Reports of Trials for Murder by Poisoning; / by Prussic Acid, Strychnia, Antimony, Arsenic, and Aconita. Including the trials of Tawell, W. Palmer, Dove, Madeline Smith, Dr. Pritchard, Smethurst, and Dr. Lamson, with chemical introduction and notes on the poisons used

by G. Lathom Browne; active 19th century C. G. Stewart

By Mr. Bodkin, Q.C.—Question.—“What did the contents of the stomach look like?”

Answer.—“Thick gruel. They were filtered, and I examined the filtered portion, and my opinion is that the arsenic had been taken two or three hours.”[127]

PURCHASE OF POISON BY THE PRISONER.

This was proved by the son of a chemist of the name of Brown, of whom the prisoner purchased two pennyworths of arsenic on the 19th of January, which, at her request, he enclosed in two separate papers, each marked “poison,” as she said that one of them was for her sister who lived some distance off. The papers had something of the appearance of those of effervescing powders.

CONDUCT AND STATEMENTS OF THE PRISONER.

Mrs. Gillett gave some remarkable evidence as to the statements and conduct of the prisoner during the night of her husband’s fatal illness and after his death.

“When the prisoner called me in a little after nine in the evening, I found her husband in bed retching violently, and I gave him water half-a-dozen times, and then went for Dr. Toulmin. At five o’clock that day the prisoner said she was going for the doctor, to tell him to send her husband something for the bile, but that he did not want her to do so. A second time during the evening she told me she wanted to do this, and that he would not let her, and that she had applied to a neighbouring doctor, but that he had refused to come, and only sent some pills. After her husband died she said, ‘How true were Dr. Toulmin’s words,’ that, ‘when her husband once took to his bed, he would go off like the snuff of a candle.’” [Dr. Toulmin had no recollection of ever having made such a statement.] “Next day the secretary of the Benefit Society to which her husband belonged called and had some conversation with her. Before that she had spoken to me about the Benefit Society, and said if her husband died she should have the full benefit of it. On the day of the post-mortem she asked me if I had asked Dr. Toulmin what was the cause of death, and I said, from what I heard, it was poison; when she said, ‘Do you think I am guilty?’ I replied, ‘I do not doubt you.’ Then she walked about in an agitated manner and appeared distressed. On the day of the inquest she said to me, ‘You know, Mrs. Gillett, that Annie (her little girl) ate the rest of the gruel.’ I said ‘Don’t say so; I did not see any of you eat it.’ She said, ‘If I did not Ashby did, and he ought to be the first witness’ (Ashby said he did not see the deceased or anyone eat it). On the day of the adjourned inquest she asked me if poison had been found, and when I said ‘Yes’ she said ‘I am innocent; he was a good husband, and it is not likely I should do such a thing. Dear creature; if that is the case he has done it with his own hands.’ I replied ‘It is not likely, as he purchased a new pair of boots the morning before his death.’ Whilst we were talking Andrews, the summoning officer, came in, and she said to him ‘Mrs. Gillett knows that I ate the rest of the gruel,’ and I replied ‘I know nothing about it, or who ate it.’[128] On the 31st of January in her house she said to me ‘Do you think if I had any hand in his death I should not have let him live to to-day and then have received the full benefit from the society.’”[129]

On cross-examination the witness protested that she had repeated these conversations before, and was almost certain she had done so before the coroner and the magistrate. When she said ‘I did not doubt her,’ she meant that she had not the slightest suspicion of her guilt. The witness had introduced the subject of the burial club. The prisoner was kind and affectionate to her husband, and attentive during his illness, and much distressed. The witness had heard the deceased complain of the difficulties into which his wife had plunged him, and on the Monday before he was taken ill they had quarrelled.

Other statements of a most unfavourable character were improperly extracted from her by Coward, the inspector of police. As the Lord Chief Baron said, with well-deserved reproof, he had evidently prepared a proceeding, and framed certain questions, which would enable him to observe the demeanour of the prisoner when she was confronted with a witness ready in attendance, in order to give his own view of her conduct afterwards to the jury.