A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE. Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Hang a Murderer.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 97, 11 April 1885, Page 6

A MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE. Three Unsuccessful Attempts to Hang a Murderer.

London, February 23. — One of the most singular incidents ever connected with an execution or an attempted execution for murder happened to-day at Exeter, on the occasion of carrying out a death sentence passed upon John Lee, recently condemned to be hanged for the murder of Miss Emma A. W. Keyse, at Babbacombe, near Torquay, November 15th last. Three attempts were made to execute Lee, but each attempt proved futile, the drop failing to work successfully. The execution waß consequently postponed. Details of the futile attempt to hang Lee make the case the most horrible that ever degraded the gibbet in England. At first Lee was perfectly firm, and went to the scaffold undaunted, When the first attempt to hang him failed the prisoner's spirits remained unbroken. He was led from under ! the gailows, and marched back to his cell with a firm stop. When first placed upon the trap he resigned himself completely, tut firmly, into the hands of the executioners He stood motionless during the pre liminary proceedings, and when the noose was placed and the spring was about to be touched he made an apparent effort to adjust his body to the expected drop, so that death might be as quick as possible. When the murderer was made to realise that the gibbet had not done its work and he was not yet hanged t he appeared to Btart as if from a nightmare, but quickly recovered himself. The machine was then carefully overhauled,and the woodwork was found wet and swollen, so that the trap refused to work. After being oiled and tried until thought all right, the prisoner was again brought forth>and the same scene

as before was then enacted. Once again was the wretched man led away and the trap a second time examined and oiled and' for the second time pronounced all right, and for the third time the prisoner took his stand upon the trap, and the third time did the gibbet refuae to t d° * tB work. The strain and suspense now overtaxed Lee. He sank down in a swoon,and had to be carried away from the place. No words can give an adequate idea of the painfulness of the scene. A kind of overpowering dismay, like that of superstition, seemed to take control of the sheriffs and officers. The gibbet was deserted and^ no one made any more attempts to 1 put it in working order. The man who was to have been hanged was limp, motionlese,and in a most pitiable condition, lying in his prison cell dazed and stupified and physically exhausted. The sheriff decided to abandon his task. He closed up the oxecution yard and went down to the rost* office and telegraphed Sir William Vernon Harcourt, Home Secretary, the full history of the hfljjtblo failure to execute Lee and asked r^nnstructions.