1929: She Asked for a Kiss, Then Bled to Death: Frederick Carr Hanged in Adelaide for Murdering His Wife
On the evening of 28 June 1929, Maude Carr walked into the police station near her home at Birkenhead, outside Adelaide, and asked if she could sleep in a cell. There was only one, kept clear for emergencies, so she was turned away. Hours later she was dead in the isolated weatherboard house she shared with her husband, Frederick Carr, her throat cut almost from ear to ear.
Carr's account was that he had woken to find his wife leaning over his shoulder asking for a kiss, then felt something wet. He ran to a neighbour's house drenched in blood, shouting that she had cut her own throat. A jury was not convinced: after five days of evidence they found him guilty of murder, though they added a recommendation for mercy.
Frederick Carr was hanged in Adelaide on this day in 1929, despite union campaigns pleading for his sentence to be commuted. He shook hands with gaol officials and walked calmly to the scaffold.
He denied the killing to the end, declaring from the condemned cell, "The law requires my body, but it cannot have my soul, as I am innocent."
