Henry Needle was a robust carpenter until 1889, when he began suffering violent, unexplained vomiting at the family home in Richmond, near Melbourne. His doctor once found untouched broth and jelly by his bed, and noted Henry had grown strangely wary of food prepared by his wife, Martha. He died on 4 October 1889; his death was recorded as hepatitis, no post-mortem was ordered, and no suspicion touched the devoted nurse at his side.
The truth emerged five years later, after police caught Martha handing a laced cup of tea to another man and Henry’s body was exhumed and found packed with arsenic, along with the bodies of the couple’s three young children, all of whom had died in her care under equally mysterious circumstances. Martha Needle was hanged at Melbourne Gaol in October 1894 for the poisoning of her fiance’s brother, the last of at least five family members she is believed to have killed.
