Poisoning cases are rare in South Australian courts but result in unforgettable criminal trials
IT was 1980, and Emily Perry was accused of attempting to kill her husband, Kenneth, by poisoning him with arsenic-based weed killer. It wasn’t the first arsenic death she was linked to.
POISONING allegations are rare, yet infamous, in the state’s courts — one sparked a bizarre drama and spectacular acquittal, while the other centred on a religious feud.
In 1980, Emily Perry was accused of attempting to kill her husband, Kenneth, by poisoning him with arsenic-based weed killer.
Prosecutors alleged she gradually poisoned Mr Perry over two periods — between July and November 1978, and February and October 1979.
Her trial also heard her second husband, Albert Otto Haag, had died of arsenic poisoning in 1961 — as had her brother, Francis Montgomerie, the following year.
Mrs Perry’s first partner had also died — from a drug overdose, although prosecutors alleged it could have been the result of arsenic.
Despite her husband’s insistence she was innocent, Mrs Perry was jailed for 15 years — a conviction quashed, just nine months later, as a miscarriage of justice.
Two years later, Mrs Perry was charged in Victoria with killing Mr Haag, but that case was dropped following the deaths of key witnesses.
Mrs Perry died in February 2012 while Mr Perry passed away in 2014.
A year later, disgruntled Jehovah’s Witness Brett Darren Mardon was jailed for attempting to poison his church elder, and that man’s family, with weed killer.
Mardon blamed the elder for his disfellowship from the faith, and believed he could “frighten” the man into changing his mind by injecting their food and drink with the liquid.
In addition to his two-year, 11-month jail term, Mardon was also sued by his victims and agreed to pay them $32,000 compensation.