THE CREWE MURDER.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 476, 31 May 1890, Page 4

THE CREWE MURDER.

RICHARD DAVIES’ LAST LETTER,

The mother of Richard Davies received the following letter, written by the unhappy youth a few minutes before his death. It is almost illegible, scratched in pencil, and indicates the tremor which ho felt at his approaching doom : 44 Dear Mother,— I declare with my voico, truthfully, in my last hour, that 1 never struck my father onjthe night of |his death. I never had the axe in my hand. Weep not forme, dear mother and loved ones, fori am going to the home of glory, saved through the blood of our dear Saviour Jesus. My sins have been washed away, and unto the Lord I commend my soul, to inherit eternal life in heaven. May I meet you all there. God bless you all, and keep you. Farewell, dear loved ones ; farewell, farewell.— Richard Davies.”

It may be remembered that Richard Davies has throughout denied that he was an actual participant in the crime. He stated in the condemned cell a few moments before execution that he never touched the axe with which the deed was done. In his communication to tho Home Secretary lie confesses that he stopped the trap in the lane at the Hough, but by arrangement between them Ccorge Davies was to be the actual murderer, he (Richard) agreeing to interfere only if George were overpowered by his father. He describes the struggle between George and the deceased, how the boy stunned his father with the axe and threw him into the road, how George asked him to finish his father off” with a pistol bulJetr, how he refused, and then George again belaboured hjs father over the head with.the axe until he was dead. This confession elicited no reply whatever from Mr Matthews.