifton Hill, when £50 of a £650 payroll Avas stolen as a result of an armed hold-up.

The jury recommended both men to mercy on account of their youth.

The Judge sentenced both to death, saying that the recommendation would be forwarded to the proper quarter.

Wallace was arrested in Melbourne on September 6 and Jenner not till October 20 in Sydney.

The evidence for the Crown was that both admitted being concerned in the robbery, both, however, denying firing the fatal shot and alleging the presence of a third man, whom they could not produce. The Crown contended that this was of slight consequence in presenting the case, as it was one in which two men were engaged in a criminal enterprise and were thus jointly responsible for the consequences. STATEMENT FROM THE DOCK. Neither accused gave evidence, but Wallace made a statement from the dock admitting his part in the robbery but denying all knowledge of the shooting.

Counsel said that Jenner was unable to add anything, beyond saying that he did not fire the shot. He directed attention to statements by both the accused concerning the possibility of a third man being present.

The jury first returned a finding that Jenner was guilty of murder — with a recommendation to mercy—and that Wallace acted as accessory. The Judge did not accept the latter finding, whereupon the jury again retired and returned two hours later, finding both men guilty and recommending mercy.

On September 1 bandits held up a motor-car at Collingwood, shot and killed Frederick William Sherry, aged 47, stole part of a payroll for the employees of the Sherry Shoe Co., Clifton Hill, and escaped in another car. Sherry stopped the car, alighted, and tried to escape, but fell in the gutter, whereupon a young masked man leapt from the pursuing car and fired two shots point blank into Sherry's body. Harry Thomas, who was driving Sherry's car, went to the latter's assistance, but was knocked down. Thomas escaped with £550 in his pockets, and it is stated that the thieves obtained about £130, which was in a bag. Sherry had stuffed notes into Thomas's pockets during the chase.