confessed to the murders and claimed his innocence until his death. Durrant was granted a temporary reprieve in 1897. The execution was carried out on January 7, 1898, at San Quentin prison. Belated legal reappearance Twenty years after his execution, Durrant's name was resurrected as circumstantial evidence in a libel suit filed by his sister, Maud Allan. Allan and her producer had attempted to mount a little theatre production of Salome by Oscar Wilde in England. An aviator, politician, and publisher of a right-wing political newsletter, Noel Pemberton Billing, responded to the theatrical event by publishing an allegation in his newsletter that the production was meant to sap British military and spiritual values by introducing indecent ideas (i.e., homosexuality) into the public from Wilde's writings. Allan sued for criminal libel; and as evidence of character, Billing resurrected the Durrant scandal, a move that was not effectively suppressed by the court. In the end, Billing won acquittal. See also Alice Maud Hartley, interrupted services at Emmanuel Baptist Church with a claim she knew that Durrant was innocent. Notes References Hoare, Philip. Wilde's Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy & The First World War, Duckworth, 1997. . McConnell, Virginia. Sympathy for the Devil: The Emanuel Baptist Murders in Old San Francisco. . Further reading Lawman: The Life and Times of Harry Morse (1998) by John Boessenecker. External links Daily Bee News April 26, 1895 Crime Library By the neck: a book of hangings (Durrant hanging), August Mencken - Hastings House 1942 1871 births 1898 deaths 1895 murders in the United States 19th-century executions by the United States 19th-century executions of American people American people convicted of murder Canadian emigrants to the United States People convicted of murder by California People executed by California by hanging People executed for murder Canadian people convicted of murder Canadian people executed abroad Executed Canadian people Criminals of the San Francisco Bay Area People from Old Toronto