Serial killer Caroline Grills served rat poison to her relatives

When the bedridden Mary Anne Mickelson finally died after a long illness 70, few suspected that it was the last murder by a poisoner who claimed four lives

Caroline Grills, the thallium murderer, on her way to court in 1953, is seen smiling beneath her veil

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Mary Anne Mickelson was unwell. Her hair had fallen out, she suffered nervous disorders, blindness and was bedridden. She was thankful for the attentions of her sister-in-law, the jolly, bespectacled granny Caroline “Carrie” Grills, who brought her tea and baked her cakes and biscuits.

But the 60-year-old Mickelson’s undiagnosed illness worsened.
Despite Grills’ smiling attentions, on February 15, 1949, 70 years ago today, Mickelson finally succumbed to her mystery ailment.

The nature of Mickelson’s death must have seemed strange to family members.

She had exhibited symptoms similar to those shown by three other people connected to Grills who had also died. But since nobody knew what disease those symptoms pointed to, Mickelson was buried without fuss.

What they also didn’t know was that Mickelson was the final victim of the kindly old lady who fed her cakes and brought her tea. Grills would later attempt to murder more relatives, but her spree was brought to an end in 1952 when someone finally suspected she was adding more than milk and sugar to the tea.

Caroline Grills with her husband Richard.

Grills was born Caroline Mickelson in about 1888 in Balmain, the daughter of labourer George Mickelson and his wife Mary. In 1908 she married Richard William Grills, also a labourer, and they had five sons and a daughter.

One of their sons, Harold “Wally” Grills, was a 28-year-old lifesaver at Maroubra who contracted typhoid fever after bringing the rotting body of a surfer ashore in December 1942. He died 10 weeks later. Caroline talked Richard out of suing the council.

Richard later found work in real estate, allowing them to find a better home to rent in Gladesville. Sydney, in the years after World War II, was suffering from a housing shortage and a rat plague. In 1947 Caroline Grills looked for a way of keeping her house rat-free and was advised by the council to buy a commercially available rat poison, containing the heavy metal thallium. She discovered it was not only poisonous to rats.

JAE Lundley and Jack Lundberg were witnesses during Caroline Grills’ trial.

This gave Grills a diabolical idea. Her father had died several years before leaving Grills a house, on the proviso that she allow his widow, Grills’s stepmother Christine Mickelson, to live there until her death. But at 87 Christine was clinging too long to life, so Grills used tea and cakes laced with rat poison to hasten her stepmother’s demise.

Christine died in November 1947. Nobody suspected foul play.

Emboldened by her first murder, Grills began giving thallium-laced tea and goodies to her husband’s sister-in-law Angelina Thomas, who had left a house in Leura to Richard. She died in January 1948. Nobody thought it unusual the 84-year-old Thomas should die suddenly.

Grills’s third victim was John Lundberg, a robust 60-year-old former seaman who holidayed with Caroline and Richard in Woy Woy in 1948, only to return home with a mysterious illness that claimed his life.

Grills had nothing to gain from his death, so it seems that this time it was for the thrill. Mary Anne Mickelson was the next and final victim to die, in February 1949. Again Grills had nothing to gain financially from the murder.

She then turned her attention to Eveline Lundberg, widow of John, visiting her frequently, bringing baked goodies and tea. She also offered it to Lundberg’s daughter Christina Downey and her husband John Downey. All became ill and Eveline went blind and lost her hair.

But in 1952 after Newtown housewife Yvonne Fletcher was convicted of poisoning her husbands with thallium, Lundberg’s family became suspicious.

Eveline Lundberd (centre) with daughter Christina Downey and another relative.

One day John noticed Grills putting something in his mother-in-law’s tea. He secretly poured it into another cup, before giving Eveline a fresh brew, and later had the suspect tea tested. It was found to contain thallium.

John, Christina and Eveline were all found with the metal in their system.

Police exhumed the bodies of her four murder victims and discovered traces of thallium. However, Grills was only tried for the attempted murders, because the prosecutor believed the evidence was stronger and more direct.

In court prosecutors argued that her first murders were for financial gain but that she later began to enjoy watching people die and the sense of control as “she alone knew the cause of the victim’s suffering”.

The jury took only 12 minutes to find her guilty. She was sentenced to death but it was later commuted to life. At Long Bay she was nicknamed “Aunt Thally”. She died of peritonitis in 1960.