Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
This is the story of the unsolved death of Mabel Greenwood. Who killed her and why is still unknown. One hundred years later, the prime suspect in the case, Harold Greenwood, her husband of more than twenty years, was arrested on June seventeenth, nineteen twenty, accused of fatally poisoning her. Let's look at what happened, the messy trial and the one detail that got Harold acquitted. Welcome to Criminalia. I'm Maria Tremarky and.
I'm Holly Frye. Let's get to know the Greenwoods first. Harold Greenwood was born on New Year's Day of eighteen seventy four to William Greenwood, a landed gentleman, and his wife Isabella, at Ingleton in Yorkshire, England. Mabel Bowater was born on September third, eighteen seventy one, to William and al Liza Bowater of the Prosperous Bowater Multinational paper milling Company.
In June of eighteen ninety six, Harold and Mabel married, and they went on to have four children, Edith, Irene, Isabel Mabel, Eileen Norman Ivor Vansittart Bowater and John Kenneth. At the time of our story, Edith known as Irene, was the only child living at home.
Harold was a Yorkshire solicitor, but the family was really supported by Mabel's independent income. She was a paper mill heiress. Harold bought himself into a partnership in Clan Leslie in southwestern Wales, where the family lived before moving into Rumsey House in Kidwelly in eighteen ninety eight. It was here where Harold set up his own practice. Other lawyers didn't care much for Harold because his clientele primarily included quote,
a less desirable element. It was true he primarily got his work work by undercutting local solicitors and acting for money lenders. The people in town generally thought poorly of Harold as well, because he was a married man with an eye for younger women Mabel. Though people liked Mabel. She was held in high esteem by friends and neighbors. Always took part in local social gatherings and regularly attended Saint Mary's Church services on Sundays. She was friendly and she was agreeable.
Mabel was long considered to be a bit of a hypochondriac, and she had endured a series of fainting spells with no discernible cause. It was generally considered that a weak heart was the reason for her ills. She had been the patient of doctor Thomas Roberts Griffiths for more than a decade, and on more than one occasion complained to him of pains in her chest and in her abdomen. Doctor Griffiths advised it was just quote the change of
life and sent her home with medication. During the first six months of nineteen nineteen, Mabel suffered a marked deterioration in her health, but no one could pinpoint why.
Let's talk about Mabel's health and her activities in the days leading up to her death, specifically between June twelfth and June sixteenth. Those are the days of her rapid decline. On June twelfth, which was a Thursday, she attended a meeting of the antiquarians in the town Hall, where it was observed by others that she looked quite sickly. When she saw her dressmaker the next day, she mentioned she
was looking forward to seeing her sister, Edith Bowater. Her dressmaker later stated she worried about Mabel's health and hoped she'd have the energy for that visit.
That Saturday, Mabel called on Martha Morris, formerly a nanny to the Greenwood's daughter Irene, and she returned without complaint, but add Martha to the list of people who noticed that Mabel looked quite ill. On her way home from their visit, Mabel bought a bottle of wine to be served at the family's Sunday lunch. That afternoon, she attended a tennis match at Ferryside, just about five miles away, sharing a carriage with the Reverend Ambrose joan vicar of Kidwillie.
They later returned together by the same route. Mostly on the return trip, Mabel met Irene at Kidwelly station and the two walked about a half mile home together. Upon returning home, Mabel reported that she had had a fine time, but she was completely exhausted. She went to bed early.
The next day. None of the Greenwoods were seen at church service. Irene read a novel in the garden while her father and his friend tinkered with the family car. Irene was to go out for a driving lesson that afternoon. Mabel caught up on her correspondents. Their cook observed while preparing Sunday lunch that quote, Missus Greenwood looked drawn and tired. The family sat down to their usual Sunday roast beef
lunch with goose berry tart. Harold uncorked the bottle of wine, but according to one of their domestic help Hannah Williams, he was in the pantry for nearly half an hour while doing so, a detail she later told the police during their investigation of Mabel's death. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
After lunch, Mabel began to feel ill, and she started to suffer from diarrhea, and she blamed the tart, of which she said, quote, it must be the gooseberry tart. It always disagrees with me. Now there is truth to gooseberry's potentially leaving you feeling unpleasant. Gooseberry bushes contain the toxin hydrogen cyanide, and eating unripe berries can be dangerous, but ripe berries are perfectly safe. A few hours later,
she began having quote, suffocating pains throughout her body. Her husband gave her brandy, but it caused her to vomit violently, so the family's doctor, doctor Griffiths, was called the doctor, who happened to just live across the street, prescribed her brandy and soda, and then he and Harold left Mabel to play several games of clock golf.
It wasn't until early evening that doctor Griffith checked on his patient, who was definitely not better, and he sent over a bottle of bismuth to help relieve her gastrointestinal symptoms. It, like the brandy and soda, had no positive effect. Mabel's condition continued to worsen into the night. A friend, miss Phillips, called on her at about eight o'clock that Sunday night, and upon seeing her, immediately called for the district nurse,
Elizabeth Jones to pay a visit. Nurse Jones lived close to the Greenwood's home, but despite that, by the time she arrived, Mabel had collapsed and had been moved to her bed. The nurse assumed incorrectly that the medicine on Mabel's nightstand was that which was previously given to her by doctor Griffin for her heart condition, and she gave Mabel another dose. What that medication was, we aren't sure.
We do know that it didn't help. Later, this medication for the alleged heart condition mysteriously disappeared, along with all the bottles which had contained prescriptions by the doctor and all the patent medicines Mabel had ordered for herself.
Nurse Jones returned later that night to check on Mabel's condition. Doctor Griffiths looked in on her once before midnight, when her gastro intestinal pain and diarrhea became uncontrollable. The doctor failed to examine her or her bowel movements. He was not thorough, and that lack of detail would be called into question when he testified about her death. Not long
after midnight. Mabel asked if she was dying, and she told the nurse quote, if I don't recover, Nurse Jones, I'd like my sister to look after the children and bring them up. Irene still needs mothering.
Seeing her mother in dire straits, Irene in the middle of the night pleaded with her father to call again for the doctor. He did, but he curiously had no urgency on his way across the street, instead chatting with Mary Griffiths, the doctor's sister and a woman he often flirted with. An hour later, he returned home alone, and Irene and Nurse Jones watched as he was unable to stifle a yawn while they told him about Mabel's steep decline.
While his wife was dying, Harold went to bed, an act that would later become evidence against him in court. He was woken by the nurse, who was apoplectic at his behavior and insisted, quote, you must fetch doctor Griffiths without delay. This may be a crisis.
Harold went out again, but returned again without the doctor, whom he had found asleep and did not want to wake. Not having any more of this non sense, and with a patient's health rapidly declining, Nurse Jones ran across the street herself to rouse the doctor, who gave his patient morphine pills. But Mabel, during all of this chaos, had become violently ill. She then lapsed into a coma and passed away at three point thirty in the morning of Monday,
June sixteenth. Doctor Griffith signed her death certificate, stating her cause of death was valvular disease of the heart. She was interred on Thursday.
We are going to take a break for a word from our sponsors. When we're back, we'll talk about marriage motives and arsenic.
Welcome back to Criminalia. The local community was convinced Harold was going guilty of murdering his wife, and it wasn't all gossip. Let's talk about how their outrage helped get some answers about Mabel's death.
It was a blink of an eye moment after his wife's burial that Harold proposed marriage to another woman, the doctor's sister Mary. When she refused him, he promptly proposed to yet another woman, Gladys Jones. He had known Gladys since her childhood, having been friendly with her father, William, a businessman for decades. Harold and Gladys did marry just months after Harold became widowed, but there were no congratulations
to the couple. Mabel had been active in the community and she'd been popular, so when Harold remarried as quickly as he did after her death, many people were outraged. People were expecting him to follow a reasonable length of time to grieve his wife's death, and they didn't think three months was sufficient. By October, about four months after Mabel's death, the local rumor mill was so hot that
the police decided they needed to do something. By Christmas, gossip about the Greenwoods and especially how Mabel may have died had reached a fever pitch. Though authorities considered her death to be of natural causes, the public disagreed. They pointed the finger at her husband. The coroner agreed to an inquest, hoping to clear up the growing mystery and quell the anger. When Harold was informed there would be an examination of his wife's body, he replied, quote, just
the very thing. I am quite agreeable.
Forensics at this time were not what we know them as today, but there was a test that was highly sensitive to even the tiniest amounts of arsenic and human tissue. That was the Marsh test. This method was discovered and created by British chemist James M. Mars in eighteen thirty six, and while it's best known because it worked, it's also known as the first use of toxicology in a jury trial that happened years before this case, though in the nineteenth century.
Arsenic has a history back to ancient times as a potent poison, but it wasn't always used in that capacity. Though it's always been toxic, nineteenth century women applied arsenic powder to whiten their faces, and it became a popular ingredient in cosmetics. It was thought that arsenic consumption would give quote beauty and freshness to the skin, and in nineteen nineteen, doctor Campbell's safe arsenic wafers promised to clear up acne and rashes, and it flew off store shelves.
Arsenic was also used as a pharmaceutical agent as a remedy for various diseases, including asthma, korea, ezema, psoriasis, rheumatism, syphilis, tiburgulosis, and even ulcers. It was also a popular ingredient in pesticides. In its pure form, arsenic is a silvery gray color, but when compounded with copper salts, it creates some beautiful green colors, and because of that, it was commonly used in fabrics and other home goods. It was deadly in all forms, but it was also kind of everywhere in
small amounts. It was popular as a poison because it was also an odorless and tasteless powder that dissolved easily in hot liquids and foods. Early symptoms mimic food poisoning. Depending on the dosage, arsenic might produce severe diarrhea and vomiting,
or more serious symptoms including paralysis and death. About a month before his wife's death, Harold had purchased Cooper's Weedicide, a weed killer containing arsenic that in itself, though, isn't a clue that he was the murderer, because anyone could buy it or items in which it was an ingredient, and a lot of people did with no malicious intent
for its use. The only requirement was you did have to sign the poisons register, basically a record of purchases, or you could send someone else to buy it for you if you wanted to keep your name out of the books.
Mabel's body was exhumed for testing, and doctor Webster, a home office analyst, was called in. He calculated by the marsh test that her remains contained point two five to point five grain of arsenic, which equals sixteen to thirty two milligrams. A dose less than an eighth of a teaspoon can be fatal. The coroner, JW. Nicholas, noted her body showed no evidence of heart disease. He also noted he found no traces of morphia, nor did he find
cyanide from unripe gooseberries. Accordingly, after seeing the results of the examination of the body, an inquest was held on in June sixteenth, nineteen twenty.
Harold did not attend the inquest. Mister Ludform, who represented him, kick things off not with anything medically oriented, but with a gossip forward statement. He accused the Vicar of being a top gossip who had and continued to malign his client, who was a grieving widower. The reverend had enjoyed Mabel's company.
That was true, but when Harold accidental or otherwise failed to send the formal death certificate to the Vicar's office, it was in a mission that led the reverend to voice his personal opinions and suspicion in regard to Harold's
role in Mabel's death. A similar finger pointing tactic was used against Miss Phillips, a woman who tried to save Mabel's life on the night of her death, calling her quote a treacherous busybody and quote the kidwelly postman because of how fast she was a disseminating gossip.
But it wasn't the gossip. It was the medical results, the results of the marsh test, and the fact that Harold had purchased weedkillers shortly before Mabel's death that led to the jury's return of a unanimous verdict quote murder by arsenical poisoning administered by Harold Greenwood. Harold had one comment regarding that verdict and it was quote oh dear. He was arrested the next day and charged with the murder of his wife.
We're going to take a break here for a word from our sponsors, and when we come back, we will take a dive into Harold Greenwood's trial.
Welcome back to Criminalia. Harold Greenwood's trial began one year and four months after he was accused and arrested of fatally poisoning his wife with d arsenic. Let's talk about what happened in the courtroom.
The trial began on November second, nineteen twenty, at Carmarthinissizes before Sir Montague Sherman. Lead prosecutor for the crown was Sir Edward Marley Sampson, who was a very experienced prosecutor. The lead defense counsel, Sir Edward Marshall Hall, was considered and probably was Britain's best known defense lawyer. If there were celebrity lawyers in nineteen twenty, and surely to some degree there were, he was one. This whole event lasted seven days.
You know, it's easy to forget that Harold himself was a solicitor, so if he was going to be looking for the best defense lawyer, he probably knew this guy. He knew. All of the prosecution's case was based on this that solicitor Harold Greenwood had murdered his wife for her money, and it wasn't really a strong case. It was alleged that he had put our snick in a bottle of wine from which the victim had drunk several
hours before she died. The prosecution considered Mabel's wealth to be a motive, but what motive Harold had financially was much less clear as the evidence was laid out. Another possible motive came in testimony by a male acquaintance, who stated that Harold did not quote have a single man friend and was fond of stirring up mischief and trouble. On the other hand, he was exceedingly popular with the
opposite sex. The prosecution played this up, claiming that there had been fighting in the Greenwood home because Harold had a wandering eye and wanted to remarry or just live as the cad he was while he was a leccher, There was no evidence of any such quarrels.
While local gossip had played a part in the case, recalled that's how Mabel's forensic examination even happened in the first place, there were salient facts upon which the swirling rumors were founded. The defense brought Hannah Williams to the stand, the domestic worker in the Greenwood home who testified for the prosecution that Mabel was the only one to drink
the wine at lunch that day. She had also stated that Harold had spent thirty minutes in the pantry opening that bottle of wine before serving it to Mabel on the day she died. She admitted to Hall during cross examination, though, that she had been coached by investigators to change her story to one that would better implicate Harold. In fact, her story had changed more than once during the trial. Had he really been in the pantry that long? Hall
turned her into someone not to be trusted. He also made her cry on the stand.
And then the medical testimony. When doctor Webster was called to testify about the results of the marsh test, he produced a series of glass tubes which he called mirrors, which he explained to the cour he'd used to prove the presence of arsenic in Mabel Greenwood's body. In Harold's defense, Hall threw all sorts of poisoning examples at him, some ludicrous. These two examples stood out to us. One maybe the weed killer purchased by Harold had seeped into the gooseberries
that Mabel had eaten the day she died. Or maybe two that the arsenic had blown in the wind and Mabel unknowingly inhaled it. Doctor Webster didn't play along and stuck with the numbers, not the speculation.
Then there was doctor Griffiths, whose testimony was really just a big old miss state at Hall during his cross examination of Mabel's longtime doctor, quote, have you the smallest doubt whatever that if you, as a medical man, were accurate when you said you gave her two half grains of morphia after ten o'clock, that she would have been dead before four o'clock. Griffis replied, quote, if I had given her morphia, as she would but I did not
give her morphia. But Griffiths had previously testified for the prosecution and during the inquest that he had done so. During the inquest, he stated he had given his patient morphine, but during cross examination he stated he had given her opium and bismuth, not morphine. Hall stated to the court that either morphine or opium could have killed Mabel, and insinuated that doctor Griffiths hadn't properly attended to his patient.
Stated Hall to the doctor, quote, if missus Greenwood took under doctor's orders a drug in a dangerous quantity, and soon afterwards sank into a state of coma, the natural result of such a dose of morphia, from which she never recovered, it would be difficult to attribute her death to her husband. Whether arsenic was found in her body months after her death or not. Griffiths replied simply, quote yes. Paul also noted that doctor Griffiths may have made another
deadly error. Quote if by some unfortunate mistake, you, in the anxiety and hurry gave her four tea spoonfuls of Fowler's solution, you would have got all the arsenic that was found or more, and there would be practically no distinction in the mixture. Griffiths replied, quote no, they resemble each other. Hearing this admission of a possible medical mistake, the judge surmised that if true, it could amount to
an accusation of criminal negligence. As you recall from earlier in the episode, someone had destroyed the bottles that had been on Mabel's bedside table. It had been Griffiths who had also destroyed his prescription books, and now he lacked evidence that may have saved his contradictory testimony. When the defense questioned why he would destroy all those records, the doctor replied, quote, I don't remember.
The defense next called a poison expert, Colonel Toogood, to testify. Too Good, who had not been part of the coroner's inquest, stated that Mabel had indeed died from morphia poisoning following
acute gastrointitis caused by eating gooseberry skins. Doctor William Griffiths, now note this is a different doctor Griffiths than Mabel's doctor, also testified for the defense regarding arsenic poisoning, stating that, and we're going to paraphrase to sum up his statement, a quarter of a grain of arsenic in a body was not conclusive evidence that it had caused death. He backed that up, stating that an adult could handle as much as two and a half grains of arsenic in
their body before any ill effect. It wasn't just the testimony of Mabel's doctor that was a mess. The entire medical testimony was kind of bonkers when it came to contradiction.
Today, Harold was called as a witness in his own defense. The streets were lined with spectators, his carriage to and from court was given a special escort of mounted police, and he was subjected to angry demonstrations. On the stand, Harold denied any involvement in his wife's death and withstood lengthy cross examination from the prosecution. The prosecution's case began to fall apart, though, when it was revealed that Mabel's inheritance would not pass to her husband upon her death,
it would all go to the children. Paul asked Harold, quote had you anything to do with your wife's death, and he replied, quote, nothing whatever. Paul continued, quote after your wife's death, what happened to her private means? Harold replied, quote, they went to her children. It was true that Harold's practice wasn't doing well, and that he had lost a good deal of his wife's money trying to save it.
But it was also true that Mabel had been the life tenant of her father's estate, which means she was the property owner for life, and following her death, the Bowwater fortune passed in equal shares to the Greenwood children, whose trustees controlled it. Harold got nothing from her death, and the prosecution's case took a big hit. That had
been their motive. That Harold didn't financially gain from his wife's death, however, quieted down some of the rumors that he was guilty of murdering Mabel for her money.
Some The witness that closed the case, at least as far as the judge was concerned, was the Greenwood's eldest daughter, Irene, aged twenty two at the time, who testified that at that particular Sunday lunch, she had two glasses of the wine her father had uncorked the bottle in question from the pantry, followed by a third glass that evening, and she had no ill effects from it. To this, the judge stated, quote, if she also drank from the bottle,
there is an end of the case. Her testimony essentially led to her father's acquittal.
In his closing remarks, Hall re emphasized that the prosecution had no case, and that accusations against Harold had quote begun by local gossip, depending on circumstantial details on the prompted and uncertain memory of a servant girl, and for its scientific justification on the finding in the body of the bare minimum quantity of arsenic necessary for a fatal
dose by means of an elaborate and fallible experiment. He ended his speech saying, quote, gentlemen of the jury, I demand at your hands the life and liberty of Harold Greenwood.
During his summary, the judge reminded the jury against any show of bias, stating quote, it is your duty to constant trait wholly upon the guilt or innocence of the prisoner. The jury deliberated for about two and a half hours when E. Willis Jones, the jury foreman, and a manufacturing chemist by trade, led the eleven other jurors back to
the courtroom from their deliberations. Their verdict was stated loud and clear to the room quote, we are satisfied on the evidence of this case that a dangerous joseph arsenic was administered to Mabel Greenwood on Sunday, June fifteenth, nineteen nineteen. But we are not satisfied that this was the immediate cause of death. The evidence before us is insufficient and does not conclusively satisfy us as to how and by whom the arsenic was administered. We therefore return a verdict of not guilty.
That day, November ninth, nineteen twenty Harold was acquitted. After the verdict, he told the press quote, I am the victim of village gossip, village scandal, and if you know Welsh village life, you know what that means. He may have been a freeman, but his reputation, which doesn't sound like it was all that great to begin with, was completely ruined. No longer married to an heiress. To pay his legal costs, he sold his story to various newspapers.
The Sunday Harold, for instance, ran a series shortly after the close of his trial, from November fourteenth to December twelfth, and people still could not get enough.
Harold and Gladys Greenwood changed their surname to Pilkington and left Wales for Seleek. There, Harold lived uneventfully and died of natural causes on January seventeenth, nineteen twenty nine. But the circumstance surrounding Mabel's death remains a mystery a century after she died. I have theories.
I think our theory is the same because it seems like the doctor messed up real bad.
I once like, once you start talking about the trial, you're like, what is going on here?
It is a little kooky. Yes, And that's actually kind of the focus of the drink for today. So I wanted it's There's a lot of stuff that that this gave me ruminations about, right. One of them is that this becomes a case that very clearly evidences the way women could discuss their symptoms and their health problems and kind of be ignored. It's like, oh, honey, that's just change of life. Are you sure?
How do you know right my leg is broken? I'm not so sure that. And we had one one where it was the same time period where you know, the doctor examination did not even require lifting.
The dress, right, because that would be improper.
Exactly, this not a good time for female healthcare.
There really was not. So I wanted to make something that I'm not going to say that I understand medically what was going on with her, but at least a drink that included some ingredients that would address someone who was having stomach issues. This also to peek behind the curtain. Maria will recognize why I am bringing this up because she and I discussed a similar drink recently, because one of her friends asked me if I had had it. So it does not contain the ingredient you think it does,
but it contains another one related to it. Because this is a variation on a LOSSI so for this one, which we are calling better medicine, we are going to start with an ounce of vodka. I used the vanilla vodka, but you don't have to, and a half ounce of crem demnth, a quarter ounce of lime juice, a half ounce of simple syrup. You can also do a darker like a demurra here if you want a richer one,
and then an ounce of coconut, vanilla Greek yogurt. And the reason here is that right mint is sometimes given for an upset tummy. Coconut can also be used to soothe an upset tummy. Lime juice for some people helps deal with indigestion so and of course yogurt is full of probiotics, so this would not have helped the victim here at all. Mabel still would have passed. But this will at least be yummy for us while we consider how she was probably the victim of medical malpractice. So
you're gonna put all these together in your shaker. I really wanted to make it super smooth and a little bit fluffy, so I used my frother to mix it a little first, and then I put in my ice and gave it a good shake, and then I you want to double strain this, so strain it not through like your hawthorn strainer, but also if you have a mesh strainer, through that as well, because you want it to be really, really smooth, and it is stupidly delicious as we know. I will invoke my guinea pig yet again.
My beloved, who not a big drinker but tries everything and gives his honest opinion. And this is one of the rare occasions where he said, can I finish this one? And I was like, yeah, baby, you can. I can make another if I want more. He really really liked it because it is It's very yummy. It's creamy, but it's not heavy. It has a little brightness. The crem dement is not overpowering the mocktail. For This is so easy to make and honestly is just as delicious, if not more so.
I was gonna say, has got to be at least equally good.
Yes, So instead of vodka, you have a couple options here. You can do coconut water, which is what I did. If you want something with you know, a little more flavor, you can do vanilla tea. You can do a white grape juice. You can do almost anything that you want. Really, it's just an ounce. And then instead of crem demnth, you're gonna do a mint syrup and that's that's it. Those are the only substitutions you have to make, and then you have a yummy and delicious variation on a lossy.
And the nice thing is, once you're used to using yogurt in drinks and something like this, where you have like your primary spirit which is the vodka, your secondary which is the liqueur, and just a little bit of citrus you don't want too much, and a little bit of syrup and you can throttle that syrup up or
down to suit your taste for sweetness. It's really easy to just sub out any of those and kind of have a choose your own adventure thing, right, Like a lot of lossies will normally have plain yogurt as their yogurt ingredient. I wanted the coconut because I like that flavor and I thought it would add a nice roundness
to the whole thing. But like, you can literally do that and then play mix them up at your home bar and be like, I want gin instead, and I want crem denoio or I want like you can literally mix anything up and for the most part you're gonna be fine. I'm sure there's some combo that will be black,
black black, but for the most part delicious. This is also a great way to play with the flavors of something like a white Russian, where you can use like a coffee liqueur and a vodka and your yogurt instead of heavy cream, and it just changes it up a little bit and shifts it to a slightly different flavor. It's a little less cloyingly sweet, even with the simple syrup, because sometimes a white Russian can feel very heavy because
that heavy cream is sweet on its own. So options, options, options, I hope you take this and play with it. Make many yogurt drinks, because they're so good. We are so thankful that you spent this time with us. We will be right back here next week with another unsolved historical crime and another pair of drinks to go with it. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio.
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