POISONED BED.

Mataura Ensign, 19 May 1910, Page 5

POISONED BED.

One of the strangest murder., trials in the history of Massachusetts has reached a surprising conclusion ,at Boston through the acquittal and complete exoneration of Mrs Mary Kelliher, who for fifteen months languished in gaol on charges of poisoning her husband, her three children, her sister and her sister-in-law. Though she persistently proclaimed her innocence, Mrs Kelliher, who is now proved to have been an exemplary wife and mother, for more than a year was held up to public obloquy as a wholesale poisoner bent on gaining the insurance money of her victims. When her daughter Catherine died in July, 1908, after five others of the family had mysteriously succumbed within a period of three years, a post-mortem examination was held. It disclosed the presence of arsenic in the body. Immediately the authorities ordered an exhumation of the other five bodies. In all of them arsenic was found. Mrs Kelliher was arrested and the chain of circumstantial evidence was seemingly complete when the Distirct Attorney, Mr Higgins, ordered an investigation of the bedroom where all the deaths had occurred. The mattress on which the invalids had lain was torn apart and its contents cleared the mystery. In the bed considerable quantities of arsenic were discovered, and experts declared that those who used the mattress must have inhaled the poison in small particles during their sleep. Mrs Kelliher, who has been aged by her successive bereavements and subsequent imprisonment, has gained her freedom only to find herself destitute. She proposes to earn her living as a domestic servant.