Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1891-08-22 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

MURDERERS EXECUTED.  Thomas Sadler, 30, a labourer, who was con• victed at the last Essex Summer Assize, before Mi. Justice Hawkins, and sentenced to death for the wilful murder of William Wass, at Colchester, on May 25th last, was hanged at 8 o'clock on Tuesday morning within Springfield Prison, Chelmsford. Sadler induced the wife of his victim to leave her husband to live with him, and in a dispute respecting the custody of the children he stabbed Wass behind the ear with a penknife, inflicting a vital wound. Since his condemnation Sadler has paid most diligent attention to the ministrations of his spiritual adviser, the Rev. F. S. Westbrook, the chaplain of the prison. The crime, for which he has expressed great remorse, he asserts, was committed in the heat of passion. At the farewell interview with his father and sister, which lasted nearly an hour, Sadler, who had hitherto exhibited remarkable fortitude, was very distressed, and the parting was of an exceedingly affecting description, the convict expressing his penitence and the hope of forgiveness. He retired to rest rather later than usual, and was called soon after 6 o'clock in the morning, having passed a restless night. After partaking of the sacrament Sadler remained in earnest prayer, the breakfast which had been supplied being left almost untouched. A few minutes before 8 the governor of the prison, accompanied by Mr. G. 0. Gepp, the acting Under-Sheriff, who supervised the arrangements for the execution, and Berry, the hangman, went to the condemned cell, where pinioning was quietly and expeditiously performed. Sadler walked, so it was stated, with a firm step to the scaffold, and took his position on the drop without assistance. The noose and the white cap were quickly adjusted, and as the words "Lord have mercy on me" fell from the condemned man the bolt was drawn. A drop of four feet was given. Death was said to have been instantaneous. The Press were excluded from the execution by order of the High Sheriff. On the same morning Walter Lewis Turner was hanged at Leeds in accordance with the sentence passed upon him at Leeds Assizes on August Ist for the murder of Barbara Waterhouse under peen. liarly revolting circumstances. The culprit passed a good night and ate a hearty breakfast. Billington, the executioner, entered the condemned cell five minutes before 8 and pinioned the prisoner, who exhibited no sign of nervousness. The usual procession was then formed, and headed by the chaplain and the governor moved off to the scaffold. The trap was on a level with the ground, and Turner wit/lied on to it with a firm step. The straps were quietly adjusted, and Billington was pulling on the white cap when the condemned man said, "I don't want that on." No notice was taken, however, of this remark, and, on the bolt being drawn, death ensued instantaneously. Turner on Monday handed a written statement to his solicitor, containing an account of what he professed to know about the tragedy. The statement amounts to a protestation of innocence, and indirectly imputes the crime to some unknown person. It is in the main a repetition of what he has already stated and has adhered to from the first. He declares his innocence, repeating what he has said about "Jack the Quarryman " drugging him and leaving the body at his house while he was asleep. On waking he was horrified to find the mutilated remains, which he wrapped in his mother's shawl and placed in the coal cellar. He did not dare inform the police,as they would not believe him, so he and his mother took the body to Leeds. His statement consias "As I hope for salvation in the world to come, I swear by all that I hold dear that what I have thus written is the trult nthing but the truth, so help my Got"