In Perth, Martha Rendell told neighbours her stepchildren suffered from chronic sore throats that she treated herself at home. In truth she was swabbing their throats with hydrochloric acid, a slow and agonising poisoning disguised as nursing. Her stepson Arthur Morris, 14, died of it on 8 October 1908; two of his siblings had already died the same way, but only Arthur’s death went to trial.
Convicted of his murder, Rendell was hanged at Fremantle Prison on 6 October 1909, the only woman ever executed in Western Australia.
She denied killing the children to the end, insisting she had only ever tried to cure them.
