It was death by chocolate

Judge warned of copy-cat crimes after three cases of postal poisoning using confectionery

Postal poisonings using chocolates became a popular crime in the mid-1930s. With three cases before the courts, the judge in an attemptedmurder trial warned there was a risk of further copy-cat poisonings.

The crime trend exploded into public consciousness with the death of Margaret May Smith, 22, at the West Coast coalmining town of Blackball on September 24, 1934.

The second case was one in Hastings that landed in court in July 1935.

In Blackball, Ethel Bragg and Jean Clark, both about 20, received a box of chocolates through the mail with a note signed “Jim”.

Maggie Smith worked next door at Dumpleton’s bakery in the town’s main street and heard her friends were handing out chocolates.

Although it is not clear if Clark and Bragg ate any of the deadly treats, Smith was said to have eaten several.

She collapsed in pain while working a dough machine, was put on a bed at Dumpleton’s home and, within an hour, was dead.

Miner John Skikelthorp Page, 36, was charged with murder and two counts of attempted murder.

Evidence in the Greymouth Police Court indicated about 41 chocolates had been in the box. There were 16 empty paper cups and of the 25 sweets left, 15 had been tampered with. Five had holes, according to a Government analyst. Ten had been bored underneath and contained

strychnine crystals, with plugs of chocolate replaced in the holes.

Page admitted knowing Smith, but said he didn’t know Clark or Bragg. He tried to implicate another man. “I am not the principal party in this.”

Page was sent for trial in the Supreme Court, but the jury found him insane and not fit to plead. He was committed to Seacliff Mental Hospital in Otago.

Arsenic contamination in Hawkes Bay

Alma Lorraine Keith, 19, of Hastings, received a packet of poisoned chocolates through the post in May 1935.

Two months later, Phyllis Leslie Tui Marshall, 18, appeared in the Napier Police Court and denied attempting to murder Keith.

The chocolates were mailed to “Miss A. Keith”, whose mother Clare opened the package. It bore a note saying, “Will write tonight and explain if I can. — J.”

It appeared to be the handwriting of Jack William Masters, a farmhand with whom Alma was friendly.

Clare Keith didn’t like the look of the chocolates, and when Masters and her daughter came home, Masters took the package to the police. Masters had worked on Marshall’s father’s station at Tikokino, about

35km southwest of Hastings. He acknowledged he was “paying attention” to both Marshall and Keith.

In police evidence, Marshall was said to have told of a quarrel with Masters. She determined that if he would not have her, he would not have Alma Keith.

“When I sent the chocolates to Miss Keith I did not intend to kill her,” she told police. “I wanted to make her sick and give her a good fright.

“I knew from the amount of poison I put in it would not kill Miss Keith. It took quite a lot of poison to kill the cat. I think I put only about a quarter of the amount in the chocolates.”

A Government analyst found 10 chocolate creams in the bag. The cream inside had been sprinkled with a grey arsenic powder, and some was on the outside of the chocolates too. Posting chocolates laced with poison happened several times in the mid-1930s.

Justice Reed said there was no dispute the package was posted by Marshall. But, he asked, did she know what it contained?

She had initially admitted her guilt, then raised a startling defence.

“What you will probably conclude is that the girl is exceedingly clever, perfectly self-possessed, and an excellent witness. Against her, you have Masters — obviously not in the same street as the girl in the matter of brains, and labouring under the fact he has suddenly been faced with a charge of being the perpetrator of a diabolical attempt to murder a girl, using another girl as a tool.” The jury found Marshall not guilty.

Strychnine in Blenheim chocolates

Before the verdict, Justice Reed had told the jury it was an important case because of the Blackball case and a third matter in Blenheim.

With such publicity, there was a danger of neurotic people being tempted to follow the same course. In August 1935, Alma Evelyn Rose confessed in the Blenheim Magistrate’s Court to having dosed sweets with strychnine and posted them to herself. She couldn’t explain why. Magistrate T.E. Maunsell said there had been a morbid yearning for sensationalism. Rose was put on a 12-month bond for contravening regulations requiring posted poisons to be packed in a special cover.