Mrs Patrick’s threat to report him to the authorities would explain why John created the next part of his charade. On Tuesday, 5 July, he called at her house along with his daughter Blanche, who was carrying a baby. The door was answered by Mrs King, the next witness at the inquest, who was a widow lodging with Mrs Patrick. Neither Amber nor Mrs Patrick was at home.
When she invited John and Blanche inside, Mrs King did not recognise the baby because ‘it was so altered’ with ‘bad sores all over its face’. She must have been quite taken aback, since she told Makin, ‘I would not know the child as Amber Murray’s child if you had not brought it, it is so changed’. She told John the baby seemed to have ‘the thrush’ but John informed her he thought it was something else. Although John and Blanche waited for two hours, Amber did not return so they said they would bring the child another time. As they left, Mrs King ‘kissed the child but had a sore mouth and a sore tongue for about a fortnight afterwards’, symptoms which indicate the baby was suffering from a severe case of thrush.
When asked if she thought it was Amber’s child, Mrs King told the court she only thought it was because Mr Hill had brought it. She was quite certain that when the baby was adopted on 27 June his thrush had cleared up and he only had ‘some spots on his face and bottom [but] was in good health and taking [his] food well’. In the space of seven days, Baby Horace had not only become reinfected with thrush but had come down with something more serious. Mrs King’s description of a baby with ‘bad sores’ all over its face suggests he was suffering from the weeping sores associated with congenital syphilis, which seep fluid then form a crust. This matches Mrs King’s observation that the baby’s face was so altered she no longer recognised him.
But was this baby Amber’s child? Had John planted the idea five days before that Baby Horace was suffering from some disease from either the father or mother and then, like a magician, presented a sick child as proof that he was not long for this world? John certainly had several other babies to choose from at 25 Burren Street. Because of the prevalence of syphilis in the colony, it is no surprise that one or more of the babies they adopted would have been suffering from congenital syphilis.
Despite his promise that he would visit again, perhaps John thought he had stepped too close to the fire. If Mrs King did not recognise the child, he could expect a more marked reaction from Mrs Patrick and Amber if he were to try this trick again. By 5 July, it is likely that Baby Horace was dead. Whether he was one of the babies buried in George Street was something the jury had to decide.
Amber waited, day in, day out, for Mr Hill to return with news of her son. After waiting two weeks, Amber travelled to Hurstville where she made inquiries about Mr and Mrs Hill. Like Mary Stacey before her, who had searched for a family called Ray, Amber’s search was fruitless.
Clarice’s selective memory
The next witness at the inquest into the death of Baby D was Clarice Makin, whose dislike of her family must have run deep. In a poor family of four daughters and one favourite son, resentments were inevitable. As the third daughter, Clarice may have been caught in the middle of a family hierarchy, bossed around by Blanche, Florence and her mother. As the only daughter who had left home, she may have been ‘farmed’ out to work, since she told police she had been ‘out at service’ for nearly two years.2 While the Makins needed Blanche and Florence to look after their baby-farmed children, Clarice was able to earn a small income for the impoverished Makin family, who always seemed to be short of money. Although she had turned informer, questions hovered over her—was Clarice’s evidence really the truth and nothing but the truth?
Clarice told the court she remembered Amber Murray and her parents talking about adopting a baby a few days before the family moved to Burren Street. Unbeknown to Amber, when she first visited the Makins on 27 June, there were five babies in the George Street house. When Florence and John returned with Amber’s baby, ‘it made the sixth in the house’, according to Clarice, who did not remember any other children being adopted before the family moved on 29 June.
Although some newspapers reported that Clarice was unsure whether Baby Horace accompanied the family to Burren Street, Clarice’s signed deposition is clear that she said all six babies left with the family on 29 June for Burren Street. Horace looked well the last time she saw him and she could not remember ‘any sores or marks on its face’. While Clarice only stayed in Burren Street from 29 June to the following Wednesday when she ‘went into service’, all six babies were in the Burren Street house when she left, although she also gave the contradictory evidence that she did not see Baby Horace after the move to Burren Street.
At this point, Sarah ‘gave vent to loud sobbing’ and moans and called out, ‘Oh, God bless her for the lies she has told. Oh, her poor mother’. When she looked as if she would faint, the gaol warders in the courtroom gave her a glass of water which she drank unsteadily, but water would not save her: ‘immediately afterward Mrs. Makin was seized with a faint and fell back helpless’. Blanche and Florence burst into tears and ‘another painful scene followed’. While it was some minutes before Sarah recovered, she had cleverly diverted the court’s attention once again from the damaging evidence given against her. But was Clarice lying as Sarah had declared?
When questioned by Mr Williamson, Clarice was a little uncertain about which babies were in the Burren Street house, answering that ‘she did not look into the faces of the children while living at Burren-street, and would not swear that Miss Murray’s child was not amongst them, but she never saw it’. Crucially, this evidence supported the police case that Amber’s baby was killed and buried in George Street.
As Clarice signed her depositions and left the courtroom, Sarah Makin moaned again, ‘God forgive you for telling lies’, leaving more questions for the jury and the public to ponder.
From all the evidence given in the inquests, the move to Burren Street would have been a secretive and silent process so as not to alert the neighbours. One set of neighbours, in particular, must have been quite put out that the city’s most notorious baby farm had operated right under their noses. At about 7.30 p.m., John parked a hired, horse-drawn van in the narrow rear lane behind 109 George Street which was directly opposite Redfern police station. Because the owner of the van was ‘under the influence of drink’, John was forced to drive it himself. Nonetheless, the migratory Makins may not have wanted to employ a driver. Much safer for John to do the moving himself.
John carried out their few bits of furniture—mattresses, a table, some chairs. With Clarice and Blanche, he drove to Burren Street. When they returned to George Street for the second and final load, a couch, a cane pram and a cradle were loaded. Two babies were in the pram and two in the cradle while Sarah carried one and Daisy held another, according to Clarice. But who were the six babies they took with them that night? We know two of them were Elsie May Todd and Mignonette Davies. Another, it appears, was Horace Amber Murray. But who were the other three?
Because most of these six babies had only been in the George Street house for about a week, they were the new batch of babies that had been collected after the last batch had apparently been killed. Clarice said in her first police interview that just before the family moved out of George Street, she saw three babies in a bed. Later, Clarice was told by her mother that ‘the parents of the children . . . took them away’.3 It likely that the babies in the bed became the one female and two males, known as Babies B, C and D, discovered in the George Street backyard.
Clarice’s see no evil, hear no evil, do no evil
Clarice was probably downplaying her role in the family’s baby-farming business, since she was selective in her memories, failing to remember things she might have been involved in but remembering those that incriminated her parents. She could not remember whether Amber Murray’s baby was in the Burren Street house and failed to see the contradictions in her evidence when she told the inquest:
I saw all the six babies in the [Burren
Street] house on the morning after we moved and all the six babies were in the house when I left on the Wednesday but I did not see Amber Murray’s child.
Despite her uncertainty, Clarice had a remarkably good memory for other events. She remembered Agnes Todd’s baby was received on 27 June, the same day as Amber’s child. She also remembered seeing Miss Todd’s baby in Burren Street two days later. Perhaps the final part of her testimony is the most telling, since it ensured her ‘innocence’ and damned her parents:
I did not look at the faces of the babies when they were being put in the van . . . I did not look at their faces on the morning after we got to Burren Street . . . [nor] at any time . . . before I left home on Wednesday. I said I did not see Amber Murray’s baby in Burren Street because I did not hear it cry . . . I knew its cry. It had a squeaky voice . . . I never saw Miss Murray’s child in Burren Street, nor did I ever see my mother dressing it there. I did not help to put any of the children . . . in the van. I rode in the van with them, but I never looked at any of them.
Clarice was covering her tracks by denying all the normal things the daughters of a baby-farming family would have been doing—dressing, changing, feeding and drugging six helpless babies. Her inconsistent evidence suggests she knew that Baby Horace had been taken to Burren Street. For some reason, Clarice decided to contradict herself to make the jury think that Baby D could have been Amber’s baby. Since this incriminated her parents in the death of Baby D, it is possible that Clarice had been influenced to change her evidence by the obsessive Constable Joyce—the man who had worked so hard to gather evidence in the hope of convicting the Makins of murder.
When Daisy Makin testified, she also told the inquest that six babies were taken to Burren Street. Unlike Clarice, Daisy remembered a baby called ‘Brisbane Street’ in the Burren Street house, a piece of evidence that reveals the cold world of baby farming where a street name was identification enough for a pair of busy baby farmers. ‘Brisbane Street’ must have been a reference to Amber’s son since he had been collected from the home of Mrs Patrick, who lived at 58 Brisbane Street.
Miss Murray revisits the witness box
After Daisy finished giving evidence, Dr Milford was called to testify about the autopsy he had conducted on the body of Baby D. He estimated the child had been two to nine weeks old when he died and had been buried from three to five months. The autopsy found that Baby D ‘bore no marks of violence to [his] head, and no trace of poison was found in [his] stomach, but decomposition was so far advanced that it would be impossible to detect many vegetable poisons, and no cause of death was shewn’.
When Miss Murray was recalled to the witness box, counsel for the Coroner, Mr Healy, handed Amber a small, buff-coloured envelope with spidery black handwriting on the outside that read:
Exhibit
Hair of D
Series of 4 Infants found George
St Redfern on the 9th Nov. 92.
He asked her to open it. Inside was a lock of hair from Baby D. Perhaps Mr Healy had become too used to death as a result of his work for the Coroner’s Court to understand the impact of what he had just done.
As Amber took out the lock of light coloured hair, she ‘broke down in tears’ as her fingers held this missive from the grave. Mr Healy inquired whether she wanted a short adjournment. She decided to press on, revealing that the lock of hair was ‘the same colour as my baby’s’. Questioned further, she said: ‘Yes I am sure. The colour and the texture are the same’. She held the lock to her lips, perhaps remembering the smell of her child, and asked whether, when ‘all this business is over’, she could have the lock of hair ‘as that is the only thing I have to remember my baby by’. The Coroner asked Constable Joyce to arrange for that to be done at the end of the inquest.
The verdict
On Wednesday 21 December, the Coroner summed up all the evidence in the inquest. He was certain about the identity of Baby D because:
the evidence was conclusive that the hair was similar to that on the head of Amber Murray’s child, and the clothing found on the remains was positively identified as having been handed over with the child.
Ignoring the contradictory parts of Clarice’s evidence and all of Daisy’s evidence, the Coroner decided there was no evidence to show that Baby Horace had been taken to Burren Street. Mr Williamson objected and asked Mr Woore to direct the jury that there was no evidence that Miss Murray’s child had not been taken to Macdonaldtown. The Coroner refused, informing Williamson he would say nothing more on that matter.
Although it is more likely that Amber’s baby was taken to Burren Street, the jury was pushed in the other direction by the Coroner’s persuasive instructions, a result of his being utterly persuaded by Amber’s shocked reaction to Baby D’s lock of hair as well as her and Mrs Patrick’s identification of the clothing in which Baby D had been found. The medical evidence that Baby D was from two to nine weeks old when he died coincided with the age of Horace, who was four weeks old when adopted by the Makins. While there was no evidence about the cause of death, ‘there was the gravest suspicion against the Makins’.
At 4.45 p.m. the jury retired to consider its verdict for both Baby D and Baby C, as the jurors had hoped that the evidence into the death of Baby D would help them make a finding about the death of Baby C. When they returned just over an hour later this proved not to be the case, with insufficient evidence to identify Baby C or determine his cause of death. They returned an open verdict, which meant the Makins could not be implicated in the death of Baby C. But their lucky streak had just run out. The foreman of the jury announced sombrely:
Foreman: We find a verdict of wilful murder against John and Sarah Makin.
Coroner: Did you identify body 'D'?
Foreman: Yes, as Amber Murray’s child.
Coroner: Did you find how the child was murdered? . . .
Foreman: We came to the conclusion that it came to its death by some foul means.
Satisfied, the Coroner announced he would formally commit John and Sarah to stand trial for murder at the next sitting of the Criminal Court.
The end of Act I–the final court drama
When the verdict was announced, Sarah ‘moaned piteously’, like someone in physical pain, while Blanche and Florence ‘repeatedly kissed her’. Another newspaper reported that it was the girls who ‘wept hysterically and the mother kissed them repeatedly’.4 John remained impassive and emotionless in the dock.
When Sarah was pulled out of her daughters’ arms by a policeman, she ‘became slightly hysterical, screaming, “Amber Murray’s child was taken to MacDonald Town. Wilful murder, the liars!”’, and repeating the word ‘liars’ over and over. She was defiant as she stepped into the police van, calling out to her children, ‘Be good, my darlings. Good-bye. You all know that Amber Murray’s child was taken to Macdonaldtown’.
In the shock of the moment, Sarah had finally admitted she was a baby farmer by confirming Amber’s evidence that the Makins had taken her child. But had Baby Horace been taken to Macdonaldtown? Was he one of the seven babies found in Burren Street? Although it is easy to discount Sarah’s denial as the panicked lie of someone committed to stand trial for murder, I think Sarah blurted out the truth. While Baby D’s estimated age matched the age of Horace when he was adopted (four weeks) and the clothing in which he was found matched that of Amber’s baby, it is hard to dismiss the evidence of Clarice and Daisy, both of whom had said that Baby Horace was the sixth child in the George Street house and that six babies were taken to Burren Street.
Because the Makins swapped clothes between their adopted babies, the use of babies’ clothing was an unreliable method of identification. Along with the fact that hair colour can lighten as a result of decomposition during burial, it is possible that Baby D was not Amber’s child. Out of the three male babies found in Burren Street, Baby 3, who was 6–12 weeks when he died, was close enough in age to Horace for Sarah’s dramatic declaration to have been true, especially if he
had been kept alive for another couple of weeks in Burren Street.
After the verdict, the jury wished to ‘record their appreciation of the services of Senior-Constable Joyce and Constable Brown, and consider some recognition should be made . . . for the able manner in which those officers have prepared the case’. It had been Joyce’s obsession with digging that resulted in his decision to dig underneath the kitchen window of 109 George Street. There he found the grave of Baby D. With the outcome of this inquest, Joyce finally had the Makins for murder. Although they would still have to stand trial on a charge of murdering Baby Horace, the case against them was strong—so strong that this case would change the course of legal history.
Outside the court, the Makins were led to the black police van. Although John appeared completely indifferent when the verdict was announced, he betrayed his feelings when, climbing into the back of the van, he ‘used a disgusting phrase’ and gave ‘a half smile and scowl to the bystanders’.
At the end of Act I, the crowds inside the court had witnessed the long arm of justice along with the excitement of the Makins’ court dramatics. They would have to wait a few months for Act II to begin on the first day of the Makins’ trial.
Age estimations of infants: an inexact science
Dr Milford frequently used the length of a baby’s thigh bone (femur), and sometimes its spine, to estimate the ages of the infants discovered in George and Burren streets. He may also have made age estimations based on his examination of the skull bones. But in the 1890s, as well as today, these estimations were an inexact science.
The length of a baby will vary based on its birth weight and nutritional intake after birth. In the 1890s, disease played a major part in a child’s growth after birth, indicating that the skeletal development of Sydney’s baby-farmed infants would have varied widely. The femur is considered to be the most reliable of the human long bones for age estimation in children even though its length at birth can vary from 69 to 78.7 mm. Like adults, a baby might be short or long depending on the length of its femur.5
The Baby Farmers Page 20