SMITH, BATH BRIDE SLAYER, IS HANGED: GRAND FORKS DAILY HERALD, AUGUST 14, 1915

The cable from London was a day old when the Grand Forks Daily Herald set it in type on August 14, 1915: George Joseph Smith, "the wife murderer," had been hanged the day before at Maidstone. On the North Dakota prairie, readers learned that he shook his head impatiently on the scaffold when asked whether he had anything to say, that the cap was adjusted and the trap sprung, and that eight minutes later the "modern Bluebeard" was pronounced dead. Above the scaffold scene ran a rumor that he had confessed before he was led out and laid bare to Scotland Yard "the whole of an amazing career of crime."

The second half of the column turns to the women. Each had married him, and each was found, in the paper's words, "nude and drowned in their bath." It names them in the order they died: Beatrice Mundy, Alice Burnham, and Margaret Lofty, a clergyman's daughter who married him under the name John Lloyd in November 1914. Money, the paper says, was the motive shown at trial, and it puts his takings at $14,000. Behind those three names lie three bathrooms, at Herne Bay, Blackpool and Highgate, and three inquests that had each found an accident or a fit, until a Blackpool boarding-house keeper and a grieving father noticed that two of the deaths were the same.

The column ends in the courtroom at the Old Bailey, with Smith on his feet in a crowded courtroom, shrieking "Not guilty, not guilty! It's all a lie!" The paper's last look at him is a sketch: 43 years old, "a tall, thin man, with shifting eyes." Nothing in the report backs up the confession it rumors. Smith had denied the one Inspector Arthur Neil said he made after his arrest, and on the scaffold, by this account, he gave no answer at all. The executioner was John Ellis.

A cable from London reprinted the next day, this report gets the heart of the case wrong. Smith was not convicted of three murders: English law let him be tried for one death only, and the Crown chose Bessie Mundy's; the deaths of Alice Burnham and Margaret Lofty went before the jury as evidence of a system, and the appeal court upheld that. The paper calls her Beatrice and dates the marriage to July 1912, the month she died; she married him as Henry Williams in 1910. It puts the sentence on July 31, when he was convicted and sentenced on July 1, and its "Trial Lasted Month" covers a trial that opened on June 22 and ran nine days. The $14,000 and the confession are the paper's claims.

More than ninety-five years have passed since this issue of the Grand Forks Daily Herald came off the press, so the page is in the public domain with no condition attached. The image is the Library of Congress scan from Chronicling America; the citation and the Library's rights statement are printed under it.

The heavy, clean type left nothing to mark illegible, and the transcription follows the scan word for word. The paper's own forms are kept: "Beatrice Mundy," "rumored," "courtroom," and the dollar figure, printed with no sterling sum beside it. The report runs down one column and finishes at the foot of the next, under the sub-heading "Trial Lasted Month." and below two advertisements; both parts are given in reading order, and the advertisements between them are not part of the article.

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.

SMITH, BATH BRIDE SLAYER, IS HANGED

London Murderer is Said to Have Confessed to Many Crimes.

London, Aug. 14.—George Joseph Smith, the wife murderer, was hanged yesterday at Maidstone.

It was rumored that Smith confessed before he was led to the gallows at Maidstone, and laid bare to Scotland Yard the whole of an amazing career of crime.

On the scaffold the doomed man shook his head impatiently when asked if he had anything to say. The cap was adjusted and the trap sprung. In exactly eight minutes the "modern Bluebeard" was pronounced dead.

Three Brides Found Dead.

Smith was tried in June and convicted of the murder of three wives, each of whom was found nude and drowned in their bath. The motive for his crimes was shown to be money, and it was claimed he had received $14,000 in this manner. The circumstances of each crime were almost identical. The three victims of Smith were:

Beatrice Mundy, whom he married in July, 1912; Alice Burnham, whom he married in November, 1913, and Margaret Lofty who was married to Smith under the name of John Lloyd in November, 1914.

Trial Lasted Month.

The trial at Old Bailey began in June, and Smith was convicted on July 1. He was sentenced on July 31 to be hanged yesterday. The trial was one of the most spectacular of recent years. Smith rose in a crowded courtroom and shrieked "Not guilty, not guilty! It's all a lie!" Smith is 43 years old, a tall, thin man, with shifting eyes.

Transcriber's notes

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

- Kept as printed: "Beatrice Mundy" (she is usually given as Bessie Mundy), "rumored", "courtroom", and the dollar figure "$14,000" (an American conversion of the sum Smith took, printed without a sterling equivalent).

- The paper dates the sentence to 31 July; Smith was sentenced on 1 July and hanged on 13 August 1915. Both dates are transcribed as printed.

- The report runs down column 5 and is continued, under the sub-heading "Trial Lasted Month.", at the foot of column 6 beneath two advertisements. Both parts are transcribed above in the order they read. The advertisements that sit between them in the crop are not part of the article.