Crown vs Kate Dover
When he met the 26-year-old Kate Dover in 1880, he was a widower aged 60 years, a drunkard, and was fairly well-to-do as a result of the income from his invention which related to etching on steel blades.
"So proficient had this woman become that there was a kind of partnership between Mr and Mrs Jones and (Skinner) with regard to the household expenses; they shared the profits.
The last two major quarrels were witnessed by the neighbour Elizabeth Guest, who said that Skinner was angry about the pawning of his property, and used "very bad language" to Dover,[2] "who, after being reviled, threw her arms round his neck and pleaded for forgiveness.
[6] On the same day she and her husband ate some of the produce, and forwarded the remainder, including "fifteen potatoes, four large onions and some apples" to Thomas Skinner.
At 7 pm Skinner visited the Mason's Arms at Norton Woodseats, known then and now as the Big Tree Inn, leaving Dover at his house.
She brought with her as a witness the butcher William Wood of London Road, Heeley, telling him two untruths:[2] that their acquaintance Mr Marshall or Maxwell had previously acted at her witness (Marshall or Maxwell denied that subsequently),[8] and that she was purchasing arsenic for colouring wax flowers (it was confirmed at the trial that arsenic on its own is not a colourant and that there were no wax flowers in the house).
John William Arding the assistant sold her one-ounce avoirdupois of arsenic in powder form, in a "peculiar shaped packet, labelled poison in black letters upon a red ground, so that it could not easily be mistaken".
However, when the servant Emma Bolsover brought back a fowl which Dover had sent her to collect at 10 am, she heard Skinner call out three times for his dinner, showing no sign of illness.
On that morning, Dover told Taylor that Skinner "was very ill, and always dozing and sleepy, and said she believed he would die", when in truth he "appeared to have been in his usual state of health".
Dinner consisting of stuffed chicken and Yorkshire pudding was served around midday, but the servant Emma Bolsover ate a lamb chop separately in the kitchen and did not join Dover and Skinner for the meal.
Five minutes after beginning the meal, Dover declared herself ill. Skinner immediately said, "I feel bad too...My God, she has done for us both this time," referring to Jane Jones who had sent the onions.
[6] When the surgeon and forensic scientist James Wallin Harrison arrived at 2.30 pm,[14] Skinner was "vomiting very seriously and heavily" and Dover said, "We have both been poisoned; it is that woman who has done us both."
She was also seen handing a paper containing powder to her mother, telling Catharine to hide it under her skirt in case Kate were searched by police.
Alfred H. Allen, Sheffield's public analyst, examined Skinner's entrails and the jars of samples held by the police on 10 December.
The letters make clear that Skinner knew about and did not object to meetings between Dover and the old man "Emerson" or "E.M.", who regularly gave her money for clothes.
[16] Between 6 and 16 December 1881, Dover was kept at home, in a state of "extreme exhaustion",[13] in Thirlwell Terrace under police supervision, ill, unable to go out, denying the crime, nursed by Emma Bolsover and under the care of the surgeon Harrison.
The letter mentions a good relationship with both parents and other relatives, and asks them to feed her pets: "my squirrel, my tortoise, my Jack, my pussies and my birds.
"[26] The Liverpool Daily Post described the scene:[9] The case had created the greatest possible public interest, and the court was densely crowded, admission being obtained by ticket.
[2] The Sheffield Daily Telegraph described the scene at Leeds as follows:[2] This morning the court is as crowded as ever, the ladies' gallery being again filled by females of all ages, the majority of them as unlovely as ever, and all armed with sandwich baskets and satchels, prepared to wait till his Lordship rises.
They set their faces as flint against the fair suitors, promising that as soon as anybody comes out somebody will be permitted to enter ... Down below in the court there is a crowd of barristers, twirling their thumbs, reading the newspapers, writing letters, and generally industrious in other ways, particularly in making sketches, which the prisoner in the dock could have excelled with a few quick touches of her pencil.
They occupy most valuable seats, which would be gladly filled by the Press, who, perched away in the ladies' gallery like the bird who sits up aloft, strain their ears to hear what counsel asks and what witnesses answer ... Kate Dover ... still appears feeble and ill. She is attired in black with sealskin jacket and black hat ... but soon after the proceedings are resumed she raises her veil, and everybody is able to see her features, which certainly do not form a heavy, unintellectual countenance, but the very opposite.
The Sheffield Daily Telegraph continues: "As Mr Lockwood gravely impresses on the jury that his client is there with her life trembling in the balance, her emotion is intense.
From the gallery we can hear her sobbing, we can see her frame quivering, and her whole body rocking to and fro till she seems as if she would roll from her chair ... Several times her hand falls from her face, and it is evidently only by a supreme effort she prevents herself from fainting.
When the arsenic is mentioned, "the prisoner is again terribly affected – leaning forward, holding her head in her hands, swaying her body to and fro, and sobbing violently.
[5] He gave the jury the following choice:[2] If they adopted the theory of the prosecution that she put the arsenic into the stuffing, and that she did it with the intention to kill him, then undoubtedly she would be guilty of murder.
"[2]The Sheffield Daily Telegraph said that, "his closing words ... evidently caused the prisoner great agony, as she was again sobbing violently, and rocking her body to and fro as in serious pain.
Without once raising her head to meet the hundreds of hungry eyes which are watching her every pang, Kate Dover turns from the railings and with melancholy gait and pitiful face passes down the steps and into the cells ...
They have seen their unfortunate fellow-creature drain her bitter cup to the dregs, and they hurry home now to boast, no doubt, that they were present at the memorable trial of Kate Dover for murdering her master.
"[11] Kate Dover was sentenced on Wednesday 8 February, entering the dock "with slow step" and staggering to the rail to support herself by it with both hands, seeming hardly conscious of the proceedings.
[33] In 1895 a petition to the Home Secretary – permitted after 15 years' servitude – was raised by the 1882 trial's counsels for her defence and the prosecution, for Dover's release from prison.
