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

by Carol Baxter

  Heydon’s was a carefully crafted address, not only in its presentation of the facts but in its deliberate manipulation. He appealed not just to the jurymen’s intellect but, more importantly, to their egos. He began by declaring that Mrs Collins’ guilt had been conclusively proven, that the prosecution had clearly shown that Collins had been poisoned by a series of arsenic doses and that Collins’ wife was the only person who could have administered those doses. He added, ‘I contend that no sensible man could for an instant bring himself to believe that the most direct and most positive evidence of wilful poisoning had not been adduced—and abundantly adduced.’ Attempting to stave off any reluctance to convict, he told the jurors that they mustn’t let themselves be paralysed by their feelings and responsibility. And he admonished them sternly, ‘If you return a verdict of not guilty, you will proclaim yourselves unfit for the grave duty that has been cast upon you.’

  At seven-fifty pm, when the judge adjourned the trial for the evening, the jurors retired with the prosecutor’s words ringing in their ears. If you pride yourself on being sensible, the Crown was telling them, you will accept the evidence of wilful poisoning. If you consider yourself worthy of the grave responsibility of sitting on a jury, you will put aside your emotions and convict the woman of murder.

  Heydon had eliminated four jurors before accepting the twelve he was addressing, perhaps in an attempt to make sure that this jury didn’t contain any men with an aversion to capital punishment. These jurors had been deliberately chosen to embody the ideal of ‘twelve good men and true’, so the prosecutor’s demand went directly to the heart of who they were. Yet there was a subtle challenge underlying his words, one that went to the heart of what they were. ‘Only the lily-livered would be afraid to uphold the law,’ the Crown was saying.

  It took a certain type of man to resist such a challenge to his masculinity and Heydon was hoping that none was sitting on his jury.

  Chapter 31

  A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

  Robert Frost, quoted in Fire and Ice: The Art and Thought of Robert Frost

  Early on Saturday 8 December, warders escorted Louisa from her cell to the stone steps leading to the tunnel entrance. At the bottom of the steps stood a large iron door. She waited while the key squealed in its lock then she passed through the doorway and began walking along the narrow, low-ceilinged tunnel built of immense sandstone blocks. It was impossible not to feel dread as the courthouse entrance loomed closer and closer.

  According to the press reports, she would never walk along the tunnel towards the courthouse again. But would she be making the return journey? If she were lucky—if the jury decided she was not guilty or was unable to reach a verdict—the courthouse doors would open to release her to freedom. But if the jury decided she was guilty . . .

  • • •

  ‘The prisoner at the bar, Louisa Collins, stands indicted for having murdered her husband, Michael Peter Collins,’ began Chief Justice Darley when the whispering had died away. He continued in the usual way, advising the sombre jurors of the seriousness of the case and of their own formidable responsibility.

  After briefly outlining the family’s history and discussing the particulars of the case, he drew the jury’s attention to the evidence concerning Charles Andrews’ death. He said that the court was not trying Louisa for that death; rather, that the evidence had been admitted to show that it was improbable that an accident had taken place. If Collins alone had died from arsenical poisoning, there would have been the possibility that his death was the result of an accident or suicide. But when two men died of the same symptoms within a seventeen-month period, and when traces of arsenic were found in one body and conclusive evidence of arsenical poisoning in the other, there was a strong presumption that it was no accident—especially when it was found that the same woman had attended both men. It suggested that the deaths were the result of an individual’s design and it was up to the jury to decide if Louisa was that individual.

  Darley then ran through the evidence regarding Collins’ death and read out Louisa’s statement, pointing out the discrepancies between her statement and those of other witnesses. He drew the jury’s attention to her actions during and after Collins’ death and to the evidence of arsenic’s presence not just in the body but in the tumbler. ‘The suggestions made by counsel for the defence—that the police or someone else had tampered with the milk in the tumbler between the time that it was taken from the house and handed over to the government analyst—can scarcely be entertained,’ he added, ‘as there is no ground whatever for supposing that anyone had been guilty of the diabolical act suggested.’

  He reminded the jury of Louisa’s anxiety about her husband’s health and her repeated calls for medical assistance. He also admitted that there was no apparent motive for her taking Collins’ life, although it was unnecessary for the jury to have a distinct motive laid before them as it was often impossible to understand the mind of another person. Nonetheless, aware of the difficulty faced by a jury when assessing a motiveless crime supported only by circumstantial evidence, he added, ‘It might be that the prisoner, after having poisoned Andrews without being discovered, took the same means of dealing with Collins after she had got tired of him.’

  Soon after the court clock chimed the midday hour, he told the jury that it was now time to retire to their room to consider their verdict. ‘If, as a result of your judgement, you are left with any reasonable doubt in your minds, you are bound to give the prisoner the benefit of that doubt and acquit her. But the doubt must be a reasonable one, and not a doubt conjured up out of the imagination. If, on the other hand, after careful consideration of the evidence, you can come to no other conclusion but that this unfortunate man met his death by poison administered by his wife, then you have to discharge but one solemn duty and pronounce that verdict which the law of the country requires you to return.’

  • • •

  An excited babble filled the courtroom as the spectators weighed the odds. Would this jury succeed in reaching a verdict? An hour later, when the jury hadn’t returned, Darley realised that this trial was not going to produce a speedy result. He ordered that the court be adjourned for a meal break so that he and the functionaries could at least wait with full stomachs.

  As the courtroom started filling again at two pm, word spread that the jury was returning. Only two hours? Those who had intended to remain in the fresh air for a while longer hurried back inside.

  The jurors took their seats. Louisa rose and faced them with the same air of detachment controlling her features. Again, a deathly hush settled over the room.

  The clerk asked, ‘Gentlemen of the jury, have you agreed upon a verdict?’

  ‘We have, sir.’

  After three hung juries, the words were almost a shock.

  ‘How say you, gentlemen of the jury?’ continued the clerk. ‘Is the prisoner, Louisa Collins, guilty of the charge whereof she stands arraigned or not guilty?’

  The silence in the courtroom was absolute.

  ‘We find the prisoner guilty.’

  • • •

  The Evening News reporter was watching Louisa closely. He noticed that she blanched as the foreman announced the verdict. Trembling, she glanced around the courtroom, then she clutched the small desk in front of the dock. Her back straightened, her head lifted, and she looked the clerk of arraigns in the eye as he began to address her.

  ‘Louisa Collins, you have pleaded not guilty to the murder. The jury have found you guilty of murder. Have you anything to say why the sentence of the court should not be passed upon you, according to law?’

  Louisa turned to the judge and said calmly, ‘Nothing whatever, Your Honour.’

  With due solemnity, Chief Justice Darley picked up the scrap of black cloth known as the ‘black cap’ and placed it on his head. ‘Louisa Collins,’ he began, ‘after a most careful trial, after being defended with much skill and abil
ity, you have been found guilty of the murder of your husband, Michael Peter Collins. No one who has heard this case throughout can have any doubt that this verdict is a true and honest verdict. In fact, no other verdict could be arrived at by a body of intelligent men such as those who have so carefully attended to this case throughout. The murder you have committed is one of peculiar atrocity. You were day by day giving poison to the man whom above all others you were bound to cherish and attend. You watched his slow torture and painful death and this apparently without a moment’s remorse. You were indifferent to his pain and gained his confidence by your simulated affection. There is too much reason to fear that your first husband Andrews also met his death at your hands; that him, too, you watched to the end—saw his torture day after day.

  ‘I hold out no hope of mercy to you on earth. It would be wicked of me to do so. But I implore of you to seek forgiveness where it will assuredly be found. Seek the assistance of the clergyman to whose faith you belong. He will point out to you the way to gain such forgiveness. Your days are surely numbered, and it now remains for me only to pass the last dread sentence of the law upon you.’

  The Evening News reporter had continued to watch Louisa. Not a muscle of her face quivered as she listened to the judge’s condemnation. In fact, she appeared as calm as it was possible for any person to be. Certainly, she was calmer than the judge himself, who was deeply affected by his task; calmer than the jury, several of whom had burst into tears; calmer even than the spectators—few dry eyes could be seen in the courtroom.

  The judge concluded, ‘The sentence of the court is that you be taken to the place from whence you came, and on a day hereafter to be named by the governor in council, that you be taken to the place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead. May the Lord have mercy on your soul.’

  [It] reminds me of the story of the only survivor of a shipwreck who was cast upon a beach. He struggled to his feet and made his way across the sand to the woods. In them, he found a cleared space and in the middle of it was a gallows, upon which he is alleged to have said, with a sigh of relief, ‘Thank God, I have fallen among Christians.’

  Kenneth McCaw MLA

  Chapter 32

  The conviction of Louisa Collins . . . is the termination of the most remarkable series of trials on the capital charge which any prisoner ever had to undergo in this colony.

  Daily Telegraph

  Louisa kept her head high as she moved to the dock staircase, refusing to catch anyone’s gaze. They had dissected her enough, exposing the sordid details of her family life, her drinking, her adultery. She didn’t want to see them delighting in her misery.

  Descending the dock steps, she began walking through the familiar tunnel to Darlinghurst Gaol, her final journey through its claustrophobic confines. She had plodded its course so many times it was difficult to keep a tally, yet each time a glimmer of hope had lit the passageway. Now it had been doused by that single word: ‘Guilty!’ Yet on whose authority was the speaker, via the pronouncement of this word, able to dictate who lived and died?

  • • •

  The subject of capital punishment was being discussed more frequently as Victorian society tried to throw off the shackles of a ‘barbarous’ past and grapple with the issues of crime and punishment from a more civilised perspective. Could the death penalty really be deemed a modern form of punishment, an enlightened punishment?

  Of course, executing the wicked had been a custom since ancient times, with rulers attempting to outdo each other in the horrors they inflicted on their citizens. Crucifixion, stoning, hanging, drowning, beating, beheading, boiling, burning and burying alive. What deeds merited these hideous punishments? Naturally they included crimes like murder, rape and theft. Yet, in some societies, they also included such heinous acts as making a night-time disturbance or singing an insulting song. ‘Crime’ is defined by what a monarch or dictator or legislature decides is criminal rather than by any intrinsic evilness in the deed itself.

  The deadliness of Louisa’s guilty verdict stemmed from the rights assumed by long-dead monarchs. In early modern times, sovereign power had rested on the sword. As the folkloric tale of Robin Hood reveals, the sword wielded the right of seizure—of money, goods, services and human freedom—for the purpose of empowering and enriching the sovereign as well as those in his hierarchy who maintained his power base. The defining privilege of sovereign power was the right to shed human blood. Kings and queens saw themselves as God’s agents on earth and believed they had been granted the divine right to decide who should live or die.

  Over time, absolutist monarchical power was replaced by the bureaucratic state, which took upon itself the right to exclusively represent the nation’s affairs. The focus began to shift towards enriching rather than exploiting the people, through financial, social and even medical means. Still, implicit in its maintenance of authority was the ability to use violence as a means of asserting that authority, both against members who transgressed its rules and against outsiders who breached its boundaries.

  Hanging was its deadliest punishment—in Australia, at least. Introduced into England by invading Germanic tribes during the fifth century, the noose had long been a symbol—second only to the cross—of supreme authority over life and death. In 1788, the First Fleet brought the lethal practice to the Australian continent, executing a convict for thieving food only a month after Sydney Cove’s serenity was disturbed by settlers building accommodation for their ‘civilised’ society. November 1789 saw the first female execution, that of Ann Davis for stealing clothes; she was so drunk she had to be carried to the gallows. Its heyday came four decades later, after conservative military autocrat Ralph Darling assumed the New South Wales governorship. In 1830, fifty felons were hanged from a population of forty thousand, compared with only forty-six from the thirteen million inhabitants of England and Wales. English attitudes were turning against capital punishment and these would gradually flow through to its colonial outposts.

  Forgery, cattle stealing and various thieving offences were struck from the New South Wales Bloody Code in 1833 and other offences in 1838. The colony leapfrogged England by abolishing public executions in 1853, joined by Victoria and Tasmania in 1855. When England broached the same subject in 1866, influential figures argued that, since Australia had already done so, England should follow suit—and it did, in 1868. Meanwhile, England had leapfrogged New South Wales by reducing the number of capital crimes to five, although, in practice, the only crimes that continued to be punished by death were murder and, on rare occasions, treason. New South Wales, however, remained obdurate. Eleven capital crimes were still on its books when Louisa stood in the Darlinghurst Courthouse on Thursday, 8 December 1888, awaiting the jury’s verdict. Murder was one of them.

  Thus, with his pronouncement of the word ‘guilty’, the jury’s foreman had set the gallows clock ticking. No one knew when it would be silent again. Certainly, it wouldn’t tick for long—less than a month, most likely.

  • • •

  Louisa knew there was still hope. Her death sentence had to be ratified by the Executive Council—or the ‘Execution Council’ as it had once been nicknamed—whose members might choose to stop the gallows clock prematurely. Seven other criminals had been sentenced to death in New South Wales courts during the centennial year, yet only twice had the gallows clock continued ticking until the bolt was drawn.

  There was a further source of hope. No woman had been executed in New South Wales for twenty-eight years—and it wasn’t because women had been criminally guiltless throughout that period. Rather, a merciful Executive Council had commuted all of their death sentences.

  When would the council meet? Soon, she was told.

  It couldn’t come soon enough. She’d had months to consider the possibility of a conviction, months to craft a suit of armour to protect herself from the shock and to prevent others from witnessing her horror. But the armour of the imagination is never strong e
nough to withstand the brute force of reality. Once the chief justice had pronounced his judgment, once he had articulated those deadly words, a picture inevitably crystallised: a noose hanging from a sturdy beam.

  ‘They will never hang a woman!’ she told herself. Or would they?

  • • •

  Most prisoners under sentence of death were incarcerated in the gaol’s ‘condemned cells’ in the northernmost part of the gaol, a couple of dozen steps from the first-floor gallery that served as the scaffold. The authorities claimed that condemned prisoners would suffer less emotional torment if their final journey was short, ignoring the proximity-induced torment they endured for the weeks beforehand. No doubt, the authorities’ primary intention was to maintain the dignity of the occasion, to ensure that the pressmen attending the ceremony would return to their newspaper pulpits and preach another lesson about the triumph of justice and the law. The last thing the authorities wanted was for the public to hear an account of guards dragging a hulk of a man for dozens of yards to the gallows or a woman whose screams cracked windowpanes a block away. It would generate sympathy for the sufferer rather than awe at the law’s majesty.

  But Louisa wasn’t being taken to the condemned cells; she was returning to the female wing. The condemned cells were in the male wing, and nobody wanted a woman residing near the men. It might inflame the more brutal and cunning of those rogues, with disastrous consequences for everyone concerned.

  The warders took her along the well-known route back to D wing, but not to her usual cell. As she stepped through the doorway into a three-bedded cell, she saw that two of the beds had been removed and a chair placed in one corner. She was told that a female warder would sit with her, not just throughout the day but during the night as well. The warder would even remain in the room when she received visitors.