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for nearly five hours. He decided he had no future and should kill his father and
brother.

The 7th August was a fine day and Freeman rose early, opened a chest and took
out a butcher’s meat cleaver and a dagger. About 5.00 a.m. he tiptoed into his
brother’s room where George was sleeping heavily on his left side. Freeman hit
him five times with the back of the cleaver. George was mortally wounded and
very bloody. As his brother turned onto his back and moaned, Freeman took the
dagger and stabbed 7 times around the heart - George still moaned. Freeman
threw the cleaver out of the window and, feeling more victim than murderer,
went to his father’s room. He drew the bed curtains and shook the sleeping Sir
George with his bloody hands. ‘Father’ he said ‘I have killed my brother’. Sir
George tried to take it in. ‘What sayest thou? Hast thou, wretch, killed thy broth-
er? Then thou hadst best kill me too!’ ‘No sir’ said Freeman ‘I have done enough’,
to which his father replied ‘Why, then thou must look to be hanged.’

Servants were called and Freeman locked in his bedroom. Someone saddled a
horse and went to the Justice of the Peace. Father and son never met again. The
Assizes met in Maidstone, Freeman pleaded guilty and was thrown in the dungeon.

On August 21st Freeman Sondes mounted the scaffold and was hanged on Penen-
den Heath.

Introduction to the full
melodramatic account.
Published 1891in New
Zealand

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