Background
49-year-old Elizabeth Sarah Woolterton was a farmer’s widow with eight children who lived at Denton in Suffolk.
She was tried at the Suffolk Summer Assizes at Bury St. Edmunds, before Sir Vicary Gibbs, on Saturday, the 22nd of July, 1815.
The Incident
Elizabeth’s daughter, Amy Woolterton, testified that she and her mother lived at Denton. On the 2nd of July, her mother gave her a basket containing a cake, a pie, and a piece of veal, which she sent to Elizabeth’s uncle, Tifford Clarke, in the village of Kirby Cane, some six miles from Denton, via her brother Nelson.
The basket was opened by Clarke’s housekeeper, Mary Pleasants. Mary’s son-in-law, Benjamin Sparkes, visited her, and she wrapped the cake up for him to take home for his children at their home in North Cove. Sarah Sparkes, Benjamin’s wife, cut up the cake for her children’s breakfast the following morning. She went to work in the hayfields, leaving the children in the care of Sophia Mills.
When Sarah returned home around 9 o’clock, she found Robert was very ill, and Sophia told her that some of her own children who had eaten the cake were also ill.
Medical Findings
Mr. Charles Dashwood, the local surgeon, was summoned by Benjamin Sparkes to attend Robert and the other affected children. He examined Robert, who died in his arms. Dashwood later carried out a post-mortem on the boy and noticed his stomach lining was inflamed. He also analysed a sample of the cake and found it contained arsenic.
Benjamin Long, a druggist at Bungay, testified that he had sold Elizabeth arsenic on four occasions in the preceding twelve months.
Motive and Testimonies
82-year-old Tifford Clarke testified that his niece by marriage, Elizabeth Woolterton, had previously sent him two cakes that had made him ill. Elizabeth owed him some £200 and stood to inherit a further £500 on his death. This was seen as the motive for the crime.
The jury needed just 24 minutes to reach their verdict. Poor Robert Sparkes was just an innocent victim of her murderous plot.
Execution
On Tuesday, the 25th of July, 1815, Elizabeth Woolterton was hanged on the drop set up over the Turnkey’s Lodge of the County Gaol, Ipswich, by London’s hangman, John Langley.
It was reported that “the unhappy woman persisted in her innocence when at the place of execution, and seemed particularly anxious to hide her face from the gaze of the multitude.” She had to be supported on the drop by turnkeys. A vast concourse of spectators watched her be “launched into eternity.” It was not reported whether her body was sent for dissection, which would have been normal for the time.
Aftermath
John Langley now had to get back to London, where he was due to hang Eliza Fenning the following day. Given the vicissitudes of travel in 1815, he was slightly late arriving there.
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