Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story: My Fifteen Lost YearsMaybrick, Florence Elizabeth
History
Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story: My Fifteen Lost Years
Maybrick, Florence Elizabeth
Maybrick, Florence Elizabeth, 1862-1941; Trials (Murder) -- England; Women prisoners -- England
“Some of the Valentine’s meat juice had been taken, but it did not
agree with the deceased and made him vomit. Witness did not remember
him vomiting in his presence, but he complained of it. Witness told
deceased to stop the Valentine’s meat juice, and said he was not
surprised at it making Mr. Maybrick sick, as it made many people sick.”
There was, therefore, another half-used bottle. The attention of
counsel is strongly directed to the question of the identity of this
half-used bottle.
Besides the one in which the arsenic was detected, there was another
half-used bottle produced at the trial, which was found by Mrs. Briggs
after death in one of James Maybrick’s hatboxes in the dressing-room,
together with the black solutions and white solutions of arsenic, and
this bottle was found free of arsenic.
As to the bottle which Mrs. Maybrick had in her hands on the night of
the 9th-10th of May, and which she took into the dressing-room, and
as to which she volunteered the statement that she had put a powder
in, as to which evidence was given by Nurse Gore, was thus voluntarily
corroborated by Mrs. Maybrick in her statement to the jury. From
this it appears that Nurse Gore, on her arrival for duty on Thursday
night, opened a fresh bottle of meat juice, which had been given to
her the night before by Edwin Maybrick, and gave the patient one
or two spoonfuls, and then placed it on the table, from which she
shortly afterward saw Mrs. Maybrick remove it and take it into the
dressing-room, the door of which was not shut, and then return with
it into the bedroom and replace it on the table. Nurse Gore thought
she did this in a stealthy way. It must be remembered that Nurse Gore
was naturally suspicious, as is shown by the fact that on two previous
occasions she suggested suspicions with regard to changes in medicines
by Mrs. Maybrick, which on analysis were proved to be free from
arsenic. When the patient, a short time afterward, awoke, Mrs. Maybrick
came into the bedroom again and _removed_ the bottle from the table and
placed it on the washstand, where there were only the ordinary jugs and
basins, and there left it. Nurse Gore’s usual suspicions were aroused
and she gave the patient none of it, nor did Mrs. Maybrick ask her to
give him any. When Nurse Gore was relieved by Nurse Callery the next
morning (Friday, the 10th), at 11 o’clock, she called her attention
to it and asked her to take _a sample of it_, which Callery did, and
put it into an ordinary medicine bottle, which Nurse Gore gave her for
the purpose. Nurse Gore left the bottle on the washstand where Mrs.
Maybrick had placed it. Nurse Gore did not mention the circumstance
to Dr. Humphreys when he came to see the patient at 8:30 A.M., nor to
Michael Maybrick, whose attention she directed to a bottle of brandy
instead, which on analysis was found harmless; and she then went into
Liverpool and saw the matron, and on her return to the house at 2
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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