Walter James Bolton becomes the last person legally executed in New Zealand.

Walter James Bolton

New Zealand farmer and murderer (1888–1957)

Walter James Bolton was a New Zealand farmer who was found guilty of poisoning his wife. He is known as the last person to be executed in New Zealand before the abolition of capital punishment.

Capital punishment in New Zealand

Capital punishment – the process of sentencing convicted offenders to death for the most serious crimes and carrying out that sentence, as ordered by a legal system – first appeared in New Zealand in a codified form when New Zealand became a British colony in 1840. It was first…