Chemist seals her fate

Daisy de Melker, 46, is hanged in Pretoria on December 301932 for poisoning her son. Daisy Louis aH an corn Smith was born near Grahamstown on June 11886, qualified as a nurse and married three plumbers. On March 3 1909 she married William Alfred Cowle in Johannesburg. Only one of their five children, Rhodes Cecil (left), survived. William died on January 11 1923. Her gain: £1,795. Exactly three years later she wed Robert Sproat. He died on November 6 1927. Her gain: over £4,000, plus £560 pension money. On January 21 1931 she married Sydney Clarence de Melker. Rhodes, 20, fell ill at work on March 2 1932 after drinking coffee prepared by Daisy. He died at home on the 5th. Her gain: £100 insurance money. Robert’s brother William raised the alarm. On April 15 1932 a court ordered the three bodies be exhumed. Arsenic was found in Rhodes’s body and strychnine in the other two. Her murder trial started on October 17. She was cleared of murdering her husbands. But her fate was sealed for Rhodes’s murder when Turffontein chemist Abraham Spilkin recognised her from a newspaper photo as “Mrs DL Sproat” who signed a poisons register in February, claiming she required arsenic to destroy a sick cat