Medical Detectives (32 page)

On 1 September 1956, over a year after Terence Armstrong’s death, his parents were arrested and charged with murder. By this time, Mr and Mrs Armstrong had separated and Janet admitted there was Seconal in the house which her husband took to help him sleep. On his instructions she had disposed of the remaining capsules. The Armstrongs were committed for trial at Winchester when Norman Skelhorn, a future Director of Public Prosecutions, appeared on behalf of Janet, and Francis Camps was retained to assist the defence.

John Armstrong denied all knowledge of how his son was poisoned. Janet said that he had the opportunity when he returned home for lunch on the fatal day, to be alone with his son. She also confirmed that there had been Seconal in the house. Each party blamed the other in a ‘cut-throat’ defence. The jury found John Armstrong guilty while Janet was acquitted. The death sentence imposed on John was reduced to life imprisonment and, a month after the trial concluded, his wife admitted, via the pages of a Sunday newspaper, that she had given her son one capsule of Seconal to help him sleep. In his autobiography, Keith Simpson recorded his pleasure at not being ‘bested by Camps’, as he put it, and recorded that three years later, ‘the boot was on the other foot’ when he assisted in the defence of Sergeant Marcus Marymont, and Camps helped the prosecution. Simpson, at least, appeared to relish his adversarial contests with Francis Camps.

Two cases involving poisonous elements – phosphorus in one, and arsenic in the other – commanded Camps’s involvement in 1958. While arsenic had, for centuries, been a favourite lethal agent used by poisoners, phosphorus poisoning is relatively uncommon. Mary Wilson lived in County Durham in the delightfully named district of Windy Nook. Four men in her life who she took as either husbands or lovers died in suspicious circumstances and earned her the title of ‘The Poisoner of Windy Nook’. Sixty-six-year-old Mary was an unprepossessing woman with red hair and, from all accounts, a person with a mean streak. She also harboured a passion for romance. Her early life was spent in service to a family in the industrial north east of England. She married the son of her employers and, when he died, she switched her attentions to the man who lodged at the house. He also died soon afterwards. Few questions were asked about the deaths of two elderly men in the same house and the local doctor believed they had both died of natural causes.

In 1957, Mary met Oliver James Leonard, an elderly retired estate agent of modest means, who lived in lodgings. They married in September but Leonard fell ill with a severe cold and died two weeks later. He had consulted a doctor because he was feeling unwell and a death certificate was issued as a matter of course. Mary Wilson benefited from her late husband’s estate to the tune of £50, which was all the money he possessed. Her next move was to respond to an elderly retired engineer who was looking for a housekeeper. She went to live with him and they were soon married. Ernest Wilson, Mary’s new husband, became ill through eating liver, or so she said when she sent for the doctor. The next day, two weeks after they had married, Ernest died. Death was certified as due to heart failure.

Far from playing the role of a grieving widow, Mary indulged in black humour, suggesting to the undertaker that he quote her a wholesale price for a coffin. As rumours began to circulate, she told acquaintances, ‘I didn’t mean to kill them. They were dead already.’ This was presumably a reference to the fact that they were all elderly men. By raising the stakes against herself with unwise utterances, Mary Wilson soon found herself talking to the police. As in the case of Dr Bodkin Adams, the circulation of rumours can be the springboard for enquiries in cases of suspected poisoning.

The bodies of Oliver Leonard and Ernest Wilson were exhumed and post-mortems showed that their deaths were certainly not due to natural causes. In both instances, lethal quantities of phosphorus were found. It was noted that Mary Wilson had attempted to deflect suspicion from herself by asking doctors to examine her husbands prior to their deaths. The suggestion was that phosphorus, probably in the form of powdered beetle killer, had been administered in doses of cough mixture.

Mary Wilson was sent for trial at Leeds Assizes and Francis Camps was briefed for the defence. Supported by four expert witnesses, the prosecution’s case was that both husbands had died of first-stage phosphorus poisoning. The amounts of poison found at post-mortem indicated that relatively large doses were involved. Defence counsel, Rose Heilbron QC, introduced what she described as a novel diversion when she suggested that Mary Wilson’s husbands might have taken aphrodisiac pills containing phosphorus. Such a sexual stimulant was apparently available over the counter for public use. This suggestion inevitably produced laughter in court but the prosecution countered it by saying each of the victims would have had to consume 150 such pills to account for the levels of phosphorus found in their bodies.

The evidence given by Francis Camps was not based on having examined the victims but on his understanding of the medical reports. Whereas the prosecution experts had theoretical knowledge of phosphorus poisoning, Camps had direct experience. He was extremely circumspect in the opinions he gave, to the extent that his biographer wondered whether it was worthwhile for him to have travelled north. Asked if he would give a cause of death, the pathologist said he believed the post-mortem findings were contradictory and he pointed out the absence of microscopical evidence. On that basis be declined to give an opinion, saying simply, that cause of death was ‘unascertainable’. His reasoning was that other possible causes had not been eliminated. On the face of it, his views seemed to be critical of the experts aiding the prosecution. He also strongly made the point that no autopsy in any case of poisoning could be considered complete without full pathological examination of the relevant adjoining organs.

Francis Camps’s careful perspective of phosphorus poisoning did not particularly help the defence and Mary Wilson was found guilty of murder. She was sentenced to death but secured a reprieve, as noted in
A Calendar of Murder
, ‘… presumably because she was an old woman’. The ‘Poisoner of Windy Nook’, who murdered four times for the modest gain of £200, was sentenced to life imprisonment. She died in prison at the age of seventy. Her tally of victims increased as the result of inquests held on the two men she had lived with earlier in her life. In both cases, phosphorus poisoning was recorded. As a footnote, it is worth mentioning Sir Sydney Smith’s comment about phosphorus poisoning which he said declined with the demise of yellow-tipped matches.

The trial of the ‘Poisoner of Windy Nook’ highlighted some of the deficiencies in the system of presenting forensic evidence in court. Camps was already resolved through his teaching programme at the London Hospital to raise standards, and in 1958 took a huge step forward by setting up the British Academy of Forensic Sciences (BAFS). He did this in association with his friend, the solicitor Sir David Napley. In his memoir,
Not Without Prejudice
, Napley described their objective which was to overcome the virtual absence of ‘any knowledge of forensic medicine among lawyers and an inadequate level of knowledge among the medical profession’. Francis Camps had been influenced by the work of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences which he had seen at first hand during his visits to the USA. To add to his already busy schedule, he now became Secretary of BAFS.

In the summer of 1958, Camps was able to indulge his inclination for experimentation in a case of arsenic poisoning. Not for the first time he found himself dealing with the misdemeanours of a serviceman with the rank of Sergeant. Thirty-seven-year-old Master Sergeant Marcus Marymont of the United States Air Force, was based at Sculthorpe in Norfolk, an airfield from which secret reconnaissance flights operated during the Cold War. Marymont lived in married quarters with his wife, Mary Helen, and their three children. They had been in Britain for over two years. The marriage had run into difficulties and Marymont became increasingly attracted by the nightlife of London. He spent a large proportion of his off-duty time away from home, while Mary Helen was left on her own, believing her husband’s absence was due to assignment on temporary duties. In July 1956, at a pub near Maidenhead, the Master Sergeant met twenty-year-old Cynthia Taylor who had separated from her husband after four months of marriage. They danced and were attracted to each other.

As the relationship developed, Marymont explained to his girlfriend that he was divorced and his ex-wife lived in America. He and Cynthia talked about marrying when her own divorce was finalised. On 8 June 1958, the Marymonts were invited out to lunch with friends. Mary Helen looked unwell and she and her husband left early. On the following day, she was admitted to hospital at the USAF base, suffering with gastric problems. Her condition worsened, and when she lapsed into unconsciousness, there were fears for her life. The anxieties were well founded for she did not respond to emergency measures and died in hospital. The base doctor noted that Marymont appeared to be remarkably unmoved by his wife’s death. He gave permission for an autopsy to be carried out to determine the cause of Mary Helen’s death. Then, he attempted to withdraw his consent but was overruled by the military authorities who insisted that a post-mortem was necessary.

Francis Camps was called on in his capacity as a Home Office pathologist and set about removing organs from the dead woman’s body for laboratory analysis. Critically, he also took samples of hair. Dr Lewis Nickolls of the Metropolitan Police Laboratory, carried out tests that showed traces of arsenic in the liver which were indicative of a poisonous dose having been ingested twenty-four hours prior to death. Human hair has an absorbent capacity which makes its examination particularly important in cases of poisoning. Poison is picked up from the bloodstream and drawn into the hair, creating a marker which enables an analyst to work out the approximate strength and frequency of dosage. By these means, Dr Nickolls was able to ascertain that Mary Helen Marymont had absorbed doses of arsenic over a period of about six months.

Enquiries into the source of the arsenic centered on Marcus Marymont’s attempt to buy some from a pharmacy in Maidenhead. He did not persist with his request when told he needed to provide some documentation. He was more successful when he visited the laboratory at the USAF base where he was stationed. His request met with a favourable response, which led him to quip with staff that bottles containing arsenic should be kept under lock and key. His humour turned somewhat sour when he was arrested and charged with murdering his wife with poison.

While the Master Sergeant awaited his appearance at a court-martial, Francis Camps exercised his talent for experimentation. He wanted to determine how arsenic might be administered. He learned that, taken by mouth, or even in food, arsenic causes a strong burning sensation which is immediately apparent. Whereas, a strong dose of 10 grains or more could be disguised in, for example, coffee or cocoa, without causing an objectionable taste. He survived to relate his experiences so, presumably, he did not swallow his test beverages.

Marymont’s court-martial was convened at Denham in Buckinghamshire in September 1958. The proceedings were conducted under American jurisdiction, which included a panel of officers acting as judges. The prosecution argued simply that the Master Sergeant wanted his wife out of the way so that he would be free to marry his lover. He tried to poison her with small doses of arsenic and when that failed to have the desired effect, he resorted to a heavy dose with fatal consequences. The defendant maintained his innocence and suggested that his wife’s illness was caused by self-administered arsenic in an attempt to win back his affections. Defence counsel claimed the evidence against Marymont was circumstantial. Cynthia Taylor underwent the ordeal of being on the witness stand for over six hours, during which, letters that had passed between her and Marymont were read out. This had the effect of exposing the lies he had told her about his marital status.

When Francis Camps was called to give evidence, it was apparent that those administering the court-martial procedure had little knowledge as to the depth of his experience. His response to counsel’s question about the number of post-mortems he had carried out created a minor sensation. His answer, that he thought the number was around 60,000 produced sharp intakes of breath on the part of many present. He dealt with issues of how arsenic might have been administered without Mrs Marymont realising it and dismissed the notion that her death was suicide. He observed, knowingly, that people who took poison to gain sympathy were only too anxious to go on living. The military judges deliberated for over five hours before finding Marymont guilty on two charges of murder and adultery. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour and dishonourably discharged from the US Air Force. He lost his subsequent appeal, although the adultery charge was dropped, and he was returned to the USA to serve his sentence at Fort Leavenworth Prison in Kansas.

At the height of his powers, Francis Camps was conducting around fifty post-mortems a week. He, and his friend, Sir Bentley Purchase, coroner for the northern district of London, dominated the forensic map in their area. Camps was a pioneering pathologist and he used his fame to make professional advances, not for personal aggrandisement, but to enhance the status of forensic investigation. He built up state-of-the-art facilities at the London Hospital which became his operational base. Part of his ambition, which he shared with Bentley Purchase and David Napley, was to harness all the advantages of science to aid the forensic pathologist. By the late 1950s, he had gathered around him a team of specialists whose skills embraced serology, chemistry, dentistry and medical photography to complement the core discipline of forensic medicine.

Woven into all the run-of-the-mill cases which came his way, there were always the weird and unusual episodes. None was more curious than the ‘Mummy of Rhyl’. Sarah Jane Harvey, a widow aged sixty-five, lived in the seaside town of Rhyl in North Wales. She occasionally took in paying guests. In May 1960, Mrs Harvey was admitted to hospital for tests. While she was away, her son, Leslie, decided to freshen up the interior of her house with some painting and decorating.