Escape from scandal
The woman who raised Peter Hudson had a past he preferred to forget.
‘Hire-car driver Reginald Papps watched in amazement as a car raced along Waverley Avenue at high speed. This was unusual, especially nearing midnight in suburban Melbourne in 1926. The singularity of the incident left its imprint. Papps would remember it in court: the image of a man driving rapidly along a lamp-lit street, rigid with concentration; two women sitting stiffly in the back of the vehicle; an overwhelming sense of urgency. Maybe it would have made less of an impression if, 10 minutes later, the very same vehicle had not shot past him again, travelling in the opposite direction. This time there was only one woman in the back seat.
The thread of this unfolding drama was next picked up by Daniel O’Sullivan, a lineman employed by the Melbourne Electric Supply Company. He described how, driving after midnight along Chadstone Rd in the suburb of Oakleigh, he saw in his headlights the body of a woman propped in a seated position against a tree. She was fully clothed, as if she had been out shopping, with her handbag beside her. O’Sullivan knew from the position of the body, its chilling stillness and pallor, that the woman was dead. He notified the police immediately.
The first constable on the scene observed two things that made him suspicious. First, there was no way her unsoiled footwear had carried her across the sandy, gritty ground to where she sat. His colleagues deduced that the woman had been dressed post-mortem and dumped for some unsuspecting passerby to discover.
The other curious fact the constable recorded was the presence of fresh car-tyre tracks … They showed that the car had turned completely around and retraced its tracks.
All the usual causes of death – drinking, drugs, domestic violence and misadventure – were quickly eliminated. The woman’s handbag carried no proof of her identity. Finally, a post-mortem conducted by government pathologist Dr CH Mollison revealed that Mrs Elizabeth Law, whose body was found mysteriously abandoned at the side of a lonely by-road in the early hours of March 25, 1926, had died of peritonitis following a septic abortion.
On Friday, April 2, eight days into the police investigation of her death, Detective O’Keefe admitted to newspaper journalists across Australia that the case was deadlocked. The police were ‘checkmated’, he told them. The next day, however, the police received a crucial new statement and there was a breakthrough. O’Keefe and his fellow detectives motored over to 3 Iona Ave in Melbourne’s exclusive suburb of Toorak. This was the address of nurse Mary Ethel Hudson, a known abortionist, and her husband, Arthur. There was no one at home, so the officers left.
Later that day, they returned to the property. The Hudsons’ car had just pulled up. Arthur fled around the house when he spotted the police, but Detective O’Keefe called after him, and it was clear that escape was impossible. Mary Ethel and Arthur stood in front of the detectives and ‘shook and trembled all over’. But when asked if they could go inside, Mary Ethel lied about not being able to find her key, then refused to go with them to the police station. At this point O’Keefe exploded: ‘Oh yes you will; either in your own car or the police car.’
Mary Ethel stood speechless for a moment. She knew she must collect herself if she was to survive. Down at the station, detectives questioned her for hours. She spent that night at home, but detectives were back on her doorstep before eight the next morning. This time, she allowed them inside and was subjected to prolonged questioning. She denied everything until the evidence linking her to Elizabeth Law’s death was clearly overwhelming. Mary Ethel broke down and wept. She desperately wanted to speak to her husband, Arthur. As soon as he entered the room, she said tearfully, ‘Dot has made a statement against me.’ Her husband replied, ‘You have done nothing.’
At 4.30pm on Sunday, April 4, 1926, Mary Ethel Hudson was arrested and charged with the murder of Elizabeth Law. Two days later, Dr Daniel Florance MacGillicuddy, who attended Mary Ethel’s patients at 3 Iona Ave, was also arrested and charged with murder. The pair were remanded pending an inquest to be held at the morgue by the city coroner.”
After standing trial for murder, the pair were found not guilty. Defence lawyers argued that Mrs Law was already seriously ill when treated, following either a self-inflicted abortion or a miscarriage
Although the trial may have changed some of Mary Ethel’s practices, it did not prompt any profound soul searching or change of career. She was immersed in the business of abortion and baby farming: in organising adoptions, when the identity of the child’s parents had to be concealed, Mary Ethel and Arthur could be listed as the parents on the birth certificate. It was a lucative business.
She was immersed in the business of abortion and baby farming. The trial did not prompt any change of career.