Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 13.pdf/367

 332

died. Mrs. Robinson then used great efforts to induce Mr. Freeman, with his children, to come to live with her; and they did so. The younger child, a baby, soon died. Mrs. Robinson then persuaded Freeman to make the insurance payable to her, she undertak ing to bring up the surviving child, Arthur. This assignment of the insurance was made in May. Within a few weeks Freeman was seized with a sudden illness, showed symp toms consistent with arsenical poisoning, and died within a week. Five or six months later the boy Arthur died suddenly in a similar manner. At about this time Mrs. Robinson's eldest son and daughter joined the same "Order of Pilgrim Fathers," and both died suddenly within a few months. Mrs. Robinson collected the insurance on their lives, mourned them deeply, and per formed all the offices of a bereaved mother. But so many sudden deaths aroused sus picion. It was discovered that Mrs. Robin son was in great need of money at the time of Mr. Freeman's death; she had leased fur niture, and then mortgaged it several times under assumed names and was being pressed for payment. These claims she paid out of the insurance money. She had stated her belief in the approaching death of several of her family before their illness, giving as a reason that her husband or some other de ceased member of the family had "sent for them." She was intimate with a quack doctor of shady reputation who (it was insinuated) supplied her with the means of accomplish ing her purposes. The bodies of her victims were examined and all found to contain arsenic sufficient to cause death. She was then indicted, as has been said, for six mur ders. This second trial was for the murder of Prince Arthur Freeman. All the facts just stated bearing upon his death were shown; and the prosecution was also allowed to prove the circumstances of Mrs. Freeman's illness and death. The defense attempted to raise doubt on three points. Freeman's work had involved his exposure to the fumes of

sulphuric acid and it was suggested that he was poisoned by them rather than by arsenic. He was shown to have been sometimes de spondent after his wife's death, and suicide was urged as a possibility. Finally it was claimed that if a murder had been committed it had been done by the quack doctor, with the intention of marrying Mrs. Robinson and thus obtaining the insurance money. Xo evidence was presented of the possession of arsenic by Mrs. Robinson. The accused was convicted and sentenced to death, but her punishment was commuted to imprison ment for life. The most striking contrast between this case and the cases previously studied is the clever concealment of the crimes by Mrs. Robinson. She wrote no letters, made no damaging statements to strangers, bought no poison, and suffered no suspicion by reason of circumstances connected with any one offence. If it had not been for the cumula tion of sudden deaths in her family, and the frequency with which a single insurance so ciety was called upon to pay, she might never have been accused. To secure a conviction it was necessary to set before the jury the facts connected with two deaths; and the jury even then reached a verdict only after long de liberation. If the theory of the government was cor rect, the defendant poisoned three people to get two thousand dollars; her own sister whom she had cherished from childhood, in order to get an assignment of the policy to herself; her brother-in-law next, to get the money; and her nephew afterwards, merely to relieve herself of a useless incumbrance. She afterwards poisoned her daughter, who was most useful to her, and her son, her main support, at a time when she had no pressing need of ready money. Could a woman do such things and yet be sane? Criminally accountable she clearly was. But there are moral wounds which leave a callous insensible scar, without visibly affecting the general conduct. If Mrs. Robin son's husband was almost dead and she just