THE MURDER OF BISHOP. MRS VON'S STATEMENT. ELEVEN JURORS FOR HANGING HER.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 229, 19 November 1887, Page 4

THE MURDER OF BISHOP. MRS VON'S STATEMENT. ELEVEN JURORS FOR HANGING HER.

Duiuxu Iho trial of Mrs Mary Yon for the murder of Geo. Wesley Bishop at San Francisco the accused was placed in the wib-ne-s-box and examined by Assistant Distiict Attorney Dunne. " Will you please illustrate to the jury just how you shot Mr Bishop?" he requested. "Why, I never shot him." And a peal' of silvery laughter rippled from the doctor's lipe lips and set the plums in her Rembrandt hat to violently quivering in sympathy with the shaking of her soft and heavy person. Mr Dunne coaxed a little, however, and the lady finally consented to illustrate "just how" Bishop received his fatal wound. The revolver was produced, and the part of the deceased Australian assigned to Dunne. Mrs Yon experimented with him for several minutes, but owing to lack of rehearsal Dunne could not be made to draw the pistol from his inside breastpockot in biich a manner that she could wrest it from him and have the barrel point in his direction. The gun was very refractory, and every time Mrs Yon wrested it from Dunne the contrary muzzle would insist on facing her. Finally Mrs Voiiccasod impatiently, and exclaimed — "I can't do it right with you. If any other gentleman in the audience will come up and assist me, I'll show exactly how ib was .lone." "Never mind," said the bad actor, "I will do just as you say, if that will afford the illustration." " But I don't want you," persisted the coy defendant. "I want a passive man; you resist too much." " Did not Mr Bi&hop resist ?" "Not much ; he was too big a coward. He didn't even dare to point it at me." The exhibition was again resumed, but) Dunne did not give satisfaction, as the pistol would not leave his hand except barrel tii-.sb, and Mrs Yon finally gave it up, after vainly suggesting that some gentleman from the audience should take the stand with her. '• It was very easy for mo to take the pistol from him,"' she said. "He was so scared that he trembled like a leaf, and was afraid to point the pistol at me. He was an awful big coward and wouldn't kill anybody. He pulled the pistol out slowly,, and I grabbed it and gob it. I grabbed his hand and the pistol went off. The idea of shooting him never occurred to me, and wehad the pistol in both our hands when it went off." There was a long series of questions over the precise moment and manner of the discharge, but all that could be extracted from Mrs Yon was that the weapon went oft while it was slipping from Bishop's hand to that of herself. " Bishop cocked ib before he drew ib from his pocket," she said, and she could not explain how the trigger was pulled. After seven hours' deliberation the jury returned a verdict of murder in the first degree, and fixed the punishment at imprisonment for life. The jury also found, that the previous conviction of Mary Yon. under the name of Hammersmith, for shooting a man, which she denied, was proved. The jury stood eleven to one for hanging from the beginning, Juror Cogan being the one who favoured life imprisonment, and the rest finally yielded. In pronouncing sentence Judge Toohy referred to the manner in which the deceased, "by the wiles of a clever and fascinating woman," had been entrapped and did not realise his position until ib was too late. Then thinking of the wife and family he 4iad left behind in New Zealand he repented and determined to return tohte home again. He next referred to the claim made by the prisoner that Bishop was bound to her by some sorb of Fijian marriage, a marriage which is not recognised in any Christian community or by the laws of the state. "You pursued him to the steamer Alameda on July Ist last," said the Court in conclusion, " and, after lying in wait foi* several hours, without notice or a feeling of mercy or pity in your heart, you murdered him. The jury saw that this wasthe case and rightfully convicted you of murder in the first degree. I will not intimate that their verdict was not heavy onough, bub the facb remains that eleven of them believed your crime so atrocious that they voted that you should suffer the extreme penalty of the law. But one of them was obdurate and the others yielded to him. There is nothing left for me to do but pass sentence in accordance with their verdict. ' The sentence of this' Court is that you be imprisoned for the term of your natural life in the State Prison afc San Quentin. "•Thank you," said the prisoner, sweetly,, as she bowed to ths Judge and took her seat. She summoned up a sickly smile thenext moment, and, making a sweeping bow to the spectators, walked out of the courtroom. The San Francisco " Chronicle " says :—: — " The sentence of Mary Yon to San Quentin for life was not whab she deserved, bui> according to the verdict it was all that could bo done in the case. It will be a great thing when the foolish sentiment in. favour of a woman shall 1 fail to save a murderess from the gallows. Mary Yon deserved hanging, fully as much as any of tho gang in murderers' ',row, and it would. „ have served as a good example 'to women' of her class if she had beeri forced to itnder- J go tho death penalfcy.iV/ ■■.-•'*>,