Amelia Dyer
Amelia Elizabeth Dyer, popularly dubbed the Ogress of Reading, was a British serial killer who murdered infants in her care from 1869 to 1896.
Trained as a nurse and widowed in 1869, Dyer turned to baby farming—the practice of adopting unwanted infants in exchange for money to support herself. She initially cared for the children legitimately, in addition to having two of her own. Still, whether intentionally or not, about 400 died in her care, leading to a conviction for neglect and six months' hard labour. She then began directly murdering children she "adopted", strangling at least some of them, and disposing of the bodies to avoid attention. Mentally unstable, she was committed to several mental asylums throughout her life, despite suspicions of feigning, and survived at least one serious suicide attempt.
Dyer's downfall came when the bagged corpse of an infant was discovered in the River Thames, with evidence linking back to her. She was arrested on 4 April 1896. In one of the most sensational trials of the Victorian period, she was found guilty of the murder of infant Doris Marmon and hanged on 10 June 1896. At the time of her death, a handful of murders were attributed to Dyer, but there is little doubt she was responsible for many more similar deaths—up to 400, making her a candidate for history's most prolific serial killer.
Dyer's case led to stricter laws for adoption and child protection, and helped raise the profile of the fledgling National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, which formed in 1884.
Background
Amelia Elizabeth Hobley was born the youngest of five in the small village of Pyle Marsh, just east of Bristol, the daughter of master shoemaker Samuel Hobley and Sarah Hobley. She learned to read and write and developed a love of literature and poetry. However, her childhood was marred by the mental illness of her mother, caused by typhus. Sarah would have violent fits witnessed by her children and Hobley was obliged to care for her until she died in 1848. Researchers later commented on the effect this had on her, and what it taught her about the symptoms exhibited by those who appear to lose their minds through illness.Hobley had an elder sister, Sarah Ann, who died in 1841 at age 6, and a younger sister, also named Sarah Ann, who died in 1845 aged a few months. An elder cousin had an illegitimate daughter at the time who was later accepted as the daughter of the grandparents, William and Martha Hobley, who were Hobley's aunt and uncle. After her mother's death, Hobley lived with an aunt in Bristol for a time before serving an apprenticeship with a corset maker. Her father died in 1859. Her eldest brother, Thomas, inherited the family shoe business. In 1861, at the age of 24, Hobley became permanently estranged from at least one of her brothers, James, and moved into lodgings in Trinity Street, Bristol. There she married 59-year-old George Thomas. They both lied about their ages on the marriage certificate to reduce the age gap; George deducted eleven years from his age and Amelia added six years to hers—many sources later reported this age as fact, causing much confusion.
Nursing
Amelia Elizabeth Thomas trained as a nurse. From contact with a midwife, Ellen Dane, she learned of an easier way to earn a living—using her own home to provide lodgings for young women who had conceived illegitimately and then farming off the babies for adoption or allowing them to die of neglect and malnutrition. Dane decamped to the United States shortly after meeting Thomas to escape the attention of the authorities. Unmarried mothers during the Victorian period often struggled to gain an income since the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 had removed any financial obligation from the fathers of illegitimate children, whilst bringing up their children in a society where single parenthood and illegitimacy were stigmatized. This led to the practice of baby farming, in which individuals acted as adoption or fostering agents in return for regular payments or a single, up-front fee from the babies' mothers. Many businesses were set up to take in these young women and care for them until they gave birth. The mothers subsequently left their unwanted babies to be looked after as "nurse children". Thomas had to leave nursing with the birth of a daughter.George died in 1869, and his wife was left needing a new source of income.
Murders
Amelia Thomas was keen to make money from baby farming, and alongside taking in expectant women, she advertised to nurse and adopt a baby, in return for a substantial one-off payment and adequate clothing for the child. In her advertisements and meetings with clients, she assured them that she was respectable and married and that she would provide a safe and loving home for the child.In 1872, she married William Dyer, a brewer's labourer from Bristol. They had two children together. She eventually left her husband.
At some point in her baby farming career, Amelia Elizabeth Dyer decided to forgo the expense and inconvenience of letting the children die through neglect and starvation; soon after the receipt of each child, she murdered them, thus allowing her to pocket most or all of the fee.
For some time, Dyer eluded the resulting interest of the police. She was eventually caught in 1879 after a doctor was suspicious about the number of child deaths he had been called to certify in Dyer's care. However, instead of being convicted of murder or manslaughter, she was sentenced to six months' hard labour. The experience allegedly almost destroyed her mentally, though others have expressed incredulity at the leniency of the sentence when compared to those handed out for lesser crimes at that time.
Upon her release, Dyer attempted to resume her nursing career. She had spells in mental hospitals due to mental instability and suicidal tendencies; these always coincided with times when it was convenient for her to "disappear". Being a former asylum nurse, Dyer knew how to behave to ensure a relatively comfortable existence as an asylum inmate. Dyer appears to have begun abusing alcohol and opium-based products early in her killing career; her mental instability could have been related to her substance abuse. In 1890, Dyer cared for the illegitimate baby of a governess. When she returned to visit the child, the governess was immediately suspicious and stripped the baby to see if a birthmark was present on one of its hips. It wasn't, and prolonged suspicions by the authorities led to Dyer having or feigning a breakdown. Dyer at one point drank two bottles of laudanum in a serious suicide attempt, but her long-term use had built up her tolerance to opium products, and she thus survived.
She returned to baby farming and murder. Dyer realized the folly of involving doctors in issuing death certificates and began disposing of the bodies herself. The precarious nature and extent of her activities again drew undesirable attention from police and parents seeking to reclaim their children. She and her family frequently relocated to different towns and cities to escape suspicion, regain anonymity, and acquire new business. Over the years, Dyer used a succession of aliases.
In 1893, Dyer was discharged from her final committal at the Somerset and Bath Lunatic Asylum near Wells. Unlike previous "breakdowns", this had been a most disagreeable experience. She never entered another asylum. Two years later, Dyer moved to Caversham, Berkshire, accompanied by an unsuspecting associate, Jane "Granny" Smith, whom Dyer had recruited from a brief spell in a workhouse and Dyer's daughter and son-in-law, Mary Ann and Arthur Palmer. This was followed by a move to 45 Kensington Road, Reading, Berkshire later the same year. Smith was persuaded by Dyer to be referred to as "mother" in front of innocent women handing over their children. This was an effort made to present a caring mother-daughter image.
Murder of Doris Marmon
In January 1896, Evelina Marmon, a popular 25-year-old barmaid, gave birth to an illegitimate daughter, Doris, in a boarding house in Cheltenham. She quickly sought offers of adoption and placed an advertisement in the "Miscellaneous" section of the Bristol Times & Mirror newspaper. It simply read: "Wanted, respectable woman to take a young child." Marmon had intended to go back to work and eventually reclaim her child.Coincidentally, next to her own, was an advertisement reading: "Married couple with no family would adopt a healthy child, nice country home. Terms, £10". Marmon responded, to a "Mrs. Harding", and several days later, she received a reply from Dyer. From Oxford Road in Reading, "Mrs. Harding" wrote that "I should be glad to have a dear baby girl, one I could bring up and call my own." She continued: "We are plain, homely people, in fairly good circumstances. I don't want a child for money's sake, but the company and home comfort ... I and my husband are dearly fond of children. I have no child of my own. A child with me will have a good home and a mother's love".
Evelina Marmon wanted to pay a more affordable, weekly fee for her daughter's care, but "Mrs. Harding" insisted on the one-off payment in advance. Marmon was in dire straits, so she reluctantly agreed to pay the £10, and a week later, "Mrs. Harding" arrived in Cheltenham.
Marmon was surprised by Dyer's advanced age and stocky appearance, but as Dyer was affectionate towards Doris, Evelina handed over her daughter, a cardboard box of clothes, and £10. Still distressed at having to give up care for her daughter, Evelina accompanied Dyer to Cheltenham station, and then on to Gloucester. She returned to her lodgings "a broken woman". A few days later, she received a letter from "Mrs. Harding" saying all was well; Marmon wrote back but received no reply.
Dyer did not travel to Reading, as she had told Marmon. She went instead to 76 Mayo Road, Willesden, London, where her 23-year-old daughter Polly was staying. There, Dyer quickly found some white edging tape used in dressmaking, wound it twice around the baby's neck, and tied a knot. Death would not have been immediate. Dyer later said: "I used to like to watch them with the tape around their neck, but it was soon all over with them."
Both women allegedly helped to wrap the body in a napkin. They kept some of the clothes Marmon had packed; the rest was destined for the pawnbroker. Dyer paid the rent to the unwitting landlady and gave her a pair of children's boots as a present for her little girl. The following day, Wednesday 1 April 1896, another child, named Harry Simmons, was taken to Mayo Road. However, with no spare white edging tape available, the length around Doris's corpse was removed and used to strangle the 13-month-old boy.
On 2 April, both bodies were stacked into a carpet bag, along with bricks for added weight. Dyer then headed for Reading. At a secluded spot she knew well near a weir at Caversham Lock, she forced the carpetbag through railings into the River Thames.