Australia’s toxic killers, Caroline Grills, Martha Needle, Clarice Cowell

A deadly toxin concealed in a sweet treat or cup of tea has been the hands-off approach to homicide for a long list of greedy spouses, jealous lovers and the downright mad.

Seven of Victoria and Australia’s worst historic cases of murder by poison.

The German word for poison is “gift”.

And, for centuries, the calculating minds of unfeeling killers have seen this mode of murder as a kind of present.

It seems all too easy. The toxin is mixed with an appealing meal or an enticing cup of tea and the unsuspecting victim devours it of their own volition.

The hands-off approach to homicide has led to poison’s reputation as the weapon of women.

Indeed, one of the few women to be hanged in the State of Victoria was a notorious poisoner.

But Victoria and Australia’s long list of toxic killers is a mixed bag of greedy spouses, jealous lovers and the downright mad.

Martha Needle

Martha Needle, one of Melbourne’s worst ever poisoners, was hanged for her crimes. Picture: Public Records Office Victoria

Also known as the Black Widow of Richmond, Martha Needle was one of Australia’s worst serial killers.

She murdered her husband, three children and her prospective brother-in-law with poison.

But her crimes went undetected for years as gradually her children and husband Henry died of mystery illnesses.

Martha later started an affair with a saddler named Otto Juncken, and murdered his brother Louis with poison when he opposed their engagement.

She was eventually caught when Herman Juncken, another brother, fell ill after eating Martha’s food.

A sting operation later found Martha serving a cup of tea to Herman that contained enough arsenic to kill five people.

Martha Needle was hanged at Melbourne Gaol in 1894 aged 31.

Clarice Cowell

Ascot Vale mother Florence King was the victim of an attempted poisoning by her husband’s would-be lover. Pictures: Trove

In one of Melbourne’s strangest cases of poisoning, a young Ascot Vale mother named Florence King answered a knock at the door one evening in 1913 while her husband was still at work.

A strange woman was on the porch claiming to be from Echuca, delivering a parcel from a relative.

Florence invited the woman, who wore an ill-fitting pair inside for spectacles, inside for a cup of tea.

Florence left the room to put her young son to bed, then returned to find her tea had taken on a strange cloudy appearance.

She took a tiny sip and noticed it tasted bitter.

It was later revealed Florence’s husband’s would-be lover, Clarice Cowell, had sent a friend in disguise to try and bump off Florence with poison.

Despite their sinister crime, both women involved in the poison plot were sentenced to just eight years in prison with hard labour.

Ronald Griggs

Ronald Griggs, his poisoned wife Ethel, and his lover Lottie Condon. Pictures: Trove

Ronald Griggs was a young, charismatic Methodist preacher who ran a little church in the Victorian town of Omeo in the 1920s.

But his year-old marriage with his wife Ethel started to fall apart when Ronald started to show affections for a local girl named Lottie Condon.

Ethel went back to her parents in Tasmania for six months to think things over, and when she returned to Omeo, she didn’t even last 24 hours.

She passed at the home she shared with her husband and there was no explanation for her sudden death at the age of 22.

Her body was later exhumed and her stomach was found to contain traces of arsenic.

Ronald Griggs was trialled twice for the poisoning murder of his wife, and twice acquitted, although suspicion followed him for the rest of his days.

Sofia Sam and Arun Kamalasanun

Sofia Sam and Arun Kamalasanun were convicted for the murder of Sofia’s husband in 2015.

In a modern tale of murder by poison, a husband was murdered in 2015 by his wife and her lover.

Sam Abraham was found dead in his pyjamas and foaming at the mouth in his Epping home, in a death first thought to be caused by a heart attack.

But an autopsy and a lengthy police investigation uncovered a plot by his wife Sofia and her lover Arun Kamalasanun to kill Abraham using the powerful poison cyanide.

Police later found a diary shared by the two killers in which they professed love for each other and promised to be together.

Each was sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.

Caroline Grills

Caroline Grills had the appearance of a nice older lady, but the dark mind of a killer.

The woman who became known as “Aunt Thally” for her method of feeding her victims food and drink laced with rat poison thallium, eventually went down for the murders of four people and the attempted murders of three more.

In 1947 the then 59-year-old from Balmain in Sydney became a murder suspect when four family members including her sister-in-law, stepmother and other relatives by marriage, died in strange circumstances.

Inheritance was believed to be the motive, and tea, cakes and biscuits were eventually found to be the vehicle of her toxins.

Grills’ crimes were bad enough to see her sentenced to death in 1953, but that was later reduced to life in prison.

Yvonne Fletcher

Yvonne Fletcher with her first husband, who she poisoned five years before also poisoning her second husband (right). Picture: Supplied

Another thallium poisoner, Yvette Fletcher, first roused suspicion when her second husband got sick and died.

Police noticed it was strikingly similar to the way her first husband had dropped off the perch five years earlier.

Eventually the widow from Newtown NSW was exposed as a serial poisoner when her first husband’s body was exhumed for laboratory testing.

Often thallium victims’ illnesses were misattributed to gastro, severe flu or complications with diabetes because of the similarities in symptoms.