Questioned as to the cause of her death, he said, ‘Having made the post-mortem I am of the opinion that she did not die from cerebral haemorrhage, but from atropia poisoning. I say this from what I have seen lately, and from the symptoms of the deceased during the last two or three days. Of course, I only saw the dilation of the eyes once, but the other symptoms I saw towards the end of her illness were consistent with poisoning by atropia. The reason I gave the certificate was because I saw no reasonable doubt that the cause of death was not a natural one.’
After Dr Sharples had stepped down, Dr Paul was recalled. He said that all the symptoms spoken of by Dr Sharples were quite consistent with poisoning by atropia, and as for Dr Sharples finding Mrs Finley in an excited state and apparently intoxicated shortly before her death, there were few poisons that caused such an excited state as atropia. ‘Persons under its influence are generally flushed, and excited and delirious.’
Next called was Dr Thomas Harris, who had conducted the postmortem examination of Mrs Finley’s remains at the Moston Cemetery. After saying that the body was very much decomposed – ‘the hands nearly separated from the arms by maceration’ – he said he had found no evidence of any sufficient disease that could account for death. As to the symptoms described by Dr Sharples, he said that they were not only consistent with poisoning by atropia, but ‘suspicious of atropia poisoning’. One of the strongest symptoms mentioned, he pointed out, was the excited state of the patient, and added, ‘Poisoning by atropia may be mistaken for delirium tremens.’
The coroner: ‘The three chief characteristics of atropia poisoning are dilation of the pupils of the eyes, extreme thirst, and convulsions?’
‘Yes, with delirium, very often terminating by coma.’
After saying that convulsions in a woman of Mrs Finley’s age were distinctly uncommon, Dr Harris was allowed to step down, and Sarah Pemberton, of Burslem, Staffordshire was called.
She had much of interest to tell. She was, she said, a widow, and the sister of the late Mary Ann Finley, and came to Castleton on Thursday 11 February, having been summoned by a telegram from Mrs Berry. The telegram had since been destroyed, but she could remember its contents. It had said: ‘Mrs Walsh* is dangerously ill. If you wish to see her come at once. E. Berry.’ On receiving the telegram, she said, she left her home immediately, reaching Castleton about five o’clock that afternoon. Arriving in Back Albion Street, she said she had found her sister better than she had expected.
She went on to say that she stayed at the house till her sister’s death on the 13th, Saturday. She never gave her sister any medicine, she said, and saw no one but Mrs Berry give her anything. On the evening of the day she arrived, Mrs Berry left the house saying she had to go into Rochdale, and was away nearly two hours. That night Mrs Berry made up a bed for her mother downstairs while she herself slept upstairs in her mother’s bedroom. She, the witness, sat up all night with her sister.
On Friday morning, she went on, Mrs Berry told her that she believed that her mother was sinking fast. ‘This,’ said Mrs Pemberton, ‘came as a surprise to me, and I said to her, “I don’t think so. I think she’s better than she was yesterday.”’ Later that day, she continued, Mrs Berry’s young daughter, Edith – then ten years of age – came to visit her grandmother, having travelled by herself from Miles Platting. She left after tea and Mrs Berry went to see her off on the train to Manchester. Soon after returning from the station, Mrs Berry went out once more, saying she was going to Rochdale again. She returned after about an hour. ‘She’d brought with her some jelly,’ the witness said, ‘and gave my sister some, but after tasting it my sister pushed it away, saying, “Take it away! I don’t like it.”’ Asked as to Mrs Finley’s general appearance that evening, Mrs Pemberton said she seemed very cheerful and much better, and even spoke of coming to stay with her in Burslem when she felt strong enough for the journey. Asked if she knew what sort of medicine had come from the doctor, she replied that she only knew that it was medicine. ‘Mrs Berry always gave her the medicine, and as she was a nurse I didn’t interfere. I thought she knew more than I did how to nurse her mother.’ That Friday night, she continued, Mrs Berry began to examine her mother’s eyes. ‘She did it a great deal, pulling her eyelids about, and my sister protested, saying, “What are you doing with my eyes?”’ Mrs Berry said that her mother had an affection of the brain. ‘I wanted to stay up with my sister on the Friday night, but Mrs Berry wouldn’t allow it. She insisted on me going to bed.’ Asked if she knew of the reason for this, she replied, ‘No doubt she did it out of kindness.’
Having found her sister not nearly as sick as she had anticipated, Mrs Pemberton said she told Mrs Berry on the Friday evening that she would leave the next day to return home. She was to sleep in her sister’s bed upstairs that night, and when she went up to bed about midnight she left her sister ‘feeling not too bad’. Then, somewhere between four and five the next morning she was awakened by the sound of Mrs Berry opening the bedroom door. On asking what was the matter, she was told that during the night there had been a great change for the worse, and that her sister was now gravely ill. Hurrying downstairs, she found her sister lying on her back twitching and trembling all over. ‘Her face was of a livid colour and her eyes were closed,’ she said. ‘She never opened them again before she died.’ Asked whether she thought her sister had died a natural death, she said she thought she had – but she had had no reason to think otherwise.
This brought Mrs Pemberton’s testimony to a close, and her place was taken by Mr Joseph Chadderton of Eccles, district manager for the Wesleyan and General Assurance Society. He told the hearing that Mrs Finley was insured in his office for £100 and that Mrs Berry came to him on 23 March to claim the money. He was somewhat surprised to find her there so soon after her mother’s death, and told her that she couldn’t be paid as under the terms of the policy, payment wasn’t due for another three months. On hearing this she said she needed the money urgently. ‘She couldn’t wait,’ he said. ‘She had to have it at once as she was about to leave the country. She said she was going to Australia, as nurse-companion to an invalid who was going for the good of her health. She mentioned the ship, but I quite forgot the name. She said she wanted the money at once, so I let her have it. We paid her £100 less 16s. 8d. – the amount of interest on paying the money before it was due.’ Asked by whom the policy had been taken out, he replied that Mrs Finley had taken out the insurance against herself in December 1882, and later assigned it to Mrs Berry.
After Mr Chadderton came Mr George Coombes, of Moss Side, Manchester, clerk to the Rational Sick and Burial Society, Manchester. He said Mrs Finley was insured in the office for £13 4s., which was paid out to Mrs Berry on 15 February 1886. The policy had been taken out by Mrs Berry. Mrs Finley knew of the insurance and had paid the premiums of 2d. a week.
The next witness called was ‘letter carrier’ William Taylor of Freehold, Castleton. His brief testimony would give most interesting evidence to the inquiry with regard to the name of Ellen Saunders that was written in the Rochdale chemist’s poison register by the woman who had purchased quantities of sulphate of atropia. Asked whether he knew of any person named Ellen Saunders living in the Freehold district of Castleton, he replied that in the last seven or eight years in all his work he had not come across anyone with that name, ‘and had such a person resided at Freehold,’ he said, ‘I should have known her – I am quite sure of that.’ He had also made inquiries, he said, and failed to get any information of such a person having resided at Freehold.
Mr Taylor was the final witness, and after his dismissal the coroner read over to the jury the evidence they had heard. He then told them that they must decide whether there had been any foul play in the case, and in doing so must take into consideration the doctors’ medical evidence. If they were of the opinion that Mrs Finley died from natural causes they must bring in a verdict to that effect, but if they believed there was foul play and that she was poisoned, then t
hey must, if possible, say who administered the poison. He pointed out that when Mrs Finley was taken ill, there were only two other people stopping in the house – Mrs Pemberton and Mrs Berry. ‘You have had Mrs Pemberton before you,’ he said, ‘and you have heard her give her evidence in a very straightforward and proper manner. I think there can be no suspicion against her.’ The jury, he said, must look at the facts and say whether they create such strong suspicion against Mrs Berry that the case should be sent for further investigation. ‘Then what you have also to decide,’ he added, ‘is whether the woman Ellen Saunders was the same person as Mrs Berry. The fact that atropia has been found in the body of the deceased makes it, in my opinion, very suspicious, but I feel certain the jury will give every consideration to the evidence, and find a true and proper verdict upon it.’
At the conclusion of the coroner’s address, the court was cleared to allow the jurors to confer and reach a verdict. Twenty-five minutes later the assembly was allowed back in. When all were seated the coroner asked the jury whether they had reached a verdict. ‘Yes, sir,’ the foreman replied. ‘We are unanimously of opinion that Mrs Berry is guilty of murder.’
The coroner: ‘Wilful murder, I suppose?’
The foreman: ‘Yes.’
With this the inquiry was closed.
Looking at the testimonies of the witnesses, there can be no doubt that the jury was correct in its finding that day. When Elizabeth Berry set off for Castleton on 3 February, she went with the sole intention of killing her mother, her intention springing from her own impecunious situation and her mother’s illness with her nose-bleeds.
A glance at Mrs Berry’s successive periods of employment in the various workhouses, and it becomes clear that none of them could be termed in any way successful. None had brought her satisfaction. Nevertheless, they offered the only real means of earning a livelihood, leaving her no option but to accept such work.
Records show that she was very much in two minds when it came to committing herself to employment at the Oldham workhouse, and this might also have been the case with the post offered the previous year at Chesterton. Further, it is likely that she took the Chesterton position with some desperation, for when she began her first day’s work there she had been unemployed for over three months, and would have been very low in funds. However, after just one day in the job, she had had enough, and was anxious for a way out of the situation.
So it was that the following morning she informed the Clerk to the Guardians that she had received a letter from her mother saying that she was dangerously ill, and would have to go to her. Two days later she followed her departure with her resignation, due, she said, to her mother’s increasingly dangerous condition and need of her. There was, of course, no truth in it. Although her mother had been suffering from the nose-bleeds, she had no life-threatening illness. What her mother did have, however, were several valuable life insurance policies, and all in her daughter’s favour.
The fact that Mrs Finley had been so recently under the care of a doctor was a godsend to Mrs Berry in her plan, and it is likely that it strengthened her resolve. And for a time her plan worked. Although there was unease among some of the neighbours over the circumstances of Mrs Finley’s death, Dr Sharples himself was not suspicious. He was aware that his patient was being cared for by her daughter who was a qualified nurse, and not only that, but Mrs Berry would have known exactly what to say to him to allay any unease that might have arisen. He had no reason, therefore, to mistrust her. Indeed, so persuasive was she that, as we have seen, when he was writing out the death certificate, he wrote, at her suggestion, that ‘coma’ was a contributory factor in Mrs Finley’s death.
The calendar of Mrs Finley’s murder is not difficult to see.
On arriving in Castleton on the Wednesday Mrs Berry at once makes inquiries as to where she can find a pharmaceutical chemist, and from him, on the Thursday or Friday, she buys some deleterious preparation. Friday evening, and Mrs Finley goes out to ‘fetch the supper beer’ and tells Harriet Dorrick that she has just been given some medicine by her daughter and feels ‘very sick and queer after it’. The next day Mrs Berry sends for Dr Sharples, telling him that her mother is not well and cannot sleep, so establishing in the doctor’s mind the ‘fact’ that her mother is once again ill.
On Tuesday the 9th Mrs Berry goes into Rochdale and from the chemist John Taylor buys a quantity of atropia, signing the poison book in the name of Ellen Saunders. Back in Castleton she gives some ‘medicine’ to her mother, after which Mrs Finley is seen by Alice Eaves to be very ill. Mrs Pemberton, summoned with urgency, arrives on the Thursday, and is surprised and relieved to find her sister in a better condition than she had feared.
On Friday the agent for the Prudential comes to the house – summoned to endorse one of Mrs Finley’s life insurance policies. On the same day, Mrs Berry once more visits Mr Taylor’s chemist shop, and under the name of Ellen Saunders buys more atropia, this time double the amount.
The poison works. Although Mrs Pemberton and the neighbours find Mrs Finley appearing fairly well all through that Friday, by 7.15 the next morning she is found to be dying.
Mrs Berry benefited from four life insurance policies on her mother’s death, the total sum realized being something in the region of £150 to £200 (between £165,000 and £220,000 in today’s money), to which was added whatever cash could be raised through the disposal of her mother’s effects. It was also revealed that Mrs Berry was in such a hurry to collect the £100 due from the Wesleyan and General that she spun a story about having to leave on a ship bound for Australia, and was prepared to sacrifice 16s. 8d. in interest fees.
When there came the opportunity to bring about her mother’s death to her own great advantage, Mrs Berry grasped it with both hands, and with a single-mindedness that would be remarkable in anyone’s book.
*
Walsh is the spelling as given in the Chronicle’s report.
20
‘A Very Small Heart’
In her cell, Elizabeth Berry remained in ignorance of what was happening beyond the prison walls, but with her trial concluding with a verdict of guilty, and followed by the same verdict at the inquest into her mother’s death, she continued to be the news of the day – her guilt, and her situation, prompting wide coverage in the press.
In the course of her life she had moved about a good deal and made many acquaintances. Some had come to know her well, and among them were those who were eager to impart their recollections. Where once such stories might have been disseminated only in whispers, however, they now appeared in the newspapers for the world to see. And of course the editors were glad of all the information they could get – and the more scandalous the better.
Numerous reports were concerned with Mrs Berry’s earlier life, with remarks on her pride and ambition. And the negative views didn’t vary much in tone. To many who had been acquainted with her she was seen as aloof, ‘inordinately fond of fashionable clothes and outward display’, to be ashamed of her working-class beginnings, and eager to give the impression that she was of a higher station in life. Acknowledged also now as a liar, it was revealed that she had not only tried to elevate her father’s social position, but also her mother’s, as was alluded to in a piece in the Chronicle following an interview with Mr Lawson, of the Oldham workhouse. After citing her intelligence and positive qualities as a nurse, the Chronicle’s report went on:
She made a deep impression upon the people at the workhouse, and naturally they feel her position very acutely. At the same time, it is only fair to state that there were persons there who couldn’t ‘read’ her, and regarded her as a mystery, as they thought her high-flown notions were entirely out of keeping with the position she occupied. She endeavoured to impress those she spoke to with the idea that she did not belong to ‘common working folk’. Her mother’s death she often alluded to, but she told a far different tale to that which was the outcome of the inquest. Instead of her mother being a wea
ver, and dying in comparatively poor circumstances, her explanation was the reverse, for she boasted that she inherited a fortune of £1,500. But, alas! How often it is proved that truth is stranger than fiction?
Her mother’s situation was also touched upon in a letter from an unnamed correspondent to the Chronicle, obviously one who had known her:
Mrs Finley was a very kind mother, and stinted herself to assist her daughter to appear in a style beyond the requirements of her position, yet on one occasion, when Mrs Berry visited her mother at Rochdale, and when the old woman, who was out of work, had pawned some of her clothing to procure extras for tea, she had the effrontery to display the sum of £11, all of which she replaced in her pocket and gave her mother nothing.
With journalists from the Standard and the Chronicle going out of their way to find stories relating to the convict’s past, their work took them into several districts where she had lived at one time or another. They found no shortage of anecdotes. And through them it becomes clear, at all times, that however she might have been viewed, she had never been disregarded. Always, it seemed, she had provoked comment.
Some reports published related to her time at the Oldham workhouse. So another unnamed contributor wrote to the Chronicle:
When Mrs Berry cared to do so she could make herself very agreeable, as she possessed a very good voice, and sang and played the piano fairly well. As a conversationalist she was very entertaining, and her company was much sought…It was also said that she was fond of reading to some of the patients who took her fancy, but at other times she was more inclined to keep away from them.
But such comments were about as positive as could be found. Generally she was shown as demanding, fastidious and, as we have seen, frequently abusive. An account of her violent and aggressive behaviour, and of Dr Patterson being sent for and diagnosing ‘brain fever’, has already been given (see pp. 54–6). It is a most interesting account, and there can be little reason to question its veracity. For one thing, it describes the doctor playing a major part in the incident, and as we have seen how quick he was to correct any perceived misreporting of him, there can be little doubt that had the Chronicle used his name in vain he would have been on to the editor like a shot.
There Must Be Evil Page 19
