1907: Baby Farmer Rhoda Willis Hanged on Her Birthday at Cardiff Prison
Rhoda Willis, also known as Leslie James, was a baby farmer convicted of murdering the illegitimate infant of Maud Treasure. She had undertaken to adopt and raise the child for six pounds, but the infant was found suffocated, wrapped in a parcel, in her bed at a Cardiff lodging house. Willis was sentenced to death at Glamorgan Assizes and executed by hanging at Cardiff Prison on 14 August 1907, carried out by brothers Henry and Thomas Pierrepoint. She was the only woman hanged in Wales in the 20th century and the last baby farmer to be executed in Britain.
Born in Sunderland in 1867, Willis was 40 years old on the day of her death. She had received a first-class education, spoke several languages, and had lived in Cardiff for years following the death of her husband. The night before her execution, she confessed to her solicitor that she had wilfully killed the baby on the train. She met her fate, according to witnesses, calmly and without incident.
In a letter written shortly before her execution, Willis expressed deep remorse, wrote that she had never before appreciated the singing of the birds or the beauty of sunshine as much as in her final days, and expressed confidence that God would pardon her sins.
