Grisly double murder in Wellington
HUNGER and desperation in depression-era Wellington led to a grisly double murder, the last in the city to be punished by hanging.
As the tide went out at Point Halswell on June 30, 1933, it uncovered a 4-year-old boy’s body with his head bashed in. Noel Smith’s corpse was found on the Miramar peninsula rocks by a man gathering mussels just after noon, but was not the last grisly discovery of the day.
At dinnertime police found the boy’s mother, Cecilia Smith, lying in bed with her throat cut in Ohiro Rd, Brooklyn.
Her murderer and fiance, George Edward James, had been rescued after trying to drown himself in Thorndon that afternoon. The 57-year-old engine driver left a suicide note to his adopted daughter, blaming her for the death of the woman he called ‘‘Badge’’.
‘‘Nancy you see what you have brought me to now. If you had only gave me and Badge a little sum out of the money to start us up in married life.
‘‘I love Badge and her boy and I am sorry to have come to an end like this but it is all through your selfish ways. Yours brokenhearted father G James.’’
He woke up in hospital two days later remembering nothing of the murders, and cried when told his bride-to-be and her son were dead.
James’ memory came back at his trial that spring. In January his first wife had died, and he met Smith a month later. The pair lived together in Ohiro Rd but not as ‘‘man and wife’’, as they were waiting to be married, The Evening Post reported.
James became sick and desperate when he learned his wife left her whole estate to Nancy, the girl they had adopted.
‘‘He was unable to get work, and he went without food because he did not want to take Mrs Smith’s pension money,’’ the Post said.
The morning Smith died, the couple argued about money and ended up wrestling over a table knife. An upstairs neighbour heard Smith’s dying words at 7.30am: ‘‘Oh George, go for the doctor, I am done.’’
Another neighbour saw James riding with Noel on his bicycle down Willis St an hour later. ‘‘The kiddy was laughing like anything.’’
A jury
reached
a
guilty
plea after six long hours on November 15 and James was hanged at Mt Crawford Prison on December 15, just up the hill from where Noel’s body was discovered.
James was the second-to-last of 17 people executed in Wellington’s history, and the last for a crime committed in the city. In June 1935, Charles William Price was hanged at Mt Crawford for killing his mistress in Napier.
The death penalty was outlawed by the first Labour government in 1935, but brought back by National in 1949.
Although executions remained legal until 1989, New Zealand’s last was carried out in Auckland in 1957. The Dominion Post – 150 Years of News is available via dompost.co.nz or 0800 50 50 90. Priced at $34.95 + $3 postage and handling or $29.95 + $3 p&h for subscribers.