muirkirk in the hills of ayrshire - from the muirkirk enterprise group

   

Thomas Bone Jr 1880-1912
Glenbuck Murderer

7
THE GLENBUCK MURDER
On 2nd April, 1908, Thomas Bone, Jun. (aged 28 years),
locally known as "The Dew," was taken in to custody and
charged with the murder of his wife (aged 19 years). Bone
was tried at Glasgow High Court in May of the same year,
when he was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged at Ayr
Prison on 29th May. On the eve of the execution day Bone
was reprieved by the Secretary of State for Scotland, and had
his capital sentence commuted to one of penal servitude for
life. (See Page 23).

The curtain has finally been rung down on the grim tragedy which was enacted on a Glenbuck byway in the spring of 1908, by the suicide of the culprit in Perth Prison on 13th November, 1912, Thomas Bone, Jr., was sentenced to death in the High Court held in Glasgow for the murder of his wife at Glenbuck, but a respite was granted on the eve of the day set aside for his execution. Bone was undergoing confinement during His Majesty's pleasure in Perth Penitentiary, and, it appears, had been giving considerable trouble to the wardens for some time, latterly being regarded as a dangerous lunatic. Although closely watched, he took advantage of the 15 minutes' absence of the warder, and committed suicide in his quarters by hanging himself with a bedsheet, which he tied tightly round his neck and attached to a peg in the wall. It is understood that the body was still warm when the warder returned, but life was extinct.