On January 2, 1922, in a small town called Hay in Wales, England, a group of uniformed police officers gathered in front of a grave, and they pried open the grave to prepare for an open coffin autopsy.
The grave belonged to a middle-aged woman who had been convicted of dying of illness, but the police investigated a few months later and found that she was probably poisoned by design.
Photo of the murderer
In order to prove the conjecture of the heart, but also in order to extract evidence and bring the murderer to justice, the police decided to open the coffin for autopsy!
So who was the deceased in the coffin? And who brutally poisoned her? Hello everyone, here is the history of detectives, I am the author Qingzhu, today I will talk about it, this 20th century, one of the most famous wife killing cases in Britain!
The incident took place in a small town called Hay in Wales, England, which is located in the mountainous middle of the Welsh Mountains, and because of its remote location, it is a traditional town with few people.
The killer was the town's famous lawyer, Herbert Rose Armstrong, and the victim was his wife, Miss Caitlin Mary Flanders. He carefully planned and brutally poisoned his wife so slowly that people initially thought that his wife died of illness.
Born in 1870 in Newton Abbott, Devon, Armstrong grew up in poverty and even relied on relatives and friends to help with his school fees. Fortunately, he was diligent and intelligent, and through hard work, he was admitted to the famous Cambridge University.
In college, Armstrong earned a law degree and became an excellent lawyer after graduation. In 1906, he moved to Haytown for work reasons, where he met his wife, Mary.
At the beginning of the encounter, Armstrong was already a well-known lawyer in the town, and he also co-founded a business with others. As a result, Mary was quickly attracted to the rich and talented man, and he also developed a new love for the beautiful Mary.
The two were photographed
The two soon fell in love and quickly consummated their marriage. After marriage, the couple helped each other and struggled together, and at that time their monthly income was as high as 2,000 pounds.
Four years later, in 1910, they bought a villa, gave birth to three lovely children, and lived a life that many people envied.
Things have come to this point, as can be seen. Armstrong's marriage is harmonious, his family is happy, and he has made a lot of money, which can be described as a winner in life, but why did he design to poison his wife?
It turned out that Armstrong was frail and sickly from an early age, less than one meter six tall, weighing only 90 pounds, very thin and short. His wife, Mary, was much stronger than him, so armstrong suffered when the husband and wife quarreled.
Although Mary can be regarded as a good wife and mother, she has an extremely strong personality, and she is very strict with her husband and children. At home, Armstrong was only allowed to smoke in the utility room and was never allowed to drink outside with friends.
What Was most intolerable to Armstrong was that Mary often reprimanded him in front of outsiders and domestic servants, which made him feel that his self-esteem was frustrated, especially faceless.
But he has been quiet for the sake of his family and for the sake of his three lovely children. But all patience has a limit, and it will always break through the limits of patience and then explode.
Fast forward to August 1914, world war I broke out, and Armstrong was called into the army. Armstrong performed well in the army, made many meritorious contributions, and by the end of the war, he had become a major and received many honors.
Herbert Rose Armstrong
Armstrong, who had returned to his hometown, thought he would gain the respect of his wife and would no longer oppress him. But contrary to her wishes, the wife's approach has intensified.
According to his recollections in prison, perhaps his wife thought he was getting better and better, and worried that he would empathize with other women and fall in love with other women. So Mary began to restrict his personal freedom, not allowing him to go out at will, even if he came home from work later, he would be reprimanded.
The intolerable Armstrong initially planned to divorce his wife, but he turned his mind to the idea that Mary would take part of the property after the divorce, which he did not want to see, so he had the idea of killing Mary and put it into action.
Armstrong's plan was to poison Mary with poison, and he had to choose a chronic poison that would make Mary look like she had died of a disease so that she would not be discovered, so he chose arsenic trioxide.
Arsenic trioxide, also known as "letter stone", the main ingredient of arsenic that we often see in costume dramas is arsenic trioxide, and Armstrong plans to mix it with the tea Mary drinks every day and slowly poison her to death.
It was supposed that such a highly toxic poison would be regulated, but the British government at that time did not explicitly regulate it, and people also used arsenic trioxide as a herbicide.
Armstrong was a flower lover, and he kept a beautiful garden at home, so he often stocked the poison in his warehouse and often bought it in the store.
In July 1920, after all the plans had been made, Armstrong secretly redrafted a new will in the name of his wife, the beneficiary of which was naturally himself, and he was the only one, not even their children.
garden
Everything is ready and the action begins. After drinking tea mixed with arsenic trioxide for several days, his wife Mary had physical problems and began to weaken, and even her spirit began to be confused.
Finally, in August 1920, Lisa, who was getting worse and worse, was admitted to a local psychiatric hospital, but after a few months of hospitalization, Mary's health deteriorated and did not get any better.
Relatives and friends believe that the reason for this problem is that the hospital is too small and the level of medical care is limited. Unbeknownst to them, the real reason is in Armstrong, who takes good care of Mary every day.
Armstrong would go to the hospital every day to take care of Mary, not because he cared much about Lisa, but to bring her poisonous tea to drink, so as to ensure that Mary could be slowly poisoned.
A few months later, on January 22, 1921, Mary, feeling hopeless for treatment, voluntarily asked to be discharged from the hospital and returned home to recuperate, that is, on this day, Armstrong sent Mary home and went out to buy 100 grams of arsenic trioxide.
It was this 100 grams of arsenic trioxide that eventually took Mary's life, and on February 22, 1921, just one month after returning home, Mary died tragically, according to the doctor's identification:
Mary died of a heart attack and a long period of rheumatism, but strangely enough, Mary was also examined for nephritis and acute gastritis, which surprised the doctor, but he did not investigate deeply.
Caitlin Mary Flanders
Armstrong's hasty burial of Mary on the third day after her death did not fit local funerary customs, but Armstrong told friends and family that he did not want the three children to be too sad because of their mother's death, so no one doubted too much.
Therefore, Mary's death was due to illness in everyone's eyes, and no one suspected Armstrong, which declared Armstrong's murder plan perfectly successful, which could be regarded as a perfect crime.
But is there really a perfect crime in the world? The answer is no! As long as it is a crime, it will definitely show flaws, it is nothing more than a matter of time.
Armstrong has always been a cautious man, although he finally turned over and became the master of the house, no one can control him anymore, but in order not to be suspected, he did not go out to spend the day and drink at first, but focused his life on work.
He quit his job at a law firm, moved to the court, and soon got mixed up in the position of judge's assistant, which would have been a smooth ride, but at the crucial moment he met a strong competitor, Oswald Martin.
Armstrong and Martin not only have conflicts at work, they also have financial disputes in business, so Armstrong plans to repeat the trick and poison the Martins in the same way.
He first invited Martin to his house for dinner, gave Martin a tea mixed with poisons, and then anonymously sent Martin a box of chocolates injected with arsenic trioxide.
Armstrong
Coincidentally, martin's family happened to have guests that day, and Martin and one of them had a poisoning reaction after eating chocolate, and Martin's wife immediately called the police.
Police arrived at the scene and upon inspection found that there was a hole in the bottom of the chocolate for injecting poison, and that the hole was exactly the same shape as the nozzle of the Armstrong family's herbicist.
Moreover, the doctor tested Martin's urine and found that it contained a small amount of arsenic trioxide, which led to the initial suspicion of the police that Armstrong was the perpetrator of the poisoning.
In order not to scare the snake, the police began to secretly investigate Armstrong, and after the investigation, it was found that Armstrong's wife had a similar pathological condition before entering the psychiatric hospital for treatment.
At the same time, Armstrong did not know that the police were investigating him, and he tried several times to invite the Martins to his home for tea, but Martin refused, and he cherished life more than drinking tea.
It was not until January 2, 1922, that the police, after obtaining sufficient evidence, pried open Mary's grave and performed an open coffin autopsy on her. Sure enough, police found arsenic trioxide from the tissue of Mary's body, which was far more than lethal.
The police immediately arrested Armstrong, and word soon spread, drawing a lot of attention from the townspeople, who could hardly believe that the smart, talented, and wealthy lawyer could poison his wife.
The townspeople have always respected Armstrong, and they all think that he is very capable and usually behaves very well, so after his wife's death, many people still feel sorry for him, who thought that his wife was killed by his own hands.
Armstrong at the time of his trial
In April 1922, armstrong was tried in court for 10 days. During this period, he tried to be dialectical, saying that he had never poisoned his wife Mary.
He even made up a lie that Mary had suicidal tendencies shortly after she fell ill, and that she had died of poisoning by taking arsenic trioxide from a garden warehouse while she was not at home.
But according to the servants of the Armstrong family, a few days before Mary died, she was lying in bed smiling and asking her, "I will not die!" I have a competent husband with three lovely children and I want to live with them forever! ”
In the end, armstrong was convicted of murdering his wife and sentenced to death by hanging, after a deliberate decision by the judge and the 12 juries.
On May 31, 1922, more than 1,000 people gathered at the gates of Gloucester Prison to witness Armstrong's hanging, all to see what happened to the former lawyer.
At noon, Armstrong was escorted out of his cell by the prison guards, he had long lost his former style, he was extremely sloppy, and he staggered to the gallows that had not been used for ten years, and the lonely back was like an old man who was about to die.
After Armstrong ascended to the gallows, a prison guard covered his head with a black hood and then wrapped a rope around his neck and slowly hoisted him up. At first he struggled and convulsed, but after a while, he stopped moving!
In fact, from the perspective of the whole case, Armstrong's motive for killing is actually very simple, that is, he has been oppressed by his wife for a long time, resulting in a strong resentment in his heart.
The emotional conflict between husband and wife is the culprit that led to this tragedy, and it is certainly wrong for Mary to excessively restrict her husband's freedom, and Armstrong should not have solved the problem by means of murder.
Servant of the Armstrong family and three children
Any contradiction between husband and wife in life, in fact, you can sit down and talk well, make changes to each other to solve the problem, if you really encounter a contradiction that cannot be resolved, you can get together and disperse, why make a tragic end!
Armstrong and his wife Mary both paid with their lives, leaving behind three underage children, and you can imagine how much harm it would do to the children, enough to keep them in the haze for the rest of their lives.
Originally a happy and happy family, but in the end it is fragmented, which is worth thinking about by each of us.
Thanks to the support of all readers and friends, here is the history of the detective, what do you think about this case? You can leave a message in the comment area to discuss, thank you for your support!
Author/Detective History - Qingzhu