Christiana Edmunds

Case identity

Christiana Edmunds (3 October 1828–1907) was an Englishwoman known as The Chocolate Cream Poisoner.

Background

Christiana Edmunds was born in Margate, the daughter of Benjamin William Edmunds, an architect who designed Holy Trinity Church and the lighthouse on the end of the pier at Margate, and his wife Ann Christian Burn. Her mother was the sister of John Southerden Burn.

Edmunds lived in Brighton with her widowed mother and, in the late 1860s, became involved in an affair with a married doctor named Charles Beard.

Her family history included mental illness. Her mother testified that both sides of their family had a history of mental illness. It was also stated that her father had gone mad before he died, a sister had committed suicide, and a brother had died in an asylum.

The offence

Edmunds became involved with adulterated chocolate creams in Brighton in 1871. She obtained chocolate creams, laced them with strychnine, and returned them to unknowing vendors so they were sold to the public without knowledge that they were poisoned.

Initially, Edmunds obtained strychnine from a dentist, Dr Isaac Garrett, on the pretence that she needed it to poison stray cats. When Dr Garrett told her he believed this was cruel, she began using a milliner friend, Mrs Stone, to obtain the strychnine.

Edmunds drew attention with her constant purchases of chocolates and began paying young boys to purchase them for her. By the time of the first death, several people in Brighton had become ill from eating chocolates, but no one had connected the illnesses with the chocolates.

In June 1871, 4-year-old Sidney Albert Barker, on holiday with his family, died after eating chocolates from a shop called Maynard's. The Brighton Coroner, David Black, ruled the death accidental. It would later be confirmed that this was the only death due to the poisoning.

After Sidney Barker’s death, Edmunds increased her poisoning campaign and began sending parcels of chocolates to prominent persons, including Mrs Beard, who became violently ill.

Edmunds also sent parcels to herself, claiming that she, too, was a victim of the poisoner, in the hope of deflecting suspicion from her and onto the shopkeeper, John Maynard, from whom the victims had purchased their chocolates.

Edmunds also became associated with obtaining arsenic and forged prescriptions, and she used a young lad called Adam May to run errands to buy chocolates from Maynard’s and to get poisons from local pharmacies with forged prescriptions. Her writing was also said to have matched the writing on the letter to the Barkers and on the wrapping paper on the parcels.

Investigation

At this point Dr Beard informed the police of his suspicions, which resulted in Edmunds being arrested and charged.

The police had connected the large numbers of ill people with the chocolates.

The investigation was also directed at Maynard’s shop, after traces of strychnine were found in some of its chocolates. A verdict of accidental death was recorded on Sidney, and the shop owner was exonerated of any intentional poisoning. Despite this, the poisonings continued and additional people fell ill after eating sweets and chocolates sent to prominent citizens.

Edmunds communicated that she had also received and eaten poisoned chocolates, and she was arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Mrs Beard.

Arrest

Edmunds was arrested and charged with attempted murder of Mrs Beard and the murder of Sidney Barker.

Trial

After committal hearings, it was decided to move the case from Lewes to the Old Bailey, and Edmunds’s trial began in January 1872.

At trial, her mother testified that both sides of their family had a history of mental illness.

Dr Beard claimed that he and Edmunds never had a sexual relationship, and that instead it was merely a series of letters sent by her to him and mild flirtations.

The defence indicated that the two had become involved in an affair.

Sentencing

Edmunds was sentenced to the death penalty.

She was reprieved because of her mental state, and life in prison being automatically substituted.

Appeals

No appeal information was provided.

Outcome

Edmunds spent the rest of her life in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum and died there on September 19, 1907.

Aftermath

The 1939 novel The Black Spectacles by John Dickson Carr was based on the Edmunds case.

In 1906, Edmunds asked a fellow inmate at Broadmoor:

“Are my eyebrows all right?”

She also declared:

“I was a Venus before,”

and:

“and I shall be a Venus again!”

In 1907, she died at 78, from old age.

At Broadmoor, Dr William Orange, Broadmoor's medical superintendent, wrote on her notes:

“She is very vain.”

A report from Broadmoor’s medical superintendent and another Home Office doctor concluded:

“with confused and perverted feelings of a most marked insane character”

In prison, awaiting execution, Edmunds claimed:

“she was pregnant and therefore the sentence could not be carried out.”

A doctor examined her and concluded she was:

“in this, as in so much else, lying.”

In 1906, Edmunds worried about her appearance and said:

“I shall astonish them all,”

and:

“I shall get up and dance — Venus again!”