Annie Hearn

Last updated

Annie Hearn was the assumed but known name of an arsenic poisoner in England in the 1920s/30s. Whilst Annie was found not guilty, all modern opinion concludes the weight of evidence would point to her having murdered at least three people.

Contents

Life

She was born Sarah Ann Everard in 1895 in Middle Rasen in Lincolnshire to Robert and Betsy Everard. Her father was a gardener and they lived in various places in England. She showed a picture of her late husband "Dr Hearn" but this was later proven to be a picture of Vane-Tempest baronets who was killed in France on 25 March 1917. To the public (and even to her own family) she played the role of a widow who had lost her husband in the First World War. This was quite a normal circumstance in England in the 1920s and would raise no suspicion. She adopted the name Sarah Ann Hearn and was known as Annie Hearn. In 1921 she went to live with her paternal aunt Mary Ann Everard and older sister Minnie Everard at Trenhorne House on the edge of Lewannick in Cornwall. Aunt Mary died in 1926 and Minnie died in the summer of 1930, and both were buried in Lewannick churchyard. [1]

She obtained a post as cook and housekeeper to William (1889–1949) and Alice Thomas (née Parsons) [2] who lived at nearby Trenhorne Farm. She appears to have been obsessed with William Thomas and sought to be his wife. Her affection was not reciprocated but she was on good terms with both husband and wife. They all three travelled to Bude in north Cornwall, around 20 km north of the farm, on 18 October 1930. There in Littlejohn's cafe they ate salmon sandwiches which had been made by Annie at home. They were distributed by Annie. Alice took the top sandwich offered to her, became very ill and started vomiting around two hours later. The local physician Dr Saunders diagnosed food poisoning. [3]

It was later proved that a second dose of arsenic was given to Alice around 27 or 28 October. Desperately ill, she was taken to hospital in Plymouth on 3 November and died on the morning of 4 November.

Annie left Trenhorne House and faked a suicide by leaving a distinctive checked coat on a clifftop at Looe. An inquest into Alice's death concluded she had been murdered by a person or persons unknown by arsenic poisoning. The inquest ordered the exhumation of Annie's sister and aunt and again found arsenic in each. With much media attention the Daily Mail offered a reward of £500 for information on Annie's whereabouts.

Meanwhile, Annie had assumed the new name of Annie Faithful and got a job as cook and housekeeper to the architect Cecil Powell and his wife at Brooksby House in Torquay. A tip off by Cecil himself led police there in February 1931. Feeling some sympathy, he donated his £500 reward to her defence, allowing her to afford an influential advocate.

The Trial

Annie was charged with the murder of her sister, Lydia Maria Everard aged 52, and her neighbour, Alice Maud Thomas (known as "Minnie") aged 47. She was not charged with the murder of her aunt (despite arsenic in her body) as there was little evidence, other than odd coincidence. [4]

The trial took place in Cornwall Assizes in Bodmin in June 1931. Dr Eric Wordley and Roche Lynch gave expert witness on the presence of white arsenic in the each body. The eminent Norman Birkett KC acted as defence lawyer. He argued that presence of arsenic was not evidence of arsenic poisoning. A local chemist, Shuker & Reed, gave evidence that they had sold Annie a weedkiller containing white arsenic some four years previously. [5]

The prosecution led by Henry du Parcq KC argued that Annie's sister, Minnie Everard, had died in July 1930, and had been poisoned slowly by arsenic over a period of 7 months. However this was based on exhumation of the body and defence argued the body was contaminated by natural arsenic levels in the soil.

Despite a large amount of evidence the weight of evidence was largely circumstantial and Annie Hearn was found Not Guilty after an eight-day trial on 23 June much to the disquiet of the public gallery. This conclusion was very much pushed at the jury by Judge Roche who appeared to support the strong defence theory. [6] Minnie's diary, which alleged that she thought Annie was poisoning her, was ruled inadmissible as evidence. [7]

Aftermath

William Thomas was forced to leave due to the level of rumours and returned to his home area of St Germans where he died in December 1949.

Annie went north to live with a younger sister in Yorkshire. It is thought she lived under a further false name.

The poisoned sandwiches that Annie made to kill the woman who she felt stood in her way with William and the suspicious death of her aunt inspired mystery writer Agatha Christie's 1940 novel Sad Cypress.

Books based on the Case

Related Research Articles

<i>Strong Poison</i> 1930 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers

Strong Poison is a 1930 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fifth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and the first in which Harriet Vane appears.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hélène Jégado</span> French serial killer

Hélène Jégado was a French domestic servant and serial killer. She is believed to have murdered as many as 36 people with arsenic over a period of 18 years. After an initial period of activity, between 1833 and 1841, she seems to have stopped for nearly ten years before a final spree in 1851.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Maybrick</span> British merchant, murder victim, and Jack the Ripper suspect (1838–1889)

James Maybrick was a Liverpool cotton merchant. After his death, his wife, Florence Maybrick, was convicted of murdering him by poisoning in a sensational trial. The "Aigburth Poisoning" case was widely reported in the press on both sides of the Atlantic.

<i>Sad Cypress</i> 1940 Poirot novel by Agatha Christie

Sad Cypress is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club in March 1940 and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company later in the same year. The UK edition retailed at eight shillings and threepence (8/3) – the first price rise for a UK Christie edition since her 1921 debut – and the US edition retailed at $2.00.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minnie Dean</span> New Zealander convicted of infanticide

Williamina Dean was a New Zealander who was found guilty of infanticide and hanged. She was the only woman to be executed in New Zealand. Several other women were sentenced to death, but all of them had their sentences commuted to either life or long-duration imprisonment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daisy de Melker</span> Executed South African serial killer (1886–1932)

Daisy Louisa C. de Melker, simply known as Daisy de Melker, was a South African nurse who was accused of poisoning two husbands with strychnine for their life insurance money; all she was found guilty of, however, was poisoning her only son with arsenic for reasons which are still unclear. De Melker is the second woman to have been hanged in South African criminal history.

Marie Besnard, also known as 'The Good Lady of Loudun', was an accused serial poisoner in the mid-20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lewannick</span> Human settlement in England

Lewannick is a civil parish and village in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The village is situated approximately five miles (8 km) southwest of Launceston. The civil parish had a population of 973 at the 2011 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Florence Maybrick</span> Wrongfully convicted of murder in Britain

Florence Elizabeth Chandler Maybrick was an American woman convicted in the United Kingdom of murdering her husband, cotton merchant James Maybrick.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Rowse Armstrong</span> English solicitor and convicted murderer (1869–1922)

Herbert Rowse Armstrong TD MA was an English solicitor and convicted murderer, the only solicitor in the United Kingdom ever hanged for murder. He was living in Cusop Dingle, Herefordshire, England, and practising in Hay-on-Wye, on the border of England and Wales, from 1906 until his arrest on 31 December 1921 for the attempted murder of a professional rival by arsenic poisoning. He was later also charged with, and convicted of, the murder of his wife, the crime for which he was executed.

Philip Cross from Shandy Hall, Dripsey, County Cork, Ireland, was a physician convicted and hanged for the murder of his wife after an affair with his children's governess. The case was known in the late 19th century as "the Coachford Poisoning Case" as the house was on the road between the adjacent villages of Dripsey and Coachford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George Sweeney Trial</span>

The George Sweeney Trial in 1806 in Richmond, Virginia was a trial in which George Sweeney, the grand-nephew of George Wythe, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, was acquitted of murdering Wythe. Wythe was a distinguished attorney who attended the Philadelphia Convention in 1775 and signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776; in 1806, he died of arsenic poisoning. Before he died, Wythe accused his nephew of murder and changed his will to exclude him. Wythe's Black housekeeper provided evidence that George Sweeney had tried to poison Wythe, her son and her, but by law was prohibited from testifying in a criminal case against a white man. Sweeney was tried and found not guilty. The case is used as an example of how racism in early American law resulted in an acquittal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Seddon</span> English murderer (1872–1912)

Frederick Henry Seddon was a British murderer hanged in 1912 for the arsenic poisoning murder of his lodger Eliza Mary Barrow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sophie Ursinus</span> German serial killer

Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus was a German serial killer believed to have been responsible for poisoning her husband, aunt, and lover, and of attempting to poison her servant. Her trial led to a method of identifying arsenic poisoning.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Mabel Greenwood</span> 1919 accused murder by a solicitor in Wales

On 17 June 1919, Mabel Greenwood (née Bowater) died in the company of her husband Harold Greenwood an English solicitor. Greenwood was accused and acquitted of murdering his wife by arsenic poisoning. He was tried at Carmarthen Assizes in 1920 and defended by Edward Marshall Hall; his case is a rare example of a legal professional being charged with murder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louisa Collins</span>

Louisa Collins 11 August 1847 – 8 January 1889) was an Australian convicted murderer. She lived in the Sydney suburb of Botany and married twice, with both husbands dying of arsenic poisoning under suspicious circumstances. Collins was tried for murder on four separate occasions, with the first three juries failing to reach a verdict. At the fourth trial the jury delivered a guilty verdict for the murder of her second husband and she was sentenced to death. Louisa Collins was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol on the morning of 8 January 1889. She was the first woman hanged in Sydney and the last woman to be executed in New South Wales.

Rebecca Smith was the last British woman to be executed for the infanticide of her own child. She was convicted of killing her infant son Richard, and was publicly hanged at Devizes, Wiltshire. After her trial she confessed to having poisoned seven of her other children.

The trial of Kate Dover of February 1882, before Mr Justice Cave, was a major event at the criminal court in Leeds Town Hall, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was attended by many people, and attracted much newspaper publicity. It followed the death of Kate Dover's 61-year-old employer and lover, Thomas Skinner from arsenic poisoning. Known as the Queen of Heeley for her fashionable taste in clothes, Dover was 27 years old at the time, and was Skinner's housekeeper. She was convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to penal servitude for life, which she served at Woking Female Prison. By 1901, she was out of jail. She lived her remaining years with her sisters in Rotherham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Foster (murderer)</span>

Catherine Foster (1829–1847) was an English woman who murdered her husband after three weeks of marriage. She was not yet 18 when hanged and was one of the youngest females ever hung in England.

Véronique Frantz was a French serial killer. While working as a maid, she poisoned her employers and a neighbor of theirs with arsenic from 1852 to 1854, in an attempt to marry her male employer. After his death, she was arrested, charged and convicted of the three murders, for which she was subsequently executed in 1854.

References

  1. ↑ "The fascinating tale of Cornwall's poisoned salmon sandwich mystery". 26 August 2018.
  2. ↑ "The Trial of Annie Hearn | Launceston Then!". 5 October 2016.
  3. ↑ The Case of the Salmon Sandwiches by M W Oldridge
  4. ↑ Brief Case: Annie Hearn
  5. ↑ "The Trial of Annie Hearn | Launceston Then!". 5 October 2016.
  6. ↑ New York Times 24 June 1931
  7. ↑ "The Trial of Annie Hearn | Launceston Then!". 5 October 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.