On Saturday, Smith went as usual to the house, and when the company had left, and the old couple retired to rest, the servant sat with him by the kitchen fire. She had occasion to leave the kitchen a short time, and on her return she missed him. On hearing a noise, she ran upstairs, where to her great terror she found the drawers plundered and her master and mistress lying with their throats cut, and the blood gushing in torrents from the wounds. She immediately threw up a front window and gave the alarm, and the neighbours entering, no one being found in the house besides her, suspicion fell upon her, and from constancy to her lover, she permitted herself to be fully committed to trial. At the last Assizes she was arraigned, convicted and sentenced to be hung and dissected.
At the place of execution she addressed the numerous bystanders as follows: ‘Good People – You are now come to see the latter end of a poor unfortunate young woman, 19 years of age, who is brought to an ignominious death for murder; I say that there is a just God that sitteth in the judgment seat of Heaven, before whom I must shortly appear to answer for all my sins. I most solemnly declare before God and the world, that I am innocent of the murder as the child unborn.’ She burst into tears.
After this she prayed with the Minister and sung a penitential psalm; she went down upon her knees, and prayed that the Almighty would convince the multitude assembled of her innocence or guilty, by shewing the following miracles; that if she was guilty it might be one of the finest days that could come from heaven; but if she were innocent then the darkness might overspread the town during the time she was suspended. Her supplication reached the throne of grace for immediately on her being turned off, a dark thick cloud covered the country for many miles, attending with thunder, lightning and rain.
Smith, who was a spectator, stung with guilt and horror, rushed through the crowd exclaiming, ‘I AM THE MURDERER!’ and delivered himself into the hands of justice. He fully confessed his guilt, but declared that the deed was not premeditated, but he was struck with desire to gain their riches, and he intended to murder his sweetheart also. He is fully committed for trial at the next Assizes.
COPY OF VERSES:
Oh, you that hath not hearts of stone, Attend to what I say,
For Death has seal’d my early doom, and summon’d me away;
Alas! This dreadful fate of mine, that I should die in scorn,
Although as guiltless of the crime, as is the babe unborn.
To atone for blood I never shed, in midst of youth and bloom,
I to the fatal scaffold led, must meet a Murderer’s doom,
And while I stand exposed there, before the knot is tied,
My innocence I will declare, to all the world wide.
Farewell my aged Mother dear, your tender heart is broke,
Alas! You’ll never live, I fear, to bear this cruel stroke
What would your tender bosom feel, to see your darling child,
That she had nourish’d at her breast, brought to an end so vile.
Before my eyes are clos’d I pray, and Heav’n my prayers hear,
My innocence may be reveal’d and be as noon-day clear;
And bring the real hand to light, who did the horrid deed,
That all may know poor Mary White, was innocent indeed.
She met her ignominious death, resign’d to her hard fate,
But scarce had yielded up her breath, when awful to relate,
A man confess’d unto the crime, for which the maiden died,
And now in irons is confined, his Trial to abide.
Journalists of a US paper in the 1930s described how condemned prisoner Dovie Dean had stayed awake throughout the night prior to her execution rather than have her hair disarranged by lying on the pillows. Bonnie Brown Heady, awaiting execution in 1953 for kidnapping and murder, complained bitterly that as well as being unable to varnish her nails, she was not even allowed to set her hair the way she wanted.
Williams, Anne (England)
Another bossy woman, another meek man – and yet more poison. Called a ‘fiend’ by the Newgate Calendar, it went on to describe how, for the purpose of killing her husband, Anne arranged for their manservant to buy some white mercury, which she mixed with the gruel she intended to give him, thereby adding insult to injury, because she knew very well that he hated that particular food. Interestingly, Anne must have had some scientific knowledge, in that she knew what effect a liquid would have on the chemical she had just administered to him, for she then told him to get a glass of ale for her, and one for himself, the result being that he was immediately seized with appalling stomach cramps and vomiting. In his agonies he called her a wicked woman and exclaimed that he knew he was dying, but Anne was entirely unrepentant. It would certainly seem that the purchaser of the poison was rather more than merely a servant, for the Calendar stated that ‘she told the man, whom she meant afterwards to share her bed, that she had given her husband the stuff he had bought, and that it was operated purely’.
Despite medical aid, her husband’s prophecy was correct, for he died the following morning. Such a crime being impossible to conceal, Anne was put on trial and found guilty. And as killing one’s husband was not just murder, for which one was hanged, but was petit treason (killing the head of the family), on 13 April 1753 she was taken to the marketplace in Gloucester, where she was tied to the stake and burnt to ashes, the hundreds of spectators showing little pity for her fate.
Anne Williams Burning at the Stake
Margery Watson, a notorious scold who lived in Whitby, Yorkshire, was sentenced to be ducked by the constable – unless she publicly asked pardon of James Wilkinson’s wife in Whitby Church or at the Market Cross.
Wilson, Catherine (England)
A poison case again, but this time not arsenic or even white mercury! Catherine Wilson was the lady who administered it, and had ample opportunity, when, in 1853, she was employed as housekeeper to a Mr Peter Mawer, an elderly gentleman who lived in Boston, Lincolnshire. He suffered severely from gout, and when the pain became unbearable, she would give him his medicine, a remedy named colchicum, which was derived from the dried seeds of the autumn crocus. Catherine discovered that colchicum, if taken in small doses, brought relief, but was highly toxic if taken in large quantities. And when Mr Mawer showed his appreciation of her abilities as a personal nurse by promising to make her sole legatee in his will, she wasted no time in showing her appreciation by increasing the dosage!
In the October of the following year, poor Mr Mawer died. The doctor who had prescribed the colchicum decided that his patient must have been in so much pain that he had taken a larger dose than was safe, and the resultant verdict was one of accidental death. Catherine, shedding tears worthy of any crocodile, cashed in on the property and belongings due to her under the will, then headed for pastures new in London. There she joined the high-spending, heavy-drinking circuit, in one club happening to meet a man named Dixon, to whom she became so attached that together they moved into an apartment at 27 Alfred Place, Bedford Square, just off Tottenham Court Road.
They introduced themselves to Mrs Soames, the landlady, as Mr and Mrs Wilson, and continued to enjoy the London nightlife, but Dixon started to reveal his true colours, savagely beating Catherine when drunk. She, however, had an antidote for such behaviour, and gave him a large dose of the colchicum in her possession. The result was that he started to feel unwell, very unwell, in fact. Their landlady sympathised, especially when Catherine explained that her ‘husband’ had had attacks like that for years and, in fact, was not expected to live for much longer. Nor did he. The local physician, Dr Whitburn, when asked to sign the death certificate, demurred on the grounds that he was not their usual physician, and, despite the widow’s tearful plea not to cut her dear husband up ‘because he had always been horrified at the thought of his body being mutilated’, he stipulated that a post-mortem should be performed. But Catherine got away with it, nothing suspicious being discovered, and the death certificate was accordingly s
igned.
Mrs Soames proved such a comfort to the grieving widow that they became close friends, but little did the landlady realise that she was to be the next victim of a cold-blooded serial killer. Before twelve months had passed, Catherine opened her little box containing colchicum again, and ill health unaccountably overtook Mrs Soames.
Catherine then assumed her role as nurse, mixed more of her special brand of medicine, and five days afterwards her patient died. Dr Whitburn attended again and another post-mortem took place. Death by natural causes being assumed, another death certificate was issued. Catherine must have felt intoxicated with power as it became obvious to her that there was obviously nothing to prevent her from doing it again – and again.
Soon afterwards, in 1860, while shopping in London, she made the acquaintance of a Mrs Atkinson, and while in her company, Catherine sympathised with her new friend for losing her purse, an item which she herself had managed to acquire. Some weeks later Mrs Atkinson wrote to her from the millinery shop she and her husband owned, in Kirkby Lonsdale, Cumberland (now Cumbria), to say that she was coming to London again to purchase a large amount of stock for the shop. The prospect of increasing her bank balance was not to be missed, so Catherine promptly suggested that her friend should come and stay with her. Mrs Atkinson was delighted to renew her friendship with Catherine, so joined her at her house in Loughborough Road, Brixton. Mr Atkinson was of course only too pleased that his wife would have company whilst going round the wholesale dealers, but his shocked reaction can only be imagined when he received a telegram informing him that his wife was seriously ill and that he should come at once. By the time he arrived, his wife was already dead.
Catherine had already realised that any local doctor, having no knowledge of Mrs Atkinson’s medical history, would refuse to issue a death certificate, so she prepared for that eventuality by telling the devastated husband that on her deathbed his wife had implored her not to let anyone cut up her body. Accordingly, Mr Atkinson refused to give the doctor his permission. And when he later enquired about the hundreds of pounds that Mrs Atkinson had brought with her to buy the new stock, Catherine expressed her surprise that his wife had not written and told him that en route to London she had felt unwell, left the train at Rugby and, while resting in the waiting room there, the money had been stolen. As for the diamond ring Catherine was wearing, well, that had been given to her by his wife for looking after her.
It will never be known just how many more women fell victim to Catherine’s deadly poison, but the end came in February 1862, nine years after her first murder. She had obtained the post of nurse to an elderly and frail lady, Mrs Sarah Carnell who lived in Marylebone. Once again she tended her charge so devotedly that again she was promised a large legacy, but unfortunately she had used up all the colchicum. Undaunted, and really believing that she was invulnerable, she simply changed her recipe. When asked by her patient to collect some of her usual medicine from the chemist, Catherine did so, and also brought what she said was a ‘soothing draught’ which would make her employer feel better. As it was not yet time for the usual medicine, she poured some of the emollient fluid into a tumbler and handed it to Mrs Carnell who, on holding the glass, exclaimed that it felt warm. Nevertheless she took a mouthful – then spat it out again, only to stare in horror as the drops which had landed on the top sheet started to burn holes in it! Realising her error, Catherine Wilson ran from the room and fled from the house, but a detailed description of her was circulated and six weeks later, in April 1862, she was arrested, charged at Marylebone Police Court with attempted murder, and put on trial.
In court she was accused of administering oil of vitriol (sulphuric acid) to Mrs Carnell. Her lawyer suggested that it was accidental and no fault of his client’s; the chemist’s inexperienced assistant must have given it to her by mistake. The judge scornfully rejected that theory, pointing out that had the lad given a glass bottle of sulphuric acid to the prisoner in the dock, it would have become red-hot and burst while she was carrying it back to the house, and therefore she must have had it in her possession in its own container!
The jury was sent out to consider their verdict, and while they were doing so, the counsel for the defence was approached by a man who identified himself as a detective of the Lincoln police force, the officer then informing the lawyer that in the event of the prisoner being found not guilty, he had warrants for her arrest on no fewer than seven murder charges. Eventually the jurors filed back into the courtroom and for some reason known only to themselves, perhaps giving her the benefit of the doubt, the foreman delivered the result of their deliberations – not guilty! Catherine Wilson, surprised and delighted at having been found innocent, stepped from the dock – and was immediately arrested by the Lincoln police officer.
She was held in prison while investigations into the deaths of Messrs Mawer and Dixon, Mrs Atkinson and Mrs Soames were carried out. Corpses were exhumed and post-mortems conducted. The results were beyond doubt, the doctors agreeing that the colchicum seeds had been infused and probably administered to her patients and partners in such ‘health restoring’ drinks as brandy, wine, or tea. This damning evidence was given to the court at her subsequent trial at the Old Bailey, Catherine Wilson listening apparently unconcerned; not a flicker of emotion betrayed her feelings, even when the judge donned the black cap and sentenced her to death.
On execution day, 20 October 1862, 20,000 spectators crowded the area around Newgate to watch a woman who had committed so many horrific crimes receive the justice she so richly deserved, but she ignored the jeers and catcalls as hangman William Calcraft placed the noose around her slim neck. Catherine Wilson had needed several drops of colchicum to dispatch her victims – the executioner required only one drop to dispatch his.
Hangmen were usually the target of public abuse and even their wives were reviled by spectators and neighbours, one being Ann Cheshire, wife of executioner Thomas Cheshire. So infuriated was she in August 1829 when four small children shouted ‘Jack Ketch!’ after her, that she promptly picked them up and dropped them into a cellar area ten feet deep, fortunately without hurting them to any great extent. Although in court she claimed that it was all an accident, nevertheless she was bound over to be of good behaviour in future.
Wood, Margaret (Scotland)
One way of making a witch confess her association with the Devil was to torture her with the boots, of which several types were in existence (see Appendix 1). These were sometimes known in Scotland, where she lived, as ‘bootikins’, ‘caspilaws’, ‘cashielaws’ or ‘brodequins’. Regardless of which name or variety, the end result of their application to one’s legs was sheer and unrelieved agony, as Margaret found out on 2 February 1631, after the seventeen members of the Privy Council, meeting the previous day, had ordered that ‘Margaret Wod to be putt to the tortour of the bootes, the morn, at ten of the clocke, in the Laich Councell Hous of Edinburgh; and that the whole councell be present when the tortour is given.’
The last clause was included because not everyone in authority wanted to watch a victim suffering in the boots. One exception, a royal one at that, was James II, when he was Duke of York. Bishop Burnet, in his book History of His Own Times, related that:
When any are to be stuck in the boots, it is done in the presence of the council, and upon that happening, almost all offer [attempt] to run away. The sight is so dreadful that without an order restraining such a number to stay as a quorum, the press-boards [between which the legs are crushed] would remain unused. But the Duke of York, while he was in Scotland, was so far from running away, that he looked on all the while with an unmoved indifference, and with an attention as if he were watching a curious experiment. This gave a terrible impression of him to all that observed it, as a man that had no bowels of mercy in him.
Scolds’ bridles, the scourge of nagging women, were not imported into the American Colonies by early settlers, for they discovered that a stick, partially split and pinched on the ton
gue, was just as efficacious! The sentence imposed in 1651 on Goody Edwards, a resident of Southampton, Long Island, declared that: ‘She is ordered to pay £3 or have her tongue in a cleft stick for contempt of court warrant.’
Z
Zelle, Margarete Gertrud (Holland)
Margarete Zelle was not only an exotic dancer, she was also a spy, more familiarly known as Mata Hari (Eye of the Morning). Born in Holland in August 1876 to an affluent family, she grew up to be a well-educated young woman, and she fell in love with a Dutch officer, Captain Rudolf McLeod, whom she married in 1895. The Captain was posted to the Dutch East Indies, Margaret accompanying him, but the dissolute social life led to her womanising and hard-drinking husband treating her with violence and even inducing her to play the ‘badger game’, in which she encouraged other men to make love to her, then be caught in a compromising position by her ‘outraged’ husband who would henceforth blackmail the blackguard!
Female Executions: Martyrs, Murderesses and Madwomen Page 22