SENTENCED TO DEATH.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 302, 31 May 1915, Page 3

SENTENCED TO DEATH.

THE KBALS JIURDER CASE. AN UNEMOTIONAL PRISONER. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. It was not until 4 p.m. that the jury found 'a verdict of guilty against Norman Edwin Keals, at the Supreme Court, on a charge of having murdered | Mrs. Edith Emma Keals and her infant, I at Onewhero, last February. The jury 1 retired at 11.4n a.m. and returned into j Court four hours later, when the foreman announced that they had not agreed. " I "Do you think there is any chance of your agreeing?" asked his Honor the Chief Justice. Sir Robert Stout, "or is there anything I can do to help you in any way!" " I do not think so, your Honor," replied the foreman. "It would not be desirable I should say anything." ITis Honor: Perhaps your may agree if you retire for another half-hour. j The jury accordingly retired, and re- I turned into Court at 4 p.m., with a verdict of guilty. 1 Prisoner made neither movement nor ! remark, and the usher, stepping into I the witness-stand, said: "Hear ye, hear I ye, hear ye," and then commanded all | men to keep silence whilst the sentence j of death waa pronounced upon the prisoner at the bar. Amid a deathlike silence, his Honor, in a low voice, said: " Prisoner at the. bar, I have now to pronounce one of the most solemn sentences that can be pronounced by one man upon another, , and, in doing so, I shall follow the form j laid down by statute." His Honor then assumed the black cap, and said: "It is that you be taken from this place : to gaol, and from thence to the place of execution, and that you be there hanged by the neck until von be dead."