Case 7: Walter James Bolton (DEATH PENALTY – PART III)

True Crime New Zealand (NZ)

WANGANUI, MANAWATU. On the 18th of February 1957, the eighty fifth, and last person was executed in NZ. A man, a farmer from the district of Wanganui in the Manawatu. One newspaper described the events that unfolded. On the scaffold, a rope was placed around his neck. When the trap door snapped open beneath him. He dropped, surviving the fall. Sickening the small audience of reporters, clergy and prison warders, many vomited. The man continued to hang, writhing while he slowly strangled to death.

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