The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes

by Wilkes, Roger

  And, on the same day that the exhumations took place, the Daily Mail brought the sensational case to a head with the spectacular offer of a reward of £500, a very great deal of money in those days, “for the discovery of Mrs Annie Hearn, the missing witness”. WHERE IS MRS HEARN? asked the headline, IS SHE STILL ALIVE?

  Now Annie Hearn had been revealed in a more sinister light as the possible murderer of three women. What had happened to her? The answer was that she had indeed faked her suicide. She had calculated her movements from the moment she arrived in Looe with a wicker basket as her only luggage. Half an hour later she bought an attaché case for three shillings and eleven pence. By ten p.m. she had arrived in Torquay by train, and signed the register at St Leonard’s Hotel as Mrs Ferguson of Heavitree, Exeter. The next day she moved to simpler lodgings in Ellacombe Church Road, using yet another name, Mrs Faithful, with the explanation that her husband was ill in the local hospital.

  She ordered some calling cards in the new name, and answered an advertisement for a cook – housekeeper. A week later she was employed by an architect, Cecil Powell. He was impressed by his new servant, who went to church on Sundays and seemed of above-average education, though he thought that at times she seemed preoccupied. This was hardly surprising—when she was alone in her room she was busy cutting out the pictures of herself in the national newspapers. One of these photographs, accompanying the Daily Mail’s reward announcement, had seemed familiar to Powell “in a vague sort of way”. Though he saw a similarity, he was reluctant to act because of his wife’s delicate health and his own aversion to publicity. It was Annie’s own furtive behaviour that caught her out.

  On 1 January 1931 she set out for the new year sales and chose a coat at Williams & Cox in the Strand, Torquay, presumably to replace the one she had abandoned at Looe. She needed to have it shortened, and left it in the shop with a deposit in the name of Mrs Dennis. When the errand boy delivered the coat a few days later, the door was opened by Powell’s son, who said that there must be some mistake because no one of the name of Dennis lived there. Annie’s subsequent attempt at explanation was so suspicious that the architect consulted his friend the mayor, who informed the police in Launceston.

  In the fading light of the afternoon of 12 January, Powell asked his housekeeper to go on an errand, knowing that she was to be watched and followed by a police sergeant. As she passed him under the lamplight, the constable stepped forward. “Mrs Hearn?” “Yes?” “I believe I know you. I think you know Lewannick.” “Yes, I have been there.” “Then I must ask you to come to the police station.”

  There she was charged “that between 18 October and 3 November 1930 at the parish of Lewannick, you did kill and murder one Alice Maud Thomas”.

  On 11 March Annie made her twelfth appearance before the Launceston magistrates, standing in an easy attitude with her hands clasped in front of her, wearing a long, claret-coloured coat with fur collar and cuffs. Percy Parsons told the court about the day of his sister’s funeral: “Some lady met us at the door. I didn’t know who she was.” But he identified her now as “the lady sitting over there”. He agreed that he had never visited the farm before in order to see his sister. “Was that on account of a family feud?” he was asked. “I can’t say. I was never invited.”

  Superintendent Pill read the statement made to him by Annie shortly after midnight on the day of her arrest:

  On the Sunday before Mrs Thomas was taken away, I prepared roast mutton for dinner. I have read in the newspapers that I might have carved Mrs Thomas’s portion. I did not carve it, and I did not help with the gravy or anything. I remember Mrs Thomas complaining that a junket that Mrs Parsons [her mother] made was too sweet. She did not complain of the meals I prepared. Mr Thomas appeared to be very grateful to me for my help up to the time when he returned from Plymouth after Mrs Thomas’s death. He then appeared more abrupt in his manner towards me. On one occasion he said to me, “They are going to send some organs to be analysed. They will find out what it is. They will blame one of us. The blame will come heavier on you than on me …” It appeared as if somebody was going to be charged with murder … sooner than that I thought I would go my own way and take my life. I did go to Looe with that intention but later found that I could not do what I thought of doing.

  Large crowds watched Annie Hearn’s exit from Launceston Court, for this was market day and the farming families took a personal interest in the accused. Local opinion was completely against her, but at this low moment in a life that seems to have been dogged by misfortune, Annie’s luck took a turn for the better. Her former employer, Cecil Powell, who had informed on his housekeeper and claimed his reward from the Daily Mail, behaved impeccably. He donated the £500 towards her defence, which is how she was able to afford the services of Norman Birkett, the most brilliant barrister of his time.

  Birkett’s first and shrewdest move was to send all the available evidence to the eminent forensic science expert Sydney Smith in Scotland. Smith told Annie Hearn’s solicitor, Walter West of Grimsby, that there was no doubt about arsenical poisoning, though how and when it was administered was another matter. All the doctors agreed that genuine food poisoning could have accounted for Alice’s illness after the tea in Bude, and that there was no evidence that she had taken arsenic then. But there was indisputable evidence that she had taken arsenic much nearer to the date of her death. Smith found the case of Minnie Everard, Annie’s sister, much less conclusive and returned the documents with his opinion that Mrs Hearn was “probably innocent”. He regretted, however, that his university classes prevented him from attending the trial.

  But on 11 June he received this desperate telegram from West: “Birkett thinks it vital you should be at Bodmin on Sunday for consultation about six evening. I think so too and most earnestly beseech you to come. Wire reply at once.” Smith felt that his students came first, but then he reconsidered: “I thought it would be the negation of all my teaching if it meant that an innocent woman might be convicted and hanged. So I went.”

  The trial of Annie Hearn opened on Monday 15 June 1931. From the outset, the prosecution made a mistake in including the death of her sister, because the medical evidence to support such a charge was shaky. Birkett extracted the admission from witnesses for the Crown that Minnie’s death could have been due to natural causes. Sydney Smith had already fastened on a vulnerable point in the prosecution’s case. He had no doubt that arsenic had been traced in the muscles, hair and nails of Minnie’s corpse, but pointed out to West that, though this would have indicated poisoning if she had been buried in almost any other county in England, it did not lead to the same conclusion in Cornwall. Cornwall is famous for its tin—and and tin contains a high degree of arsenic. In other words, the soil in the graveyard where Minnie had been buried was impregnated with traces of arsenic.

  Birkett exposed the ignorance of the Crown’s chief witness, the Home Office analyst Dr Roche Lynch, with his very first question: “Have you ever examined a living patient suffering from arsenical poisoning?” Lynch had to admit he had not. Neither had he ever been involved in an exhumation in soil where the level of arsenic was as high as 125 parts in a million. Turning to another Crown witness, Birkett asked: “Am I right in saying that a piece of soil so small that you could hold it between your fingers dropped onto this body would make every single calculation wrong?” The expert had to answer yes to this question.

  Birkett’s next move was then inevitable: to prove how easily such a speck of soil, containing arsenic, could have inadvertently contaminated the organs during the exhumation, which had taken place under considerable difficulties on a windy, snowy day. “There was no expert to assist,” he told the jury, “merely the police sergeant, the carpenter, and the sexton, the sergeant perhaps holding the corks of the jars with an ungloved hand.” In other words, or so he implied, it was a botched-up analysis, which proved nothing except that a piece of arsenical dust on the instruments used in the exhumation might have account
ed for all the arsenic found in Minnie Everard’s body.

  Norman Birkett had scored his first and vital point—he had discredited the claim that Annie had murdered her sister and therefore put doubt in the jury’s mind regarding the other charge. Now the Crown turned to the alleged murder of Mrs Thomas, with Lynch’s conclusion that “a dose of possibly ten grains [600 mg] of arsenic” had been administered to Mrs Thomas on the day of the outing to Bude. But Sydney Smith had conducted an interesting experiment. It was the obvious thing to do, but the police had failed to do it, and the result was devastating. He had prepared some salmon sandwiches, exactly as Annie Hearn had done, but mixing enough weedkiller to contain ten grains (600 mg) of arsenic with the tinned salmon. Half an hour later the sandwiches were stained heavily with the bluish-purple dye used in the weedkiller.

  The conclusion was obvious—no one would have touched the sandwiches. Even if Annie had carefully poisoned one sandwich only, handing it directly to Mrs Thomas, the stain of Prussian blue would easily have been noticed; the risk would have been far too great. This dramatic deduction impressed the jury, who were able to imagine those alarming blue sandwiches. Furthermore, Lynch was forced to admit that he had not made the experiment himself. “You have not tried it!” Birkett exclaimed, outraged. “On the theory of the prosecution, surely that was the most terrible risk to run?”

  Cleverly, Birkett did not call Sydney Smith for the defence; his invaluable guidance was conducted behind the scenes. Birkett called no witnesses other than the accused herself, a move that gave him the right to make the vital closing speech just before the judge’s summing-up. Though by now he had scored two important victories, he knew that the case against his client remained serious and that a number of awkward points still had to be overcome.

  There was the mystery over Annie’s mysterious “husband”—who seemed never to have existed—which suggested that she was capable of lying. Then there were damaging remarks that had been made by her neighbour, Mrs Spears. She used to visit Minnie Everard during her illness, in order to pray and read the Bible to her. Minnie told Mrs Spears that Annie’s medicine was too strong: it was “going into her hands and legs. When I called on Mrs Thomas, she complained that she had lost the use of her legs, and I thought it was very much the same as in the case of Miss Everard.”

  Birkett tried to soften this impression by suggesting that Minnie was “rather hysterical” at the time, but without success. She was “not hysterical,” insisted Mrs Spears, “but frightened of being poisoned.” The suspicion was left that Minnie believed she was being poisoned by her niece.

  Then there was a diary kept by Minnie that Birkett succeeded in keeping out of court. The question remained and still remains: what was in it?

  But perhaps most important of all, there was the crucial question of motive. Why should Annie Hearn have wished to kill Mrs Thomas, let alone her sister or her aunt? There seemed to be only one possibility as far as Mrs Thomas was concerned: Annie was in love with the farmer and wanted his wife out of the way. A whispered remark to Sergeant Trebilcock on the night of her arrest was an important factor in the evidence. It was alleged that Annie stated: “Mr Thomas used to come to our house every day with a paper. Of course, that was only a blind.” Norman Birkett tried to call the policeman’s bluff: “Listen to this. ‘Mr Thomas used to bring a paper. He was very kind’. Don’t you think you could have made a mistake?” “No,” said the policeman emphatically, “I made no mistake.”

  What about the farmer himself? William Thomas was a key figure in the mystery, but had remained an enigma. He had not accused Annie, but neither had he sprung to her defence. In the circumstances this seems hard to explain, unless it was due to his awareness that his own position was becoming increasingly suspect. He admitted giving his wife medicine but denied he had ever given her arsenic. “I have never had arsenic in my possession,” he told the court, adding, “except sheep dip and tablets which are things any farmer might have.”

  It was left to Annie to deny any sexual relationship between them when she finally stood in the dock to be questioned by Norman Birkett. “Was there at any time in your mind the thought that you might marry Mr Thomas?” he asked her. “Never.” “Did you ever conceive a passion, guilty or otherwise, for Mr Thomas?” “No.” “It is suggested that on 18 October you gave Mrs Thomas a poisoned sandwich in order to marry Mr Thomas. Is there a shadow of truth in that?” “Not a shadow of truth.” “From first to last in this matter, have you administered or given in any shape or form arsenic, either to Mrs Thomas or your sister?” “I have not.” “That”, concluded Birkett, “is the case for the defence.”

  But there was still a sensation to come, though not one relevant to the evidence. The counsel for the prosecution, Herbert du Parcq, collapsed in the middle of his final address. Norman Birkett was at his side in a moment with a bottle of smelling salts. Clutching Birkett, who was supporting him, du Parcq managed to stumble from the court into the anteroom where he collapsed again.

  When he finally returned to the courtroom, the judge insisted: “I don’t think there ought to be any mystery about this. The fact is that after a meal one is apt to have a little pressure on the heart which causes faintness.” When du Parcq wanted to continue standing “if I can”, the judge ordered him to sit. “This has occurred to me once or twice since I began my professional career,” he explained, “and here I am older than Mr du Parcq.” His announcement was greeted by the usual outburst of laughter accorded to any attempt at levity by a judge, and the tension was broken. But the tension of the Crown’s address had been broken, too. Du Parcq’s collapse at such a critical moment was highly damaging for the prosecution, and the judge’s comment that one often feels faint after a little food might well have reminded the jury of Mrs Thomas’s illness after the sandwiches in Bude. If the members of the jury were at all superstitious, they might even have regarded the collapse of the prosecutor as a direct sign that the accused was innocent!

  In fact the jury was not particularly prone to considering the role of divine providence, as Birkett discovered when he discussed his summing-up with Sydney Smith and Walter West as they strolled outside the court. “The Cornish are very religious people,” he informed them, “and I intend in my speech to draw the attention of the jury to the difficulty of reconciling the loving care which the accused lavished on her sister with the fiendish project of slowly poisoning her with arsenic. I will read the fourteenth chapter of St John, her sister Minnie’s favourite. Don’t you think that will be effective, Mr West? You look doubtful?”

  But West revealed that the jury had been asked the previous Sunday if they wanted to go to divine service or drive to the coast. They chose the seaside. “Oh lord!” exclaimed Birkett, “there go My Father’s Mansions!”

  Now it was up to the jury. The members had been chosen from outside the district, away from local prejudice. This was a relief for Birkett, who realized soon after his arrival that local people had already decided on their verdict—his client was as guilty as hell.

  Norman Birkett’s final address to the jury lasted four hours. He started by scorning the inexperience of the Crown’s analyst: “Dr Lynch has never attended one person suffering from arsenical poisoning, yet he spoke of symptoms with exactly the same confidence as he spoke of other matters. Let the cobbler stick to his last. You are above all experts. The final word rests with you.”

  Having scrapped his proposed biblical text, he seized his opportunity when he reached the end of his speech and needed something dramatic for his closing sentence. He found it in the summer sunlight streaming through the windows of the Bodmin courtroom:

  For five months this woman has lived in Exeter jail during the darkness and dreariness of winter. She is now here before you in the sunshine of summer, but she is still walking in the valley of a great shadow. It is you, and you alone that can lead her back again to the road of sunshine, your voice alone that can speak the word of deliverance. I ask you to speak that word to
her, to stretch forth that hand that will help her back into the sunlight away from the shadows which have haunted her so long. That is my last appeal to you all.

  It was a stirring climax to a brilliant defence. The next day the jury returned after fifty-five minutes and gave their verdict—“Not guilty.” Women sobbed and the young nurse who had been Annie Hearn’s constant companion in prison seemed close to collapse.

  The judge informed the jury: “You have another duty to perform, the case of Miss Everard.” Then he revealed that the Crown was not intending to proceed with this—“You will therefore”, he instructed, “return a second verdict of not guilty. Now, Sarah Ann Hearn, you are discharged and free.” More than 2,000 people had assembled outside, but Annie exchanged hats and coats with her married sister Bessie Poskitt and managed to escape unnoticed by most of the crowd. Later she was seen having a meal at the King’s Arms in Launceston. Then she went up to Yorkshire where she stayed with her sister.

  Annie Hearn was acquitted, and it certainly looks as if she was innocent. Her brother-in-law told the Yorkshire Post: “She is so kind and good and faithful”, and this is the impression conveyed by her fake suicide note and the letter of thanks she wrote to Sydney Smith, unless she was a woman of quite extraordinary guile.

  But if Annie was innocent, who was guilty? Was William Thomas the murderer? The judge came straight to the point in his summing-up: “The issue is now down to two people—Mrs Hearn and Mr Thomas. It is no use beating about the bush.”

  But then the judge made a curious comment: “If you supposed that Mr Thomas were the guilty person, what could his motive be—passion, love, malice or hatred? There may have been some other women who moved him to passion; there is no evidence that Mrs Hearn moved him to passion.” Some other women? This is a fascinating possibility—that farmer Thomas poisoned his wife and Annie Hearn bore the consequences, even at the risk of her life, so that he could further his relationship with another woman. But did such a woman exist? A lady in Lewannick today provides a possible clue—she remembers the postmistress gossiping after Alice Thomas’s death, “He’ll be able to have Mrs Tucker now.”