The Croydon Poisonings

[C. F. Leon]

Mark John Maguire's podcast They Got Away with Murder has an episode devoted to this case: "The Black Widow of Croydon: The Great Poisoning Mystery of 1929" (2020 Feb 25). I haven't watched it for years, so I don't remember details. I'll try to re-watch it today or tomorrow.

[Ms Diddles]

Hi Ms D. I only read that book around a month ago so it’s a bit of a coincidence you mentioning it. When I first became interested in true crime one of the very first books that I read was RWE’s on the case. I remember it having the same general cover design as Rumbelow’s JtR book. It’s been a long time (30+ years I’m guessing) but I’d say that I enjoyed his book more although I wasn’t entirely convinced of his solution (although I couldn’t dismiss it.) Janes illness/illness/suicide theory seems on the face of it to be a bit of a stretch but far from impossible. I certainly wouldn’t like to give a strong opinion on the one though. Another fence that I’m quite happy to sit on. I think that RWE captured the time and events better though. Janes came in too early with the legal proceedings imo. We need to hear some background and full story first before getting to investigation and legal stuff.

I might look into her other books at some point though. I’ve just started reading The Mount Stewart Murder by Chris Paton. It’s the UK’s oldest unsolved murder case (1866) It’s started well. Not too much waffle and no padding with excessive and irrelevant family detail stretching back to Agincourt.

Hi Herlock,

Yeah, I agree that the RWE book is better written and evokes the time and place much better.

I haven't finished the Jane's book so I still haven't got to her conclusions yet.

Don't worry about your spoilers though, I'd read on this thread that suicide is going to be postulated in the case of Violet Sidney so it wasn't a complete surprise.

TBH I had found myself wondering if there could be a more innocent explanation for the deaths (accidental ingestion / natural causes) but I find it really hard to buy into the notion that Violet committed suicide.

It's rather trite to say but she just didn't sound like the type, and more pertinently she had stated after becoming sick that she thought she had been poisoned and the medicine tasted strange.

I find it hard to understand why anyone who had knowingly administered poison to themselves would do that.

You'd think she would worry about incriminating her family and would just go to bed, leave a note and expire quietly there.

I haven't got that far in the book though, so I should probably shut up about it until I've actually read Diane Janes conclusions!

[Ms Diddles]

Mark John Maguire's podcast They Got Away with Murder has an episode devoted to this case: "The Black Widow of Croydon: The Great Poisoning Mystery of 1929" (2020 Feb 25). I haven't watched it for years, so I don't remember details. I'll try to re-watch it today or tomorrow.

Thanks C.F.!

I'll see if I can look that out.

The Julian Fellowes TV doc sounds interesting too.

[Herlock Sholmes]

Hi Herlock,

Yeah, I agree that the RWE book is better written and evokes the time and place much better.

I haven't finished the Jane's book so I still haven't got to her conclusions yet.

Don't worry about your spoilers though, I'd read on this thread that suicide is going to be postulated in the case of Violet Sidney so it wasn't a complete surprise.

TBH I had found myself wondering if there could be a more innocent explanation for the deaths (accidental ingestion / natural causes) but I find it really hard to buy into the notion that Violet committed suicide.

It's rather trite to say but she just didn't sound like the type, and more pertinently she had stated after becoming sick that she thought she had been poisoned and the medicine tasted strange.

I find it hard to understand why anyone who had knowingly administered poison to themselves would do that.

You'd think she would worry about incriminating her family and would just go to bed, leave a note and expire quietly there.

I haven't got that far in the book though, so I should probably shut up about it until I've actually read Diane Janes conclusions!

My apologies about the spoilers Ms D. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me? I’m thinking about looking for a cheap copy of the RWE book and giving it another go at some point.

[Ms Diddles]

My apologies about the spoilers Ms D. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me? I’m thinking about looking for a cheap copy of the RWE book and giving it another go at some point.

No worries, Herlock!

It's my fault for posting before I'd finished the book.

Yeah, it's definitely worth having a copy of RWE in your collection.

I picked it up as Barn had said something about it being one of his favourite true crime books.

I'm inclined to agree with him.

It's very well researched, well written and evocative of the period.

[Herlock Sholmes]

No worries, Herlock!

It's my fault for posting before I'd finished the book.

Yeah, it's definitely worth having a copy of RWE in your collection.

I picked it up as Barn had said something about it being one of his favourite true crime books.

I'm inclined to agree with him.

It's very well researched, well written and evocative of the period.

It wasn’t that long ago that I got rid of my own copy because I have to have regular purges due to a lack of storage space but I regret getting rid of that one (tbh there are quite a few that I regret giving away). God knows how many books I’ve given to charity shops over the last 10 years. 2000 is my guess. I’d have kept pretty much every one if I could have. Last week I got rid of 44 or 45 books on the JFK assassination and I've got 5 bags for the charity shops in the spare room. That will leave me with around a 1000.

I just checked to see if the RWE is available on Kindle but it’s not. You’d think that a true crime classic would have been turned into an ebook by now? That said, i’m not a huge fan of ebooks but I can see the benefits. I’ve currently got 37 on my Kindle app and just 10 on Apple Books.

[Fiver]

I hadn't heard of the case before, though apparently Agatha Christie wrote about it and the case inspired elements of some of her works. One person I haven't seen mentioned as a suspect, is Dr Elwell, who attended all three victims before their deaths and in the final case, prescribed the medicine that contained poison in the last dose of the bottle. It would require Elwell to be an opportunistic killer, finishing off patients who had already taken ill.

Possible motives might be:

* A sense of power.
* He was, as rumor claimed, having an affair with Grace Duff, and though it would help her.
* He mistook Grace's flirtation for genuine interest, then as a man "scorned", decided to eliminate members of her family to cause her pain and/or leave her as a suspect or worse.