Cold Case - Dark Stories True Crime Tours

1907: A Doctor Fooled Twice: Martha Rendell and the Second Child to Die of Diphtheria

Seven year old Olive Morris died on this day in East Perth, her throat swabbed raw, just as her older sister Annie had died months before. Both times the family doctor, Cuthbert, signed the same death certificate: diphtheria. Both times he was wrong.

What the certificate did not record was hydrochloric acid, swabbed onto the children's throats by their father's partner, Martha Rendell, under the guise of treating illness. The pattern would not be noticed for two more years, until a third child in the household died the same way and police finally ordered the earlier graves reopened.

The exhumations in 1909 revealed what two death certificates had missed, and set in motion the case that would end with Rendell on the gallows.

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Australia Child Abuse Cold Case East Perth Execution Exoneration Murder Perth Poisoning WA

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1965: Saddleworth Moor Gives Up a Victim of the Moors Murders

Lesley Ann Downey had been missing since Boxing Day 1964, taken from a Manchester fairground and killed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, who recorded her final minutes on tape. In October 1965 police digging on Saddleworth Moor spotted a bone protruding from the peat.

The body recovered was still visually identifiable. It was formally confirmed the next day as Lesley Ann, and her mother identified her by the clothing recovered with her, bringing a grim end to months of searching in one of Britain's most notorious crime cases.

Grim Murder Discoveries on Saddleworth Moors

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Cold Case England Manchester Murder Serial Killer UK

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1873: A Tearful Confession in Custody Cracked the Case: Two Men Hanged at Perth Gaol for Eating their Victim

Young Edward Dunn vanished near his family's farm at Port Gregory, north of Champion Bay in Western Australia in October 1865. Search parties tracked his footprints for a short distance before they disappeared, and no trace of him surfaced until the following April, when fragments of clothing, a skull and other remains were pulled from a well.

The mystery stood unsolved until 1873, when one of the accused broke down in a Geraldton lock-up and told police what had happened: a group of men had come across Dunn, killed him, then cooked and ate portions of his body before hiding his remains down the well. Two men were convicted of murder, admitted their guilt, and were hanged at Perth Gaol on this date, eight years after the killing.

Pitcher and well in the Negev Desert, Israel

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Australia Cannibalism Champion Bay Cold Case Execution Geraldton Murder Perth Trial WA

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1889: He Called It an Accident. The Jury Called It Murder: Robert Landells Hanged at Melbourne Gaol

When civil engineer Peter Sherlock vanished in July 1889, his landlord Robert Landells claimed he had gone up country looking for work. About a month later, Sherlock’s body was discovered beneath branches near Ringwood, outside Melbourne, with a fractured skull and devastating gunshot injuries to his face.

Landells told the inquest Sherlock had been broke and depressed, a man likely to have taken his own life. Detectives found otherwise: Sherlock held 200 pounds in securities, and after his disappearance Landells had cashed his cheques and sold his gun to a grazier near Beaufort. Confronted, Landells confessed to shooting Sherlock while passing the loaded gun between them, insisting it was an accident, then panicking and burying the body. A jury did not believe him, and he was hanged at Melbourne Gaol on 16 October 1889 in an execution so botched the rope nearly severed his head.

Landells kept to his story of an accident to the end, refusing calls to confess. When the sheriff asked on the scaffold whether he had anything to say, he replied only, “No, sir.”

Sketch of Ringwood mystery crime scene near Dandenong Creek 1889

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Australia Cold Case Execution Melbourne Murder Ringwood Trial VIC

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