On the first Saturday in March 1878, three children followed
a track into the bush at Blueskin Bay to gather firewood. Returning with their
kindling they reported finding a box, tied with string that they had touched
but not opened. One parent, a Mrs
Pepperell, accompanied one of the children to investigate the find. She discovered an ordinary St Mungo soap box,
well tied with “the type of string that might be used to construct a clothes
line”. An envelope was tucked beneath
the string. After reading the words that were written in capital letters on the
envelope Mrs Pepperell was inclined to investigate no further and sent the
child that had accompanied her, running to fetch a constable. The message read:
“If you find my motherless darling, I pray you for Jesus’ sake bury it in the
true Catholic way.”
Constable
Moroney can hardly have been startled to discover that the box contained the
body of a dead baby. The scene was
examined; the Constable noted that no footprints were visible nearby and that little
attempt had been made to hide the box.
It lay exposed and uncovered within clear site of the bush track, no
more than twenty meters from the railway line. The children who discovered it
swore that it had not been in the same place the previous day. The Constable
must have considered that babies (even dead ones) were women’s business. Mrs Pepperell was tasked with undressing and
examining the tiny body. She ascertained
that the baby was a boy, guessed its age at between two and three weeks and
reported that it appeared to be plump, well cared for and was “very well
dressed”. She noted a broad black
discoloration around the baby’s neck. Constable
Moroney added few extra useful details, he described the body as being “white
and fresh” with very little evidence of putrescence. He denied seeing marks on the baby’s neck and
stated that Mrs Pepperell had not drawn his attention to any such
discoloration.
The
body was transported to Dunedin and was quickly identified. At the initial
coroner’s enquiry Mrs Bohanna, a nurse
from Port Chalmers identified the baby’s clothing – she had cared for the child
and testified to have personally dressed it. John Drysdale, a medical
practitioner from Port Chalmers recognised the baby that he had delivered a
fortnight previously by “its peculiarly shaped nose, of a very uncommon shape.”
The dead baby’s mother had introduced herself to doctor and nurse as a Mrs
Cantor from Melbourne. She claimed to
have been travelling in the North Island for two months and told them that she had
decided to undergo her confinement in Otago because she was unwilling to
undertake a steamer voyage to Australia in her ‘condition’. ‘Mrs Cantor’ was soon identified as a thirty
three year old woman from Timaru named Susan De Costa. Mrs De Costa was duly compelled to attend the
second coronial enquiry.
Susan
De Costa already had eight young children; the birth of another baby might not
have aroused much comment if it hadn’t been for the fact that she had been
widowed three years previously. She had
somehow managed to conceal her pregnancy, and travelled to Dunedin when the birth was imminent, using a false name “for the sake of my
family, as I did not desire my condition to be known, and wished it to be kept
as private as possible.” Not all family members
were unaware of the birth however; Susan De Costa was accompanied to Dunedin by
her nine year old daughter Julia and seven year old son Alfred. The children were entrusted to the care of
the landlady of a boarding house in Rattray Street while their mother convalesced
in Nurse Bohanna’s home. The nurse
reported that Mrs Cantor had declined to feed the baby which was being “bought
up on the bottle” and that with the exception of a single convulsive attack it had
thrived while under her care. After ten
days ‘Mrs Cantor’ persuaded the nurse to care for the child for a further two
days while she returned to Dunedin.
Nurse Bohanna was openly suspicious; aware that Mrs Cantor did not “take
to the baby as a mother should” she quite sensibly worried that the child would
be abandoned and left in her care.
Mrs
Cantor was reunited with her children in Dunedin, but was concerned enough
about her baby’s health to write to Nurse Bohanna enquiring after its well being.
The letter was produced at the coronial enquiry, where it was noted that the
envelope was identical to the one found on the St Mungo’s soap box. During
her Dunedin visit Mrs Cantor also went to some trouble to acquire a small
wooden box from her landlady, explaining that she wished to send some fruit to
Timaru. The landlady did not identify
the St Mungo soap box as being the same box that she had given to her lodger,
and remarked that she thought that her box had some red paper. A juror later remarked that the box in
evidence bore a paper label, on which the soap brand name was printed in red
ink.
When
the mother returned to the nurse’s residence in Port Chalmers two days later, the
pair argued; Mrs Cantor left, taking the baby and her two elder children with
her to a boarding house opposite the Port Chalmers railway station. The baby was heard crying “normally” that
night. Next morning Nurse Bohanna
visited the boarding house to deliver a laudanum/vinegar mixture for the new
mother’s breasts. The nurse testified that
Mrs Cantor had told her the child was “first rate” before shutting the door in
her face. Soon afterwards, Mrs Cantor and her children left the boarding house to
catch the Dunedin train. The proprietor carried
some of her belongings to the station for her as Mrs Cantor was carrying her
silent, immobile baby tightly wrapped in a white woollen shawl. At the train
station the wife of the Port Chalmers Town Clerk, watched the family and noticed
that the baby was not being nursed and was “lying carelessly” across its
mother’s knees. When the train arrived
in Dunedin the same witness watched the mother carrying the ‘shawl’ climb into
a cab. When Mrs Cantor and her children arrived
at their Dunedin boarding house soon after, the baby was nowhere to be seen.
Giving
evidence, Susan De Costa denied telling the nurse that the baby was “first
rate” arguing that it had been unwell, suffering from convulsions, “screaming
and rolling its eyes around” almost all night long, until she added “a half a
drop of laudanum into a bottle of milk.” When setting out for the train station
next morning she claimed to have been “struck with horror” when she discovered
that the child was dead. “I did not know what to do for the best. I thought of the shame and disgrace I had
brought on my family and thought I would keep it quiet till I got to Dunedin.” She then stated that she had confided her
“great burden” to a short, stout man with darkish hair whom she encountered on
the train platform in Dunedin. She
explained that she had given the shawl wrapped baby to the man who had promised
to “bury it in the usual way” for the sum of five pounds.
The
following day Mrs Cantor and her two children caught the excursion train to
Blueskin. The train was crowded, Mrs
Cantor was seen to be carrying a bundle, but neither box, nor baby was
noticed. The Coroner who presided over
the inquest noted that “at least one hour of Mrs De Costa’s time was quite
unaccounted for during her visit to Blueskin.” He also reminded the jury of the
purpose of the inquest, the question of who had disposed of the child’s body
being quite irrelevant, the jurors’ task was to determine how the child had
died.
Considerable
medical evidence was given at the inquest; three doctors had conducted a post
mortem examination of the child’s body – their examinations uncovered no
evidence to suggest that death had been caused by an overdose of Laudanum. They
agreed that the child had died from “obstruction of breathing” but were not able
to determine whether the obstruction had been caused by natural means
(convulsions) or by unnatural means (smothering). Death by strangulation was ruled out because
nobody apart from Mrs Pepperell had observed marks on the child’s neck. The Coroner reminded the jury that they had a
choice of three verdicts: death by natural causes, death by non-natural causes
or if they considered that there was insufficient evidence to return either of
the first two verdicts, they must give an open verdict.
Their
verdict was completely unexpected. After
deliberations, the foreman stated that “the child died at the hands of the
mother, wilfully and with intent to kill” As there was no medical evidence to
support such a verdict, the Coroner gave the jury five minutes to reconsider
their verdict. They could not be
persuaded otherwise and confirmed a verdict that was equivalent to murder. Mrs De Costa was taken into custody, fainting
and screaming. Her case never came to
trial, it was abandoned and Susan De Costa was freed when the grand jury
determined that there was insufficient evidence to proceed.
Perhaps
if the case had gone ahead, some lawyer might have examined her motives more
thoroughly. Having gone to such great
lengths to conceal the pregnancy and birth, she could hardly have returned to
Timaru with the child. Had
she hoped to abandon it? Was she planning on paying a baby farmer, like Minnie
Dean to care for it? Or had infanticide always been her intention?
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