WOMEN KILLERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 323, 7 April 1928, Page 10

WOMEN KILLERS

COURT REFUSES THEIR APPEALS TWO CONFESS SAME CRIME IN two successive days recently four murderers appeared in the British Court of Criminal Appeal,” says “The Sunday News,” and sought in vain to have the sentences of death quashed. All four were the same age—25—and all had been condemned to undergo capital punishment for the murder of women. One was a crime of passion, another of jealousy, a third of vengeance for unfaithfulness, and the fourth was the revenge of a jilted sweetheart.

rpHE case which at first monopolised -* public attention was that of the man Sidney Bernard Goulter, who attacked and strangled a young woman in Richmond Park under circumstances which the Lord Chief Justice, who presided over the Appeal Court, described as "dismal.” Goulter attended in the care of warders from Wandsworth Prison, and his counsel again urged a plea of insanity. The hearing did not last long, and counsel for the prosecution was not called upon to reply. Indeed, the Lord Chief said that hut for the fact that this was a capital charge the defence of insanity would never have been raised.

The Court was packed and it seemed as though the condemned man would collapse as he did at the Guildford Assize Court. After the words "This petition is dismissed, ” however, a warder touched his arm, and, with others, led the man from the dock. Goulter looked pale, and, as one spectator put it, "like a man In a dream.” Wife Who Strayed George William Sutherland. who was a Liverpool fruit porter, had been convicted at the Manchester Assizes, and was strongly recommended to mercy. He had been separated from his wife, and, apparently, with just cause. His wife had allowed herself to be recruited into that Darkest Underworld of All, and he saw her with a strange man in a public house. Inflamed with drink, Sutherland left the lodging house where he was accustomed to sleep carrying a newly-sharp-ened razor. He encountered "Maisie” in the street, challenged her concerning her immoral conduct, and then gashed her throat with the weapon. It was urged on his behalf- that the wound was caused in a struggle, and as the direction of the fatal cut was regarded as of supreme importance, it was suggested that he was ambidextrous. This plea, however, did not avail him, and he, too, left the dock to return to the condemned cell. Broken Engagement A third case was that in which Fred yielding, of Manchester, was sentenced to death for stabbing to death his former sweetheart, Eleanor Pillington. Fielding had been to London with the intention of joining the Metropolitan Police, but instead he plunged into dissipation, drank excessively and an engagement between him and the girl was broken. This appears to have preyed on his mind, and on his return to Rishton he walked into an ironmonger’s shop and purchased a penknife, with the remark that he intended to murder a girl. Apparently the statement was regarded as a brutal jest. Nor were his ramblings taken seriously when, after breaking a window of his former sweetheart’s house he said to the father: “If your girl does not make it up with me you will soon be .without a daughter.” Later, however, after Miss Pillin~ ton and two girl friends had been *o a dance, Fielding called her aside, and while talking to her, produced th° and stabbed her in the neck and diroat. She died almost at once, and 'he murderer gave himself up to the police. It is now suggested that the tra-

gedy was due to alcoholic excess, but this plea was not considered. Indeed, the Lord Chief remarked that drink was no excuse in law. Fielding trembled visibly when the judgment was announced, then drew himself up, and with a soldierly bearing vanished from sight. There next appeared in the dock a shock-headed man with a passionate, dark face. and shoulders whose breadth indicated mighty strength. Samuel Case lived at Intake, near Sheffield, and he was condemned to death for the murder of Alice Mot.tram, the 20-years-old wife of a miner. According to the statement of counsel, Case had been carrying on an intrigue with the woman, and she had sent him a message to the effect that he was the father of an expected child. This was only the woman’s bluff, but it so affected the man that he went straight to the cottage, and, according to a confession he made, spoke to her. He then. so he declared, strangled her with a strip of linen, and, tearing down a stretch of clothes line, left her with the rope hanging round her neck. It may have been a premonition, but he tied it in what is known as "a hangman’s noose.” Then Case walked to Sheffield, where he called at a police station, made his confession, and was charged Vv it 1: the murder. But for that confession, according to his counsel. Case would have got away free and unsuspected. Another Confession This outline of the affair was given, but in more detail, to the judges at the Appeal Court. Then counsel startled the court by the statement that there was another confession made by another man regarding the same murder. This second man still adhered to his confession, and counsel appealed that he should be heard. The atmosphere of the court was electric. The man In the dock peered round and then waited in what one could easily see was an anxious silence. The red-robed judges consulted, and then the Lord Chief inquired if it would be possible to produce the man who had made the confession by the next morning. Counsel assented, and there was an expression of relief on the sallow face of the condemned man when it was announced that the Imaring of his ap peal would be adjourned until the next morning. The court was packed when once again the condemned man stood in the dock, and there was a rustle of expectancy when counsel for the defence called William Walter Hartle. Hartle had been brought from gaol to give evidence. There was nothing heroic about him. He was of middle height, sandy, weak-chinned, and his shifty blue eyes danced uncertainly as he began his narrative. "That Is Not the Man” He spoke in a voice that at times was scarcely audible. There was no dramatic pause, no pretence of a wish to produce an effect. His story was, briefly, that he, with a friend named Case, had broken into the cottage, and that a young woman discovered them and threatened to call the police.

Then, continued Hartle. he struck the woman, and went out into the garden, where he found a clothes line from which he cut a section and tied it round the woman’s throat. Hartle

went into details, and described th» appointments of the apartment even to a broken eggshell. But there were points on which the statement obviously broke down. The Lord Chief asked him to look at Case and to say whether or not he was the same man as the one with whom he broke into the cottage. “No, that is not the man,” he mumbled. Then the miner husband of the dead woman was called. He was typical of his calling, and gave his replies without demur or hesitation. It ’<as said that Case was the best man at his wedding, but he never so little as glanced at the man whose fate depended upon the decision of the judges. The new confession had broken down badly. The cord had been cut from the kitchen, and not from the garden. There was no Turkish towel in the house. No shoes had been stolen, and his wife never had any diamond ring. The dead woman had no "bun” of hair at the back of her head. So most of the statements made in this second confession were false —and Lord Gordon Hewart put it well when he commented in that soft voice of his, “There is nothing in it.” The probability is that Hartle wanted a day out of prison, or it may be that he loved the limelight of pub- , licity. The appeal was dismissed, and with a scowl the last of the quartette of murderers was led from the dock to be taken hack to Armlev gaol.