Jean Lee
Shortly after 8 a.m on 19 February 1951, Jean Lee, an attractive,
red-haired,
31-year-old woman was hanged at Melbourne's (Australia)
Pentridge
Prison. She had been sedated and was held upright on a chair
before
being plunged to her death. Jean Lee was the last woman hanged in
Australia
and the only one to hang this century. She and her lover had been
found
guilty of the murder of 73-year-old SP bookmaker Pop Kent
at Carlton in 1949.
Post-war
Australia. Rebuilding the nation was of paramount
concern
and it was the shiny, wholesome image of the Australian
wife
and mother that would nurture this new, booming family
ethic.
Enter Jean Lee, husbandless and supporting herself and
her
child through work and lovers, eventually spiralling into
prostitution
and petty crime. Subverting every code in the
conservative
post-war female identity, Jean Less did not fit the
mould.
The
last woman executed in this country went to the gallows despite
severe
doubts about what part she played in the murder, the highly
questionable
police interrogation procedures of the time, and the
controversial
High Court and Privy Council decisions. In addition, the
hanging
was politically expedient for the residing state government.
Undoubtedly,
however, Jean Lee died as a warning to other women of the
perilous
consequences of deviating from the socially approved path of
femininity.
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