Read Women Serial Killers of the 20th Century Online
Authors: Sylvia Perrini
Tags: #Nonfiction, #Retail, #True Crime
No
post-mortem was called for. Bertha called the undertaker and organized the funeral.
This latest death caused all
the talk about Bertha to start up again, only this time it became much more widespread and reached the ears of Frank Jenny, a young up-and-coming prosecuting attorney. Six months following the death of Edward, a grand jury of Franklin County began investigations into the rumors and deaths surrounding Bertha.
Bertha Gifford was furious. How dare they
think such things about her when all she had done was tried to help people? Bertha threatened to sue for libel anyone who uttered a bad word against her. Eugene was also enraged that people should say such things against his Bertha and, normally placid, he would hurl abuse at anyone he suspected of gossiping about Bertha being a killer. If it was a strategy, it worked. People, who had been scheduled to give evidence in front of the Grand Jury, lost their tongues. The Grand Jury was unwilling to indict Bertha as they felt there was insufficient evidence.
This led to many believing that the Gifford’s had friends in high places that had put a
stop to the investigation. However, Frank Jenny, the young, ambitious prosecutor, was a Rottweiler and was not going to give up. Just months later, he was equipped with the record books of poisons bought from two pharmacists in Pacific that showed Bertha had been buying abnormal amounts of arsenic since 1911, “For rats,” she had written next to her numerous signatures, and with witnesses that were now eager to talk, he tried again.
When the
second investigation began, Bertha and Eugene left Catawissa and moved to Eureka, Missouri. The story before long became plastered across newspapers all over the US. As the news circulated, Frank Jenny’s office began to receive phone calls and letters from people claiming their relatives or friends had passed away while being attended by Bertha. Soon the official number of questionable deaths climbed from nine up to seventeen
.
On August 23, 1928, the jury returned an indictment charging Bertha Gifford with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Edward Brinley and Elmer Schamel.
On August 25
th
, 1928, Police Detective Andrew McDonnell arrested Bertha in Eureka. Chief McDonnell drove Bertha to the station in Union and gently questioned her. Over a cup of tea, they talked about a range of things. Bertha began talking about all the gossip about her and the story that she had killed the little girl Beulah with arsenic. She thoroughly denied giving arsenic to Beulah but said she had given it to Elmer and Lloyd Schamel and also Edward Brinley, just to help ease their pain. Later on in the conversation, she admitted to Andrew McDonnell that she may have given arsenic to one or two others. Chief Andrew McDonnell wrote out her confession. Bertha was then driven to jail in Union
.
The following day the newspapers printed her confession
, and Bertha was mortified. She hysterically denied the confession and said the statement was a pack of lies. Eugene gave statements to the reporters saying that his wife was frightened and agitated, and that is why she had confessed.
Eugene hired a top lawyer
, James Booth, who pleaded not guilty to the court on Bertha Gifford’s behalf.
In September
of 1928, the corpses of Edward Brinley and Elmer and Lloyd Schamel were exhumed. In their bodies, significant amounts of arsenic were found.
The health commissioner of the state made a statement criticizing the doctor in Catawissa.
In the statement, he declared that,
Bertha’s trial began in the courthouse of Union on November 19th of 1928. It was a prominent newspaper story and made headlines around the country. A murder trial was a significant event: something to look forward to, and something worth gossip and speculation.
NEWSPAPERS HAD A FIELD DAY
Reporters and crowds of people filled the courtroom and corridors, and those who could not fit in the courtroom lined the steps outside waiting to hear details. Bertha’s name was on everyone’s lips. Surprise was registered as a story of her beauty in her younger days was revealed, for the Bertha that appeared in the courtroom on that cold November day was anything but beautiful. The newspapers described Bertha as thick and heavyset, with a weather-beaten, furrowed face and
eyes that were dead.
Rumors as to her behavior in
jail wove through the crowd like Chinese whispers. There were tales of Bertha hiding under a blanket in her jail cell in the day and at night, wearing a blood red robe as she paced up and down howling like a werewolf or clutching the bars at the window and hurling curses out the window. The whispers continued with tales of how Bertha would only eat ice cream and that she refused to talk to anyone except Eugene and would do so only if dressed in a pristine white nurse's uniform.
During the four-day
trial, both the prosecution and defense agreed on one thing: that Bertha Gifford was insane. The prosecution argued for her to be locked up for life, while the defense wanted the possibility of release if she recovered.
The jury took
just three hours to reach their decision that Bertha Gifford had murdered Edward Brinley and the Schamel brothers while insane and remained insane. The judge sentenced her to a life of confinement in the mentally insane unit of the State Hospital in Farmington, Missouri.
Although Bertha was only tried and convicted for three murders, the true number
during 1909-1927 is believed to be at least seventeen.
Bertha Gifford died on August 20, 1951. She had spent close to twenty-three years in Farmington.
After her death, Eugene had her body taken to Pacific for a private funeral at the cemetery in Morse Mill. The grave is unmarked.
The trial
, in the end, revealed very little; just a great many unanswered questions. How had Bertha walked free among her neighbors for so many years and killed so many? Why, after so many deaths, had the doctor just signed every certificate without a post-mortem with the same woman present at every death? What about Eugene? What did he know?
Eugene remained living in Eureka. He died in 1957
and any answers to any questions he took with him.
Bad News in Johannesburg
Daisy Louisa DeMelker was born Daisy Hancorn-Smith on June 1, 1886 in Seven Fountains, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Her father was a British Army officer. In 1907, Daisy trained as a nurse at the Berea Nursing Home in Durban and became engaged to a young man named Bert Fuller. On the day of their wedding, Bert became ill and died from a fever. Daisy was at his bedside and was left £100 ($149.30). Daisy, in 1909, moved to Johannesburg where she met and married William Cowle, a plumber. They had five children together; three of the children died of natural causes and the fourth child’s death was unexplained. Only one son, Cecil, survived. In January of 1923, after thirteen years of marriage, William became suddenly and violently ill and died screaming in pain. The doctor cited the cause as a brain hemorrhage. Daisy received £1,700 ($2,538.10) from his life insurance policy.
Three years later in 1926
, Daisy met and married Robert Sproat, another plumber. After only four months of marriage, Robert awoke from an after lunch nap trembling and sweating. As the day progressed into evening his symptoms worsened, and he died screaming in pain. Daisy received a generous inheritance of over £4000 ($5,972) and £560 ($836.08) paid from his pension fund. Alfred Sproat, Robert’s brother, suspected Daisy of having murdered his brother.
In 1930,
Daisy met a wealthy entrepreneur, Sydney Clarence de Melker, a widower. They married in January 1931. In March of 1932, Daisy’s nineteen-year-old son Cecil died. He became ill at work after drinking coffee from a thermos flask, which Daisy had prepared for him. Cecil’s friend, James Webster, who’d had a sip of the coffee, also became seriously ill but recovered. A postmortem gave the cause of Cecil’s death as cerebral malaria. On April 1st, Daisy received £100 ($149.30) from Cecil’s life insurance policy.
When
Alfred Sproat heard about Cecil’s death, he felt seriously alarmed and was concerned for the welfare of Daisy’s new husband Sydney. He took it upon himself to report his suspicions to the Johannesburg police. The police took Alfred’s suspicions seriously and started an immediate investigation. On the 15
th
of April 1932, the bodies of Daisy’s previous two husbands Robert and William and her son Cecil were exhumed, and their bodies examined via autopsies. The bones and several organs in each corpse showed traces of strychnine poisoning.
Continuing with their investigation, the police learned that Daisy had traveled out of town in March
of 1932 to a chemist and had bought arsenic under her second married name, Sproat, claiming that she needed it to put a sick cat out of its misery.
Daisy de Melker was arrested and charged with three murders. The trial lasted
thirty days and became a media sensation. She was convicted of murdering her son, but the prosecution failed to prove the charges of poisoning her husbands.
The motive for killing her son was never fully established.
Daisy de Melker, at the age of forty-six, was condemned to death by hanging. The hanging took place at Pretoria Central Prison on December 30, 1932. Daisy de Melker was the second woman to have been hanged in South Africa and was South Africa’s first executed serial murderer.