Chapter XV: Some Irish Poison Mysteries

A curious case with many unusual features was investigated at Armagh in June, 1905, when two women named Pearson and Black were charged with murdering Alice Pearson, aged seventy-four, the mother-in-law of the former and mother of the latter, insurance benefits being alleged as the motive for the crime.

The case came to be investigated through the statement of one of the women while she was in gaol. Sarah Pearson, one of the accused, was arrested in Montreal while in prison, and made a confession of the crime, implicating herself, her husband and her sister-in-law. She said she bought three pennyworth of strychnine in Armagh and mixed it with mashed potatoes and eggs. When her mother-in-law was eating the meal she said that it tasted sour and she did not like it. Both she and her sister had also partaken of the food.

Evidence went to prove that systematic attempts were made to kill the old woman for the sake of the little money, some forty pounds, which she possessed; that Pearson and Black had first tried metallic mercury, but eventually put strychnine into the meal of potatoes and eggs which caused her death. According to the evidence of a witness, one of the accused women came to his house and said she had seen “Old Alice’s ghost,” and added that her husband had dreamed that his mother was going to die.

The analyst who made an examination of the organs said that he discovered two hundred and ninety-six grains of pure metallic mercury in the body and had not been able to trace any record of a case where mercury in such large quantities had been found in any human body. The mercury, however, was not the cause of death and did not act as a poison while in a metallic state. He found one-seventh of a grain of strychnine in the stomach, liver and kidneys and there was little doubt that strychnine had been the cause of death.

The jury found Sarah Pearson guilty and she was sentenced to death.

Perhaps one of the most curious defences to a charge of poisoning that has ever been put forward in court, was that advanced in a case which was tried in Ireland, where a woman was charged with murdering her husband.

The victim was a farmer who was taken ill after eating a supper prepared by his wife, which consisted of a poached egg. He died, apparently from the effects of strychnine poisoning, the following morning.

A week later one of his daughters, a child of three, also died from the effects of strychnine poisoning after drinking some milk. A post-mortem examination was made on both bodies, and led to the discovery of half a grain of strychnine in the stomach of each.

At the trial, the counsel for the defence declared that he could satisfy the jury that no human hand was laid upon the egg eaten, from the moment it was broken in the pan until it reached the deceased man. He contended that the poison had _fallen from the rafters_, and _accidentally dropped on the egg_, portions of which he could prove the accused woman had also eaten. Her husband before he died had expressed this view, and it was proved that some strychnine to poison rats had been placed on the floor of the loft immediately above the kitchen, and some of it had fallen from the rafters on to the egg as it was being removed from the fire to the table. Although the Crown contended this accident could not have happened, the jury found the accused not guilty, and she was discharged.