John Dand hanged at Manchester’s Strangeways Prison on this date in 1951 — because of spat over £3.

Dand and his victim, 72-year-old Walter Wyld, lived near one another in York. When Wyld was found stabbed to death with no sign of forced entry late the night of January 27, 1951, correspondence in his home indicated that he’d been expecting a visit from John Dand, the son of a former neighbor who owed him the sum in question. The equivalent present-day value of that sum is a bit under £100.

Dand had bloodstained trousers, a fake alibi, and no capacity to keep to a story under interrogation. It wasn’t long before he admitted the murder, which he then tried to un-admit. As the the Capital Punishment UK Facebook page notes,

Dand withdrew his confession and pleaded not guilty at his trial at Leeds before Mr. Justice Gorman on 23rd to the 26th of April. His defence was that he was not physically capable of killing Mr. Wyld, who although much older, was a very fit ex Rugby League player. Unsurprisingly the jury were not impressed with this argument as Dand was 5′ 9″ tall and of average build.

The hanging was carried out by Albert Pierrepoint and Harry Allen. Prisoner 10117, Dand, weighed 147 lbs. and was given a drop of 7′ 7″. The LPC4 form records that there were no physical peculiarities that would affect the drop, but that it was given at the “discretion of the executioner”.

On this day..

• 1441: Henrik Reventlow
• 1941: Pittsburgh Phil
• Feast Day of Saint Eskil
• 1741: John Hughson, Sarah Hughson and Peggy Kerry, "so abandoned to confederate with Slaves"
• 1896: Chiefs Kahimemua and Nicodemus, Mbanderu rebels
• 1535: Elisabeth Wandscherer, wife of Jan van Leiden
• 1863: John P. Wood, of the Army of the Potomac
• 1857: Return Ward, dismemberer
• 1903: Ora Copenhaver and William Jackson, a double hanging
• 1956: Juan Jose Valle, Peronist putschist
• 1987: Jimmy Glass, electrocution appellant
• 1937: Mikhail Tukhachevsky and seven other Soviet commanders purged