Daisy de Melker

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Daisy Louisa C. de Melker (née Hancorn-Smith; 1 June 1886 – 30 December 1932), simply known as Daisy de Melker, was a South African nurse who was accused of poisoning two husbands with strychnine for their life insurance money; all she was found guilty of, however, was poisoning her only son with arsenic for reasons which are still unclear. De Melker is the second woman to have been hanged in South African criminal history. De Melker was accused of three murders but only convicted of one, the killing of her son. The charges of poisoning her husbands were never proven in a court of law. It was William Sproat, the younger brother of her second husband Robert, who accused De Melker because he wanted Robert's will in favour of De Melker declared invalid. De Melker refused to refund an alleged loan from her mother-in-law, Jane Sproat, to Robert; she regarded it as a gift and argued that it was not stipulated in the will as a loan. William won the civil case regarding the will, which ran concurrently with the murder trial, and was awarded costs. De Melker withdrew on the date Justice Greenberg sentenced her for murder. William's was a pyrrhic victory, however; to pay her exorbitant legal costs, De Melker had to sell off all her assets. She was declared insolvent and was eventually buried in a pauper's grave.