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

by Carol Baxter

  ‘By these proceedings, the administration of justice has been removed above the chance of suspicion,’ proclaimed a relieved Sydney Morning Herald. ‘Any lingering doubt that might have existed in the public mind is thus authoritatively set aside, and the fate of the condemned woman, whatever it may be, is in the hands of the Executive.’

  However, the Executive Council, with Parkes as its leader, had already made its decision. That left one person only who still held the prerogative of mercy in his sovereign-empowered hands.

  Chapter 40

  The quality of mercy is not strain’d,

  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

  Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

  It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

  William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

  Frederick Lee knew all about the royal prerogative of mercy. Over the past two decades, most of his endeavours as Standing Counsel for Condemned Prisoners had been directed towards obtaining mercy. With no court of criminal appeal and an unrelenting executive, it was the condemned’s only hope. Like Louisa, most weren’t asking to be freed, only to have their sentences commuted from death to life.

  The hard-line conservatives among the press and public regularly asked why mercy was even allowed. What was its benefit to the community as a whole? If crimes like Louisa’s were to be stopped, then what was needed was the harsh punishment of all criminals.

  In truth, mercy was an essential component of any harsh punishment regime. This royal prerogative also derived from the ancient belief in the divine right of kings and it reinforced sovereignty by placing in the authority’s hands the power to decide who should live or die. But the decision to grant mercy wasn’t based on the warmth of pity and forgiveness as the power-holders often declared. Rather, it was driven by the cool logic of political calculation. Any decision to grant mercy would be founded upon the perceived benefit to society as a whole and, most importantly, to the power-holders themselves.

  Yet, who in this colonial outpost was actually entitled to grant mercy? The royal prerogative had been absorbed into colonial law and had passed into the hands of the Executive Council with the establishment of representative government; however, nobody was quite certain whether the Queen’s representative had the final say. Was this one of the powers that had remained reserved to the Crown—that is, to the Queen and her appointee, the governor? The astute felt that the governor must retain this prerogative by virtue of his political independence because, surely, such life-or-death decisions should be beyond the reach of political influence.

  Frederick Lee knew that Parkes held that very opinion. In 1874, in the discussions about the early release of bushranger Frank Gardiner, Parkes had advised the then governor that he should ask the ministers for their opinions but that the final decision regarding mercy was his. ‘In a community so small,’ Parkes reminded him, ‘the persons entrusted with authority and the relatives and friends of prisoners move closely together. The means of political pressure are easily accessible.’ The Secretary of State for the Colonies had later confirmed this ‘reserved right’ position. Twelve years later, Parkes expressed the same view when he begged Governor Carrington for mercy for the Mount Rennie rapists. And the governor must have thought similarly because he chose to override the decision of the Executive Council and to commute the death sentences of two of the six men.

  Had the attitudes of these two pivotal men changed in the meantime? Colonial law hadn’t changed. Nor had the royal instructions issued to Carrington when he accepted the governorship, which Parkes had read to parliament during the debate about Louisa’s case:

  The Governor shall not pardon or reprieve any such offender unless it shall appear to him expedient to do so, upon receiving the advice of the said Executive Council thereon; but in all such cases he is to decide either to extend or to withhold a pardon or reprieve, according to his own deliberate judgement, whether the members of the Executive Council concur therein or otherwise.

  In making these instructions part of the political record, Premier Parkes was telling the people that, by the authority of Her Majesty the Queen, the governor had the right to extend or withhold the hand of mercy as he saw fit. Parkes was also making clear that he was handing the poisoned chalice that was Louisa Collins to the governor, leaving him to decide whether to abide by the council’s decision or override it.

  • • •

  In the meantime, what could Louisa do to influence these decision-makers? To craft her own escape clause, she would have to play the mercy game. She—or someone in a position of authority—would need to concoct a narrative that explained her actions in a way that obscured her culpability. More than that, it needed to mesh with the cogs that turned the wheel of mercy.

  Crafting the right narrative was the hard part. ‘I am innocent!’ wouldn’t work. It hadn’t before; it wouldn’t now. Once the court had judged her, once society had condemned her, any continuing cry of ‘innocence’ would be little more than a whisper drowned by the clamouring for her blood.

  What words might be appropriate? ‘I am guilty but . . .’ Yes; admitting culpability would help. The public had been bemoaning her failure to confess or show remorse. The press had also been complaining that she continued to behave as if nothing had happened, as if her date with death wasn’t looming closer and closer. Saying ‘I am guilty’ would definitely be a good start; however, she would need an exceptional explanation if she were to have any chance of obscuring her culpability.

  ‘But . . . I did it to protect my children.’ It could work, in principle. In reality, her children—the source of the information that convicted her—hadn’t shown any evidence of living in fear of a brutal stepfather.

  ‘But . . . I did it to protect myself.’ That could work too—if it were true. Instead, the public had read the testimonies of her boarders and children showing that she and her husband had lived on good terms.

  ‘I did it because I was insane.’ That wouldn’t work. Although some had suggested that she must be mad, any woman who declared herself to be mad was unlikely to be mad because, surely, insanity would be normality to the insane. And insanity hadn’t saved poor Henry O’Farrell from his own date with the hangman, anyhow.

  Perhaps she could try: ‘I am just a poor, weak-willed woman who was bereft after our baby died. I turned to drink to drown my sorrows and let the demon invade my soul. I beg everyone’s forgiveness and the forgiveness of the Lord and I throw myself on your mercy.’ That might do it. It was clear from the children’s evidence that she’d lost control of her drinking after her baby died, which suggested she was using alcohol to ease her sorrow. But no one would believe she was weak-willed. They had seen her sitting in the court day after day with rarely a hint of emotion on her face as she listened to her family and friends destroy her character. They had seen her standing in the dock without so much as a tear running down her cheek as the judge sentenced her to the gallows. She would need to show extreme remorse to convince the public she was worthy of mercy. But, in order to do so, she would need to shed the mask of inscrutability that had hidden her emotions, to remove the rod of fortitude that had kept her standing tall throughout each of her four extraordinary trials. She would need to bare her soul. Worse, she would need to become someone other than the person she had always prided herself on being. Could she do so to save her life?

  • • •

  Louisa defied the watchers by continuing to present an indifferent countenance, by refusing to show that she was disturbed by her predicament. She had deliberately shown no interest in the outcome of the appeal which, in view of the premier’s deadly intransigence, seemed to perplex everyone. When they queried why, she had a simple response, ‘They will never hang a woman. They will spare my life at the last moment.’

  Anyway, how could they think she had killed Mick? ‘This man was everything a woman could wish to have,’ she wrote to friends and family members. ‘He was the apple of my eye. His vo
ice was music to my ear. He was all I wanted in this life. If I was between him and death, do you think I would let him go? Oh, no fear.’

  She added that he wasn’t always courageous, but she had long accepted that aspect of his character. He wasn’t always patient either, although that was partly because people kept throwing things onto their zinc roof, including the poisonous little berries that were everywhere in Botany, that lodged in their spout and washed into their water tank. Not that he’d been killed by those berries, she was quick to add, because she knew what had killed him even though everyone refused to believe her. He feared having his name in the paper so he had slowly poisoned himself.

  He couldn’t have imagined that his weakness would cause her so much trouble and sorrow or that the consequences of his weakness would send her to her death.

  • • •

  The authorities read Louisa’s statements and correspondence with interest, wondering if she would say anything that might help them to understand why she had killed her husbands. They noticed that she sometimes used extravagant, romantic language, as if she were trying to hide her educational disadvantages. Then she would lapse into her usual more prosaic style as she explained why Collins was the author of his own death. Interspersed throughout were biblical quotes—the ministrations of the gaol’s Anglican clergyman, Canon Charles Rich, were having some effect. Yet still there was no confession. Indeed, there was nothing even close to an admission of guilt.

  One of her letters was in response to an unkind communication from her mother, yet the tone of her reply was surprisingly affectionate. Even though her mother’s actions had forced her into the loveless marriage that began this disastrous journey, she still seemed to hold a deep well of affection for the woman.

  Her mother didn’t come to see her in the gaol, although some of her children made the journey. Young May wept bitterly throughout the visit and the warders struggled to remove her. Fred also was deeply distressed. The youngest children, Edwin and Charles, weren’t brought to the gaol. They had been admitted to the Benevolent Society Asylum after her committal and later discharged to the officer responsible for sending children to foster homes. No doubt it was thought best not to disturb them in such a way.

  Canon Rich also read the letters, wondering what insights he might gain into this unusual woman. He had spent many hours in her cell, one or two visits every day since her conviction, hoping that his spiritual consolation might be of help during her final dark days. Initially, she had seemed indifferent to his ministrations, so the authorities placed another female prisoner in her cell in the hope that the woman’s sympathetic touch might bring out Louisa’s softer side. The strategy worked. Louisa had opened up, becoming more welcoming and attentive. Soon she was praying earnestly with him and humbly accepting his spiritual suggestions.

  As their relationship developed, he asked about her cold demeanour during her four trials. She told him that it was ‘but a mere shell’, that she had felt her position acutely. The more he talked with her, the more he recognised that she was speaking the truth. She wasn’t cold and callous as the press had demonised her. Rather, she was the type of person who would prefer to die than let others know she was distressed by a situation. Only a person with exceptionally strong will could maintain that degree of fortitude in such trying circumstances. It was hard not to be intrigued by her, indeed hard not to admire her on some level, whatever the deeds that had led to their encounter. She wasn’t an ‘educated’ woman, of course, although better schooled than most of her class. Nonetheless, she was intelligent and able. In other circumstances, she might have achieved a great deal with her life.

  During their conversations, the clergyman also urged her to talk about her world. She spoke bitterly about her neighbours and her eldest son, although she didn’t explain the source of their conflict. As she discussed her family life, it became clear that there had been disturbing influences in her home prior to her first husband’s death—not that these could be considered mitigating factors for murder.

  Over time, Canon Rich began to feel that there was something odd about her, some sort of mental influence or disturbance that operated in such a way, or was deficient in such a way, that led her to act differently to other people. Still, that didn’t mean she had committed murder.

  As his knowledge and understanding increased, so too did his feeling of sadness at the thought of her future. In his role, he regularly encountered depraved specimens of humanity, but Louisa wasn’t one of them. If she could be reprieved to life imprisonment, he would feel the greatest joy.

  Besides, her conviction troubled him. His thoughts kept returning to the arsenic-filled tumbler on the bedside table. Among the many letters published in the newspapers was one from a chemical analyst stating that, if Louisa Collins had the cleverness to administer infinitesimal doses of poison, it was hardly likely she would have left behind such strong evidence of her guilt. The issue puzzled him as well. Could she really have been that foolish?

  He couldn’t stand by and let her hang, he decided. He would join Frederick Lee in his fight for mercy.

  Chapter 41

  It seems strange in this progressive century that we can find no better use for our criminals than to hang them.

  Western Mail

  Frederick Lee had been startled by the judges’ revelation that they had allowed the Andrews evidence into the Collins trial on the grounds that case law supported it. Windeyer had made it clear that the starting point for the ‘similar facts’ argument was their acceptance that Andrews had met his death by arsenic poisoning. Evidently, the judges had ignored the fact that the lack of substantial evidence of causation was the stumbling block that had tripped up the Andrews jury. The jurors had been offered motive, means and opportunity, so the ‘reasonable doubt’ that had hung the jury must have been their lack of certainty that Andrews had been killed by arsenic poisoning in the first place.

  If only Lusk had asked to have the admissibility question reserved at trial. Even if the chief justice had refused to do so at the time of the trial, the attorney-general could probably have convinced the appeal judges to allow the point to be discussed on those grounds alone. In that event, how hard would it have been for Louisa’s Queen’s Counsel to show that the foundation of the ‘similar facts’ ruling was not facts but conjecture? Since there was not enough arsenic in Andrews’ body to kill him or anyone else—or anything else, for that matter—and since there were innocent ways in which those minuscule traces might have entered his body, there was no proof that arsenic had caused his death. Therefore, the judges’ foundational statement ‘where a number of persons died by poisoning’ was as solid as quicksand for the simple reason that there wasn’t any proof that a number of persons had died by poisoning. If deadly amounts of cyanide or strychnine or oxalic acid had been found in Collins’ body and tiny amounts in Andrews’, one could more readily accept the common sense reasoning that this was evidence that both men had been poisoned. But arsenic was too commonplace for its mere presence to be considered a sure sign of poisoning.

  Still, all was not lost. Lee had found a case that showed the weakness of the Crown’s position: R. v. Hall. In 1886 in Canterbury, New Zealand, businessman Thomas Hall had been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for attempting to murder his wife by antimony poisoning. After the police found a deadly dose of antimony in the exhumed body of Hall’s father-in-law, Hall was convicted of murdering him too and was sentenced to death, even though the only real evidence laid against him was his conviction for attempting to kill his wife by the same means. The point was reserved and the Court of Appeal ruled that there was insufficient proof that the two poisonings formed part of the same transaction or were driven by a common design. Accordingly, Hall’s murder conviction was quashed.

  The Hall case revealed some extraordinary parallels with Louisa’s case—not least because it involved deaths by poisoning and an exhumed body. Significantly, the case against Louisa for Andrews’ death was
much weaker than that against Hall for his father-in-law’s death because of the minuscule amount of arsenic found in Andrews’ body. Additionally, Louisa’s cases couldn’t be considered part of the same transaction or common purpose because her motives—if she had killed the two men—were not the same. Most significantly, Hall’s counsel had reserved the point at trial whereas Louisa’s counsel hadn’t. The result? Life for Hall; death for Louisa.

  Would the remarkable similarities between the Australian and New Zealand cases be grounds enough for the governor to reconsider Louisa’s death sentence? New Zealand cases could not be used as binding precedents by the New South Wales courts; nonetheless, both jurisdictions had their origins and drew their own precedents from British law and the precedents in one jurisdiction could possibly be persuasive in the other. And, irrespective of whether the chief justice had acted wisely in admitting the Andrews evidence, the Hall case made it clear that Louisa’s counsel had not acted ‘ably’ and that the chief justice had not acted justly when he declared that she had been ably defended. Surely, under these circumstances, the governor would agree that Louisa’s was a case that merited mercy.

  • • •

  Late on 3 January, five days before Louisa’s planned execution, Frederick Lee, Henry Palser and Canon Rich carried the Sydney women’s petition to Government House. As Lee handed the petition to Lord Carrington, he said that the petition had been signed by 584 women who had come forward spontaneously to add their signatures. The petition showed that the women of New South Wales would not ‘vote’ for Louisa Collins to be hanged as the premier had so peremptorily declared.