M'NAMARA'S CONFESSION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 158, 3 January 1912, Page 8

M'NAMARA'S CONFESSION.

CLEAN BREAST OF HIS GUILT. Los Angeles, December 8. A written statement by James McNamara, in which he made a clean breast of his guilt in connection with the destruction of the Times building by dynamite, was made available for publication to-day. The confession was penned by McNamara himself, and bore evidence that he is unskilled in the art of writing. The letters were very badly formed, and the hand of the writer, judging by the wavy lines, must have trembled while he was writing the story of his guilt. The statement is as follows: "I, James McNamara, defendant in the case of the people versus myself, having heretofore pleaded guilty of the crime of murder, desire to make this statement of fact, and to state that this statement is true in every detail. "On the night of September 30, 1910, at 5.45, I placed in the alley portion of the Times building a suit-case containing 16 sticks of 80 per cent, dynamite. I set the clock, which I also placed in the suit-case, so that the explosion would take place at 10 o'clock in the morning. It was my intention to injure the building and scare the owner. "I did not intend to take the life of anyone, and I sincerely regret that unfortunate men lost their lives. If the giving of my own life would bring back theirs I would gladly give it. In fact, in pleading guilty to murder in the first degree I have placed my life in the hands of the State. "(Signed) JAMES McNAMARA. Seen at Cleveland, Ohio, Detective W. J. Burns, who tracked and arrested the McNamaras, declared to the reporters that the confession of McNamara was only partly true. "Why doesn't Jim," said the famous detective, "tell how he knocked off the gas-cocks and flooded the place with gas where the dynamite was. If he told that, his confession that he only intended to injure the building, and not blow up the occupants, would not convince any one."