The Man Who Cheated The Hangman

JACKSON FOR TRIAL.

Business manager Leonard Charles Jackson (48), of Hannan Street, Kalgoorlie, was in Perth Courthouse yesterday committed for trial on a charge of wilful murder. After a three-day inquest into the death of Stella Ivy Farnworth (53), Coroner F. E. A. Bateman said that there was sufficient evidence to support a finding that she was wilfully murdered by Jackson. When Jackson was called by the police as a witness he said that he did not wish to give evidence at that stage. Counsel A. G. Smith said that Jackson had an absolute defence to the charge. Mr Bateman also remanded Jackson for eight days on a charge of perjury relating to other proceedings at Kalgoorlie. The body of Stella Ivy Farnworth, also known as Sadie Farnworth, of Alexandra Hotel, Hay Street, Perth, was found in the Swan River at Como on December 16. It was weighted with a concrete slab and she had extensive head injuries.

Perth Murder Charge
Concrete Slab In Court As Exhibit

Stella ‘Sadie’ Ivy Farnworth,

PERTH “It is ridiculous. I don’t even know the woman.” This statement, according to police evidence, was made by Leonard Charles Jackson, 46, business manager, of Kalgoorlie, who was arrested on a charge of wilfully murdering Stella ‘Sadie’ Ivy Farnsworth, 65, whose body was found floating in Swan River near Como Jetty on December 16.

One of the exhibits when the trial was continued yesterday was a large heavy concrete slab, identified as having been attached to the body when found in the river. It was tied to the body by lengths of wire which appeared to have been tied by a left-handed person. Detective Blight said that Jackson admitted to him that he was left-handed, but used his right hand for writing. Detective Richards said that in a test Jackson wrote slowly and deliberately when using his right hand. He said he had counted 17 blood splashes in a motor vehicle alleged to have been used by the accused in addition to large stains on a carpet that appeared to be blood. The deceased’s head injuries were extensive. There were marks on the car suggesting that a person had been dragged from it.

Dr Kingsbury, the Government pathologist, gave evidence that tests applied to the stains on the man’s clothing and the interior of the car gave blood reactions.

SPEECH FROM DOCK IN WA MURDER CASE

PERTH – Kalgoorlie businessman, Leonard Charles Jackson who was charged with the murder of Stella Ivy Farnworth. whose body was found tied to a concrete slab in the Swan River on December 16, made a statement from the dock in his defence at the trial today.
He said he first met. Mrs Farnsworth at Easter last year, when she answered his advertisement, about, the sale of his shop in Kalgoorlie. In June, he wrote to Mrs Farnworth regarding an option he had acquired over the Broken Hill Hotel in Boulder. Mrs Farnworth left for Kalgoorlie a few days later. He saw Mrs Farnworth in Perth on about November 16. They went to several agencies, but no hotels were available. A few days later, he left for Kalgoorlie. On November 22. he said, he received a telegram from Mrs Farnworth asking him to go to Perth early in December. He arrived In Perth the first week in December and was told by Mrs Farnworth about the South-West Hotel. On December 10 he hired a car and after doing some business he returned to the Globe Hotel, where he met Mrs Farnworth and another woman.

The Accused did not enter the witness box and testify on oath. He contented himself with an unsworn statement from the dock. Jackson stated that Mrs Farnworth, who was living with a man to whom she was not married, under the names of Mr and Mrs King, in a Perth hotel, had an argument with King at the hotel. King hit Mrs Farnworth and she fell to the floor, and following the struggle Jackson walked downstairs and out to his car. Mrs Farnworth called down after him

“Wait a minute. I am not stopping here.”

King then hit her again, said the accused, and she fell from the hotel balcony to the roadway, within a yard of Jackson’s car, on her head. Jackson told King to take her to the hospital and to return the hire car, but the car was not returned. That was the last he saw of Mrs Farnworth.

Funny Whininy Noises Came From Jackson’s Bed

Leonard Charles Jackson

While a warder sat outside the grille door of the condemned cell, his eyes glued on the apparently sleeping form of the prisoner who was to hang next Monday, Leonard Charles Jackson hacked at his neck with a razor blade, bored 2 inches into the wound with a razor-sharp kitchen knife, and worked it round to coax the blood from severed veins until his life ebbed away.

And all the time he took to perform this grisly operation to cheat the hangman he was apparently motionless. Apart from a few whining noises not unfamiliar to a person in a disturbed sleep. Jackson was silent as he wrote with his life’s blood the grim epilogue to one of the ghastliest chapters in the State’s criminal history. The Findings This was the story unfolded in Fremantle Gaol yesterday afternoon, when, for 2 hours, City Coroner R. P. Rodriguez heard evidence relating to the death of the flayer of Stella Ivy Farnworth, whose battered and weighted body was recovered from the Swan River.

Coroner Rodriguez found that Jackson took his own life by inflicting, with either a knife or a razor blade, a wound in his neck involving his jugular vein. He died from the subsequent haemorrhage. But the coroner could not say how Jackson came by the bloodstained razor blade or the keenly sharpened kitchen knife, with its crude cloth handle, which were tendered as exhibits. About 3.30 p.m. on Wednesday Jackson commenced to write. He continued, with breaks, to about 11 p.m. At midnight, warder George Raymond Seeber took up his post outside the condemned cell. Five minutes later Jackson uttered his last words when he asked if there was anything in the papers that night about his case.

Apparently Asleep At 12.25 principal warder George Richard Truslove and Seeber looked in the cell to see Jackson lying apparently asleep on his left side, the blankets pulled up to his chin. Ten minutes later, warder Kevin Duncan Clark took over from Seeber for a few minutes. Clark remarked on Seeber’s return that Jackson was apparently dreaming as he was making funny whining noises. Again at 1.35 a.m. Truslove and Seeber looked at Jackson, who appeared all right. That was the state of affairs at 2 a.m. when Clark took over the post from Seeber. But 20 minutes later Clark beckoned Seeber and said he didn’t like the look of the prisoner’s complexion. They listened for breathing but it was blowing hard outside and doors were rattling. Soon after Truslove came along, banged on the door and called out to Jackson, who didn’t move. Truslove went to notify the chief warder and returned with Principal Warder Shaw. They entered the cell while Clark stood ready with Truslove’s revolver.

They removed the blankets and saw that Jackson’s clothes and the mattress were soaked in blood. They lifted his head and saw the wound in the neck. Jackson’s left hand was up to his neck, his right arm across his chest. Fremantle surgeon, Dr. A. R. Bean, who examined Jackson several times during his 5 weeks in the gaol, found a wound an inch and a quarter long in the left side of the neck when he arrived on the scene. It was his view that Jackson had made at least 3 slashes to open the skin and then dug the knife in 2 inches to penetrate the jugular vein. Incision had severed various veins but missed the main arteries, which would mean that Jackson could have lingered half an hour.

Irwin Index 19 April 1947, page 3

In a letter that appears in this afternoon’s edition of “The Daily News” Jackson professes his innocence of the crime of which he was convicted and for which he was to have been hanged on Monday next. In a letter forwarding the communication from her husband, Mrs M. A. Jackson wrote as follows to the editor of “The Daily News” – ‘Enclosed herewith is a copy of a letter which I have received from my husband and which lie desires to be published as his last letter to myself.” The enclosure was as follows:—

“In my position I have nothing to fear and nothing to gain in telling you lies. I did not kill or injure Mrs Farnworth in any way. Please God let that truth order your present decision. That is my dying prayer to you. Please, dear, do not think any evil of what you might hear. It is your humiliation I want to mitigate in all matters. Am closing this letter in imagination I am with you. When the time comes your image will go with me into eternity. May God forever bless you my dear darling for what I have caused you to suffer.

With love -forever yours— Len

Stella Ivy “Sadie” Farnworth (previously Wilton, nee King)  – was born in London, England in about 1895. In about 1912 or 1918 she had a son named Albert. In 1918 – 1919 she met Einer Fridolph Harry WILTON who she married on the 11th of February 1919. Einer was in England with the Australian Imperial Force, serving in WW1. Stella, Albert (aged 1 or maybe 7) and Einer all travelled to Australia in April 1919 on the “Hororata” troop transport ship.

On August 24 1941 Einer (known as Harry) died in a motorcycle accident in Kalgoorlie where he is buried in the Kalgoorlie Cemetery. Sadie was remarried to William Farnworth on February 4th 1946 at Kalgoorlie St Andrews Anglican Church. (William also diedn in Kalgoorlie in 1966). Sadie reportedly owned a brothel in Fremantle WA and she travelled regularly between Kalgoorlie and Fremantle. In December of 1946, she was living with Robert Alfred Hobson at the Alexandra Hostel on Hay Street, near the corner of Milligan Street in Perth.

On the 16th of December 1946, Sadie’s body was found, bound to a cement slab in the Swan River, just off the Como Jetty, 10 minutes from the Alexandra Hostel. On the 19th of December 1946, Leonard Charles Jackson was arrested and charged with Sadie’s murder. On the 19th of February 1947, Jackson was found guilty of murdering Sadie and was sentenced to death by hanging on April 21st 1947 at 8am. He would have been the last person to be put to death in Australia, but he took his own life on April 17th 1946 in his cell at the Fremantle Gaol four days before he was to be hung.

Stella Ivy Farnsworth’s grave in the Karrakatta Cemetery Perth – Photo Find a Grave