Black Widow: The True Story of Australia's First Female Serial Killer

by Carol Baxter

  • • •

  Once a doctor reported a suspicious death, it was the coroner’s responsibility to decide whether to initiate an investigation. Sometimes he would begin by questioning the physician. If further investigation seemed unnecessary, he would officially return the responsibility for providing a death certificate to the physician.

  Unfortunately, Dr Marshall’s report ticked all the right—or wrong—boxes. City Coroner Henry Shiell decided that further investigation would indeed be necessary. He signed the paperwork ordering Collins’ corpse to be collected and delivered to the South Sydney Morgue.

  Sherwood and Jeffes arrived at Louisa’s cottage shortly before midday. The front door was wide open as if to welcome mourners yet nobody was inside—except her dead husband, of course.

  Not knowing where Louisa had gone or when she would return, the officers decided that they couldn’t wait for her to say her final goodbyes. Jeffes headed off with the body to the morgue, leaving Sherwood to search the premises.

  Soon, Sherwood was joined by Sub-Inspector George Hyem. A twenty-year veteran, Hyem had risen steadily through the police ranks and was stationed at Darlinghurst, a major police station near the Darlinghurst gaol and courthouse. With more seniority and experience in murder cases, Hyem had been ordered to take charge of the investigation.

  The two policemen searched the house, looking for anything that might contain poison, especially arsenic. Although Marshall had failed to detect its presence, the doctors still thought that these crystals were the most likely cause of Collins’ death. Arsenic could be found in many places—in flypapers, for example. Indeed, history told tales of enterprising murderers who had soaked them in water to release the deadly poison. Criminals could often be admired for their ingenuity if not their malevolent intent.

  Sherwood found a jar of hair dye—presumably Louisa’s rather than her youthful husband’s. He stuck it in his pocket to take away for testing. He and Hyem felt through every piece of clothing, turning out the pockets to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. They pulled back the bedding and separated the layers as if peeling an onion. When they had finished inside, they searched the yard and outhouse. They even looked under the house.

  Afterwards, Hyem returned to Sydney while Sherwood waited for Louisa; he didn’t want the grieving widow to think that her husband’s body had been stolen. When she still hadn’t returned by one pm, he began walking back to the Botany police station. By chance, he crossed paths with her as she headed home from the tram stop. He asked where she had been.

  ‘I have been to the doctor’s,’ she told him, ‘and had expected to meet either you or Constable Jeffes there for the purpose of getting a certificate.’

  ‘I gave no such instructions,’ said the surprised officer. While she might have been to the doctor’s, Jeffes sensed another destination as well. She seemed sober enough, though, able to look after herself at any rate.

  ‘I have had the body removed from the house to the South Sydney Morgue,’ he informed her. ‘It is by order of the coroner for the purpose of a post-mortem examination.’

  She seemed uninterested in the revelation. Instead, she mused, ‘Isn’t it curious that Dr Marshall refuses to give me a certificate of the cause of his death? He said he would not be much of a doctor if he gave me a certificate at once.’

  • • •

  At seven pm that same evening, four doctors gathered at the morgue to perform an autopsy on Collins’ body. George Marshall and his relatives Hamilton Marshall and Thomas Martin were joined by Frederick Milford, a revered figure in Sydney medical circles. Milford was one of the founders of St Vincent’s Hospital and the first lecturer in the Principles and Practices of Medicine at Sydney University. It would be his responsibility to ensure that the post-mortem examination was efficient and exhaustive.

  The men gathered around the autopsy table where Collins’ body was lying. They manipulated his limbs and determined that rigor mortis was still present in his legs but had passed off in his arms, which was to be expected as death had occurred twenty-eight hours ago. They continued their visual examination, noting that the body was fairly well-nourished and was wiry rather than muscular. They could see two abrasions on the right side of the thorax—the upper part of the torso extending from the neck to the abdomen—and another two on the right buttock. Midway between the right knee and ankle was a six-inch long cavity that was about half an inch wide and half an inch deep. It was a necrosis, an area of dead tissue and bone. They all agreed that it wasn’t severe enough to be fatal.

  They began the internal examination. First, they sawed through the skull bone and examined the brain. It showed signs of congestion. Then they sliced through the flesh of the corpse and lifted out the organs. The tonsils were slightly enlarged and the thyroid gland considerably enlarged but the heart and lungs were healthy. The spleen was abnormally large—weighing ten-and-a-half ounces compared to the average five to eight ounces. The liver too, weighing four-and-a-half pounds instead of three or four. The serous surface—the covering on the outside of the intestine—was darker than usual and congested, and the stomach was significantly distended. The other organs, though, looked normal.

  Cutting open the stomach, they found that it contained about twelve ounces of dark greenish-brown fluid, which they tipped into a clean glass jar. With the stomach’s mucous coat uncovered, they could see that it was considerably inflamed. Red patches dotted the surface. A sizeable patch lay near the pyloric orifice, the area of the stomach that connects with the small intestines. These were signs of peritoneal inflammation, although they couldn’t determine its cause. To answer that question, chemical tests would need to be conducted.

  Milford picked up the stomach and tipped it and its contents into a glass jar. He added portions cut from the kidney, liver and jejunum—the middle section of the small intestine. Carefully, he corked and sealed the jar then locked it in a tin case. He would hand it to the relevant authorities when the inquest was convened.

  Court procedure dictated that the physical evidence in a criminal trial should be appropriately secured and the chain of custody kept intact. In the event of any noteworthy discoveries, the jury needed to be able to feel confident that nothing untoward had happened to the evidence. It could mean the difference between life and death for the accused in a murder trial.

  Chapter 9

  How eloquently must the symptoms have spoken to the doctor.

  Regina v. Louisa Collins

  The pressman for John Fairfax & Son’s evening newspaper, the Echo, stepped through the large iron gates in Belmore Road and headed towards the garden surrounding the caretaker’s cottage. Behind the cottage squatted the South Sydney Morgue, where hundreds of bodies were deposited each year for investigation. The morgue’s location was appropriate: in a corner of the old Church of England section of the now closed Elizabeth and Devonshire Streets Cemetery. Such a location might provide reassurance for family members, a reminder of the natural cycle of birth and death, except that there was nothing natural about the demise of many of the morgue’s inmates. Sometimes misfortune inked the nib recording an admission; sometimes suspicion. Before discharge details could be added, explanations must be sought.

  Adjoining the caretaker’s cottage was the small coroner’s courtroom where inquests were conducted. There the relevant questions would be asked and perhaps answered. It was the pressman’s job to record the witnesses’ responses for the benefit of Echo readers and also for the morning newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald. Crime and misfortune helped sell newspapers. Indeed, courtroom dramas were among the pleasures of modern society. The largely verbatim reports transformed the black-and-white print into graphic scenes as if the witnesses had stepped from the courtroom stage and were performing their monologues in the colony’s parlours.

  In general, only a score of people traipsed along the path to the coroner’s courtroom, mainly the deceased’s family and close friends as well as witnesses and jurors. Sometimes, h
undreds milled around the iron gates, even thousands in the aftermath of a tragedy or gruesome murder. On Tuesday, 10 July, the numbers were small. The pressman wasn’t surprised. Few knew about this particular death. ‘This case is one in which the police refused to give any information whatever,’ he wrote, ‘as they were of the opinion that the matter ought not to be published until after the inquest.’ Naturally, such reticence piqued his interest. What tales was the courtroom about to hear?

  Coroner Henry Shiell took his seat. He was a well-known figure to members of Sydney’s fourth estate, having sat in the coroner’s chair for two decades. He had overseen inquests into natural deaths as well as those caused by murder and misadventure. He knew that inquests were inquisitional rather than adversarial, intended to find answers rather than cast blame. Accordingly, defence lawyers were rarely present and prosecutors never. If, however, the jurors decided that a death was caused by malicious intent, they could point their official finger at a particular person or persons. The accused would then be committed to stand trial, beginning a process that could end in the law’s legislated punishment of death.

  Before the witnesses could be called, it was necessary for the coroner and jurors, along with Louisa Collins, Constable Jeffes and Dr Marshall, to view and officially identify the corpse. They trooped across to the morgue where Collins’ corpse was displayed. Death was a familiar sight to most of the populace, although few had seen the rows of ragged autopsy stitches that held a body together after an autopsy. A draped sheet hid most of the ugliness, but what confronted them, what almost assaulted them, was the stench of death that seeped from the pores of the building itself.

  ‘About a fortnight back,’ continued the coroner after they had seated themselves in the courtroom again, ‘the deceased became ill, and Dr Marshall was called in to attend upon him. He continued so to do until his death, which took place on Sunday afternoon last. In consideration of the circumstances surrounding the case, Dr Marshall declined to give a certificate for the cause of death. He is of the opinion that the circumstances of the case are of a very suspicious character. The medical evidence will be taken and then the inquiry will be adjourned to allow a chemical analysis of the deceased’s stomach and contents.’

  Having explained why the case had been brought to his attention, Shiell looked down at his notes to remind himself of the necessary background information. ‘Mrs Collins lost a husband about thirteen months ago, a man by the name of Andrews, and the illness in his case was identical with the illness of the present deceased. A few days after the death of the first husband, she married the deceased, and now he has died under almost the same circumstances as the former one.’

  No wonder Collins’ death was being investigated. The Echo journalist turned his gaze towards Louisa Collins, who had just been called to testify. She appeared overly excited—not that emotional widows were an unusual sight in a coroner’s courtroom. In truth, her manner would have been more noteworthy if, after such an insinuating introduction, she had shown no emotional response at all.

  Louisa stepped into the witness box and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth. Then the questions began: name, address, relationship to the deceased, personal information about the deceased . . . date of marriage?

  ‘We were married on 9 April 1887,’ she stated.

  She confirmed that Collins was her second husband and that her first husband had also died. ‘On 5 February 1887,’ she said, although other sources would later reveal that his death had occurred on the second of the month.

  Meanwhile, those with an aptitude for arithmetic were making some calculations. Obviously, her first husband hadn’t died thirteen months previously as the coroner had stated, but seventeen months ago. And she hadn’t remarried only a few days after his death; it was two months later. True, two months was a brief mourning period, but it wasn’t scandalously short. For poor widows with young children and little income, a speedy remarriage was often an economic necessity. Attractive widows like Mrs Collins rarely stayed in the marriage market for long.

  The coroner asked about her second husband’s illness. Louisa reported that he had been ill for a couple of months and that Dr Marshall had attended him for the latter part of his illness. ‘He told my husband he was suffering from a “feverish cold”,’ she told the court. She mentioned that Dr Martin, the surgeon who had attended her first husband, had also visited her second husband a couple of times before he died. At that point she hesitated, seemingly unable to remember when her husband had died even though it was only two days previously. ‘The afternoon of Sunday last,’ she finally recollected.

  And then came the question alluding to motive. Had he life insurance?

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘His life was not insured.’

  No obvious motive then. But what about her previous husband?

  ‘My former husband’s life was insured. I got the insurance. He willed it to me,’ she replied defensively.

  After the coroner indicated that he had no further questions, the clerk wrote out Louisa’s deposition and read it back to her, asking her to sign it. She began writing then paused and looked up at the coroner: ‘I have made a mistake. I put down Louisa Andrews.’

  The coroner advised her to sign her name correctly. But what did this odd slip-up say about her relationship with her second husband?

  • • •

  Her exhaustion was catching up with her. She’d had little sleep in the past couple of weeks, having attended Mick night after night as he moaned and vomited. During the daylight hours, she’d had her family to feed and the usual chores to do. On a number of occasions, she had also travelled into the city to seek the doctor’s assistance. Was it surprising that she could barely keep her head up when people spoke to her? As for forgetting to sign her correct surname, twenty-two years of writing Louisa Andrews—on the rare occasions she had needed to—had overridden fifteen months of Louisa Collins.

  To make matters worse, the coroner had now pointed the finger at her as if the fact that she had married Mick so soon after Charlie’s death was grounds for thinking that she might have killed him—if not both of them.

  • • •

  ‘A man who gave his name as “Collins” came to my consulting room,’ said Dr Marshall in his lilting Irish brogue when he was called to the witness box. He described his dealings with the Collinses and the conversation with Dr Martin that had aroused his suspicions. He added that he had failed to find anything untoward when he tested Collins’ vomit and urine, yet Collins’ rapid deterioration and death had left him deeply troubled. ‘Under the circumstances,’ he concluded, ‘I declined to give a certificate of the cause of death, not being satisfied what the cause was.’

  As the Echo reporter scribbled his detailed notes, he recognised that Marshall had suspicions but no evidence of foul play. Of course, it was the inquest’s role to determine if Collins had died of unnatural causes. Would the next witness, Dr Frederick Milford, be able to provide any evidence? Milford conducted post-mortem examinations every two or three weeks so he was a regular in the coroner’s courtroom. His was the hand that reached beneath the surface of the human body, his the eyes that saw what others couldn’t see. What could he tell the jury?

  Milford described in gruesome detail the results of the autopsy examination, concluding, ‘From the appearances here described, I am of the opinion that the death was lingering and protracted, that the cause of death was peritonitis of a low form, and that this may have been caused by the use internally of some noxious drug, or probably may have arisen from natural causes.’

  The coroner recalled Dr Marshall, who agreed with Milford’s opinion. Asked what natural causes could produce such an effect, Marshall said that alcoholism was a well-known cause, although this was unlikely in Collins’ case because of the man’s seeming temperance. While treating Collins, he had assumed that another natural cause was responsible until Dr Martin had mentioned his own involvement with the family. Even then, he had remained unconcerned a
bout Collins’ condition until the night before his death.

  As Dr Marshall left the witness stand, the coroner brought the proceedings to a temporary close. ‘The inquiry is adjourned until Tuesday next,’ he informed the jurors, ‘to allow the deceased’s stomach and contents to undergo a chemical analysis by the government analyst.’

  • • •

  SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A MAN AT BOTANY was the headline in that afternoon’s edition of the Echo. The report itself contained little more than a verbatim account of each witness’s testimony, with few personal details and no speculation. Still, the number of column inches devoted to the topic served as speculation in itself. With allusions to the possibility of infidelity as well as murder—one committed by a woman, no less—the case was already nudging the boundary between the merely interesting and the sensational. And ‘sensation’ was a financial windfall, as any successful newspaper proprietor could attest.

  Chapter 10

  The poetry of homicide belongs in a special degree to poisoning.

  The Times

  The role of a government analyst—the man responsible for investigating poisoning deaths—was only a recently established occupation for the simple reason that forensic toxicology, indeed toxicology itself, was only a recently established science. But it was a much-needed one in these ‘civilised’ times, many would declare grimly.

  In times gone by, crimes had generally been of a cruder nature—physical expressions of rage or passion or cold calculation that left visible traces on the victim. Civilised times spawned more sophisticated crimes, as the Italian courts could attest. No classical Roman or Renaissance statesman—no Borgia—would openly stab a rival when poison was at hand. An inscrutable mask; an unseen hand; an invisible but nonetheless deadly violation. Suspicion might arise, but certainty?

  By Victorian times, the dark art of poisoning was sweeping through all classes of society like a fashion filtering down the social ranks. Poisoning homicides were increasing, although, as experts tried to point out, improvements in the ability to identify specific poisons in the human body were partly responsible for the seeming upsurge. Doctors were advised to watch out for the well-known symptoms. When they aired their suspicions, the toxicologists—the poison detectives—could begin their hunt. They were the foe the poisoner feared the most.