MINN’S EXECUTION

Hokitika Guardian, 30 July 1930, Page 3

MINN’S EXECUTION

HIS LAST STATEMENT

By Telegraph— Per Press Association AUCKLAND, July 29. Death was almost instantaneous. The condemned man maintained to the lid the reconciled attitude which he bad shown from the outset of the ,*ase. After a substantial breakfast md some spirits, lie was taken to a cell near the scaffold .some time before :■'} o’clock, and there .had Ins arms pinioned by the excutioner, while lie smoked a cigarette. Three minutes eiore ti e hour fixed for the hanging, at the call of the sheriff, Mr Hewlett, the final procession took place, led by Laptain Holme.s, of the Salvation Army, who had been spiritual adviser to the condemned man, and who. had talked with Munii from 7.15 a.m. while he was awaiting his end. Captain Holmes conducted the last rites en route to the scaffold, to which Mu nil calmly proceeded, mounting the steps steadily and alone, and still smoking a cigarette. Five others besides the hangman and Captain Holmes stood oil the platform, while there were a number of people below, in .the punishment ward. Mu tin stood with continued calm up ’ the trap door, where at the sheriff’s request if he had any-’ thing to say drew from him the reply that at 4 a.m. he already had’made his' last request to the gaoler, to have a small statement handed to the press. When the hangman was placing the noose around his. neck, Munii asked that he should not have his eyes -overed, but the executioner, according to the regulations, put the white cap over the head of the prisioner, and adjusted the noose through the side aperture, after which the sheriff gave the signal with a nod, and the condemned man fell a distance of over six feet at the drawing of . the bolt. The score of witnesses waited for ten minutes in silence, and Dr. H. Tewsley, Gaol/Surgeon, removed the structure inside ; which, the prisoner bad dropped, and certified that he was dead. . ;

NO CONFESSION.

A REBUTTAL OF THE EVIDENCE., , AUCKLAND, July 29. The statement which Arthur Thomas M.unn said, on the. scaffold,, that he had given to . the Gaoler, was a written document covering six pages of foolscap, which Munn handed to the Chief Warden this morning.

hater, in-tee day. it was read by Mr B:; L. Dalla rd, the Controller-General of Prisons, who stated that it contained no confession, but was merely a traversing of the evidence) given in the Supreme Court against him, and a denial of much of it.

This document, Munn had prepared in substitution for a much longer account of -his life, that he had written early in his imprisonment.