THE EXECUTION OF GUNN.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3509, 23 June 1920, Page 5

THE EXECUTION OF GUNN.

THE CLOSING SCENES. Dennis Gunn, convicted on a charge of murdering Mr. A. Braithwaite, late postmaster at Ponsonby,, wa s executed yesterday morning at 8 o'clock in the Mount Eden gaol. Precisely at tliis hour Gunn was led out of his cell and took his place in the little procession which had to traverse the dozen paces to the yard on the eastern end of the main gaol building, where tfie scaffold had been erected. In front of the condemned man walked Father Herring, reading the burial service. Gunn wore his prison garments, without the coat, wa s bareheaded, and had his arms pinioned at. his side with leather straps. The scaffold, the same that was used at the various gaols of the Dominion, wa s erected alongside the prison wall. and was covered over with a temporary canvas roof. The steps leading up to the platform number about 15, and the platform itself is about ten feet square. The lower part is covered in with canvas, so that the body is not visible once it drops through the trap door. While the hangman—the same man'who acted at the execution of Eggers and Rothman—was making the final arrangements the burial service was continued, and at the end Gunn made the responses, several in number, calmly, and closed eyes. He was pale, and never opened his eyes, but showed no feeling whatever. Just before the end his body swayed slightly, a s though he wa s faint. After the last of the responses in the burial service, Gunn held out the crucifix which he had been carrying/ anfl, handing it to the priest, said in a low voice, "Give this to my mother, and say good-bye, please.' Then the sheriff stepped forward and asked the if he had anything to say. Gunn replied clearly and evenly. 'I am prepared to meet my God and my Creator/' The hangman then quickly drew the.white cap over the man's head, fixed the rope, and drew the bolt. Death was instantaneous. DENNIS GITNN'S STATEMENT. ■INVESTIGATION BY THE POLICE. WELLINGTON, this day. In the statement made by Dennis Gunn, signed by him in the presence of a stipendiary magistrate (the Minister of Justice informed Press representatives to-day), Gunn admitted* that he committed the burglary at the Ponsonby post office. "His story," said the Minister, "is that he and two other men took different parts in the crime; that one of them followed the postmaster and subsequently returned to the other two with the keys of the post office; that these two (Dennis Gunn being one of them) robbed the post office: that after leaving the post office Dennis Gunn told the man who had been at the postmasters house that it was decided to' hide the revolvers; that this man showed three revolvers, and he (Dennis Gunn) hid them in the blackberries.

"The police made full investigation before the trial as to the movements of <the two men referred to by Gunn, and satisfied themselve s by the statements of a number of credible people that neither of these men was in the locality where the crime was committed on the evening of the 13th March. Further, that, their movements ; on that evemng were fully acounta<} for."