The Axeman's Accomplice. the True Story of Margaret Reardon and the Snow Family Murders by Terry Carson

Author:Terry Carson [Carson, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: New Zealand History
Publisher: Terry Carson
Published: 2018-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

A Long Night

At 11.15pm on the 16th June 1848 an unlikely meeting was taking place between three men in the small colonial township of Auckland. Sitting at a table in a room at Auckland gaol was the Reverend John Churton, Minister of St Pauls — Auckland’s first Anglican Church, and beside him was Percival Berrey, Sheriff of the Supreme Court at Auckland and one of the first Justices of the Peace to be appointed in the town. Across the table was Joseph Burns, the fledgling colony’s most notorious criminal who had just been told his final appeal for clemency had been turned down by Governor George Grey. Burns was due to hang the next day. New Zealand legal history was about to be made. He would shortly become the first European to be judicially executed in New Zealand.

It was unlikely that any of the three men were thinking of their role in history late that night. Churton, the God-fearing minister, whose role as colonial chaplain meant that he administered to the colony’s prisoners, would have been concerned about the soul of his charge, hoping he would show signs of repentance for his foul crimes and seek Christian forgiveness for his actions. Sheriff Berrey would have been keeping a close eye on his prisoner as it was his legal function to take Burns to the place of execution and ensure the sentence of the Supreme Court was carried out. As he listened to Reverend Churton pleading with Burns to acknowledge God, his mind was probably running over all the arrangements he had made for the following day and hoping that nothing would go wrong. Burns’ execution was to take place in public on the foreshore at Flagstaff near the remains of the house of his Snow family victims. A large crowd was expected to turn out to see Burns and watch him meet his end, and Berrey no doubt hoped the execution would be clean and swift. The sheriff had arranged the horse and cart to take Burns to a boat at Official Bay. He had hired the crew of a naval longboat to row the party to the execution site. (Is there something ironic in the fact that an ex-sailor who had murdered a naval officer was to be rowed to his death by serving sailors?) The scaffold had been constructed and the hangman arranged. There would be a strong turnout of police and troops to make sure order was maintained. According to an invoice held at Archives New Zealand, Sheriff Berrey expended £52-12s-6d in carrying out his duties.

As for Burns, who knows what he was thinking? During his time in custody his mood had frequently swung between protestations of innocence, angry outbursts and a state of almost euphoria which suggested mental illness. At times he had accepted the administrations of the Reverends Churton and Buddle and prayed with them, and at other times he had abused and rejected the ministers.

An article in the New Zealander provides one version

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