A TRIO OF MURDERERS.

Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 1032, 27 October 1903, Page 2

A TRIO OF MURDERERS.

THREE BROTHERS EXECUTED

(Per R.M.S. Ventura, at 'Auckland.) SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 7. A despatch Irom Dannemora, New; .York, o£ October 1, says : A remarkable spectacle was presented at Clinton Prison to-day* when three brothers were executed by electricity, lor a murder in which all three were involved. The case o£ the .Van Wormer boys was in the Courts two years. Appeals were made to the Governor to commute the sentence to life imprisonment, but without avail., The brothers .were brave in their fearful ordeal. They took no breakfast, in accordance with a Catholic requirement to conic fasting to their Communion. Two priests a little after U o’clock, administered to the brothers their first and last Communion. To the fullest possible extent, privacy of ceremony was maintained, and tbc ancient ritual was observed. It was decided that Willis, the oldest and most impressionable, should be first to go to the chair oi death. The second was Frederick, the youngest and most hardened. The third, Burton, was second in point of age. Prints walked beside each man in turn to the chair. Other priests prayed in the corridor between the death cells. Every precaution had been taken to prevent the remaining men hearing more than the departures o£ their brothers from the room. The story of the lives of Van Wormer’s boys, reads like fiction. They were sons of a steamship engineer who was usually away from home. The mother died when the younger of these boys was a baby. The father married again, but the second wife had no control over the boys, who became a terror to the countryside. After the father’s death the boys appeared to lose all sense of honesty They robbed chicken roosts systematically, and so generously that they maintained a thriving trade with commission houses in New York city. The Van Wormer house and its occupants were shunned, and the 'hoys were dreaded. They boasted of going armed, and only one man remained their friend.' This was Peter Hallenbech’, their unpie. He paid their fines when they were convicted of theft, and took their part when the whole countryside was against them. He permitted them to live in the house which had always been their home for years, though they never paid interest on the mortgage he held. Finally. he decided to foreclose, as the best plan of breaking up the nest of robbers. The boys then moved to Kinderkook, near by, but swore vengeance on their uncle. On Christmas Eve of 1!J01 they drove to his house, taking with them their cousin, who afterwards gaye evidence against them) and who was ' hiinselE sentenced to 18 years in the penitentiary. Hallenbech was shot by each of* the young men, and on the drive back to town each of the Van Wornier boys claimed to have killed him. The plans of the murderers were carefully made, and they hurried back to town to show themselves to people and establish alibis. But for the weakening of their young cousin, their plan would have succeeedetl, although there was plenty of evidence to prove the facts which he admitted.-