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

by Carol Baxter

  Wallters and Hyem made a cursory inspection then announced that the coffin appeared to be in the same state as previously. Knaggs examined it more closely, concluding that, despite the damage, there was no evidence of tampering. He gave the signal that the lid be removed. Moments later, the odour of decaying flesh assailed them.

  The men looked inside the open coffin. The body lay in a shallow pool of muddy water, although the water didn’t appear to have reached the critical central region of its torso. Knaggs inspected the body, noticing that its grave clothes were rotted but seemingly undisturbed. He took hold of some fabric and tugged gently. It tore, exposing the remains. He pulled away the remainder of the fabric until the naked body was revealed. Parts were significantly decomposed and the whole mass had subsided, giving the coffin a half-filled appearance.

  Knaggs began his visual examination, noticing that the head, upper thorax, legs and arms had disintegrated. Helpfully, the torso bones remained intact. This would make it easier to identify the different parts of the body and the probable locations of the organs needing to be extracted for chemical analysis. Surprisingly, the lower section of the thorax and abdomen were fairly well-preserved. Indeed, the contour of the abdomen down to the navel depression was discernible. Their coverings had only partly undergone the soapy change that produced the wax-like covering known as adipocere.

  Nothing further could be done until the inquest jury had seen the body, so the men turned to the infant’s coffin. Wallters removed the little casket from its pine shell and unwrapped its blue cloth covering. On the lid was a metal coffin plate with an inscription containing the infant’s name and death details. He lifted the lid and looked at the remains. Neither the coffin itself nor the body showed any signs of interference.

  Knaggs took over again. He removed the infant’s linen robes and exposed the remains. The integuments covering the face were well preserved; however, the soft tissues of the nose, eyes and lips had disappeared and the rest of the body showed considerable decomposition.

  By this time, the inquest jury had assembled. As the doctors stepped away from the coffins, the jurors filed into the autopsy room, handkerchiefs raised to noses, eyes mostly averted. Buckets were on hand for those unable to endure the stench—or the gruesome sight. Hasty footsteps spoke of their relief when the order was given for their return to the courtroom.

  With the jurors’ departure, the doctors were able to continue the autopsy. Dr Knaggs made an incision through the covering of Charles Andrews’ torso, allowing them to see the structure of the integuments and muscular tissue. The lungs were merely a dark brown mass, while a muddy substance occupied the position where the liver would have been. A thin white membrane stained by a dark yellow fluid seemingly represented the stomach, and a greyish soapy mass the intestines. Curiously, the left kidney was in a good state of preservation and could easily be identified. The right kidney was also recognisable, although it wasn’t as well preserved.

  Hamlet was watching the autopsy doctors. He needed to make sure that Knaggs collected the anatomical sections that would most likely reveal traces of arsenic—if any had been administered. He told Knaggs that he was most interested in the gastrointestinal region.

  Knaggs carefully washed and dried three glass jars. Into one, he placed the two kidneys; into the second, what he and Martin believed to be the stomach and intestines; into the third, the remains of the lungs and of the tissue that covered Andrews’ abdomen. He closed and sealed the jars, labelling them with their contents, then handed them to Inspector Hyem.

  There was little Knaggs could do with John Collins’ tiny body. Although buried for a considerably shorter period than Andrews’, it had decomposed faster. All its tissue resembled the greyish soapiness of adipocere. Nonetheless, he removed several ounces of matter from the thorax and abdomen regions and placed it in a clean glass jar that he sealed, labelled and handed to Hyem. It would be Hyem’s responsibility to officially hand the container to Hamlet, but not until the autopsy results had been reported to the coroner at the newly convened inquest.

  Chapter 15

  In the midst of life we are in death.

  Book of Common Prayer

  In the morgue’s courtroom, Dr Martin had been called to testify. Not only had he assisted at the post-mortem examinations that morning, he had signed the two death certificates reporting that each death had resulted from natural causes. The coroner wanted to know why he had reached such a conclusion.

  ‘About the twenty-seventh of January 1887, I was called to see a man named Charles Andrews . . .’ he began.

  • • •

  Actually, it was 29 January 1887 when the drama began, as he would later advise the court. Around eight o’clock that evening, a man named George Osborne came to the Elizabeth Street surgery and begged him to visit a sick friend, Charles Andrews. Osborne said that he was a boarder residing in the house of the ailing man.

  Martin accompanied him to the Andrewses’ home at 10 Pople’s Paddock, Botany, which lay on the other side of the paddock from the house he would later visit with Dr Marshall. Mrs Louisa Andrews—later Mrs Collins—opened the door and ushered him into the bedroom, then remained in the room throughout his visit.

  Lying in bed was a man aged about fifty. He was of an average size, more lanky than robust, and appeared exhausted and worried. He complained of severe pain in his stomach and of constant vomiting and diarrhoea.

  Martin examined his new patient and concluded that his health was generally good with no signs of serious illness or constitutional disease. He found tenderness over the epigastrium (the upper central part of the abdomen) and also over the right hypochondrium, just under the ribs. As he placed his hands on the various parts of Andrews’ body, he asked about the history of his illness. Andrews said that he had been ill about a week with the same symptoms.

  Deciding that Andrews was suffering from a gastrointestinal disorder, Martin wrote a prescription for a medical preparation that would relieve the pain and vomiting, one that included bismuth and carbonate of magnesia, which were commonly used to treat gastric complaints. He also prescribed a pill that contained Dover’s Powder (ipecacuanha and opium) to relieve straining and pain. As he handed the prescription to Mrs Andrews, he provided instructions about her husband’s food and general treatment and asked her to let him know the following day how her husband was faring.

  George Osborne served as the messenger again, journeying into the city that Sunday to tell Martin that his landlord was still vomiting. As Andrews hadn’t seemed seriously ill, Martin felt it unnecessary to visit him again. Instead, he wrote another prescription, this time for a medicine that rarely failed to curb vomiting. He told Osborne that Andrews was to take a tablespoon every two hours.

  Two days later, on 1 February, Osborne came to his door begging him to visit Andrews again. When Martin reached the cottage around four pm, he could see that Andrews’ condition had deteriorated. His cheeks were hollow and sunken and his lips and gums pitted with sores—a sign of his body’s distress. He also complained that the vomiting was still incessant, and that the severe burning feeling in his stomach continued although the diarrhoea had eased.

  Martin was perplexed to hear that the vomiting hadn’t ceased. He asked Andrews if he had been taking the prescribed medicine. The man confirmed that he had. That being the case, the doctor wondered whether he had correctly diagnosed the man’s complaint. He examined him again and noticed that his pulse was weak, another worrying sign. He looked around the room and saw some greenish vomited matter in the chamber-pot next to the bed. Turning to Andrews’ wife, he asked, ‘What has Andrews been taking?’

  ‘He has had some beer,’ she replied.

  Beer? He was surprised and annoyed. He had specifically told her not to give her husband beer. Perhaps she had forgotten. It might have contributed to her husband’s deterioration as alcohol could prevent the medicine from working properly. He decided not to write another prescription. Instead, he provided further
instructions about the quality of food her husband should consume, mentioning milk and boiled water. He explained that her husband was seriously ill, although his condition should not be life-threatening.

  He was wrong. On 3 February, Osborne returned to the surgery to report that Andrews had died the previous day. The doctor would need to sign a death certificate.

  As Martin would later tell the inquest, he was surprised at the suddenness of Andrews’ death. Still, he provided the necessary death certificate which noted that Andrews had died from ‘acute gastroenteritis’. He had no reason—at that time—for thinking that his diagnosis might be incorrect.

  • • •

  Dr Martin was reminded of the case a year later, on 20 April 1888, when he received a visit from Andrews’ wife, who was now calling herself Mrs Collins.

  ‘Will you come and see my child?’ she said. ‘It died during the night. I want a certificate.’

  Thirty years after New South Wales legislated the civil registration of births, deaths and marriages, the public knew that a doctor needed to sign a death certificate. If medical care had not been requested prior to death, a doctor needed to examine the patient to ensure there were no suspicious circumstances associated with the death.

  ‘What were the symptoms?’ Martin asked.

  ‘It woke up crying late at night and died in half an hour.’

  He went with her to her Botany residence, the same property he would later visit with Dr Marshall. Her new husband was there, a much younger man than the first. The pair took him into the bedroom to see the child.

  ‘How old?’ he asked.

  ‘Five months,’ she said.

  Five months? He made some mental calculations then asked, ‘Did the child go all its time?’ When she indicated that it was indeed a full-term pregnancy, he made another quick calculation. It suggested conception in February 1887, the same month—according to his recollection—that her first husband had died.

  He examined the infant and noticed signs of teething and constitutional delicacy. He asked Mrs Collins for more details about her son’s last few days. She said that the baby had been suffering from a sick stomach for a couple of days prior to his death, although they hadn’t thought his condition serious enough to seek medical attention. At about one pm on the day of his death, they had given him castor oil. Around ten pm, he had awoken crying. Mick had lit the lamp and cuddled him and his crying eased. Soon, he was laughing at the light. Mick had given him to her and she fed him and they all fell asleep. About eleven-twenty pm he had awoken screaming, clearly in great pain. He had died less than twenty minutes later.

  Martin told her that he wouldn’t provide a death certificate, that she was to report the matter to the police and that he would send a memo to the coroner. In his memo, he merely recounted the circumstances of the child’s death, as told to him by the parents, and reported that the baby’s general appearance and condition gave him no reason to disbelieve their account. The coroner responded, ‘As there are no grounds for supposing this child died from any but natural causes, an inquest may be dispensed with.’

  • • •

  When Martin later told the jury about the deaths of Andrews and the infant, he said that he’d had no suspicion of poisoning at the time of Andrews’ death. When asked about the infant’s death, he said that he hadn’t seen anything in the boy’s appearance that would lead him to think that death resulted from anything other than natural causes. At no time did he explain why he had thought it necessary to report the infant’s death to the coroner. No doubt he felt that it was now the jury’s responsibility to decide whether there was anything untoward about the two deaths.

  Chapter 16

  On account of the facility with which [arsenic] may be procured in this country, even by the lowest of the vulgar, and the ease with which it may be secretly administered, it is the poison most frequently chosen for the purpose of committing murder.

  Robert Christison, Treatise on Poisons

  Sydney was on tenterhooks. The resumption of the second inquest had also been delayed by Coroner Shiell’s illness. When would they hear if Louisa Collins was to be indicted for a second murder . . . or even a third? Could she be a baby-killer in addition to a husband-killer?

  When the inquest resumed on 3 August, Dr Knaggs described the results of his post-mortem examinations. His testimony about the decomposed state of the two exhumed bodies created concern among some jurors, who wondered if poison could really be found under such conditions. Knaggs reassured them. ‘I think it is quite possible, notwithstanding the condition of the bodies, to find traces of poison if any existed.’

  It was the cue for the government analyst, William Hamlet, to return to the witness box. He had completed his chemical analysis nearly three weeks earlier and had made some interesting discoveries.

  Hamlet had decided to investigate the infant’s death first as it would be faster to test a single jar. Again he chose the Marsh test to tease out any deadly morsels. He poured and stirred and burnt and peered at the sheet of glass. No sign of any precipitate. He conducted a battery of tests for other well known or easily accessible poisons. Again, he found nothing.

  Charles Andrews’ remains were stored in three jars. Hamlet tested the first jar—the kidneys—but the precipitate glass remained clear. In the second jar, which contained what appeared to be the stomach and sections of intestines, he found a tiny trace of arsenic: one five-hundredth of a grain. He also found one and a quarter grains of bismuth, an ingredient used in the medicine Dr Martin had prescribed. In the third jar he found another five-hundredth of a grain of arsenic.

  To confirm that these measurements were correct, he conducted a second arsenic test and obtained the same result. He also undertook a control experiment involving arsenic and water alone, and found that the reaction was equivalent to the results of the viscera tests. Clearly, arsenic was not only present in the remains of Louisa Collins’ second husband; it was in her first husband’s body as well.

  • • •

  When Hamlet was called to testify in this second inquest, Coroner Shiell began by questioning him about the infant’s death. Hamlet told the jury that he couldn’t find poison of any description in the infant’s remains.

  The coroner asked about Charles Andrews’ remains. Hamlet reported that he had discovered a minute trace of arsenic.

  The atmosphere tensed as the courtroom attendees waited for him to elaborate. The Echo had previously reported that Hamlet had found a ‘faint trace of arsenic’ in Charles Andrews’ remains. Yet the newspaper had added a disclaimer—from Hamlet himself—stating that the evidence was not enough to indicate deliberate poisoning because arsenic was sometimes found in the earth and in metallic coffins. Did he have any new information to impart?

  Hamlet continued with his explanation, so coldly scientific that it seemed as if the testing procedure was automatic and unequivocal rather than subject to perceptual fallibilities. Finally, he told the jury that he estimated the amount of arsenic found in Andrews’ body to be about one five-hundredth of a grain.

  Those who had read the reports from the earlier inquest—or the newspaper reports of the dozens of other arsenic deaths—knew that a fatal arsenic dose for an adult was two to three grains. A quick calculation determined that it would take at least a thousand times more arsenic to kill a man than had been found in Andrews’ remains. It could hardly be considered evidence of murderous intent.

  As if he had heard these courtroom surmises, Hamlet added an important qualification: ‘The fact that arsenic is not found in a body after death is no evidence that the deceased person did not die from arsenical poisoning.’

  A juror asked if the water found in the Andrews coffin might have washed most of the arsenic away.

  ‘If water was to get into the coffin in which a person was buried who had died from arsenical poisoning, the water might dissolve the arsenic,’ Hamlet confirmed.

  The coroner authorised Inspector Hyem to take a sample
of the earth surrounding the grave area and to pass it to Hamlet for testing.

  • • •

  Instead of calling a doctor to clarify how the absence of arsenic traces was not proof that it hadn’t been administered, the coroner switched gear: from means to motive. He called Meyrick Fitzpatrick Rainsford to the stand.

  An accountant employed by the Mutual Life Association of Australia, Rainsford began his testimony by reporting that Charles Andrews had purchased a life insurance policy for himself in March 1877 and that the policy was still in force at the time of his death. On 7 April 1887, the policy’s death benefit had been paid to the office of solicitor James Arthur Dowling on the order of Andrews’ widow, to whom Andrews had bequeathed the money in his will.

  When Rainsford was asked who had prepared the will and who now held the original, Louisa piped up, ‘The will is now at the office of Mr Dowling as good as ever, I should think. It was made out by my husband and showed that he was a sensible and sober man.’

  There was still one question to be answered: the circumstances under which the will in Louisa’s favour had been signed. Her neighbour William Farrar was called to answer that question.

  Farrar told the court that, late in January 1887, he had received a message from Mrs Andrews asking if he would come over and witness her husband’s will. Arriving at the house, he had found Andrews lying on a sofa in the sitting room, feeble but not seemingly at death’s door. Another neighbour, John Stephen, was waiting nearby. Mrs Andrews said to him, ‘Andrews wants you to witness his will.’ Andrews was more gracious. Rising from the sofa, he said politely: ‘Will you be kind enough to sign the will in the presence of John Stephen? I think my time has come.’ He read out the will, his strong, clear voice belying the import of the document. It contained one bequest only, leaving everything to his wife.