Hanging result for Black Widow
- Samantha Elley
- 12 minutes ago
- 2 min read
It is hard to imagine a mother wanting to deliberately kill her own children but that was indeed the case of Martha Needle. And sadly, the evidence points to greed for money.
Martha Charles was born in Morgan, South Australia on 9 April, 1863. Her mother, Mary Charles had become a widow shortly after Martha was born. Mary married Daniel Foran in 1870 and had two more children. Needle had claimed her step-father assaulted her when she was 12 years old and her mother would beat her.
Not long afterwards, at the age of 13, Martha left home and worked as a housekeeper. She married Henry Needle in 1882 at 18 years old. Shortly afterwards, Mabel, Elsie and May arrived and the family seemed happy. In 1885 they moved to Melbourne.
The marriage soon started to deteriorate as Martha was an attractive woman who enjoyed the company of other men. As a result, Henry would beat her. If life wasn't hard enough, Martha and Henry's daughter, Mabel became ill and died on 23 February, 1885.
Interestingly, the child was insured for £100 (the equivalent of @ $60,000 today) which was paid out to the parents. Then on 4 October, 1889, Henry died of a mysterious illness and had been insured for £200. The other two daughters, Elsie and May, went down like dominoes, dying in 1890 and 1891 respectively, baffling doctors.
In 1893 Martha became involved with Otto Juncken, the brother of her friend Louis from Adelaide. Louis and his other brother Herman were not pleased with the relationship and tried to break the couple up. The following year, Louis became ill and died of what was though to be typhoid. When Herman was sorting his late brother's affairs he dined with Martha and Otto and also became sick. A doctor took a sample of his vomit and the analysis showed arsenic in the remains.
Suspicions were aroused and a trap was set for Martha. Herman asked her to make him a cup of tea and when she put it in front of him, he literally blew a whistle summoning police. Martha was actually struggling with Herman to upset the teacup which was found to contain enough arsenic to kill five people.
Police would exhume the bodies of Louis and her family to discover traces of arsenic and rat poison. Marth was found guilty and sentenced to death. She would hang at Melbourne Gaol on 22nd October, 1894. Martha had made out her will before her execution, leaving all her worldly goods to Otto.
References
'Martha Needle', Wikipedia, accessed 28th April, 2026, Martha Needle - Wikipedia
'May Needle', Births, Deaths, Marriages, Victoria, accessed 28th April, 2026, bdm.vic.gov.au
'Martha Needle', Public Record Office of Victoria, accessed 28th April, 2026, Martha Needle | PROV
Comments