Catherine Wilson
Catherine Wilson (1822 - 1862) was a British woman who was hanged for one murder, but is thought to have killed many others. She worked as a nurse and poisoned her victims after encouraging them to leave her money in their wills. She was described privately by the judge as "the greatest criminal that ever lived."[1]
Crimes
Wilson worked as a nurse[1][2] (though there is doubt as to whether she had proper qualifications[3]) first in Spalding, Lincolnshire, and then moving to Kirkby, Cumbria.[3] She married a man called Dixon, but her husband soon died, probably poisoned with colchicurn a bottle of which was found in his room. The doctor recommended an autopsy but Wilson begged him not to perform it, and he backed down.[3]
In 1862 Wilson worked as a live-in nurse, nursing a Mrs Sarah Carnell. Carnell rewrote her will in favour of Wilson and soon afterwards Wilson brought her a 'soothing draught', saying "Drink it down, love; it will warm you."[1] Carnell took a mouthful and spat it out, complaining that it had burnt her mouth. Later it was noticed that a hole had been burnt in the bed clothes by the liquid. Wilson then fled to London but was arrested a couple of days later.
First trial
The drink she had given to Carnell turned out to contain sulphuric acid - enough to kill fifty people.[2] Wilson claimed that the acid had been mistakenly given to her by the pharmacist who prepared the medicine. She was tried for attempted murder but acquitted. The judge, Baron Bramwell, in the words of Wilson's lawyer Montagu Williams, Q.C., "pointed out that the theory of the defence was an untenable one, as, had the bottle contained the poison when the prisoner received it, it would have become red-hot or would have burst, before she arrived at the invalid's bedside. However, there is no accounting for juries; and, at the end of the Judge's summing-up, to the astonishment probably of almost everybody in Court" she was found not guilty.[1] When Wilson attempted to leave the dock, she was immediately rearrested.
The police had continued their investigations into Wilson and had exhumed the bodies of some former patients. She was charged with the murder of seven former patients, but tried on just one, Mrs Maria Soames who died in 1856[4]. Wilson denied all the charges.
Second Trial
Wilson was tried on 25 September 1862. During the trial it was alleged that seven people who Wilson had lived with as nurse had died after rewriting their wills to leave her some money, but this evidence was not admitted.[1] Almost all though had suffered from gout. She was tried by Mr Justice Byles who in summing up said to the jury: "Gentlemen, if such a state of things as this were allowed to exist no living person could sit down to a meal in safety". She was found guilty and sentenced to hang.[1] A crowd of 20,000 turned out to see her execution at Newgate Gaol on 20th October 1862.[3][2] She was the last woman to be publicly hanged in London.[5]
After the trial Justice Byles asked the defence lawyer Montagu Williams, Q.C., to come to his chambers, where he told him: "I sent for you to tell you that you did that case remarkably well. But it was no good; the facts were too strong. I prosecuted Rush for the murder of Mr. Jermy, I defended Daniel Good, and I defended several other notable criminals when I was on the Norfolk Circuit; but, if it will be of any satisfaction to you, I may tell you that in my opinion you have to-day defended the greatest criminal that ever lived."[1]