CATHERINE ANDERSON

Double child killer Catherine Anderson’s chilling gaze belies the supportive family upbringing she had with her younger sister, engine smith dad and housewife mum in Aberdeen’s Hardgate. At 16 she became pregnant, leaving her parents to raise her son. Two years later, alone and behind the door of an outside toilet at the family home, she delivered a daughter – this time with murder in mind. Her baby’s tiny body was found on the shore at Torry.

At the trial in Aberdeen on June 26 Catherine’s mother testified that she recognised the cloth in which the baby was wrapped and the booties she wore. A doctor confirmed the baby died from a head injury. But the court took pity on the young killer, giving her the most lenient sentence possible – five years at HM General Prison in Perth. Released after three, Catherine had another daughter in 1888 who was raised by relatives. A year later, living alone in Stevenson Street, she gave birth to another girl. Once again there was blood on her hands. The charge read that, having delivered, she “did then and there either press the mouth and throat of your said child and did murder her; or, otherwise, time and place above libelled, you were delivered of a child now dead or a missing…”

Her defence agent pleaded for mercy on the grounds that she had been disowned by her parents, deserted by the child’s father, and was starving. She was sentenced to five years for culpable homicide. Released three year later in 1893, the Register of Returned Convicts confirms her living with her parents. The last record for Catherine is in the 1911 census.

She is 45, working as a “charwoman”.