July 1955, the day before her execution, Mishcon and Simmons saw Ruth, who wanted to make her will. When they pressed Ellis for the full story, she asked them to promise not to use what she said to try to secure a reprieve; Mishcon refused. Ruth divulged that Cussen had given her the gun and taught her how to use it on the weekend prior to the murder. She also revealed that Cussen had also driven her to the murder scene. Following a two-hour interview, Mishcon and Simmons went to the Home Office; the Permanent Secretary, Sir Frank Newsam, was summoned back to London and ordered the head of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to check the story. Lloyd George later said that the police were able to make considerable enquiries but that it made no difference to his decision, and in fact, made Ruth's guilt greater showing the murder was premeditated. He also said that the injury to the bystander was decisive in his decision: "We cannot have people shooting off firearms in the street!" In a final letter to Blakely's parents from her prison cell, Ruth wrote, "I have always loved your son, and I shall die still loving him." Execution The Bishop of Stepney, Joost de Blank, visited Ruth prior to her execution. Just before 9 am on 13 July, the hangman Albert Pierrepoint and his assistant entered her cell, and took her to the adjacent execution room where she was hanged. As was customary in British executions, Ruth was buried in an unmarked grave within the walls of Holloway Prison. In the early 1970s, the remains of executed women were exhumed for reburial elsewhere; in Ellis's case, directed by her next of kin, son Andy, her remains were reburied in the churchyard of St Mary's Church in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, some from where Blakely was buried. Her headstone was inscribed "Ruth Hornby 1926–1955". Andy destroyed the headstone shortly before he committed suicide in 1982. Public reaction and legacy Ruth's case caused widespread controversy at the time, evoking exceptionally intense press and public interest to the point that it was discussed by the Cabinet. Then-Prime Minister Anthony Eden made no reference to the case in his memoirs, nor is there any mention in his papers. He accepted that the decision was the responsibility of the Home Secretary, but there are indications that he was troubled by it. A petition