ONGAROTO MURDER.

Taranaki Daily News, 11 October 1921, Page 3

ONGAROTO MURDER.

EXECUTION OF TE KAHU. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Oct. 10. Hakaraia Te Kahu, who was sentenced to death for the murder of Patrick Jlichard Elliott at Ongaroto on Easter Sunday, was hanged in Mt. Eden gaol at 8 o’clock this morning. He had to be assisted to the platform and would have collapsed on the scaffold but for a device used for t'hd first time in the Dominion for keeping him erect. Asked if he had anything to say, he replied in Maori, breathing laboriously, and speaking with effort: “Yes, give my love to my parents. Now I am about to go I feel it very much. I have the greatest regard for all.” Death was instantaneous.

As the condemned man was led to the scaffold between two warders he tried to stand upright, but his strength failed as he placed his foot on the first or the sixteen steps leading to the scaffold.

Preceded by the sheriff he was sus- ■ tained by a warder on each side. He sagged completely when he stood upon the trap door. This had been anticipated and he was suspended from the gallows, by a belt passing under the armpits, a device invented by the superintendent of the gaol and used, as far as is known, for the first time in the history of hanging. He. faltered repeatedly in his responses to the priest in attendance, also when replying to the question if he wished to say anything. Once he seemed to lapse into partial unconsciousness until touched on the shoulder.