1894: Caught Serving Poisoned Tea: Martha Needle Hanged in Melbourne for a Family Poisoning Spree
Martha Needle had already buried her husband and both young daughters, each death blamed on a mysterious wasting illness, when she turned her attention to the family of her fiance, Otto Juncken. Months before her arrest she fed his brother Louis arsenic, and when his only surviving brother also sickened, doctors found arsenic disguised as rat poison in his vomit. Police lay in wait and caught Needle in the act, offering him a cup of tea laced with ten grains of poison.
Tried for Louis’s murder, her lawyer argued that she suffered fits of unconsciousness and should not be held responsible, but an insanity plea was dismissed. Convicted with no recommendation for mercy, Needle was hanged in Melbourne on 22 October 1894. Exhumations later found arsenic in the bodies of her husband and both daughters as well, confirming a killing spree that had gone undetected for years. She left everything she owned to Otto, the man who had stood by her to the end.
