PEACOCKE MURDER CASE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3372, 11 November 1911, Page 3

PEACOCKE MURDER CASE.

THE CONDEMNED MAN

From the dramatic hour of his arrest to the moment when he rose from his seat in the prison dock to hear the judge pronounce sentence of death. Dr Peacocke, convicted of the murder of Miss Davis, faced his trial with the firmness of a stoic. His impassive countenance scarcely ever reflected one emotion that might have been stirring within him. and it was not until the long trial ended, and he had re-entered the gaol a condemned man that he gave any normal sign that he was conscious of "the significance of what was going on around him. The heavy silence that had enshrouded him seemed to develop into a stupor when he stumbled down the steps of the dock after hearing the sentence, and the mood was upon him when the gaol was reached. Mechanically he stepped along the corridor that led ■:> the cell of the condemned. He sea, >ly seemed to comprehend the order to shed himself of fiis own clothes and to don the grey jacket and moleskin trousers of the prison garb, and the change in his position had to be impressed upon him. For the first time he was visibly affected. But soon he relapsed back into the mood of ruminative nonchalenee, and troubled not one white throughout the night and day the gaolers who stood in relays outside his meagre cell. He asked for nothing, although he was given the choice of many comforts. He said lie had never smoked nor drank, and his food had been of the simplest. They might leave him: he was content. He was left to his thoughts.