Black Widow: The True Story of Australia's First Female Serial Killer

by Carol Baxter

  Those she had named were called to testify. All declared that they had only given Collins drinks that were already in the room, not ones they had prepared themselves. Eventually, the late hour and the still-lengthy witness list forced Shiell to adjourn the inquest.

  The attendees stepped from the warmth of the courtroom cocoon into a dismal winter’s evening with bouts of heavy rain. Exposed to a sudden downpour, the sixty-two-year-old coroner caught a severe chill, forcing a delay in the inquest’s resumption until Tuesday, 26 July, two weeks from its original adjournment. Shiell remained unwell when that bitterly cold morning dawned, but duty called. He rose from his sickbed and headed to the coroner’s court, a decision that he—and his wife even more so—would later regret.

  One after another, the Collinses’ neighbours entered the witness box and spoke about their relationships with the couple. As Rosetta Mapstone finished her testimony, the coroner asked Louisa if she had any questions. She had—a curious one. She asked Mrs Mapstone if she had noticed Collins’ clothing when she visited him on the Saturday evening before his death. Was he wearing trousers at that time?

  ‘Collins did not have any trousers on when I was there,’ Mrs Mapstone replied.

  More witnesses followed. Charles Sayers reported seeing Jeffes take the items from Louisa’s house; however, his own recollection differed from the constable’s. ‘I did not see her get up and catch hold of him by the arm when he took up that glass tumbler,’ he declared.

  What was he suggesting—that the constable had lied?

  Louisa indicated that she wanted to ask Sayers a question. Surprisingly, she didn’t refer to the discrepancy between his and Jeffes’ testimonies. Instead, she repeated her earlier question about Collins’ attire.

  Sayers replied, ‘When I was at your house on Sunday morning, I noticed that the deceased had his trousers on him in bed.’

  Coroner Shiell couldn’t help noticing Louisa’s interest in the subject of Collins’ clothing. He asked Sayers if this had been Collins’ habit.

  ‘That was the first time I noticed his trousers on,’ Sayers said.

  Neighbour Catherine Mudge also testified to being present when Jeffes searched the bedroom. She too told the jury that she hadn’t seen Louisa grab Jeffes’ arm.

  Again Louisa failed to use her right to ask questions to expose the critical discrepancies between the testimonies of these witnesses, even though the coroner was clearly building a case against her and was using Jeffes’ claims as the strongest piece of incriminating evidence. Without legal training, how could she be expected to understand how to defend herself?

  Chapter 13

  Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

  Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard’s Almanack

  When Louisa first testified, she was not under arrest. Now, with the murder charges laid against her, she was called to the stand again. Coroner Shiell indicated to his clerk that she would need to be sworn again on the Bible. He then advised her of her rights: ‘You are not bound to answer any questions that you think might incriminate you. You may decline on that ground. You yourself are to determine whether you think they might produce that result.’

  Louisa acknowledged the coroner’s words then began to speak. ‘When we left Johnson’s Lane to go to Botany in February last, we were clear of debt. I had £25 in gold. Collins got two or three half-days’ work at Botany. He got the sack and was eight weeks idle. One Saturday during that eight weeks he said, “Louie, will you give me £1? I’ll find a way of making money,” naming a certain gambling-house in George Street. I told him I had a great horror of gambling; however, I gave him the £1. He came home that night at half past eleven. He fetched me £4 10s. He was very pleased. He said it was better than hard work. He said, “If I had had £20 tonight, I could have fetched you £100 just as easy as I did that.” He said, “Will you give me £20 next Saturday?” I told him it was a great risk. He said he felt sure that he could get me £100 or more with it.

  ‘I gave him the £20 on the following Saturday. He did not come home till the last tram. I was in bed but not asleep. I said, “Mick, is that you?” He made me no answer, but struck a match and lit the candle. I never shall forget his look. He sat down on the side of the bed. He said: “Louie, I have lost all the money.” He commenced to cry and I did too. I couldn’t help it. He said, “Here I am out of work, and I have lost all the money.” I told him I would forgive him when I saw he was in such a dreadful state of anxiety and misery. He said, “What will I do to get work?” There was no work about Botany at the time. He came to bed but could not sleep.

  ‘He got up the next morning and only had a cup of tea. He said, “I wonder where I could go for work?” He sat thinking for some time on the chair. At last he said, “I think I’ll go up the Illawarra line.” I gave him a pound. He said if he got work he would be away a week.

  ‘He went up the Illawarra line, and not knowing the stations, being a stranger on that line, I did not expect him back for a week, but he came back the same night. I was surprised to see him. He was perfectly speechless. I asked him what was the matter? He said, “Don’t ask me.” Then he said, “I have ruined myself and you too.” I said, “Tell me what has happened.”

  ‘He said, “I went six miles further than the station my ticket was for. The guard asked me for my ticket and when he saw the distance it was for, he caught hold of me and pulled me out of the carriage onto the platform, and I struck him. He gave me in charge and fetched me back to Sydney. When I got to the railway station in Sydney, the guard said, ‘I’ll let you off if you give me £3 10s.’ I had no money on me but the remainder of the pound, and I said to the guard, ‘I have no money on me but if you wait till I pawn my watch, I’ll give you the money.’ ”

  ‘He said he pawned it and took the money back to the station and the guard let him come home. He was thoroughly broken-hearted, and said, “Louie, I wish you had got someone else besides me; I have dragged you down to ruin.” I told him not to mind, that I would put up with it.

  ‘He got work at last in Botany at 36 shillings per week. He had just worked two weeks when the baby died. That sent us further into debt and trouble. I had no money. I borrowed £1 2s 6d off Mrs Bullock, the draper at Botany, to pay for the ground to bury the child. I have never been able to pay it back. I owe Dr Martin a guinea for his visits. I have never been able to pay him.

  ‘After the funeral of the child, he went to work. He used to say, “There is no use of me working, my wages will never pay the back-debts and redeem the watch.” I tried to cheer him all I could, but it was no use. He had a broken-hearted look.

  ‘A month ago last Monday I was brushing his overcoat, and in the heart pocket I found a package of white paper. It had no writing on it. I opened it. There was a large teaspoonful of white stuff, like salts, only much finer. It had a bright and sparkling appearance. It had no smell, but I put my tongue to it, and it made my tongue hot and my mouth watery during the rest of the day. I could not help spitting all the day.

  ‘When he came home, between seven and eight o’clock that night, I said, “Mick, what little package is that in your coat pocket?” He said, “Have you been at my pockets?” I told him I was brushing the coat and saw it there. He said, “I’ll search your pocket after tea, and see what’s in it.” After supper, he went to bed . . .

  ‘Oh, I’m going too fast,’ she then said to the coroner and backtracked for a moment. ‘I said, “Tell me what it is that’s in your pocket.” He said, “I’m damned if I know what’s the name of it. A man in Waterloo gave it to me to take in a little water for a lump I have in my groin.” From what I knew he suffered, I believed him, and we went to bed. I said, “Will you take some of that tonight then?” He said, “No, not tonight, then it’s too cold.”

  ‘The next morning, he got up at four o’clock as usual, lit the candle, and dressed himself, put his hat on and turned and looked at me in the bed. He put his hand up to the coat I spoke of before, and
took this package out, and put it into his trousers pocket—in the trousers he had on. I said, “Will you take some of that now?” “No,” he said, “I’ll take it over at the stables.”

  ‘He came home at seven o’clock to his breakfast. He pushed the meat which he was always very fond of to one side and said he would have some milksops. I gave him a clean basin and he made some sops himself. He went down the yard and commenced retching dreadful after eating the sops, the first time I have ever seen him retch. I said, “Whatever is the matter with you? Did you take some of that medicine?” meaning the stuff he took away. He said, “No, I did not.” I said, “Will you have some more breakfast?” He said, “No, give me sixpence.” I had not a sixpence and gave him a shilling.

  ‘He was away all day as usual and came home to his supper and ate very little and went into the room to go to bed. When in the room a few minutes—I was in the kitchen—he called me by name to fetch him the small glass, which he had never done before. I said, “Will a cup do?” He said, “No, fetch me in a glass.”

  ‘I got half a dipper of water from the kitchen and went into the front room and got the glass and went into the bedroom. I was surprised to see him sitting on the side of the bed with his new trousers on. I said, “Are you going out?” He said, “No, you won’t mind me sleeping in these trousers?” a thing he never did before. I said, “No, if you are comfortable I am satisfied.” I then said, “Whatever do you want this glass for?’ He replied, “I want it just to rinse my mouth out with a little water, that’s all.” I believed him and went to bed.

  ‘I was awoke in the middle of the night by him retching dreadful. I said, “There is something strange the matter with you.” He said, “It’s only the cold I have.” He had a very bad cold at the time and used to cough very much.

  ‘He kept getting worse and worse but remained at his work up till the Sunday dinner time a fortnight before his death. From the time I saw the powder till the time he was laid up was one week. On the Monday, he sent word over to say he could not go to his stables. I asked him to go with me to see a doctor one day that week and we went to Dr Marshall. When we came home that night, Collins took a spoonful of the medicine and said he was sure it would do him no good, it was throwing money away. He said, “The bailiffs will be in the house, there’s nothing surer.” Every knock during the second week of his illness, he turned as pale as death and would say, “Oh Christ . . .”

  Louisa paused and looked apologetically at the coroner. ‘He used to swear a bit,’ she said. Then she continued, ‘ “Oh Christ, I thought that was the bailiff.”

  ‘There was two unfortunate things I done during his illness,’ Louisa concluded, ‘and that was to take over that glass he had used so often without having once washed it out, and to put the trousers in water which were taken off his back after his death.’

  The coroner asked if Collins had any life insurance.

  ‘His life was not insured,’ she said. ‘He was in no lodge or any society whatever. He has left me penniless and in debt.’

  ‘When did you redeem the watch?’ the coroner asked, having remembered the previous remarks about Collins’ watch being taken out of his vest pocket after his death.

  ‘I will tell you all about that after dinner,’ Louisa replied.

  It was a reminder that it was time for the midday break. Afterwards, Coroner Shiell decided not to return Louisa to the witness box. Instead, he recalled the government analyst and asked him about the powder found on the Collins’ dressing table.

  ‘That powder consisted of mercury and chalk,’ said Hamlet. ‘It’s what is known as common Grey Powder. It contained no arsenic.’

  Coroner Shiell decided that he had interviewed enough witnesses. It was time to begin his summation. ‘You have heard the long rambling statement made today by the widow,’ he began, ‘and doubtless you have seen what the object of that statement was, which was to make it appear as if the deceased had poisoned himself, having taken small doses of arsenic, and thereby caused his own death.’ He asked the jurors to consider whether a man would be likely to poison himself slowly and thereby prolong his own agony or whether it was more likely that the poison was administered by some other person, someone who, naturally, wouldn’t confide in others. Who might that person be?

  After running through the evidence, he told the jurors that if they thought Collins had given himself small doses of arsenic, they would have to return a verdict that he had died from self-administered arsenical poison. If, however, they decided that the case was sufficient to go to a jury, they must vote to convict.

  With such a clear direction from the coroner, no one was surprised at the speed of the jury’s decision or the nature of its verdict: death by arsenical poisoning administered by Collins’ wife.

  ‘I concur entirely with the verdict found by the jury,’ Coroner Shiell told Louisa, ‘and commit you to stand your trial at the Quarter Sessions for the wilful murder of your husband, Michael Peter Collins.’

  Chapter 14

  The very dead shall be drawn up out of the grave to bear witness.

  Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions

  ‘The extraordinary and mysterious circumstances surrounding he death of a man named Michael Peter Collins at Botany have now assumed alarming aspects,’ the Echo had declared two weeks previously, on Friday, 13 July, when the news broke that arsenic had been found in Collins’ body. The Echo’s pressman knew that this discovery was momentous, yet more sensational news was to come. ‘This morning,’ he continued, ‘Inspector Hyem waited upon the coroner, where he was supplied with the requisite warrants for the exhumation of the body of Mrs Collins’ first husband and also a child (of which Collins is the father). If practicable, exhumation will take place today.’

  The newspaper provided some basic information about the two deaths, reporting that both death certificates had been signed by Dr Thomas Martin, the surgeon who had joined Dr Marshall on his visits to the Collins house. ‘Be it mentioned,’ the paper concluded tantalisingly, ‘the symptoms preceding the death of all three were similar in all respects, and the suspicions go to show that all met their death by poisoning.’

  • • •

  John Wallters remembered both cases. He had first encountered the woman at the centre of this drama when she came to his place of employment, Charles Kinsela’s funeral parlour, following Charles Andrews’ death. She had said that her name was Mrs Andrews and that she wished to order a coffin and funeral for her husband. He had engraved her husband’s death details in gilt letters on a metal plate and later attached it to the lid of the cheap pine coffin she had ordered.

  In the days after her first visit, he had made two journeys to her house. The first was to measure her husband so his body fitted comfortably into his coffin; there was an art to creating a pleasant viewing experience for relatives. The second time, he collected the coffin and took it to its final resting place in Sydney’s main cemetery, the government-owned Rookwood Necropolis. He hadn’t made a note of Andrews’ plot number. He saw no need to retain such information.

  He hadn’t noted the plot number when he buried her infant son fourteen months later, either. He had even less reason for doing so. It was in fact a pauper’s grave.

  • • •

  Inspector Hyem was carrying the two exhumation warrants when he joined John Wallters in the funeral cart to begin the journey to Rookwood cemetery. As the senior officer in the Collins investigation, his duties had been broadened to include the exhumation of these other possible murder victims.

  The cemetery office provided the necessary plot numbers and the assistance of gravediggers. Following the signposts, they made their way to Charles Andrews’ grave. Wallters looked around the site and reported that it seemed undisturbed. The gravediggers thumped their spades into the ground and began the time-consuming operation of removing the hard-packed earth from the grave site. When they reached the coffin, Wallters brushed the soil from its lid and found the metal plate bearing Charles
Andrews’ details.

  The coffin was sitting in water although not entirely covered by it. Its wood was spongy, as if the waters of the Styx were gradually rising from the netherworld to embrace it. The soil’s weight had depressed the cheap lid, causing a split that extended from its upper left to its lower right corners. The portion to the right of the split was beginning to break away.

  The men attached ropes to the coffin and began pulling it up and out of the grave. The foot lifted first, shedding some water. Carefully, the men tugged on the ropes, trying to balance it evenly. The last thing they wanted was for the flimsy casket to fall apart and tip Andrews’ partly decomposed remains into the muddy hole.

  When the intact coffin reached the surface, the men loaded it into the cedar shell that Wallters had brought with him. The shell would protect the coffin and its contents during the journey to the South Sydney Morgue.

  The men then drove to the paupers’ section, where the gravediggers dug up the tiny casket bearing the Collinses’ infant son. They placed this inside a rough pine shell that Wallters had also brought with him.

  The exhumations complete, Wallters ferried the two unopened coffins back to the morgue and deposited them in the autopsy room.

  • • •

  The following morning, when John Wallters opened the cedar shell protecting Charles Andrews’ coffin and peered inside, he was relieved to find that the jolting of the previous day’s eleven-mile journey hadn’t caused any visible damage, although he would only know for certain when the coffin was lifted from the shell. He asked for some assistance from the other men in the room. Inspector Hyem, Coroner Shiell, and William Hamlet were gathered in the autopsy room, along with Dr Samuel Knaggs, who would conduct the post-mortem examination, and Dr Martin, who would assist him. As the men lifted the coffin, water seeped from it and settled into the bottom of the cedar shell.