1902: “Me Done It, and I Am Satisfied”: The Chilling Calm of a Perth Murder
Samuel Peters killed his wife Trevenna in their home at Leederville, a suburb of Perth, on the night of 3 July 1902. A neighbour heard a scream and Peters’s voice between 2 and 3am, but it was not until half past nine the next morning that the couple’s children raised the alarm. Mrs Peters was found lying in a pool of blood in her bedroom, badly injured, with no weapon in sight; Peters himself was discovered fully dressed and asleep in an adjoining room.
When the arresting constable woke him and told him his wife had been murdered, Peters answered flatly, “Me done it, and I am satisfied.”
At his trial, witnesses described a marriage marked by constant quarrelling. Peters had accused his wife of carrying on affairs with two men, Adams and Nicholas, and was said to have taken to calling her Mrs Adams in front of neighbours. The jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to death, later hanged at Fremantle Prison.
