Martha Rendell (10 August 1871 – 6 October 1909) was the last woman to be hanged in Western Australia, for the wilful murder of her de facto husband's son, Arthur Morris, in 1908.

Arresting officer Inspector Harry Mann said "she delighted in seeing her victims writhe in agony, and from it derived sexual satisfaction".

Arthur, age 15, took longer to succumb to the treatment, finally dying just short of a year after Olive's death, on 8 October 1908.

One neighbour claimed he often peeked in the windows to see Rendell standing in front of a screaming victim, rocking back and forth as if in ecstasy.

[citation needed] Mann located George, who claimed that he had run away because his stepmother had killed his siblings and was trying to poison him with spirits of salts (i.e. hydrochloric acid).

Suspicions were further aroused when it was shown that Rendell had purchased large quantities of spirits of salts during the period of the children's illnesses, but none since the last death.

[2] The trial against Rendell and Morris on a charge of wilful murder commenced in the Supreme Court of Western Australia on 7 September 1909 before Mr Justice McMillan and a jury.

[2] Rendell's crimes aroused considerable public outrage at the time; the press portrayed her as a "scarlet woman" and "wicked stepmother".

[10] She is buried at Fremantle Cemetery, in the same grave where serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke was interred more than half a century later.