He cycled to Sternberg-street, and embraced his Maudie.
They sat billing and cooing, and he related to her (in a joking way) the particulars of the row that had occurred, and how CAMELLIA HAD ‘PERFORMED’.
Meanwhile there were awful things in progress in Don-street.
According to the wretched Camellia’s own account, this is what occurred. After McDonald had left on his love visit to Mrs Smith, she says:-
I went and wrote a letter to Superintendent Beck and H.M. Leggo, and explained to them what I intended doing. . . . I posted the two letters. . . . and returned, and then smashed up as much furniture as I could. I then destroyed the children. I first killed the twins, and then the girl Dorothy. She was crying and running away around the back of the house. I did it with the tomahawk, which was always in the kitchen, also the carving-knife. I then brought the carving-knife into my bedroom, and TRIED TO CUT MY NECK, but my nerve was gone . . . I had taken about one inch of whiskey from a flask before doing the deed, and it gave me the nerve to do it. After trying to cut myself with the knife, I gathered up the small cakes of camphor that I had in the house, and mixed it up in a glass of water, and drank the lot. I thought it would poison me, but it didn’t take the slightest effect on me. Before doing what I did to my children I wrote a letter to McDonald, and left it on the breakfast table. I then wrote another, and left it on a table in an upstairs room. I daresay it would be about 1 o’clock when I killed the children, and when I found that I could not find any way of killing myself, I also took some books and threw them into the fire and picked up some of the burning paper and THREW IT ON TO AN ARM-CHAIR in the breakfast room. I afterwards went to the watchhouse at Bendigo and told the police what I had done.
McDonald learned of the fearful tragedy at 6 o’clock the same evening.
His home was wrecked, the ‘arm-chair of seduction’ was damaged in special revenge, the woman he had ruined was in gaol on a capital charge, and his children were corpses in the hospital mortuary!
What did the unparalleled scoundrel do?
He flew to the arms of Mrs Smith. He remained WITH HER FOR THE NIGHT.
He assisted her to quit her villa, and had the furniture removed to Melbourne under an assumed name early on Monday morning. He surreptitiously engaged lodgings for himself and the woman, and remained in her company until the following Thursday when she departed by the midday train for the metropolis.
When asked to explain such apparent brutality and fiendish callousness, he said he acted as he did because he had ‘no other home to go to.’ He declared that he still loved Camellia, and that his paltering with other women was only ‘a silly weakness.’ He protested that he had a great love for his murdered infants, and deeply deplored their terrible death. The detestable, contemptible, hypocritical liar!
He showed his pain and sorrow by providing for and canoodling with the woman who was the actuating motive of the frightful catastrophe!
‘Truth’ insists that such a moral monstrosity as McDonald should not be permitted to go unscathed.
He informed the Coroner that he would, in future, ABSTAIN FROM WOMANISING.
Asked how long he had up to then abstained, he replied – ‘One week!’
If he escapes punishment, and is allowed to roam at large, it is certain he will continue to seduce girls in the bloom of their youth, and desert them in their wane.
He should be charged as an accessory before the fact. He unquestionably was the direct cause of the murders. He was warned by Camellia that she would destroy herself and the children, and HE INVITED HER ‘to cut her throat’ and ‘do something.’
The police allege they are unable to obtain sufficient evidence. That is nonsense. There is quite enough evidence to prove that he goaded Camellia into the commission of an awful crime, and he should certainly be indicted and placed in the dock for trial before his God and country.
As it is he has MERELY BEEN BOUND OVER as a Crown witness to appear against the pitiable creature whose body he has irreparably debauched, and whose soul he has blasted.
APPENDIX 3
Truth reports on the trial
THE BENDIGO TRAGEDY
Last Scene of All.
‘An Acquittal on the Plea of Insanity.
At the Bendigo Criminal Court on Tuesday Camellia McCluskey was placed in the dock and charged with having murdered her three children. There was a general feeling of sympathy for the unfortunate woman. The facts were indisputable, and, although the accused pleaded not guilty, the Crown case was cut as short as possible. Two doctors, who were called for the defence, and the medical officer at the gaol, said that when the crime was committed the accused was not responsible for her actions. The jury brought in a verdict of not guilty on the plea of insanity, and the accused was remanded for detention during the Governor’s pleasure. George McDonald, whose sexual monstrosities are interminable, sat with his clasped hands and twitching fingers, and, when he heard the verdict, he evinced a real or assumed emotion. His victim averted her face and consistently spurned the sight of her bestial betrayer. The accused’s father, an aged man with white hair and weather-tanned skin, appeared greatly relieved when the shadow of the gallows, which for the last two months, has hung over his daughter’s head, was removed.
APPENDIX 4
By His Excellency Sir John Fleetwood Fuller, Baronet; Governor of the State of Victoria and its Dependencies in the Commonwealth of Australia. &c. &c. &c.
WHEREAS at a sitting of the Supreme Court for the hearing of Criminal Trials holden at Bendigo on the fourth day of October One thousand nine hundred and ten before His Honour Mr Justice a’Beckett a judge of the Supreme Court of the State of Victoria, Camellia McCluskey was presented for the murder of one of her children, AND WHEREAS the jury returned a verdict of ‘Not Guilty’ on the ground of insanity AND WHEREAS pursuant to Section 458 of the Crimes Act 1890 the said Judge did order the said Camellia McCluskey to be kept in strict custody in His Majesty’s Gaol in Bendigo until the Governor’s pleasure should be known AND WHEREAS the Inspector General of Insane saw and examined the said Camellia McCluskey on the twenty-second day of October One thousand nine hundred and ten and reported that he had come to the conclusion that she was sane AND WHEREAS on the twenty-ninth day of October One thousand nine hundred and ten the Government Medical Officer also examined the said Camellia McCluskey and reported that on that date as regards the said Camellia McCluskey there was no evidence of any form of mental derangement AND WHEREAS the Medical Officer of the Bendigo Gaol reported on the twelfth day of January One thousand nine hundred and eleven that he believed the said Camellia McCluskey to be quite sound in mind without the slightest trace of insanity or mental weakness and that if she were discharged from custody he did not think there was any probability of her not remaining in that state AND WHEREAS the His Excellency the Governor of Victoria aforesaid on the twenty-first day of February One thousand nine hundred and eleven that the said Camellia McCluskey be released on condition that she remained in the safe custody of the Nuns of the Convent of the Good Shepherd at Abbotsford until further order of the Governor of Victoria aforesaid be known AND WHEREAS the said Camellia McCluskey is suffering from a severe cold aggravated by the close proximity of the Convent buildings to the River Yarra & is moreover dissatisfied with her surroundings, the Convent being a Reformatory Institution, AND WHEREAS the Nuns of the said Convent are of opinion that the said Camellia McCluskey should be removed AND WHEREAS George Clancy a very reputable person, who has known the said Camellia McCluskey since her childhood, is prepared to take the said Camellia McCluskey into his home at number 64 Millswyn Street South Yarra in the State of Victoria aforesaid and together with his family exercise careful supervision over her AND WHEREAS the Government Medical Officer in his report dated the twenty-ninth day of June One thousand nine hundred and eleven approved of the transfer of the said Camellia McCluskey to the home of the said George Clancy:
NOW KNOW YE that I, Sir John Fleetwood Fuller, Gov
ernor of Victoria aforesaid, do order that the said Camellia McCluskey be transferred from the aforesaid Convent to the residence of the said George Clancy and remain there under his charge and supervision until the further order of the Governor of Victoria aforesaid be known.
Given under my hand and seal the third day of July one thousand nine hundred and eleven.
For more information and images from 1910: http://cmsgardnerblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/27/not-guilty-images-from-1910/
Non-fiction
Not Guilty
Demented Mothers
Fiction
Her Flesh and Blood
Connections
Inheritance
Dark Innocence
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)
The Letter
For Young Adults and Children
Sanctuary
Last Chance
Beast of War
No-one’s Good at Everything
Chilli—The Great Hunter
BIBLIOGRAPHY
© State of Victoria. Reproduced with permission
Criminal Trial briefs
Rex v Camellia McCluskey, Supreme Court of Victoria, Bendigo, October 1910,
VPRS 30/P/0000, Unit 1556, Case 426, PROV
© State of Victoria. Reproduced with permission
Capital Case Files
Rex v Camellia McCluskey, Supreme Court of Victoria, Bendigo, October 1910,
VPRS 264/P0000, Unit 27, PROV
Victoria Police Museum
Records of Detectives Denis Commons and Walter Currie
Newspapers
Age, 1910,
Argus, 1910,
Bendigo Advertiser, 1910
Truth 1910
Secondary Sources
Garton, Stephen, Medicine and Madness: A Social History of Insanity in New South Wales, 1880-1940, Kensington: New South Wales University Press, 1988.
Not Guilty Page 11
