HANGING BY A THREAD

Extract from Murder & Mayhem Volume #3 - Gallows Cheats

Right up until the last moment, even as he mounted the steps to the gallows, he insisted his innocence. Someone else had murdered his employer, an elderly spinster, and his conviction was a nightmare mistake. But now it was all too late. Within a few minutes John Lee’s protestations would be cut off by death.

The Rev. John Pitkin, the prison chaplain, intoned the ritual prayers for Lee’s eternal soul. Lee’s arms were strapped to his side and a white hood was pulled down over his head and face. The hangman secured the noose around his neck, moved him to the centre of the trap, and pulled the lethal lever. Nothing happened. The executioner jerked the lever again and again. Still Lee stood waiting for death.

That was the first stage of the “miracle in triplicate” which was witnessed at Exeter, England, on February 23, 1885, a miracle which was to win Lee a very special place in the ranks of those who have escaped the gallows.

Lee, aged 19, had been condemned for the killing of Ellen Keyse, once a maid of honour to Queen Victoria, who had employed him as a footman. She was an austere and wealthy woman who insisted that her servants attended daily prayer sessions. During the night of November 14-15, 1884, she went down to the pantry, where she was found dead early next morning by one of the maids. Her head had been battered and her throat cut with a knife Lee had been using. Lee slept in a ground floor room adjoining the pantry.

The maid said she had been awakened by the smell of smoke and had found the body saturated in oil and surrounded by burning papers. All the evidence on which Lee was arrested, and eventually found guilty, was purely circumstantial. The prosecution suggested that his motive was anger over Miss Keyse’s meanness. His wage was four shillings a week, but she had...Read More