1937-11-25 — Page 3

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 25, · 1937.

Mother Says Of Killer, "He

Is Mad-I Can't

ACCUSED HER OF HIS CRIME

Oxford, Oct. 28.

SENTENCE of death was passed here this

evening on John Edward Allen, twenty- seven-year-old chef, once an inmate of Broadmoor, for the murder by strangling of a seventeen - month-old baby girl, Kathleen Diana Woodward.

Why Allen killed the child no one knows. In the witness-box he made an extraordinary attempt to saddle his crime on the child's mother.

He alleged that the mother was in love with him; that she killed the child herself; that he took the body away and hid it in the long grass, saying, "I will take the blame. I've been in a mental hospital. It will turn out all right.”

Young Mrs. Woodward, white-faced, heard this story told in court. In the witness-box she was asked if it were true. She answered in a trembling voice: "He is insane.

13

To a reporter, afterwards, she said: "His story la horribly un-

I love my husband.

true.

loved my baby.

She he gave her two pennies. gave them to me to put in her money-box.

1

"I have them here now.

"He is mad, 1 suppose. Even so,

#He never altempled to make love could not and it in my heart to to me. If he had 1 would smacked his face."

The Woodwards worked in

have

torgive him."

the Allen-dark, thick - set, deep Lamb Hotel nt Burford. The hus voleed-in court never once looked band was a waiter. Allen, with the at the woman he necused, help of a forged reference, was en- ganged as a chef.

Ho

with became friendly

It took the Jury an hour to bring

In their verdict. The foreman added

the these words: "We think the in- Woodwards, who lived at Shipton quirtes should be made into his men- Down, about a mile and a half away, ftal, state."

He took the child out on his bicycle Mr. Justice Finlay. godded gravely.

on the pretext that the father had asked him to do so.

"I had already intended that"

Without further comment the Judge passed sentence of death.

HE

Forgive"

THE HEMPEN ROPE ·

TERE is the story of the murder and the clue of the hempen rope, which, together with a chance remark, played a major part in fixing the gulit on Allen.

At 4.30 on the afternoon of June 193 Saturday-Alien cycled to the. Woodwards". home, He told the young wife. "Fred hae sent me up to take the kli- die for un alring."

She belleved film.

Later that evening two boys were strolling between Burford and Shipton,

rabbli darted road and vanished long traRN.

across Into

the somt

the

Boy-like. they followed. In the grass they found body of the child, strangled with a length of lempen rope.

the About a month before. wife of the owner of the Lamb Hotel bouclit a clothes line. W was long for. His purpose.

"I said, "Who's done

When

this?"

put up it was slack, with a loose end.

Early in the afternoori of the day the child was murdered, a kitchen boy rusliced that the clothes line was fzut. Idly he commented on it.

Allen was standing by. tightened it." he said,

And

Professor H. S. Holden, direc- tor of the Home Ofler Forensle

at Laboratory

Nottingham, examined the clothes line the rope round' Rie baby's neck. Both were of hemp Both were exactly similar.

He examined the clothes that Allen wore at work and those ho wore when he took the child AWAY.

On boll there were traces of hemp.

and that the child was dead when the

bent down to feel the child's pulse. prisoner took it away?" She There was none.

"At first Mrs. Woodward did not

reply, but a little later she said,

'Don't ask me.

wered: "No, sir."

Ans-

"Is there any truth whatever in this suggestion that you killed your own child?""No, sr."

"I asked her again who had done Then the husband gave brief evi it, and she said, I done it for you,dence of his wife's passionate devo-

ition to her baby.

John.

F

.

my left

"I put the child under

Allen's real name, it can now be farm and wheeled my cycle with my stated, is John Fredericks Lapsien.

right. I went down to Fulbrook-roidHe was born in South Shields, towards Burford and laid it in the from The

two He has served

hard-labour grass, about 500 yards

sentences for forgery, and others to: house."

petty theft. He

was discharged from the Navy for mental instability, the deserted several times from Army and once ran amok in prison. He came out of; Broadmoor shortly before the murder.

Cross-examined by Mr. 61. John Meklethwall, K.C., he admited that this was the first time he had put forward auch a story in publle. When the wife went into the box "Was asked: Mr. Micklethwalt

the suggestion there any truth

GAS KILLS

Francis Lederer, 31-year-old! arreen actor, and his bride, Mar- garite Bolando, 20, known as Margo, stage and screen dancer, Just after their wedding before a justice of the peace at Las Vegas, Nev. Lederer, active world peace advocate; was divorced la his naties Prague, Czechoslovakia, from his first wife in 1835. Margo was born in Mexico City.

Vitamin A Sought

In Fish

FAMILY OF 4 spesimets of lives

Campaign SLEEPING

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London.

Four scientists have been co- operating in a search for vitamin A in freshwater fish. After examining ol from 20 catches, including salmon, pike and Kidderminster (Worcester), surgeon,

these they reported that Oct. 24. freshwater fish may be supposed to FAMILY of four-one

them a five-year-old child—A from that found in sea fish. Three warders look Allen down to in Italy has been launched by the were gassed to death early to- "My husband and I were doing the cells. Little beads of perspira-Catholic Church, which is placarding day as they slept in their home well there. I believe he resented|tion glistened on his forehead.

He strangled her with a length of clothes line taken from the hotel.

Mrs. Woodward, still shaken by her think said: "I con ordeal.

only ho killed my baby because he was jealous of me at the hotel.

R.

That

"He seemed so fond of children- especially fond of my baby. was why I asked him once why he never married.

Lo the Then he turned again jury: "I shall myself write to the Home Secretary."

ALLEN'S STORY IN THE BOX

This was the story Allen told in the witness-box: When I went to the house I saw Diana (the boby) on the floor,

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They were: Mrs. Alice Elizabeth son-in-law, Ayres, sixty-one; ber Leonard Walters, twenty-six; als Over periods of days parish mem-wife Marian, twenty-four, and their bers promise to utter no blasphemy SAID HE HATED WOMEN

She had a piece of rope round and offer voluntarily fines of money, daughter, Jane Yvonne, aged five.

Mrs. Woodward was food or clothing for each slip of the "He told me he hated women.

“Before-be-look-my-baby-away | loaning on the mantelpiece crying. I tongue,

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It is assumed that a gas metre standing on a shelf became dis- placed, causing gas to pour into the house,

Walters, a moulder in a local foun- dry, was sleeping on the couch in the kitchen and his wife was lying near the door leading from the kitchen to the stairs.

The fact that the lights were on downstairs suggests she smelt gas, came down to Investigate, and was overcomic.

CHILD HAD FEVER

Mrs. Ayres was lying at the foot of her bed in a back room upstairs, and the child in the front bedroom, which she had shared with her inother.

:

Waliers slept in the kitchen be- cause the child had scarlet fever and, by permission of the health authorities, was being nursed at home.

The tragedy was discovered be. cause the smell of gas penetrated to the house next door, and two youths sixteen, lving there, twins aged showed signs of being overcome.

They recovered later.

A neighbour, Mr. W. J. Horris, forced a window and saw

lying dead on the couch.

He called the police.

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