Women Serial Killers of the 20th Century

by Sylvia Perrini

  In 1907, after waiting a respectable amount of time and allowing Eugene to break off his engagement and Bertha to collect her insurance payout on Henry’s death, Bertha and Eugene married. Once married, Bertha and Eugene moved away from Jefferson County to Catawissa, Franklin County, Missouri. Catawissa was an extremely small rural community 39 miles from St. Louis and about 10 miles southwest of the larger and more developed town of Pacific.

  Catawissa consisted of not much more than a post office, a church, and a few small stores. Bertha had several relatives by marriage already living in Catawissa. Here, Eugene took up farming, and they lived on a house on Old Bend Road, about one mile from the Meramec River. The people who lived “on the bend” had their own close-knit community separate from the small town of Catawissa. The community was made up of farmers who worked hard and long hours. When Eugene and Bertha moved to the area, the mode of transportation was still by horse and wagon. There were hitching posts and water troughs for horses along the town streets. T. Dermott, a plumber and owner of a stove and tin ware store on Catawissa St., purchased the first auto truck for his business in March of 1911. By the end of the 1920’s, most businesses bought trucks, but some continued to use horses and wagons into the 1940’s.

  Eugene soon became popular in the small, close-knit community and gained a reputation as a skilled worker and good company. Bertha gained a reputation as an exceptionally talented cook and in time as a “Good Samaritan” for her help in caring for ill neighbors. She became known and appreciated as a good country nurse and kind neighbor, always ready to lend a helping hand if someone was sick or injured. She was known to ride or walk for miles to help at the site of an accident or attend to the sick. In small, rural communities such as ‘the bend’ in the early 1900’s, it was difficult to get medical help in an emergency. The only doctor in the town of Catawissa, Doctor Hemker, had a large area to cover and was frequently difficult to reach. The newspapers at this time were full of advertisements for lotions and potions for self-medication. Bertha made her own concoctions for treating aches, muscle sprains, coughs, and other ailments.

  The people who lived on the bend did their main shopping in the small town of Pacific, which was approximately a forty-five minute journey. Like the other residents of “the bend,” Bertha did her main shopping in the town of Pacific. In 1911, Eugene’s widowed mother and young brother, Emilie and James Gibbons, moved in with Eugene and Bertha. In 1913, Emilie became ill with stomach cramps and vomiting and died. Bertha took it upon herself to arrange the funeral. A year later in 1914, thirteen-year-old James died in Bertha’s arms from similar symptoms to his mother’s.

  Close neighbors of Bertha’s, George and Margaret Stuhlfelder’s fifteen-month-old son Bernard became ill with pneumonia in February of 1915. Bertha immediately offered her help to the exhausted, distraught parents. She sat selfishly by his bed, or so her neighbors thought, and when complications to his illness started, she stayed for three long nights and days as the small boy’s body writhed around in agony with stomach cramps, before dying in excruciating pain.

  One night in 1917, a relative of Eugene’s, Sherman Pounds, arrived drunkenly on the doorstep of Bertha’s and Eugene’s house. Sherman was a large, strong man of fifty-three. He was a widower with five children and on the weekend he liked to drink. Eugene and Bertha helped him in and put him to bed, and Bertha made him a tonic. In the middle of the night, Sherman awoke with terrible stomach cramps and was dead by the morning. The doctor declared the cause of death from drinking.

  Eight months later in November, a hired helper of Eugene’s, 52-year-old Jim Ogle, who was complaining of being ripped off by the Gibbons, became ill with what Doctor Hemker said was malaria. Bertha kindly offered to take charge of all nursing duties. On November 17th, Bertha visited Pacific to stock up on a few items. While there, she called into the pharmacy and complained to the pharmacist, known as “Uncle Jimmy,” that rats were attacking her chickens. He suggested an arsenic based rat poison for which she signed for in the poison register. The following day, Jim became sicker and complained of severe stomach cramps. The doctor was sent for and, after examining Jim, said the stomach pains were a result of the malaria. For three days, Jim suffered agonizing pain before dying on November 20th. Dr. Hemker wrote, “Gastritis” on the certificate as having caused the death.

  Five years later in December of 1922, Sherman’s three-year-old granddaughter, Beulah Pounds, was left in Bertha’s care for the afternoon while her mother went Christmas shopping in Pacific. When Beulah’s mother returned to pick her up, her daughter complained of stomach pains. Bertha and the mother decided it would be best to leave Beulah overnight with Bertha. The following morning, Beulah was much sicker and in an enormous amount of pain. Her mother sent for the doctor, but Beulah was dead before he arrived. Bertha described Beulah’s symptoms to him, and Dr. Hemker wrote out a death certificate listing the cause of death as gastritis. Beulah was buried on January 5, 1923.

  It was one local funeral Bertha failed to attend, and Bertha loved funerals. Bertha was fuming because Beulah’s aunt had suggested a post-mortem should be done on Beulah. The aunt was unhappy, as her father Sherman had similarly died in Bertha’s house from severe stomach pains. However, because the doctor didn’t think anything was amiss and the parents thinking it would cost too much money, failed to perform an autopsy.

  Six years almost to the day that George and Margaret Stuhlfelder’s son Bernard had died, Margaret, their two-year-old daughter, became ill with pneumonia. They sent for Dr. Hemker who prescribed medication for her. Then Bertha arrived to help. She was dressed in a white apron and carried her bag of tonics. She told Margaret that she thought the baby looked terribly ill and did not think she would recover. Nevertheless, Bertha sat by the baby’s bed. Two days later Margaret started vomiting, and three days later Margaret died in agony.

  In March of 1923, George and Margaret’s daughter Irene, seven-years-old, became ill with stomach pains. Once again, the Stuhlfelder’s called the doctor who prescribed stomach medication. This appeared to ease her pain and then Bertha called by to help nurse her. Shortly after Bertha’s arrival, Irene began to vomit and a few days later, she died in agony. The doctor filled out the death certificate clearly thinking there was nothing amiss.

  Another local family, George and Ethel Schamel, were also friends of the Giffords. George frequently helped Elmer out on the farm. The family had intended to leave Catawissa and move to St Louis in April of 1923 but after only three weeks in St Louis, they returned to Catawissa. Two years later in June of 1925, Ethel at the age of 33, became ill, and Bertha nursed her, but Ethel died. Eight weeks later Lloyd, George and Ethel’s son, who was just nine-years-old, died of gastritis while sleeping over at Bertha’s house. This death was followed eight weeks later by the brother Elmer’s death, at the age of seven, also from gastritis who Bertha had also helped nurse. Barely a month later, George Schamel’s sister, Leona, became ill and started vomiting. Bertha nursed her. Leona died in October at the age of thirty-seven. Doctor Hemker had signed all of the deaths certificated as gastroenteritis.

  LLYOD’s DEATH CERTIFICATE

  ELMER’S DEATH CERTIFICATE

  It was after the Schamel boys’ deaths, Lloyd and Elmer that people began to talk. The deaths had happened almost one after the other in such a short time, and both the Schamel boys had been so healthy and full of life.

  Maybe people had thought Bertha’s presence at so many deathbeds was odd before but had never voiced it. Now, it began to be discussed openly, as was the fact that Bertha enjoyed reading about murders and accidents in the newspapers and enjoyed talking about them.

  All of this was going on against the backdrop of prohibition. Many of the country folk had stills in their barns and were wary of the authorities and attracting attention. Eugene Gifford had a large whisky still in one of his barns and a friend of his, Gus, would sell the whisky in the nearby towns of Pacific, Catawissa, and neighboring areas. Eugene and Gus had s
ome kind of squabble over the proceeds, and Bertha was so mad at Gus she chased him with a butcher’s knife.

  A short while later in 1926, Gus’s mother became ill and Bertha, forgetting the fight, offered to nurse her. Gus’s mother died.

  One evening on May 15th, 1927, Edward Brinley, an alcoholic, ex-butcher from Pacific, who was now working for Eugene as a farmhand, collapsed in a drunken stupor in front of Bertha’s front door. Eugene found him and helped Edward into bed. In the morning, Bertha gave him some of her homemade lemonade. A few hours later, he developed chronic stomach pains and died in agony in the afternoon. Doctor Hemker, feeling nervous with all the gossip about Bertha in the vicinity, decided to consult with another doctor from Pacific as to the cause of death. It would seem they could not agree as two different diagnoses were written on the death certificate.

  No post-mortem was called for. Bertha called the undertaker and organized the funeral.

  This latest death caused all the talk about Bertha to start up again, only this time it became much more widespread and reached the ears of Frank Jenny, a young up-and-coming prosecuting attorney. Six months following the death of Edward, a grand jury of Franklin County began investigations into the rumors and deaths surrounding Bertha.

  Bertha Gifford was furious. How dare they think such things about her when all she had done was tried to help people? Bertha threatened to sue for libel anyone who uttered a bad word against her. Eugene was also enraged that people should say such things against his Bertha and, normally placid, he would hurl abuse at anyone he suspected of gossiping about Bertha being a killer. If it was a strategy, it worked. People, who had been scheduled to give evidence in front of the Grand Jury, lost their tongues. The Grand Jury was unwilling to indict Bertha as they felt there was insufficient evidence.

  This led to many believing that the Gifford’s had friends in high places that had put a stop to the investigation. However, Frank Jenny, the young, ambitious prosecutor, was a Rottweiler and was not going to give up. Just months later, he was equipped with the record books of poisons bought from two pharmacists in Pacific that showed Bertha had been buying abnormal amounts of arsenic since 1911, “For rats,” she had written next to her numerous signatures, and with witnesses that were now eager to talk, he tried again.

  When the second investigation began, Bertha and Eugene left Catawissa and moved to Eureka, Missouri. The story before long became plastered across newspapers all over the US. As the news circulated, Frank Jenny’s office began to receive phone calls and letters from people claiming their relatives or friends had passed away while being attended by Bertha. Soon the official number of questionable deaths climbed from nine up to seventeen.

  On August 23, 1928, the jury returned an indictment charging Bertha Gifford with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Edward Brinley and Elmer Schamel.

  On August 25th, 1928, Police Detective Andrew McDonnell arrested Bertha in Eureka. Chief McDonnell drove Bertha to the station in Union and gently questioned her. Over a cup of tea, they talked about a range of things. Bertha began talking about all the gossip about her and the story that she had killed the little girl Beulah with arsenic. She thoroughly denied giving arsenic to Beulah but said she had given it to Elmer and Lloyd Schamel and also Edward Brinley, just to help ease their pain. Later on in the conversation, she admitted to Andrew McDonnell that she may have given arsenic to one or two others. Chief Andrew McDonnell wrote out her confession. Bertha was then driven to jail in Union.

  The following day the newspapers printed her confession, and Bertha was mortified. She hysterically denied the confession and said the statement was a pack of lies. Eugene gave statements to the reporters saying that his wife was frightened and agitated, and that is why she had confessed.

  Eugene hired a top lawyer, James Booth, who pleaded not guilty to the court on Bertha Gifford’s behalf.

  In September of 1928, the corpses of Edward Brinley and Elmer and Lloyd Schamel were exhumed. In their bodies, significant amounts of arsenic were found.

  The health commissioner of the state made a statement criticizing the doctor in Catawissa. In the statement, he declared that,

  Bertha’s trial began in the courthouse of Union on November 19th of 1928. It was a prominent newspaper story and made headlines around the country. A murder trial was a significant event: something to look forward to, and something worth gossip and speculation.

  NEWSPAPERS HAD A FIELD DAY

  Reporters and crowds of people filled the courtroom and corridors, and those who could not fit in the courtroom lined the steps outside waiting to hear details. Bertha’s name was on everyone’s lips. Surprise was registered as a story of her beauty in her younger days was revealed, for the Bertha that appeared in the courtroom on that cold November day was anything but beautiful. The newspapers described Bertha as thick and heavyset, with a weather-beaten, furrowed face and eyes that were dead.

  Rumors as to her behavior in jail wove through the crowd like Chinese whispers. There were tales of Bertha hiding under a blanket in her jail cell in the day and at night, wearing a blood red robe as she paced up and down howling like a werewolf or clutching the bars at the window and hurling curses out the window. The whispers continued with tales of how Bertha would only eat ice cream and that she refused to talk to anyone except Eugene and would do so only if dressed in a pristine white nurse's uniform.

  During the four-day trial, both the prosecution and defense agreed on one thing: that Bertha Gifford was insane. The prosecution argued for her to be locked up for life, while the defense wanted the possibility of release if she recovered.

  The jury took just three hours to reach their decision that Bertha Gifford had murdered Edward Brinley and the Schamel brothers while insane and remained insane. The judge sentenced her to a life of confinement in the mentally insane unit of the State Hospital in Farmington, Missouri.

  Although Bertha was only tried and convicted for three murders, the true number during 1909-1927 is believed to be at least seventeen.

  Bertha Gifford died on August 20, 1951. She had spent close to twenty-three years in Farmington. After her death, Eugene had her body taken to Pacific for a private funeral at the cemetery in Morse Mill. The grave is unmarked.

  The trial, in the end, revealed very little; just a great many unanswered questions. How had Bertha walked free among her neighbors for so many years and killed so many? Why, after so many deaths, had the doctor just signed every certificate without a post-mortem with the same woman present at every death? What about Eugene? What did he know?

  Eugene remained living in Eureka. He died in 1957 and any answers to any questions he took with him.

  DAISY LOUISA DEMELKER

  Bad News in Johannesburg

  Daisy Louisa DeMelker was born Daisy Hancorn-Smith on June 1, 1886 in Seven Fountains, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Her father was a British Army officer. In 1907, Daisy trained as a nurse at the Berea Nursing Home in Durban and became engaged to a young man named Bert Fuller. On the day of their wedding, Bert became ill and died from a fever. Daisy was at his bedside and was left £100 ($149.30). Daisy, in 1909, moved to Johannesburg where she met and married William Cowle, a plumber. They had five children together; three of the children died of natural causes and the fourth child’s death was unexplained. Only one son, Cecil, survived. In January of 1923, after thirteen years of marriage, William became suddenly and violently ill and died screaming in pain. The doctor cited the cause as a brain hemorrhage. Daisy received £1,700 ($2,538.10) from his life insurance policy.

  Three years later in 1926, Daisy met and married Robert Sproat, another plumber. After only four months of marriage, Robert awoke from an after lunch nap trembling and sweating. As the day progressed into evening his symptoms worsened, and he died screaming in pain. Daisy received a generous inheritance of over £4000 ($5,972) and £560 ($836.08) paid from his pension fund. Alfred Sproat, Robert’s brother, suspected Daisy of having murdered his brother.


  In 1930, Daisy met a wealthy entrepreneur, Sydney Clarence de Melker, a widower. They married in January 1931. In March of 1932, Daisy’s nineteen-year-old son Cecil died. He became ill at work after drinking coffee from a thermos flask, which Daisy had prepared for him. Cecil’s friend, James Webster, who’d had a sip of the coffee, also became seriously ill but recovered. A postmortem gave the cause of Cecil’s death as cerebral malaria. On April 1st, Daisy received £100 ($149.30) from Cecil’s life insurance policy.

  When Alfred Sproat heard about Cecil’s death, he felt seriously alarmed and was concerned for the welfare of Daisy’s new husband Sydney. He took it upon himself to report his suspicions to the Johannesburg police. The police took Alfred’s suspicions seriously and started an immediate investigation. On the 15th of April 1932, the bodies of Daisy’s previous two husbands Robert and William and her son Cecil were exhumed, and their bodies examined via autopsies. The bones and several organs in each corpse showed traces of strychnine poisoning.

  Continuing with their investigation, the police learned that Daisy had traveled out of town in March of 1932 to a chemist and had bought arsenic under her second married name, Sproat, claiming that she needed it to put a sick cat out of its misery.