Murder Most Foul? – The Disturbing Case Of Louisa Collins

Caroline Overington is the Associate editor of the Australian Women’s Weekly and the author of a number of books, of which the most recent is Last Woman Hanged which forensically examines the case of Louisa Collins, the last and only woman ever hanged in New South Wales. Taking a number of years to read all evidence and documents related to the case, Caroline Overington has reassessed this most extraordinary case. She says, “My hope is that Last Woman Hanged will be read not only as a true crime story but as a letter of profound thanks to that generation of women who fought so hard for the rights we still enjoy today.” Caroline spoke about her book and her search for clues at The Sydney Institute on Monday 27 October 2014.

MURDER MOST FOUL? – THE DISTURBING CASE OF LOUISA COLLINS

CAROLINE OVERINGTON

Thank you Anne and Gerard for hosting me tonight.  Thank you to descendants of Louisa Collins, many of whom are here tonight … as are descendants of other characters in this book about her life, and her death: Last Woman Hanged.

It has long been my tradition to start a presentation by making a little joke. I looked around for something funny that I could say about men, women, and poison. Turns out, they go quite well together. Perhaps the most famous exchange on the subject was between the British prime minister, Winston Churchill and Lady Nancy Astor. For those who don’t know – Lady Nancy was the first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons, in London. She wasn’t a very pleasant woman: twice married, once divorced, she used to say of her husband: I married beneath me. All women do.

Legend has it that Churchill found himself seated next to Nancy at a dinner. He wasn’t thrilled. At some point, they had an argument. She said: if you were my husband, I’d poison your tea. He replied: If I were your husband, I’d drink it.

Louisa Collins was accused of murdering both her first, and her second husband, with an arsenic poison. She was convicted, and became both the first, and the last woman hanged at the Darlinghurst Goal. I should say at the outset that I realise that Louisa’s name probably isn’t that familiar to you. You know the names of all the bushrangers; you know about the Gold Rush; you know about Captain Cook, and Bennelong – these characters are at the heart of some of Australia’s most enduring legends. Yet, you may never have heard of Louisa Collins – and that’s astonishing, for she is one of the only people in the world ever to be tried not once. Not twice. But four times, for murder. It’s entirely possible that she was innocent. At the very least, I think I can persuade you that the case against Louisa was not proved.

I came across Louisa’s case by chance, about five years ago. I was working on a different murder trial for The Australian newspaper, and there had been a mistrial, so one of the editors asked me to find out whether anybody had even been tried more than once for murder. I had a look in the archives, and up came Louisa’s case. She hadn’t been tried twice. She’d been tried four times, before the Crown managed to get a conviction.

The case began to trouble me: how compelling could the evidence against Louisa have been? Who in the annals of English law had ever had to face four trials, before being hanged? I went looking for the original forensic reports, not really believing that I would find them, but there they were, stored in an old and dusty box at NSW State Records, which is in turn a cool building under the gum trees in a lonely paddock, more than an hour from Sydney.

Some of those records were more than 120 years old but they had been preserved, as had some of Louisa’s letters from gaol, in which she begged for her life. From there, I went looking for records from the old Supreme Court and for whatever notes had been taken by police, and for old statements, from witnesses who lived in Louisa’s street. Some of the evidence was strongly suggestive of Louisa’s guilt, but I had nagging doubts.

The case was full of strange tics, and annoying coincidences. Before long, some of the characters, including the ghastly hangman, began to haunt my dreams.  I had to know more about this woman.  I had to find out what she had done – or else, what had been done to her, and why.

So who was she? Louisa Collins was born Louisa Hall, at a place called Belltrees, near Scone. It was then, and is now, home of the White family. Louisa’s father was an ex-convict, and her mother a free settler. She was one of perhaps 10 children. She lived with her parents until reaching what was then known as a “suitable age” – about 14 – after which, she took a position as a domestic, in Merriwa.

Newspaper reports published after her death suggest that Louisa at 14 was a very pretty girl. She was also a terrible flirt. According to reporters, she at one point had the attention of every eligible man in the village. Her mother, probably wisely, decided to quickly find a husband for Louisa. The man she found was the local butcher, whose name was Charles Andrews. He was at least a decade older, and he was somewhat dour. His own father had committed suicide by cutting his own throat. He’d already been married, and widowed, and a child that he no longer saw.

By all accounts, Louisa wasn’t madly in love with Charles, but he was a good, sober, honest man. The couple settled, first in Merriwa, then in Muswellbrook. Charles worked hard, and Louisa began having children: nine of them, over the next 20 years. Over time, the family moved to Botany, mainly so Charles – by now in his 50s – could find work at the woolsheds.

It was in Botany that Louisa finally fell in love. Unfortunately, it wasn’t with Charles. It was with a much younger, much more handsome man, whose name was Michael Collins. Michael was one of Louisa’s boarders: she and Charles used to take workers in, to help them make ends meet.

By many accounts, they soon started having an affair. Charles found out, and threw Michael into the street. Louisa wouldn’t stop seeing him. A short time later, Charles fell sick – and a short time after that, he died. By tradition, Louisa should immediately have gone into mourning – but she didn’t.

She took the money from Charles’s estate and spent it on a new watch and chain for Michael. She bought bright fabrics, to make herself some nice new dresses. She held a party in one of the empty houses on her street, and dancing all night in Michael’s arms. A short time later, Louisa married Michael Collins. They had a baby together – her tenth.

But then, suddenly, shockingly, out of the blue, Michael, too, became ill. Louisa ran for the doctor. She sent her children out to the pharmacist, to get medicine for him. She sat by his beside, wailing. “Poor Michael!” she cried. Poor Michael, indeed. He died.

With two husbands dead in less than two years, the authorities decided that it could not be an accident. They decided that Louisa Collins must have poisoned both her husbands. In 1888, Louisa was put on trial.

The first trial, in July of that year, was for the murder of Michael. The evidence was thin, and jury failed to reach a verdict – so the Crown tried her again. When that failed, they changed tack. They dug Charles’ body from his grave, and then put Louisa on trial for his murder. When that failed, they went back to the original plan, and tried her again for the murder of Michael, and this time, they got a conviction. Louisa was sentenced to hang.

The first question this book – Last Woman Hanged – seeks to answer is: did she do it? Did Louisa murder Michael? If so, did she deserve to be taken to the gallows? It’s important to note that all of the evidence in this case was circumstantial. This isn’t one of those cases where there’s a bloody axe, or a knife, or a gun.

The Crown had to build its case without as a single eye-witness. The Crown also had to come up with a motive. Why would Louisa kill her Michael Collins? She was in love with him. For the murder of Charles – well, sure, perhaps, after 27 years of marriage, she was sick of him. She’d only married him because her mother made the match – and as husband, he bored her to tears. She liked to drink, and he didn’t. She liked to dance, and he didn’t.  There seems little doubt that Louisa had started an affair with Michael Collins – and there is no way that she could simply get a divorce.

Divorce was hard to get. Women in the nineteenth century often lost their children to their husbands, after divorce. So, yes, perhaps she wanted to get rid of her first husband, so she could marry Michael … which is all very well, except that Louisa was never found guilty of the murder of her first husband. They tried her for that crime. The jury failed to convict. Louisa was sentenced to hang for the murder of her second, much younger, much more handsome husband, Michael Collins. The man she loved. Why kill him?   Well, the Crown said, maybe she soon got sick of him, too. Maybe. But is there no other explanation for Michael’s death?

I spent a good deal of time reading through the original notes, taken at the autopsy. The post mortem makes plain that Michael Collins was poisoned. His insides were red raw, and his stomach, kidneys, even his rectum, were inflamed.  He spent the last few weeks of his life vomiting and spitting. He was rotting from the inside, out. So, he was poisoned.

But where did the poison come from? The Crown case was simply this: Louisa gave it to him. How did they know? Well, some of the strongest evidence against Louisa came from her only daughter … a tiny fair-haired girl called May, who was just 10 years old when asked to take a Bible in her hand and testify against her mother. The emotion of the moment was captured by one of Sydney’s afternoon newspapers, the Evening News, which said:

In giving evidence against her mother, Louisa Collins, a pretty child named May Andrews, was much affected. The prisoner and several of the jurors felt the situation keenly.

Louisa herself wrote of her heartbreak at having to listen to May give the evidence that would condemn her:

My only daughter … my heart and soul was wrapped up in her –  I hear her, I see her, before my eyes, made to take a stand in a witness-box … and she says sufficient to take her own poor mother to the gallows.  

Little May – described in court as a pretty girl, and as a clever girl – told the judge that she had been dusting in the kitchen when she saw a box of Rough On Rats on a shelf.  Rough On Rats was rat poison, comprised of pure arsenic, with just a touch of indigo blue to give colour to the crystals. No doubt, Louisa kept a box of Rough on Rats in her kitchen. Not that any such box was ever found there. Not that anyone could ever remember selling such a box to her. Not that police ever found any trace of the box, when they twice went to search for it, in and around the house.

But yes – Louisa probably did keep such a box. Sydney had a rat problem. Rough of Rats was a common solution to the problem of rats in the colony. May’s testimony – she had seen such a box in the kitchen – wasn’t much but, combined with statements from police and neighbours, and doctors and others, who told the jury about Louisa’s drinking, and her affairs – it was enough. The jury convicted, and the chief justice, Sir Frederick Darley, sentenced Louisa to hang – and hang she did.

So, is there another explanation? In fact, there are two, and possibly three plausible scenarios. One:  perhaps somebody else gave the poison to Michael? A rival? A neighbour? One of the six children who lived in the house? Not likely – but possible.

Michael hadn’t been in Sydney for long. Who knows what enemies he had? Much more likely is this: both of Louisa’s husbands were wool washers. As many of you here today probably already know – if you worked with sheep and wool in the nineteenth century, you worked with arsenic. Sheep were regularly, commonly, treated with arsenic, dipped in arsenic, to kill the ticks, and remove the grit.

On the day that he first became sick, Michael had been riding around Sydney atop a dray filled with wet skins. He had a cut on his leg. It was an open, weeping sore. Perhaps the arsenic seeped into his system, through the sore. It’s possible. Also, it wasn’t uncommon for men to treat their open wounds with pastes, containing arsenic. It stopped the smell from rising. It stopped gangrene, from setting in. Then, too, there’s the fact that Michael was, at the time of his death, taking a range of strange potions.

Louisa had in fact sent her children running to the doctor, and to the chemist, not once but at least four times, begging for help, and she was regularly trying to get medicine into Michael. It wasn’t uncommon, in the nineteenth century, for pharmacists to include a little arsenic in their potions. One potion, in particular – Bismuth – was known to very often contain arsenic as an impurity, and to behave like arsenic, in the body.

So yes, there are some other, entirely plausible scenarios, for the death of Michael Collins. Certainly, the case was not proved, beyond a doubt. I know that some readers will say, well, you’re soft in the head. Of course she did it. I’m saying the case is not proved. And I’m not exactly out on a limb here. Three juries agreed with me. They declined to convict her.

So that’s the first question. The second question this book seeks to answer is: how could they do it? How could they hang a woman? I don’t mean because she was a woman. No, what I mean is that this case, like all cases, must be read in its historical context.

Louisa Collins died at a time when women were in no sense equal under the law, except when it came to the gallows. Women could not vote. They could not sit in parliament. There were no woman judges – and no women jurors. Louisa was tried before four jurors of 48 men. All the judges were men. All the lawyers were men, as was the governor, as was the Premier. Either of those men – the Premier, the Governor – could, at any time, have moved to stop the hanging. They declined to do so.

In their absence, it fell to women to try to find the moral courage to save Louisa’s life. Their argument will today seem obvious: a legal system comprised entirely of men – male jurors, male judges, male prosecutor, defence lawyer, appeal court, Premier and Governor – could not, with any integrity, hang a woman.  To do so would be the most wretched case ever, of taxation, without representation. The tenacity of these women did not save Louisa Collins – she was hanged – but it would ultimately carry women from their homes all the way to Parliament House.

Less than 15 years after Louisa was hanged Australian women would become some of the first in the world to get the vote. They would take seats in State parliament, and in Canberra. They would become doctors, lawyers, judges, Premiers – even the prime minister.

My hope is that this book, Last Woman Hanged, will be read as a letter of profound thanks to those women … and to that generation of Australian women who fought so hard for our rights, with so little recognition. Their first steps into the political arena may have been tentative, but a wave rose in their wake – and it would prove unstoppable. That said, I could not, in good conscience, publish the book without trying to find Louisa’s descendants.

I knew, as well as anyone, that readers would need to know what had happened to poor little May, after she had been made to take the stand. Well, in the days before Louisa died, in an act of desperation, Louisa’s supporters took the little girl by the hand and they walked all the way up to the imposing door of the Governor’s mansion, to beg for mercy. He wouldn’t even come out to see her. She went away, in tears. One day later, May and two of her brothers went to see Louisa in her cell. It was the eve of her hanging. Each was permitted time to say goodbye.

But what then? What happened next? Anyone who has ever embarked on a family history project will immediately understand that the task of tracing Louisa’s family tree was at times deeply frustrating … but I’m very proud to say that some of those descendants are in the audience today.

Janis and Bev Thompson, and Arthur Civill and his wife, Barbara, and their friends and family … welcome. Thank you for your warm embrace of this book, your kindness in allowing me to get to know your families. I’d like to make special mention of Vic Cairney. Great, great grandson of Louisa Collins. It’s such an honour to have you here today, Mr Cairney. We’ve had the opportunity to meet once before, and I know, and I hope you don’t mind me saying, I know that your life has, at times, been difficult. I know that you had to spend some time living with relatives when you were a little boy … and that your mother sometimes had a sadness in her, and you didn’t always know why, and what that sadness was about. And now you do. I know that you as a young man were called upon to serve in Vietnam, and that was a searing experience.

I remember the line from Paul Ham’s magnificent book:  it is entirely wrong for a country to send their young men to fight a war on foreign soil – and then try to shame them for it, upon their return. Thank you for your service, Mr Cairney. It’s been an honour, to make your acquaintance. Your ancestors would be proud of you.

I realise, in launching this book that it no longer belongs to me. It belongs to the readers. And it will of course be for the reader to decide whether I’ve made a fool of myself, or not. Perhaps they will decide that Louisa Collins did indeed deserve to die on the gallows. But please, bear in mind – this is not simply the story of a hanging. It’s a story about justice … about human rights … about politics. It’s a story about legal quandaries, and Moral questions. To my mind, Louisa’s story is also that of a young country – struggling to find a new identity. No longer a penal colony, where convicts are thrashed in the streets. But a place where people could find freedom — and with that freedom, build lives of hope and happiness.

It is the story of good people trying, and failing, and getting up again. It is the story of the last woman hanged at the Darlinghurst Gaol — but it is also the story of our shared history, in this young country that we are still building together.

So yes, this is Louisa’s story … but it is our story, too.