Not Guilty
Page 1
Table of Contents
Not Guilty
CONTENTS
APPENDIX 1
APPENDIX 2
APPENDIX 3
APPENDIX 4
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Not Guilty
© 2012 Christine Gardner
In Bendigo Cemetery’s Lavender Walk you can find a plaque, on a flat earthen grave, stating simply ‘Dorothy, Eric and Ida, Died 1910. In God’s Care.’ This is their story.
Other Books by the author
Non-fiction
Demented Mothers
Fiction
Her Flesh and Blood
Connections
Dark Innocence
The Inheritance
The Letter
Stony Creek (Book 1, Red Dust Series)
The Road to Karinya (Book 2, Red Dust Series)
Red Wine and Summer Storms (Book 3, Red Dust Series)
For Young Adults and Children
Sanctuary
Last Chance
Beast of War
No-one’s Good at Everything
Chilli—The Great Hunter
CONTENTS
1. Veneer of Respectability
2. Friends and Lovers
3. Retribution
4. The Crime Scene
5. The Inquest
6. The Trial
7. The Verdict
8. The Transfer
9. Sisters of the Good Shepherd
10. A New Home
Appendix 1. Truth Reports on the Murders.
Appendix 2. Truth Reports on the Inquest.
Appendix 3. Truth Reports on the Trial.
Appendix 4. Governor’s letter releasing Camellia to George Clancy.
Justice A’Beckett then asked if there was any difference between ‘the fury she worked herself into and the fury which a physically sound and vindictive man might work himself into against the person who had offended him’. Dr. Gaffney replied ‘In the case of a strong man it was anger, and anger alone and resentment. In this case it was not that so much as worry and anxiety about her own condition’.
Author’s Note
This is not a whodunit; there is no mystery here about who committed the brutal murders of three children. The crime is vividly described both by the police and the perpetrator, with no room for doubt as to what happened, as well as the how and when of the crime. The killer even tells us quite firmly and consistently why she did it, but if there is any mystery it is in the why. The judge at the trial instructed the jury to decide if the crime was that of an insane woman or one who was simply vindictive and vengeful. Was their judgement correct? Make up your own mind.
I have changed the name of the father of the children as a courtesy to his descendants and have not disclosed the full address of the house where the murders happened for a similar reason. The killer herself has no descendants.
Everything else in this story is fact, or, in the case of some of the more creative newspaper articles, not entirely! Some of the letters and other records may be grammatically incorrect or contain spelling mistakes—I have left these as they are. I feel I should warn readers that some of the material, as described by the newspapers and coroner’s reports, is very graphic. The Appendices section at the end is a copy of records already used in part within the book and I have included that as I know some readers will find the records themselves of interest, as I do.
CHAPTER ONE: Veneer of Respectability
The neighbour heard ‘very dreadful screams which continued for about half an hour’.
Later Bendigo generations would know it as the house where the axe murderer killed her children, but in 1910 the two storey residence was one of several middle-class homes in a respectable area. By the end of the 20th century the story had been forgotten or relegated to the land of the urban myth. The house still stands, a little faded and worn, but a home with many stories no doubt more pleasant than this one.
The McDonalds appeared to be a respectable middle-class married couple. The man of the house, George, managed the local jam factory, while his partner, Camellia, looked after their three young children and ran the household. The house was a substantial property, suitable for a man in George’s position; downstairs there were a kitchen, two pantries and a wood cellar, while upstairs there were two bedrooms, a sitting room and a drawing room. There were also three smaller rooms in the basement, making it quite a sizeable dwelling.
The interior of the rented house though, away from public view, was far from lavish. According to the local newspaper, the furniture was ‘scanty’. The front room held a piano, which was described as old even though it was not yet fully paid for, along with a few chairs. Another room opposite contained an old couch and a small table. In the main bedroom there was a double bed and a chest of drawers, while the children’s room contained nothing but a hammock made from old bags sewn together. The other rooms on the ground floor were used to store lumber and ‘a considerable quantity’ of rubbish. Downstairs, the breakfast room held a dining-table, with an old armchair in one corner and a chest of drawers in another.
Like their home, the McDonald family was not quite what it appeared on the surface. The couple were not married; George had an estranged wife and five adult children and Camellia was a single woman. The relationship had become difficult, with constant arguments; Camellia accused George of having another mistress and of not spending enough time with her and the children. On that critical day in August 1910, she warned him if he left her and the children alone again on a Sunday he would regret it. She’d made threats before but this time George would regret spending that day away from his family.
When the couple first met, in 1900, George had already been living apart from his wife for several years. He had a property in South Sassafras, near Ferntree Gully, and for some time also ran a local grocery store and butchery, with the sale of rum as a profitable sideline. He was a member of the local council for several years and helped form a co-operative of local growers which was the basis for the Monbulk Jam Factory. Camellia lived with her mother and sister on a nearby property and was around twenty years old, while George was forty-four. When he became manager of the Ferntree Gully factory he employed Camellia as a clerk and the relationship began.
According to the Truth, a Melbourne tabloid newspaper, George lured Camellia ‘like a spider lures a fly’. They sat together in the office chair ‘where billing and cooing was indulged in with the inevitable result. She returned home one evening no longer a virgin’. This chair was evidently a key symbol for Camellia of their relationship, as will become apparent later in the story. George’s housekeeper left, perhaps because of the disgrace involving her employer, and George moved into the same hotel where Camellia was living.
Truth states that ‘the scandal became so manifest that the directors and shareholders of Monbulk intervened’. George continued working at the factory but perhaps the directors insisted the couple leave the area, so their scandalous relationship wouldn’t affect the company’s reputation and therefore their profits. Truth was careful to state that the couple were not living together at the hotel, clearly not wanting to damage the hotel’s reputation, so the necessity of moving perhaps became the incentive for George and Camellia to live as man and wife.
They moved to Camberwell, a suburb of Melbourne, in 1905, where they lived together under Camellia’s name, McCluskey, for a short time. When their first child was born they were living in another suburb, Auburn, under the name McCutcheon; Dorothy’s birth certificate shows her father as John Robert McCutcheon, a thirty-six year old commercial traveller born at Black Lead. Camellia is named as Mary McCutcheon and her correct age of twenty-five is shown. The document states they were married in 1902 and that they have no previous issue.
Apparently they were willing to go to some lengths to avoid any further public humiliation, even lying on official birth records. Camellia wore a wedding ring and was probably desperate to appear as a respectable married woman now she was a mother. When the twins were born her health became ‘delicate’ and life for Camellia took a turn for the worse. George was still employed by the Monbulk company and, when they opened a factory at Burnley, he stayed at East Richmond during the week and returned to Camellia and the children only at weekends. He became involved with another factory worker by the name of Maudie Smith and spent most of his evenings with her.
Camellia claimed that George became ‘increasingly anxious to part with the place at Fern Tree Gully’. He told her that business was ‘falling off’ and, although it was not his property, he did hold shares in the company. According to Camellia he set fire to the factory one night and destroyed it, starting his own factory later in North Melbourne, after buying some of the equipment and pulp from the Monbulk company. In spite of this, when he was offered a position in Bendigo, at a salary of six pounds a week, by jam-makers H.M. Leggo’s and Co., he accepted it and moved there alone. His mistress, Maudie Smith, followed him two weeks later and became forewoman at the factory. She lived with George until Camellia unexpectedly arrived on the train with the three children. George had no choice but to find a new home for his family; he lived with them but still managed to spend his free time with Maudie.
The move to Bendigo must have held some hope for Camellia at first; a new town and a new beginning for the couple and their children, where they knew no-one and no-one knew they were not married. But her health was not what it had been before the twins were born; she was very thin and appears to have been very lonely in Bendigo. Her sister, Adelaide, had joined a convent in 1906 and their mother had died four years before that. Camellia had lost touch with her father and had no friends in her new home. She was soon deeply depressed when she found out Maudie Smith was living in Bendigo and working at the factory with George.
She wrote to a Mrs Pump, possibly a former neighbour, about her unhappiness:
Your welcome letter received and card for Dolly which amused us greatly. Dolly was in great glee to think it came all the way from Doncaster. She asked me a thousand questions how it came.
The old farm will cost Mrs Kent something before she sells it. I often think of the place and sometimes I wish I was back there. I don’t like Bendigo at all and I have had a bad time of it since I came here what with one thing and another. I envy you in your own nice home and happy life, that is the life I crave for and have always done so, but it seems it is not to be. I have not made any acquaintances and it is very lonely. Mr McDonald is always working, no half holiday and he always has some work or other even on Sunday to do. He never gets home to tea till eight o’clock and often takes his lunch with him now. So you may be sure it’s pretty miserable, especially if the children are not very well and are peevish and cross.
Unlike the friendly neighbourhood usually portrayed as commonplace in twentieth century Australia, this middle-class district was slow to adjust to new arrivals. Camellia’s neighbours in Bendigo evidently kept to themselves; one neighbour, a widow, often heard the screams of children coming from the property. According to her statement at the inquest, the screams sounded as if the children were being beaten, but it appears she didn’t consider that a reason for any concern on her part.
To be fair to the neighbours though, it may have been Camellia who refused any attempt at friendship; as a middle-class woman living the lie of respectability she may have found herself in a situation where it was unwise to encourage interest from neighbours. The widow noted that the screams of the children on that August Sunday were louder than they’d ever been before – very dreadful screams which continued for about half an hour – but she didn’t report the incident.
CHAPTER TWO: Friends and Lovers
She was a very jealous woman, but he had never dreamt of her committing such a terrible deed.
Possibly the closest thing to friendship Camellia found in Bendigo was at the local police station. She was a frequent visitor and was well-known, particularly to Detective Denis Commons, who stated at the inquest that he’d known Camellia for about four months. She had called in to the station several times making inquiries about Maudie Smith, who she believed was working at Leggo’s factory. She was trying to find out where the woman was living. Camellia eventually told police that she and George were not married and that her life had become ‘a misery’ because of his affair with Maudie Smith. She was to repeat this phrase as part of her confession. She told them she’d followed George on one occasion and watched him and Maudie through the window of a house. She had taken off her boots and when George saw her he was furious and dragged her home without them.
Commons stated that she came to the station one day with a black eye, which she said George had inflicted on her after she had scratched him during an argument about Smith. He also said she was anxious about her father and had no idea where he was. It appears her parents were separated as she had been living only with her mother and sister at Sassafras, but whether it was a permanent separation or if his intention was to re-unite the family when he’d secured some kind of future for them on his new property is not clear. Perhaps the fact his daughter didn’t know his whereabouts makes that unlikely, but her scandalous living arrangements might have played a part in their estrangement.
It is evident these local policemen were a source of comfort to Camellia. She took a photograph of herself to the station to show Commons how she’d looked when she first met George and he noted there was a ‘marked difference’ in her appearance. She also told him she had not been in good health since the birth of the twins.
Denis Commons was born in the Bendigo region but his career from the time he joined the police force, in 1889, had been predominately in Melbourne. He spent four years in Bendigo from 1903 and was then transferred back to Melbourne to the Criminal Investigation Branch on probation. Three months later he was again sent to Bendigo, this time as a detective, and he stayed there until 1914, transferring once again back to Melbourne. He remained in the police force until his retirement at the age of sixty, in 1924, and died in 1936, leaving a widow, Ellen. Commons was highly commended, described as a ‘steady, reliable man’.
He was also praised for his tact, his ability and his intelligence. It’s interesting that Detectives Commons and Currie were both highly commended for their handling of a case in 1911, in which a woman named Daisy Hilda Wilson was charged with child murder. The case was described as ‘most difficult’ but was ‘very carefully prepared and favourably commended on by the Committing Bench’. Aside from being a clever detective, for whom ‘no case [was] too difficult’, Denis Commons was also ‘loyal, trustworthy’, and a ‘man of excellent character’ and it’s easy to imagine how the lonely Camellia was drawn to him.
She had no-one else to talk to – no friends, no family and might have felt she couldn’t seek help even from the church when she was living ‘in sin’. Unfortunately the police were either unable or unwilling to help her. They were aware of her distress but were of course not qualified to diagnose her mental condition. On one occasion she told Detective Commons she wanted to kill George when she thought about how he treated her, but then she laughed it off and evidently Commons did not consider it a serious threat.
Commons said Camellia seemed very fond of Dolly (Dorothy) and that the child was well cared for. He apparently never saw the twins. He had seen Camellia with a pram but said he didn’t know how many children were in it. Either she left the twins alone at the house or they must have been unusually quiet two-year olds to sit in a pram and not be even noticed. Dolly was described as ‘well-cared for’ but there is little mention by anyone of the twins; Camellia had been unwell since their birth and may have subconsciously blamed them for her failing health and deteriorating relationship. George had trouble even remembering their names. On the
morning of the murders he dressed Dolly but the twins were left in their nightclothes. The coroner considered Eric to be undernourished, which might indicate parental neglect. On the other hand he didn’t consider Ida to be undernourished and the boy may have just been a fussy eater, like many toddlers.
Camellia’s isolation from society was a result of the choice she had made to live ‘in sin’ with a married man; now she found herself increasingly isolated from him as well. She considered leaving George and wrote an application letter for contract work to a bag manufacturer:
Dear Sir,
Having seen your advertisement in today’s Age for ladies to work at home I beg of you to kindly forward particulars of same, also remuneration given for same. Thanking you in anticipation of a forwarded reply.
This may have been an effort to help with finances without leaving George, but Camellia told police she had been thinking of leaving and that was why she wrote the letter. It was dated July 8 and was never mailed. The difficulties of supporting three children alone must have been a very daunting prospect in 1910. Her father may have helped if she’d known where he was but he might not have been able to support the three children as well as Camellia. When he was approached by Bendigo Police later to provide her with a lawyer he said he couldn’t afford to help.
On April 29, Camellia gave a statement to police alleging George had set fire to the Monbulk factory in Ferntree Gully. She said he had often spoken about the business ‘falling off’ and suggested a ‘fire stick’ would be a good thing. One night, she claimed, he arrived home from the factory three or four hours later than usual, about 3 or 4 am, and when Camellia questioned him he said there’d been a big fire at the gully.
I knew what he meant by that as he had so often spoken about the fire stick – I noticed that he wore a slouch hat well turned down as if he had done so for the purpose of disguise – He also had a gold chain with a large heavy medal attached to either a silver or a nickel watch in his hip trousers pocket, which was most unusual as he always wore it in the usual way – Next day Sunday he was expecting someone to call from Ferntree Gully to acquaint him of the fire but nobody came. The whole of the fore noon and part of the afternoon he took up a position outside the house so as to prevent any person that may call from recognising myself.