BRITISH SLAYER TO DIE OCT. 16: EVENING STAR, OCTOBER 8, 1946

Forty-five words in a column of foreign briefs were all the Evening Star in Washington gave him. On October 7, 1946, the Home Office in London announced that Neville George Clevely Heath, the "former RAF flyer and convicted sadist slayer of Margery Gardner," would be executed at Pentonville Prison on October 16. The Associated Press sent the item out under a London dateline the next day, and the Star printed it that same day with his first two names turned around, as "George Neville Heath," the form in which his name had reached the American wires.

Margery Gardner died at the Pembridge Court Hotel in Notting Hill Gate on the night of June 20, 1946. She had been bound at the wrists and ankles, beaten with a whip whose tip was metal, and suffocated. The brief calls her a London film extra and says nothing more about her. Heath had stayed at the Pembridge Court as Lieutenant-Colonel Heath, one of the borrowed ranks and borrowed names he used to get into hotel rooms. On July 6, at Bournemouth, a police officer recognized him as the man wanted over Gardner, and a left-luggage receipt in his coat led to the whip.

The trial at the Old Bailey opened on September 24 and turned on whether he was insane. His counsel called a psychiatrist who said Heath had known what he was doing but not that it was wrong; two prison doctors told the court he was a psychopath and a sexual sadist, and not insane. The jury took about an hour, and Heath did not appeal. He seems to have preferred the rope to Broadmoor. On October 16, as the Home Office had said, Albert Pierrepoint hanged him at Pentonville. Offered the customary glass of whisky beforehand, he asked for a double.

A wire brief like this reports a date and a name and nothing else; it is not an account of the trial or the evidence. It names the one murder Heath was convicted of. He had also been charged with killing Doreen Marshall, twenty-one, at Branksome Chine near Bournemouth on July 3, 1946, but the prosecution chose to try the Gardner case, and after his conviction the Marshall count was not proceeded with. Some later accounts say he was convicted of both murders; he was not. He is usually named Neville George Clevely Heath, not George Neville Heath as the paper has it.

Dated October 8, 1946, this page of the Evening Star is regarded by the Library of Congress as public domain, with the Library's standing caution that issues under ninety-five years old may include some copyrighted third-party material. Nothing about this Associated Press item marks it as separately copyrighted. The scan comes from the Library's Chronicling America collection, and its citation and rights statement are printed under it.

At forty-five words the item fits in one paragraph, and the clean, heavy type gave up every one of them without difficulty, so there are no illegible marks. The transcription keeps the paper's reversed name, "George Neville Heath," its "RAF flyer" and the credit "(AP)." Nothing is cut off and nothing continues elsewhere: the item begins and ends between two rules.

Scan of a short item in column 4 on page 3 of the Evening Star, Washington, D.C., October 8, 1946, headed "British Slayer to Die Oct. 16": a single paragraph under a London Associated Press dateline, set between rules in a column of short foreign news. No photograph. — Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), October 8, 1946, page 3, column 4: "British Slayer to Die Oct. 16." Library of Congress, Chronicling America (LCCN sn83045462).Select the scan to open it at full size. The full newspaper page: JPG or PDF.Rights: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety." This issue was published in 1946. Because it is less than 95 years old, the Library of Congress notes that issues like it may contain some copyrighted third-party material.

Transcription

Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.

British Slayer to Die Oct. 16

LONDON, Oct. 8 (AP). — George Neville Heath, former RAF flyer and convicted sadist slayer of Margery Gardner, London film extra, will be executed at Pentonville Prison October 16, the Home Office announced yesterday.

Transcriber's notes

- Readability: excellent. Clean, heavy type. No [illegible] markers were needed.

- Kept as printed: the name order "George Neville Heath" (he is usually given as Neville George Clevely Heath, which is how SKC files him), "RAF flyer", and the Associated Press credit as "(AP)".

- This is a 45-word single-paragraph item with its own small headline, set between rules in a column of short foreign news. It reports the fixing of the execution date; Heath was hanged at Pentonville on 16 October 1946, and was convicted of the murder of Margery Gardner and suspected of that of Doreen Marshall.