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Richard SharplesMajor Sir Richard C. Sharples, MC, OBE (1916—March 10, 1973, St. George, Bermuda) was a British politician and Governor of Bermuda from late 1972 to March 10, 1973 when he was shot dead by an assassin. Sharples married Pamela in 1946; they had two sons and two daughters. The family greatly enjoyed yachting and this was the basis of a close friendship with Edward Heath, later prime minister. Sharples was elected Conservative Member of Parliament for Sutton and Cheam. After the 1970 general election, he served as Minister of State at the Home Office, before resigning his seat in 1972 to take up the position of Governor of Bermuda. Sharples was killed along with his aide-de-camp, Hugh Sayers and his beloved Great Dane, Horsa. He was shot from a wooded area on the property as he fixed a lightbulb outside the mansion's kitchen. The lightbulb had been loosened by the assassin. Sharples was buried in the graveyard at St. Peter's Church in St. George. His widow was subsequently made a life peer as Baroness Sharples. The assassins Erskine Durrant "Buck" Burrows, a petty criminal, according to The Bermuda Sun, confessed to shooting and killing Sir Richard, Capt. Sayers, and Horsa. He was also found guilty of murdering the police commissioner, George Duckett, six months earlier on September 9, 1972. He was also convicted of killing the co-owner and bookkeeper of a supermarket called the Shopping Centre, Victor Rego and Mark Doe in April 1973. Larry Tacklyn was acquitted of assassinating Sharples and Sayers but was convicted of the Shopping Centre killings. The pair were hung on December 2, 1977. Three days of rioting followed, with the Government inviting the British Government to send troops to quell the rioters. It later got a bill for $2 million. In his confession Burrows wrote: The motive for killing the Governor was to seek to make the people, black people in particular, become aware of the evilness and wickedness of the colonialist system in this island. Secondly, the motive was to show that these colonialists were just ordinary people like ourselves who eat, sleep and die just like anybody else and that we need not stand in fear and awe of them. Tacklyns was a different story. He didnt want to die. According to The Bermuda Sun source, he always thought hed get a last minute reprieve. The murderers stewed in prison for yet another year before they went to the gallows; Tacklyn passed the time playing table tennis while Burrows took a virtual vow of silence, communicating his thoughts and requests on scraps of paper. External links Sharples, Richard Sharples, Richard Sharples, Richard Sharples, Richard Sharples, Richard
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