Strange and Bizarre Stories - Women Murderers 29th April 1885

This caused so much gossip and absolute intense focus in the early colonial history of Maitland township - two women, who allegedly planned the murder of the younger woman's husband and another woman.

Did they?

Let's try and get some answers tomorrow night!!!

Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners' Advocate (NSW : 1876 - 1954), Wednesday 29 April 1885, page 3

The Condemned Women, Mary Anne Burton and.Sarah Keep.

The prisoners Mary Ann Burton and Sarah Keep, mother.and daughter, confined in Maitland Gaol under sentence of death, for poisoning Henry William Keep, husband of the younger prisoner, have shown a determination to starve themselves.

We, (Morpeth Times) understand that whatever belief the younger prisoner might have had in her conviction, Mrs. Burton was horribly astonished at her own, as she maintained (and indeed it was proved) that she had always been kind to the deceased.

Prisoners, (not legible) their condemnation, have become reserved, and suffering is plainly depicted on their countenances.

Both women, if we are informed correctly, refuse all food; they do hot appear to want it.

The condemned are not in the one cell together; they occupy each a separate cell.

The general opinion is that they will not be hanged, but will receive a life sentence.

It is rumoured that it is the intention of the authorities to exhume the bodies of the late Mr. Burton, husband of Mary Burton and mother of Mrs. Keep, and the late Miss Cook, who died after a few hours illness after having tea at the prisoners' place..

If poison can be traced in the cases referred to, then the gallows will not be spared.

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