A SENSATIONAL CASE-CHARGE OF POISONING.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIII, Issue III, 21 July 1894, Page 58

A SENSATIONAL CASE-CHARGE OF POISONING.

FURTHER particulars concerning the charge against a woman named Mrs Needle of haring administered poison with intent to kill and murder Herman Juncken deepen the sensational aspect of the case. Four pears ago two brothers, Otto and Louis Juncken, set np a saddlery business at 137, Bridge Road, Richmond, and boarded and lodged in premises at the rear, kept by Mrs Needle. Affectionate relations sprang up between Otto Juncken and Mrs Needle, who was a widow. Louis Juncken opposed the match, but he died on the 15th May. The mother of the deeeased and bis brother Herman, who reside at Adelaide, came over to Melbourne and had the body of Louis removed to Adelaide, where it was buried. Herman Juncken on 2nd June * returned to Melbourne to superintend the winding .up of his brother’s affaire, and resided with his brother Otto at Mrs Needle’s. Latterly he has displayed symptoms of arsenical poisoning, and some material he had vomited, on being analysed, was found to contain arsenic. On the 13th June, whilst Mr Herman Juncken, who was acting in concert with the police, was at lunch, the detectives made adescent on the place and arrested Mrs -Needle. A cup of tea which Mrs Needle had poured out for Mr Juncken, and also a portion of a cup of tea whieh she herself bad been drinking, were handed to Mr C. R. Blackett, the Government Analyst, in order tiiat he might test them for poison. His report states that he finds that the tea supplied to Mr Juncken was impregnated with sufficient arsenic to have caused the death of any human being. LETTERS BY THE ACCUSED. A great batch of correspondence, which includes some letters that tend to make clear the relations existing between herself and the Juncken family, have been secured. Mrs Needle’s letters, several hundreds in number—she appears to have carefully kept all the letters she received—covered a period of twelve yean, or from the date of her marriage in 1882 until the end of May last. These letters were kept in an orderly manner. HSB CORRESPONDENCE EMBRACED ALL CLASSES ; many lawyers, doctors, policemen, private detectives, clergymen, tradesmen, and * admirers,’ and the last class was by far the most numerously represented in the letters that she kept. The detectives also secured from Mr Otto Juncken a number of letten he had received from Mn Needle, whose practice it was, on account of the opposition of Louis Juncken to her marriage with Otto, to write to the latter continually. Living in the same house, they apparently did not wish to attract attention to themselves by being seen in frequent converse, or perhaps they were filled with the romanticism of young loven; but whatever the reason, although they saw one another frequently through the day, they still wrote letten to each other. The keynote to the whole situation is the love of Martha Needle for Otto Juncken, and the letter which follows will show largely how matters stood between them, and

You know that I tried to be friendly with your mother when she came and before she left, but she would nob let me. Surely, Otto, you knew in your heart that I did not deserve such treatment. You knew that she left thia house in the morning without one word to me, yet you blame me for my cold manner in the evening, after she had been in my house for over four hours and never opened her lips to me all that time. She could talk to the old lady about Mr Smith’s grand home; nice talk for a heart-broken mother, I must say. She ought never to have left this house until she left with her son's body for Adelaide. .... I can tell you that your mother’s conduct in going from here is the talk of all the road. , . . . • YOU THINK YOUB DEAB MOTHER IS HBABT BROKEN, BUT

SHE CANNOT PLAY THAT OFF ON A WOMAN WHO HAS LOST AT.V- HER CHILDREN. Why, I would never have gone out visiting before your brother was in his grave, as bis loving mother did while his poor body was lying at the railway station. Why did your wijked mother come over here to metre lie more unh&ppy than we were before? • wonder both she and you are not afraid that God will- strike you both dead, when you are planning my ruin. Both you and she shall see what it is to try a woman as I have been tried. It to right into her band* to poison you against me, which to a very easy matter for anyone to do, when you would allow your mother to part us as you did. If we had been married by any minister in the world then nothing should hava,parted us. If you had been an honourable man, or if you wished to make an honourable woman of me, but no, manlike, you had had your turn,' and I can be thrown aside. But remember thia. The day yon east me off for your mother, you will soon be motherless, for I SHALL KILL HBB, IF X HAVE TO WALK EVERY MILE FROM HEBE TO LYNDOCH. I have vowed to my God to do this, and I shall keep that yow. • • Do you think it was right to leave me alone in this death stricken house for so long ? Would I have left you alone aba time like this? . . . Yon must not think that I shall not keep my word and kill her if she parts us, for I have quite made up my mind for that. She shall never cause another woman all the sin and misery she has brought

? n me - ... I want you to write at once, and let me know whether you intend to still board with me, or are you going to do as your mother wishes ymt to do. If so let me know at once. • Youb Cast-off Landlady.* It appears from other correspondence that passed between the accused and Otto Juncken, when he was paying a visit to his family in Lyndoeh in 1891, and again when she paid • Yirit to South Australia in 1892, that for some reason Mrs Juncken had displayed great hostility to accepting Mrs Needle as a prospective daughter-in-law. There to no explanation of the cause, whieh, no doubt, was referred to at length -by Mrs Needle in her letters, but as only Otto. Juncken’a writings are available nothing definite can be gleaned from them. There occurs again and again an intangible reference to something that has occurred, and which he writes on one occasion, makes him doubt if he can ever be happy again. Yet towards the close of all hto writings, which were full of tenderness, he always drew a bright picture of happiness that awaited them, in that tune, always indefinite, when they would be married. None of the members of the June ken family except the mother are referred to beyond the passage in the foregoing letter, where Mm Needle speaks of Louis Juncken, who died, as ‘all self.’ MBS NEEDLE'S HISTORY HAS NOT BEEN AN EVENTFUL ONE. She was born on 9th April, 1863, on the Murray, her father dying whilst she was quite a child, and her mother was married again on 15th March, 1890, to Daniel Foran, a shepherd residing at Port Lincoln. This second marriage seemed to have puzzled Mm Needle, because she always bore her father’s name, Charles. Among her correspondence are letters to male detectives urging them to ascertain who was her mother. She stated that she remembered living with a Mr and Mrs Foran, but had some recollection of a previous life, when someone else had charge of her. She also complained that this woman was very cruel to her, and that seemed to confirm in her mind the idea that the woman was not her mother. The Forans reside at Hilton, near Adelaide, and are well known and respected. When twelve yearn old the girl, then known as Martha Charles, went out to service, and in 1882, when she was only nineteen, was married to Henry Needle, a carpenter and joiner. For some years they resided in North Adelaide, but in 1885 came over to Melbourne. They resided in Richmond, and there, it to stated, they led anything but a happy life. On 4th October, 1888, Mr Needle died somewhat suddenly from a complication of disorders. Dr. G J. Hodgson, of 71 Williams road, Windsor, attended him and gave a certificate of death, but he states now that he remembers having had some vague suspicions regarding the

case. At any rate, a policy of insurance for £2OO was effected on hto life in the Australian Widows’ Fund office in the month of June preceding hto demise. He was also possessed of some freehold property in South Australia worth about £3OO or £4OO, for in January of the. present year £5 9s land tax was paid upon it. Any doubt which might exist as to the truth of the rumour regarding the relations existing between husband and wife at the time of Mr Needle’s death will be set at rest by the extract whieh is appended from a letter which Otto Juncken wrote to Mrs Needle in November, 1892 :— *My Darling Pet.—My little darling, it makes meso happy to hear that yon thought so much of me, but it would make me very much happier to hear that I brought you nothing but happiness. ... I hope I will be able to make up the happiness which all those miserable years spent in that miserable married life of yours robbed you of. The connection with the Junckens commenced in 1893, when, owing to the great sympathy which was expressed for Mrs Needle in the loss of her children, efforts were being made to provide for her. Dozens of letters of condolence from unknown and anonymous sympathisers with her in her bereavement were found among her correspondence. There was also the letter from Louis Juncken, arranging for the. interview, at which it was agreed that she should n P <? at the rear of Juncken’a saddlery shop. Stowed away in various old envelope? there were also pieces of paper, on which the medical names for various dtoeases were written.' The diseases named included those of which Mr Needle and the girl Mabel are certified to have died. And last of all, unfinished and evidently in the process of manufacture, to a verse of poetry to Otto June-