Williamstown amateur historian Barb McNeill is Star Weekly’s history columnist. This week she tells the heartbreaking story of a family tragedy that struck a Yarraville family in 1898.
Filicide, the crime of deliberately killing one’s own child, is familiar to most of us, thanks to media coverage. In the first 12 months of a child’s life, the killer is more likely to be the mother, but the law allows for the charge of infanticide, recognising the reality of post-natal depression or psychosis suffered by some women after giving birth. Apart from filicide committed because of mental illness, there are revenge filicides, mostly committed by fathers, and these are the ones which create the most outrage.
Filicide is not a modern phenomenon – Euripides’s play Medea, written well over 2,000 years ago, has lost none of its power to horrify. Psychosis and vengeance are as old as humanity.
In Yarraville, 1898 , the former tragedy struck an ordinary, working class family.
At 5 am on Wednesday May 11, Gerald McCarthy, a 40 year old fireman at the Yarraville Sugar Works, left his neat Gamon Street home for work, leaving behind his sleeping wife, Margaret and three children, Alice, aged 9, Gerald aged 6 and Margaret, aged 4.
This was the last morning that his life would ever be described as ordinary.
McCarthy returned home at 2.30pm to an ominously silent home. Nobody answered his calls. Thinking that perhaps his family was having an afternoon nap, he opened the bedroom door to find a scene of indescribable horror.
His daughters were both dead, their skulls crushed to pulp. His son, barely alive, had also suffered fearful head injuries. His wife lay in a pool of blood, her throat slashed, her right hand clutching a double headed hammer, which McCarthy recognised as the one which he used to break up lumps of coal. Near her left hand was his razor.
McCarthy raced to his neighbours for assistance. Senior Constable Rushford of the Yarraville Police attended the cottage and four detectives took statements from the neighbours. Nobody had noticed any strangers or heard any unusual noise. The McCarthy cottage was a cosy, working- class home with well- tended vegetable gardens and its interior, apart from the blood-soaked bedroom, was spotless. Margaret McCarthy had once been in service to Governor Sir Henry Loch, and her marital home was as immaculate as the vice-regal rooms she had once dusted and polished.
There was no sign of a break-in. The detectives concluded that Mrs McCarthy was responsible for the murders, though it puzzled them that if no burglar had entered the house, why were the husband’s watch and chain missing? And where was Mrs McCarthy’s jewellery?
Rushford attempted to question Mrs McCarthy. All she could mutter was something about “skeletons in the cupboard”, but she did manage to say that no other adult had entered the house.
A young Footscray doctor, James Ramsay Webb, examined the bodies and organised transport for little Gerald and his mother to Melbourne Hospital. He was sure that Mrs McCarthy was responsible for the deaths of her daughters and her own injuries. Dr Webb staunched her haemorrhages, noting bruises on her forehead , probably inflicted by hammer blows.
Mrs McCarthy regained consciousness after 6 pm when huge crowds from Footscray and Yarraville were milling around the house.
The distraught husband could only say that his wife had been a bit odd of late, complaining of headaches and exhibiting symptoms of confusion and forgetfulness since December. He had found bottles labelled ‘Poison’ which actually contained medicine, and on her dressing table a box containing white powder, also labelled ‘Poison’. Rushford said it might be strychnine and removed it for testing.
Gerald and his mother were driven to the Melbourne Hospital where the little boy died three days later. On Sunday May 15, the children’s funeral, with the three coffins lying in one hearse, was preceded by hundreds of pupils from St Augustine’s school and attended by thousands, including employees of the Yarraville Sugar Works. Requiem Mass was celebrated by the Rev. Father Maloney and the pall bearers included Senior Constable Rushford.
The inquest was held on 17 May. Margaret McCarthy left the hospital to attend, weeping piteously during the evidence. The Court was greatly affected by her grief, and the distress of her husband who broke down several times as he gave evidence that his wife not only complained of headaches, but believed that people were sneaking into their home to spy on her.
Dr Andrew Shields stated that Mrs McCarthy had no memory of the fateful day and was suffering dementia. In hospital, she had constantly asked for her children to visit, and Dr Shields was certain that she was genuinely unaware that they were all dead. As gently as possible he had told her shortly before the inquest what had occurred. She was stunned, disbelieving, horrified.
The witnesses spoke. Frederick Wren stated that the day before the tragedy, Mrs McCarthy had ordered a delivery of rabbit for the family dinner. She had seemed perfectly normal. Margaret Stanley of Smith Street had seen Margaret McCarthy hanging out washing at 11.30am that morning. There was nothing odd about her. Mary Maher, the woman who had had the unenviable job of cleaning the blood-soaked bedroom, had found fragments of the missing watch and some broken jewellery under the washstand. No blood was on either. Nothing else had been smashed.
Mr Keogh, the Coroner, stated that all evidence pointed to Mrs McCarthy as the perpetrator, and the jury had to return a verdict according to the facts adduced. The jury found that the children had died by wilful murder and a trial date was set for 15 June, 1898. Margaret McCarthy, still weeping bitterly, was taken to Melbourne Gaol to await her next ordeal.
On 19 July, 1898 in the Criminal Court, Margaret McCarthy was charged with murder. The Prosecutor at once pointed out that the accused was unfit to plead and could not comprehend the court proceedings. The jury agreed. She was ordered to be detained at the Governor’s pleasure until she was able to stand trial.
There is no way of knowing the exact nature of this unfortunate woman’s illness or the treatment she received in the prison hospital, but not until 1900 was she considered well enough to return to court. The jury quickly found her not guilty, on the grounds that she had been insane when she killed her children and attempted suicide. Mr Justice Hood directed that she be kept n strict custody at the Governor’s pleasure.
That left Gerald McCarthy with the agony of his grief, alone in the cottage which had once echoed to the sounds of boisterous, laughing children. For years he placed heart-wrenching memorial notices in the newspapers, with never the slightest mention of his wife.
Perhaps, thinking back to that ineradicable day, he wondered about Margaret’s true state of mind on 11 May, 1898. Why had she destroyed the jewellery he had given her, plus his watch and chain? Why had she used his coal hammer to slay the children, and his razor to cut her own throat? Was this some secret rage and hatred directed towards him?
He and history would never know, for the truth was buried with the dead.
