Singapore made drug dealing a capital offence in 1975 and that law has been widely publicised ever since. The first man to die under it was Teh Sin Tong, 28, a Malaysian labourer, who was hanged at dawn on Friday, April 28th, 1978, at Changi Prison. In the next decade 20 drug-dealers were hanged in
The lower deck situation on the Canadian Navy ship Naden at Victoria naval base in British Columbia wasnt exactly shipshape. Two sailors were sleeping together, and this at a time, in the summer of 1958, when gay sex was illegal in Canada and severely punishable under military law. Aaron Jenkins, 23, wanted to become a
The last woman to be publicly executed in Scotland screamed for mercy and fainted as she was dragged to the gallows to be hanged outside Dumfries Prison on Tuesday, April 29th, 1862. She was Mary Timney, 27, who beat to death her neighbour Ann Hannah, 40, because, she alleged, Miss Hannah had refused to lend
The younger members of the Stackpole family were brimming with jealous rage as one of their number, James, approached his 21st birthday. This would be the day when, under the terms of a dead relatives will, he would come into an allowance of £65 a year, a sum that would make him the richest of
Desperately poor and desperately worried about the future of his three young daughters, who were all under five, music teacher Edward Williams, 52, cut the childrens throats in their bedroom at his lodgings in Sydney and then went on the run. Several days later, on February 10th, 1924, he gave himself up. I did it
Some horses came along and frightened us. We panicked, and my little Louisa fell into the river and drowned. So claimed Mrs. Frances Kidder, 25, explaining the death of her stepdaughter Louisa Kidder-Staple, 12, at Cobbs Bridge, New Romney, in August 1867. She and Louisa, together with one of her own children, were on their
That was his name: just John. No one seemed to know if he had a surname, so they hanged him as John at Salisbury (now Harare) Prison on Thursday, April 2nd, 1959. John was the servant of Mrs. Lettie Digby-Ovens, 29, who was a celebrated fashion model. He stabbed her to death when she was
The radio in patrol car 12 on the south-west side of Vancouver rapped out: Investigate two suspect males prowling 1500 West Third Avenue. Patrolman Gordon Sinclair, alone in car 12, was closest to the incident only two blocks away, and was first on the scene. When the cover unit arrived only a few minutes later
When the Russian Army lost a staggering 125,000 men at the two battles of the Masurian Lakes during the First World War, the Ohkrana (secret police) were convinced there was a traitor in their midst. They identified him as Colonel Miasoyedoff, an interpreter who spoke German and had a criminal record for theft. In 1912
A squabble over money ended in murder in Sydenham, south-east London. It began when Richard Bishop, 21, a petty criminal and shopkeeper, started shouting at another man just before midnight on April 3rd, 1868. A neighbour, Alfred Cartwright, 24, complained about the noise which had woken him up and Bishop punched him. The police were