A suspicious death?

[Mary from Italy]

I've just received a death cert from Australia, and I'm very dubious about the cause of death. I wonder what everyone else thinks. I won't put the names, in case any living relatives pick them up on Google.

AM (who called himself a newspaper reporter) married KM (gentlewoman) in Australia on 3rd August 1895. KM was a widow - she married her first husband in 1894, and I've found a possible death for him in 1895 (don't have the cert, so I don't know what he died of).

On 13th November 1895 the New South Wales Police Gazette reported that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of AM, a clerk, on charges of embezzlement from his employers (definitely KM's husband, because he had a very distinctive name).

On 14th November, AM's wife KM died. The death cert says she died of peritonitis. The informant was a police constable (never seen that before on an Australian death cert). The length of illness isn't stated on the cert, but on 14th November the City Coroner certified that an inquest was unnecessary.

It seems like a bit too much of a coincidence to me that she died so soon after a warrant was issued for her husband's arrest (he was later tried, found guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment).

I don't suppose he bumped her off (although her two marriages and her first husband's death in quick succession seem a bit odd), but I'm wondering if she actually committed suicide. However, if there was any doubt, you'd think an inquest would have been ordered.

Any ideas about what might have happened?

[Uncle John]

Let's try to be charitable. She was sick (appendicitis) and he needed the money to pay for a doctor/hospital or the transport to same. A bit of geography might help or hinder this theory.

[Mary from Italy]

It's always possible. She died at home, not in a hospital. All the events took place in Sydney. Her father was a farmer (deceased), but I think her mother was still alive. As she was called a gentlewoman on the marriage cert I suppose she may have had some money of her own.

[Mary from Italy]

Unfortunately there isn't a full newspaper report of the trial online yet, although the Sydney papers are supposed to be going online later this year.

[Nell]

Peritonitis could be the result of so many medical problems. Not sure what kind of suicide attempt would result in peritonitis.

[Mary from Italy]

I wondered if swallowing some kind of poison might produce similar symptoms.

I suspect the embezzlement was an ongoing thing, not a one-off, because the husband was tried and convicted of three separate counts of embezzlement from his employers, for three different amounts. When the warrant was issued he took off, and the police caught up with him in South Australia.

I assume there wasn't a post-mortem; it doesn't say on the death cert., and the wife was buried two days after she died.

Do any of the Aussies know if free hospital treatment would have been available in Sydney in the 1890s for something like appendicitis?

[Olde Crone]

Well, coincidence has no memory and no mercy.

It may seem suspicious but there is absolutely no reason why she shouldn't have had appendicitis which developed into peritonitis the day after her husband's warrant was issued. Perhaps the worry of the preceding investigation had made her ignore the symptoms of illness?

Peritonitis could have been caused by many other things besides appendicitis of course, some of which don't have symptoms until too late (in those days).

I know a lady whose husband dropped dead at 10 a.m. and his father died at 10.30 a.m. the same day, before he knew his son had died. Just awful coincidence.

OC

[Nell]

Appendicitis isn't always easily diagnosed. My mother's brother died of peritonitis in 1943 when he was 15. The doctor thought he had tummy ache because he'd eaten unripe apples. By the time he got to hospital it was too late.

Poison, I don't think necessarily causes peritonitis. Usually it causes severe vomiting and diarrhoea and depending on the poison, burning of the throat, suppression of the heart/breathing.

[Mary from Italy]

OK, I'm probably just being paranoid

[HarrysMum]

Mary................there were free hospitals in Sydney from at least 1838 when the nuns started St Vincents.


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