DEATH SENTENCES

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 3658, 28 June 1927, Page 3

DEATH SENTENCES

THREE IN ONE WEEK.

A SYDNEY RECORD

SYDNEY, June 17. In three cases at the Sydney Criminal Court this week the death sentence was passed, Mr Justice Campbell on each occasion being the judge who recited the awe-inspiring words. He was visibly affected, though all the throe were cases in which the juries had little hesitation in pronouncing verdicts of guilty. , , , The fii’st case concerned the murder of Mary Buckley, at Newcastle, on April 17, her husband, George Andrew Buckley, being charged. The Crown Prosecutor characterised the murder as the climax of a. life of domestic unhappiness, but that was, lie said, no excuse for murder. Buckley had long suspected his wile of infidelity, and on April 17, according to his daughter and other witnesses, Buckley and his wife had a savage argument before the mother went to bed. During the night the girl heard someone moving in the room, and saw her father hitting her mother on the head with a tomakawk. Subsequently he attacked her with a razor, and when tlie girl tried to intervene she too was wounded. After the murder Buckley left the room and , later gave himself up to the police. ' “ Buckley’s defence was that he had seen his wife in a park that night with a man, and that when he reproached her she said that he could get a divorce. He said that he drank some rum after the quarrel at home and must have gone mad, for he got the razor with the intention of committing suicide. He remembered nothing of the attack on his wife. In passing sentence when the jury found Buckley guilty, Mr Justice Campbell said that he could not but feel sorry for Buckley in his terrible situation, and, while it was a painful duty to pass sentence of death, it was hot a matter which rested in his discretion, RESULT OF JEALOUSY.

The second case, which the Crown Prosecutor characterised as a particularly stupid, callous and brutal murder, the outcome of a mind diseased bv jealousy, concerned the death of Ellen Howard (19), a waitress, who was stabbed to death at Wagga on May 6. Cedric Thomas Ryan (30), telephone linesman, was charged with murder. The girl had gone out with Ryan a few times, but. though he fell madly in love with her, she did not reciprocate his fervour. Some little time before her death she met another man, and though her relationship with him was still on a friendly basis, his intervention seemed to pray on Ryan’s mind. On the night nf May 6 she met Ryan by appointment, and he took her for a walk along the river bank. They both sat down, and immediately commenced to quarrel. She turned her back on him, and he stabbed her repeatedly, leaving the knife driven to the hilt into her back. The case was responsible for a dramatic statement from the dock. Ryan, -.peaking slowly and distinctly, saying, “I do not recollect doing it. 1 loved the girl. On tlie night of May 6, while we were sitting on the river bank she said she was going to a dance next night with a man named Graham. I disapproved, and told-her we could not get along that way. She said, ‘I will have no more to do with you. I have been fooling you, and I will never marry you. 1 intend to marry Graham.’ From then on I do not remember what happened. He did not remember making a statement to the police, or taking the ambulance man to where the body was lying. ...

“1 loved tlie girl more than any

thing ill the world,” his statement went on, “and 1 still do so. I never had a disagreement with her until that, night. I would have given my life a dozen times over for her, and I hope she is happy where she has gone. May the Lord be merciful to me and some day forgive me.” It took the jury only 20 minutes to return a verdict of guilty and Ryan was sentenced to death. JUDGE AFFECTED. A particularly vicious case was that in which Sydney Reginald Short (26), a dealer, was charged with a capital offence, the woman in the case being 21 years of age, but with the mentality of a girl of 12 years only. Evidence was to the effect that Short to silence her screams, bashed her head on stone llags. Short made no statement, did not ‘volunteer evidence, and no witnesses were called on liis behalf.

When the jury, after a brief retirement, returned with a verdict of guilty, Short stood impassively in the dock, made no sign and uttered no word. He was equally silent when addressed by the judge. Passing sentence of death, Mr Justice Campbell was visibly affected, and bis last sentence dropped to a whisper.