HEIRESS ARSENIC?
By October 1919 the gossip had reached such a level that an exhumation of the body was called for forensic examination. When Mr Greenwood was informed of this he replied: “I am quite agreeable.”
Mrs Greenwood’s remains were examined and found to contain 16 to 32mg of arsenic – and no evidence of heart disease.
An inquest was then held a year after Mrs Greenwood’s death at which the jury returned a unanimous verdict of “murder by arsenical poisoning ... administered by Harold Greenwood”. The jury had been told he had purchased weedkiller containing arsenic.
Mr Greenwood’s comment on hearing the verdict was “Oh dear!”.
He was arrested on June 17, 1920 – exactly one year after his first wife was pronounced dead.
He was accused of murder and his trial began on November 2, 1920, at Carmarthen Assizes before Mr Justice Shearman. He was prosecuted by Sir Edward Marlay Samson and defended by Sir Edward Marshall Hall.
The prosecutor’s case stemmed from an alleged motive that Mr Greenwood poisoned his wife for her money and the suggestion he had poisoned the wine Mrs Green- wood had drunk with lunch.
Mr Hall’s defence of the alleged killer hinged upon impugning the forensic evidence and that of parlour maid Hannah Williams.
In terms of the forensics he showed Dr Griffiths had himself given Mrs Greenwood medication at the time, bismuth and morphine, which could be a cause of death independently of any arsenic.
In the case of Miss Williams, the maid, Mr Hall successfully showed her evidence had been strongly influenced by a police officer who had interviewed her some time after the death and she had changed her story on several occasions.
Mr Hall opened his defence by alleging the whole case arose from local gossip. He called Mr Greenwood as a witness in his own defence and he denied any involvement in his wife’s death and withstood lengthy crossexamination.
The prosecution’s case faltered further upon learning Mrs Greenwood’s money did not go to her husband upon her death but passed to her children.
It meant alleged killer Mr Greenwood gained virtually nothing from his wife’s death besides the freedom to marry again.
Mr Hall’s final witness was Irene Greenwood, the accused’s 22-yearold daughter, who said she had also drunk, without ill effect, from the wine bottle.
Mr Greenwood was acquitted and the jury added a rider, which was not published at the time, to their verdict, stating: “We are satisfied ... that a dangerous dose of arsenic was administered to Mabel Greenwood ... but we are not satisfied that this was the immediate cause of death ... (nor) how or by whom the arsenic was administered.”
Many people in Kidwelly, though, were not satisfied by the verdict. In their eyes the acquitted Mr Greenwood was still a guilty man and they shunned him and his new wife.
The couple moved to a new home near Ross-on-Wye where he was known not by the name of Greenwood but as Mr Pilkington.
His health faded after the trial and he died only nine years later in 1929. At the time of his death the real killer of his first wife had not been caught – and the mystery over her death endures 90 years later.