William Smiley (or Smylie) was hanged to death for the Armoy murders.
Sisters Margaret and Sarah Macauley were spinsters, aged 48 and 43 respectively, who lived on the family farm at Mullaghduffbeg near Armoy in Co. Antrim with their brothers, Andrew and Leslie. On the afternoon of Thursday the 24th of May 1928, both sisters were murdered in the farmhouse kitchen, by shotgun blasts to the head fired at close range.
The farm employed two labourers, 33 year old William Smiley and Thomas McCaughan, plus a maid servant, Kate Murdoch. All three went to the farmhouse for lunch at around 12.50 p.m. Sarah Macauley took lunch out to her brothers who were repairing fences, leaving Margaret alone in the house.
After lunch Kate Murdoch returned to her duties and at about 2 p.m. heard a shot ring out. She was not alarmed by this as it was not an uncommon sound in the countryside. She returned to the farmhouse about an hour later to find the Macauley sisters dead.
She ran for help and the first person she met was Smiley, whom she sent to fetch the police.
The officers searched the crime scene and discovered that the cash box that Andrew kept had been emptied of some £30 plus some coins and Andrew Macaulay’s watch and chain.
Suspicion fell on Smiley and when he was searched it was found that he had three ten pound notes in the toe of his right boot. When he had arrived at the police station, he told Sergeant Connolly that the sisters had been murdered and the house raided. At that point nobody knew that anything had been stolen. The murder weapon was the farm shotgun that was normally hanging on the kitchen wall. Smiley later admitted to stealing the money but denied murder.
Smiley was tried at the Co. Antrim Assizes in Belfast before the Lord Chief Justice, Sir William Moore, on the 10th of July 1928 on the charge of murdering Margaret, with Sarah’s murder being left on file, as was normal practice in multiple murder cases. Smiley maintained that he was innocent of the murders and claimed that he had accompanied Leslie Macauley back to the house and had found the money. Leslie testified that nobody had been allowed into the house after the murders had been discovered so as not to disturb the crime scene until the police arrived.
In his summing up Sir William noted that no strangers had been seen in the vicinity of the farmhouse on that Thursday. It took the jury just a quarter of an hour to find Smiley guilty. After sentencing he was led back through the tunnel under Crumlin Road to the prison. When he was informed that there would be no reprieve, he made a full written confession.
He was hanged in Crumlin Road prison at 8.00 a.m. on Wednesday the 8th of August 1928 by Thomas Pierrepoint, assisted by Robert Baxter. A crowd, estimated at 200 waited outside the main gate to see the notices of execution posted.
The inquest was held before coroner Dr. Graham, at 10.00 a.m. Dr. O’Flaherty, the prison doctor, testified that death had been instantaneous.
Note the bookshelf that was slid aside to reveal the entrance to the gallows room.
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