(Martha Rendell. Picture credit: executedtoday)
*Please be aware that I will be talking about some sensitive details to do with child abuse in this post. I always aim to be as sensitive as I can be when sharing the details without taking away from the facts of the case. Please feel free to email me at jocaledoniankitty@gmail.com if you have any questions about this post*
There's women in this world who are naturally maternal and have the ability to provide a loving, caring, safe and nurturing home to their children but there is also the not-so maternal kind, the women who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near children. This case is decades old but still very much a shocking moment in Australia's criminal history. This story is one that you may have heard about before but just in-case it's new to you I have included it here on my blog to finish off this trio of posts that I have written over the past few weeks, to do with women who have used poison as their method of murder.
In my previous two posts, I shared the shocking stories of Blanche Taylor Moore and Velma Barfield who both poisoned their husbands and lovers as well as being suspected of the sudden deaths of many others, In this post I will be talking about a woman who was so obsessed with her partner that she murdered three of his children whilst also trying to murder a fourth child who managed to escape. Martha Rendell was her name and I'm sure if any of you hail from the gorgeous country of Australia, you will probably be familiar with that name and the case. For those who don't know the story, I hope you will find this post to be informative.
So let's get into it....With this case being decades ago, trying to track down details of Martha's childhood has been a challenge but what we do know is that she was born in Adelaide, Australia on the 10th of August 1871. She left her family home at the age of just 16 and lived a rebellious lifestyle which resulted in her being a single parent of three children. She struggled as a parent and wasn't really cut out for the role, she also had a bit of a bad reputation as it was frowned upon back in those days to have children out of wedlock. With no clear direction in life and feeling tied down as a young mother, she found excitement in a married man named Thomas Morris.
Call it 'Daddy Issues' or whatever but Martha couldn't keep herself away from this married man who was not only living with his wife but his children too. Thomas encouraged and enjoyed the attention from Martha and the pair went on to have a full blown affair which soon caught the attention of the locals. Martha already had an unsavory reputation as it was and knowledge that she was seeing a married man just made things worse, especially in those days. Thomas decided it was time to move out of town because he had a job offer elsewhere and he wanted to get away from being the subject of local gossip. Thomas and Martha fell in love and he asked her to leave with him. Thomas left his wife and Martha left her three children behind and they moved out of town.
Thomas, Martha and his children all lived in a house together and Thomas was often away working whilst it was Martha's role to take care of the children. Before Thomas left his wife, Martha would dream of the day that she would finally have Thomas all to herself and when he did leave his wife (who he wasn't divorced it was quite difficult to set up a divorce back then so Thomas and his former wife just remained separated) it wasn't quite how she imagined. First of all it was bad enough that she wouldn't be able to marry him as he was still technically married to his first wife on paper, there was also the issue of his children that Martha had a love/hate relationship with. It seemed that the children were never fully comfortable with Martha and she didn't have the patience for them either, she just wanted to be with Thomas.
The children missed their mother and felt some animosity towards Martha as if they felt that she was to blame for the break-up of their parents marriage. Martha didn't have the time, patience or mothering persona that the children experienced previously with their own mother. With Thomas being away working a lot of the time, the children and Martha were together quite a lot and money was tight, it could often be quite miserable and hard to get by.
In Martha's mind she felt that the children were a burden and a barrier between herself and Thomas, there was no privacy and she didn't want to share him with his children. In the space of just 14 months, three of the children had fallen seriously ill out of nowhere and died. Annie was just seven years old when she passed away after being declared as suffering from 'Diphtheria' which is a serious bacterial infection that causes extreme coughing, sore throat, fever, swollen glands and exhaustion. When the family Doctor was at the house, Martha played the part of the caring stepmother and said that she had been trying to nurse Annie back to health. When the second child died (Seven year old Olive) just a few months later, the Doctor returned and gave the same diagnosis and put it down to just a heartbreaking coincidence. However, when Arthur passed away (Arthur was slightly older than the girls, having been 14) the Doctor became suspicious of what was going on.
With the Doctor's suspicions and then the revelation that a fourth child, George had fled the house because he believed that Martha was trying to kill him, Martha was taken into custody. George survived but spoke of how Martha had been swabbing the children's throats with Hydrochloric acid and this was causing the children's throats to swell up and for them to exhibit the symptoms that had been seen on the days and weeks leading up to their deaths. On the day that George ran away, Martha had tried to swab his throat with the acid but he was lucky to have survived and got away.
An investigation was conducted and it was found that Martha had indeed poisoned the children and attempted to poison George also, with Hydrochloric acid. Initially Thomas was arrested alongside Martha because he had been noted as purchasing some of the acid but after some investigation was done, authorities believed Thomas to have been completely unaware of what had been going on.
Martha Rendell stood trial and was sentenced to death, She was to hang for her despicable crimes and in those days, they didn't mess about. She had initially been arrested in July of 1909 and by October the 6th 1909 she was deceased. Her time of death was noted at 8am and took place at Freemantle prison (which is now a tourist attraction, I'll leave a link to it at the end of this post). There was no tears, no regret and not a shred of remorse, she was buried in Freemantle Cemetery and was the last woman to be put to death in the state of Western Australia. Martha was 38 years old at the time of her death.
Another disturbing bit of trivia about this story is that another serial killer by the name of Eric Edgar Cooke was also placed in the plot where Martha's remains were placed decades before. He was placed there in 1964, so the two monsters share the same grave in Freemantle Cemetery.
RIP to Annie, Olive and Arthur.
What a shocking story no matter how long ago that it took place, some things in history are so terrible that it's hard to ever forget them and it's important that we don't forget, for the sake of the innocent victims. I hope you have found this post to be informative and do take a look at some of the links I have included about Freemantle prison and the cemetery, so much history and with the prison in particular....can you imagine if the walls could talk? some people believe that Martha haunts the prison and that there is an illusion on one of the prison window's that can only be seen from the outside, people believe that it is the face of Martha Rendell but who know's? If anyone has seen it leave a comment below, I love all things paranormal too.
Australia is definitely a place I would love to visit one day and I would very much like to visit the Freemantle prison and cemetery.
Further reading & sources:
- Martha Rendell: Article | Executed Today
- Eric Edgar Cooke | Wikipedia
- Freemantle Cemetery | Official Website
- Freemantle Prison | Official Website
- Diphtheria: Article | Mayo Clinic
- The Big Book of Serial Killers | Book by Jack Rosewood & Rebecca Lo
- Martha Rendell: Article | WA Police History
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Stay safe & I hope you will join me in my next post x
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