Wealth and fame seem very attractive but rich and famous people also go through many problems in their personal life, some famous people even commit crimes.
Such was the case with a former cricketer who, in a fit of rage, shot and killed his wife, after which he was sentenced to death.
This story is about former Jamaican fast bowler Leslie George Helton who played 6 Test matches for West Indies between 1935 and 1939.
Born on March 29, 1905, Hilton had a keen interest in cricket from childhood, but improved his performance in club cricket as a teenager and became a regular member of the Jamaica cricket team in 1927.
Although on several occasions Hilton was a strong candidate to be part of the West Indies cricket team but was overlooked for unknown reasons, he continued to toil and eventually made his debut against the English team that toured the West Indies in 1935. He was selected in the West Indian team.
On 8 January 1935, he made his Test debut against England and helped West Indies win the 4-match Test series.
He was then selected again for the tour of England in 1939 but was later dropped from the team due to being out of form, following which Hylton retired from first-class cricket.
In 1942 Hilton married Lorraine Rose, the daughter of a police inspector, and the couple had a son in 1947.
According to reports, in the early 1950s, Hilton’s wife went to fashion school in New York to become a fashion designer, where she met a young man, Roy Francis, and later began an alleged affair.
In 1954, when Hilton learned of his wife’s affair in an alleged letter, the two had an argument, the ex-cricketer became enraged, shot his wife dead, and was then arrested by the police.
Leslie maintained that the wife first tried to shoot him but the bullet misfired, the ex-cricketer fired in self-defence.
In late 1954, a jury reportedly found Hilton guilty, despite pleas for mercy, the judge sentenced the former West Indian cricketer to death, but after appeals and pleas, Hilton was hanged on 17 May 1955.
Leslie George Hylton is the only Test cricketer in the world to have been hanged.
Helton took 16 wickets and scored 70 runs in 6 Test matches for West Indies while he took 120 wickets in 40 first-class career matches.
