A FEMALE POISONER.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 252, 22 October 1894, Page 4

A FEMALE POISONER.

MARTHA NEEDLE HANGED

END OF A DESPERATE

CRIMINAL,

Melbournr, this day. Mrs Needle, for the murder by poiaon of a man named Juncken, was executed thia morning. No hitch occurred. The unfortunate woman maintained a firm bearing to the end, and in reply to the uaual question, aaid, " I havo nothing to say."

The Melbourne "Age" aaya : •• Louia Juncken does not appear to havo been the first victim of Martha Needle. Although ahe was tried and condemned for taking Juncken's life, the evidence points to the previous murder by the same means of ber husband and two of her children. There is something of the coldblooded monster about the woman, especially the wife and mother, who can look from day to day on the sufferings caused by her own hand and disarm suspicion by an assumption of the care and tenderness of a loving nurse, whilst gradually sapping the foundations of life in her victim. The crime is all the more detestable that the confidential position of the woman in the household makes it perpetration the easier. It is she who prepares the food, /and . tho life of, ev^ry member of the family ia at her meroy. Unless her life be to irregular as to suggest a motive for committing murder, she stauds little chanco of being suspected even when the character of the illness is suggestive of poison. In the present case the husband, the.two children and the brothers of the lover successively displayed the same symptoms, and those were of poisoning by arsenio.us acid, and yet each victim died and was buried without apparently the leaet auspiciou of anything wrong arising in the minds ot even the medical men in attendknee. It was only when the successive attempts upon the life of Hermann Juncken were made that suspicion was aroused, and then confirmatory evidence was readily obtained. lb eeemed, in fact, as if tho long immunity enjoyed by Mra Needle had rendered her reckless. The administration of ten grains of arsenious acid in a single dose to a strong healthy man could hardly fail to cause inquiry, since Hermann Juncken, had be swallowed tho cup of drugged tea, must have perished, not by slow degrees like his brother, but within a few hours, rendering investigation inevitable." " What ia remarkable in the Needle case is the absence of an adequate motive for tbe crimes. There does not appear to hava been any very violent access of either love or avarice in the case of Martha Needle. It has not been suggested that there were any tender relations between her and Otto Juncken during the lifetime of tho husband of the former, and yet tho husband, it has been alleged, was made the first victim of a systematic assassination. Tho children might, indeed, be regarded as encumbrances when the husband waa removed, but it does not appear that Mrs Needle's neceasities were ever so great as to tempt her te murder her children to escape the burden of their maintenance. The motive for the crime, in the case of Louis Juncken, was aimilarly inadequate. Juncken was opposed to the marriage of hia brother with Mre Needle, but the opposition of the family was so mild in its nature that there was reasonable ground for hoping that in timtf it) would be overcome. Yet, small aa the motive appear* to havo been in each instance, there waa immediate recourse to the poisoned cup wheveyer an obstacle presented itself in the course of this woman's desires. The murders were one and all calmly and coolly dosigned and carried out, without any display of angry passion. The latter singularly enough, was exhibited only towards Mrs Juucken, who was threatened with murder, but whoso life waa not assailed, whereas there waa no exhibition of even unfriendliness towardß the peraona actually poisoned. There seems to have been a very strong homicidal tendency in this woman, pushing her on to kill everyone who thwarted her purposes, or whoae existence causod her inconvenience."