British Serial Killer William Palmer: The Prince or the Poisoner?

William Palmer, the Prince of Poisoners, was publicly executed in 1856 and his wax effigy stood in Madame Tussaud's in London for 127 years. Times change, however, and these days people are not sure whether Palmer the Poisoner killed anyone at all...but that's small comfort to him now.

Born in Britain in 1824, William Palmer studied to become a doctor and, indeed, eventually managed to procure for himself a small practice in rural Rugeley. But while he merely practiced medicine, he was an expert in a variety of vices including fraud, bribery, gambling and womanizing but, perhaps, not poisoning. He married the beautiful, although illegitimate, ingénue Annie Brookes Thornton in 1847 and they had five children together. Of these five, only one survived into adulthood with the remaining four passing away at very early ages and sometimes in somewhat suspicious circumstances.

Palmer's mother in law also passed away in 1849, whilst living with her daughter and son in law. Then Annie herself died in 1854 and then Palmer's brother Walter died in August 1855 and then Palmer's friend John Parsons Cook died in November 1855... They had all died fairly similar deaths - nausea, vomiting, a wasting away over a short period of time - and after Cook's death, the good citizens of Rugeley had had enough and Palmer was charged with murder.

Although Palmer faced charges in Cook's death only, investigations were also launched into the deaths of Annie and Walter Palmer and their bodies were exhumed and examined for traces of poison. Their protracted inquests eventually returned verdicts of 'willful murder' - as had the inquest of John Parsons Cook - although the verdict for Walter Palmer was later changed back to 'apoplexy'.

During William Palmer's trial at the Old Bailey, a great deal of circumstantial evidence was brought against him including that:

(a) he was down on his luck and heavily in debt,

(b) he had collected on an insurance policy that he had taken out on Annie's life and had tried to collect, without success, on a similar policy that he had taken out on Walter's life and

(c) he had personally collected, and later spent, the large purse won by Cook after the running of the Shrewsbury Handicap Stakes.

In May 1856 Palmer was found guilty of the murder of John Parsons Cook by poisoning with strychnine. No traces of strychnine had, however, been found in Cook's remains. Furthermore, Palmer's had been the first trial ever in Britain for murder by strychnine poisoning and so there hadn't been many precedents for lawyers to rely on. But strychnine poisoning it was unanimously voted to be and Palmer was duly executed in Stafford on June 14^th 1856.

It is interesting to note, however, that the prosecuting Attorney General had a good friend who Palmer had allegedly swindled when Palmer "nobbled" - incapacitated - his horse as it posed a serious threat to one of Palmer's own horses in a race... A further interesting point is that the deaths of Palmer's wife and children comprise exactly the results of a father's having a Rh positive blood type and a mother's having a Rh negative blood type in the medically unsophisticated nineteenth century.

Perhaps Palmer was not the Prince of Poisoners after all...

Sources:
William Palmer (Murderer) Wikipedia
Dave Lewis William Palmer Introduction William Palmer