THE PENGE MURDER.

Inangahua Times, Volume IV, Issue 3, 30 November 1877, Page 2

THE PENGE MURDER.

The. following account of the sentencing ! of the Penge murderers to death is given, by the Ball Mall Gazette l— The trial of Lewis and Patrick Staunton, Jlrs Patrick Stauntou, and Alice Rhodes for the alleged murder ofMrs Lewis Staanton at Penge, was continued at the Central Criminal Court oil, Friday, Sent 21. Mr Justice Ffawkins began his summing upal2o minutes to, ]1 o'clock on Walnesdiy. morning. Hrn commenced by pointing out to. the jury (he distinction between murder and) manslaughter, and then proceeded to, comment minutely upon the whole of the. evidence. It wa« a qmrter to ten at night before lie finished Ins address an I the jury bavin gretired to consider their, verdict. On their return, after an abs-3iic(» of an hour aud a quarter, lh*y found alt the prisoners, L^vis Sfannfon, Patrick Staunton, Kliziheth Ann St.'tunlon, ntii^ Alice Rhoder, guilty of wilful murder, Mrs Staunton was recommended to me. ivy." Although it w;\< a col I and fog;v night the streets a iJHcant to the court were, crowded, arid when tlie rerdiut was made, known th<'ir was a burst of cheering from, the crowd. The judge, in passing sen* lenee of dentil in the usiml form, said, " You have been found guilty hy a jury of your country of a crime so black mid hideous that I believe in all the records., of crimes it would be difficult to find its parallel. With a barbarity almost incredible you blotted together to take by cruel torture the life of a poor, innocent and outraged woman ; and alth ugh yoi^ do not stand to-day convicted 01' tho crime "f having murdered her helpless child ,1 cannot helpfeeling satisfied within, my own mind that you tare guilty of tha. rrime of contemplating, and plotting, and liaving brought about his death. It is a sad thing to see four young people, as you are, standing there convicted of so. cruel a murder as that of this- unhappy lady. Terrible to my mind it is to think how you could have entered into so barbarous a plot. It is even more in*, credible to think how cruel was your conduct in relation to her death, dav by day, and hour by hour, gradually sinking, into her grave, that poor unhappy creature v»hoin you sent to her rest," oe.itence having been pas-led, the Clerk of Arraigns form illy asl ed the prisoners whether they had aii)uiHi.> to say why. there should be a stay 01 itxi-cution ot the. j idgment. All the prisoners replied in the negative, and Vlice' Rhodes^aid, ' No, I am perfectly ianocent." The. prisoners were theu removed from th,a, dock, They were all terribly agitate.! while the verdict was bding taken and. tho sculenee pronounced. ;