THE WORST AND HORRIBLE EXECUTION OF DAVID BENNETT FOR THE RAPE AND MURDER OF A FOUR YEARS OLD GIRL...

THE WORST AND HORRIBLE EXECUTION OF DAVID BENNETT FOR THE RAPE AND MURDER OF A FOUR YEARS OLD GIRL...

David Bennett - released early to rape again

A four-year-old girl accompanied by her six-year-old brother, was returning to their home at North Carlton in Australia on Sunday, the 3rd of July 1932, when she was enticed into an empty house by 59-year-old carpenter, David Bennett, in Drummond Street. 

Bennett raped the little girl and was immediately apprehended after he left the house and handed over to the police. The girl was found by her mother on the street and was taken to a hospital. Bennett war charged with rape, a capital offence, and stood trial at the Criminal Court in Melbourne, Australia.

 He was found guilty and sentenced to death on the 16th of August 1932. At his trial, Bennett admitted that he had received a sentence of life imprisonment, with nine lashes of the cat-o'nine-tails, for a similar offence against a girl, in Western Australia.  He served just four years in prison.

On Wednesday the 14th of September 1932 the State Executive Council confirmed the death sentence and set the date and time for the execution.

Bennett was hanged at The Metropolitan Gaol, Pentridge, Coburg, at 10:07 a.m. on the 26th of September 1932. He walked unaided to the gallows.  When asked by the Sheriff, Mr. J. B. Richards if he had anything to say, he made a statement which lasted seven minutes, the longest speech ever made by a condemned man in Victorian history, which contained no admission of guilt.  

Bennett weighed 141 lbs and was given a drop of 7’ 10” resulting in dislocation of the 2nd and 3rd cervical vertebrae and death was recorded as “instantaneous”.  The poor-quality photo shows the layout of the gallows at Pentridge.

This was the first hanging for rape in Victoria since 1891.