A court order issued on 15 April 1932 sanctioned the exhumation of three bodies in South Africa, triggering a legal investigation into the suspicious deaths surrounding Daisy de Melker. A trained nurse by profession, she became the second woman in the nation's criminal history to face execution after a forensic analysis revealed significant quantities of arsenic and strychnine within the remains.
Early Path and Personal Loss
Born Daisy Hancorn-Smith in the Cape Colony in 1886, she grew up in a family of eleven children. Her education included time at the Good Hope Seminary School in Cape Town before she enrolled at the Berea Nursing Home in Durban. During her youth in Rhodesia, she became engaged to a civil servant named Bert Fuller, who died of blackwater fever in 1907 on their planned wedding day.
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In 1909, she married a Johannesburg plumber named William Alfred Cowle. They had five children, with four dying in infancy or childhood. In 1923, William Cowle died under mysterious circumstances involving agonizing muscle spasms, leaving his widow an inheritance of £1795. She remarried in 1926 to Robert Sproat, another plumber. Robert fell ill during 1927 and died, resulting in his wife inheriting over £4500 from his estate and pension fund.
The Trial and Execution
Following her third marriage to Sydney Clarence de Melker in 1931, her son from her first marriage, Rhodes Cecil Cowle, died after consuming coffee prepared by his mother. Forensic testing identified high levels of arsenic in his remains. While the state accused her of murdering her two previous husbands, she was convicted only of killing her son. She was hanged in Pretoria on 30 December 1932, and her assets were exhausted by legal fees, resulting in a pauper's grave.
Fast facts
- Born: 1886, Eastern Cape
- Died: 30 December 1932, Pretoria
- Profession: Nurse
- Citizenship: South Africa
- Husbands: William Alfred Cowle, Robert Sproat, Sydney Clarence de Melker
- Method of execution: Hanging
Questions readers ask
Was Daisy de Melker convicted of poisoning her husbands?
No. While she was accused of murdering her first two husbands with strychnine, the charges were never proven in court.
Why was she convicted of murdering her son?
Postmortem analysis discovered lethal levels of arsenic in her son's viscera and hair, linking the poisoning to his mother.
