from the court, save for two medical
men. Then the case got down to the
nitty-gritty. It was the purchase from
Mr. Bell, the Kidwelly chemist, of an
arsenical compound in two separate
packages, containing 60 per cent arsenic
and marked as Cooper’s Weedicide,
which riveted the attention of lawyers
and laymen alike. For the prosecution
claimed that it had evidence to show
that before the Sunday lunch on June
15th, 1919, Greenwood had placed
some of that weed-killer in the bottle of
burgundy.
The Crown sought to prove that the
two purchases of weed-killer from Mr.
Bell – one in February 1919, the other
in April – were more than sufficient to
kill Mrs. Greenwood. Also, if dissolved
in the burgundy, neither the poison’s
taste nor colour would be noticeable
- and 36 grains of the weed-killer
was only the equivalent of half a
teaspoonful.
But Marshall Hall suggested to Dr.
Griffiths that he had made a fatal error
by administering Fowler’s solution of
arsenic, instead of bismuth, to Mabel
Greenwood. The defence counsel
pointed out that bottles containing
both mixtures stood side by side in the
doctor’s surgery.
Dr. Griffiths made a poor witness. He
was uncertain and contradicted himself.
He could not produce his prescription
book, and the nature of the pills he
had given his patient was in dispute.
He had earlier insisted that they were
of morphia, but now claimed that they
were opium-based.
Dr. William Willcox gave his opinion
that death was due to heart failure
consistent with prolonged vomiting and
diarrhoea, due to arsenical poisoning.
The fatal dose must have been taken in
soluble form between 1.30 and 6 p.m.
He thought that at least two grains had
been swallowed by Mabel Greenwood
within 24 hours of her death.
The defence called as its poison
expert a Colonel Toogood. He stated
that Mabel Greenwood had died
from morphia poisoning, following
acute gastro-enteritis set up by eating
gooseberry skins. Apart from the
vomiting, he said, there was no evidence
of symptoms of arsenical poisoning.
Dr. William Griffiths of Swansea, also
for the defence, said that a quarter of
a grain of arsenic in a body was not
conclusive evidence that it had caused
death. He pointed out that a living body
could contain two and a half grains of
arsenic without any ill-effect.
With the medical evidence so
obviously in conflict, those convinced
of Greenwood’s guilt looked hopefully
at Hannah Williams when the
Welsh-speaking maid declared that he
had spent half an hour in the pantry
before lunch on the fatal Sunday, theimplication being that he was poisoning
the wine. But Marshall Hall soon tore
her flimsy evidence to tatters, reducing
her to tears and incoherence.
If there were still any doubts, it was
Irene Greenwood who laid them to rest.
She said she had drunk wine from the
same bottle as her mother during the
Sunday lunch and had not felt even
the slightest bit queasy. Moreover, she
had drunk two glasses to her mother’s
one. Her evidence demolished the
prosecution’s case, which rested on the
claim that the burgundy was poisoned.
Summing-up, Mr. Justice Shearman
warned the jury against any show of
bias. He told them: “It is your duty to
concentrate wholly upon the guilt or
innocence of the prisoner.’’Greenwood in the dock at
his murder trial. Jurors
heard that the solicitor
had been dependent on
his wife’s moneyIrene Greenwood said
she had drunk wine
from the same bottle
as her mother during
the Sunday lunch and
had not felt even the
slightest bit queasyThe jury were absent for two and
half hours before the foreman delivered
their written verdict. The words on the
slip of paper handed to the judge read:
“We are satisfied on the evidence of this
case that a dangerous dose of arsenic
was administered to Mabel Greenwood
on Sunday, June 15th, 1919. But we are
not satisfied that this was the immediate
cause of death. The evidence before us
is insufficient and does not conclusively
satisfy us as to how and by whom the
arsenic was administered. We therefore
return a verdict of ‘not guilty.’”
This left several questions unanswered.
And as the crowds melted away many
felt they had been cheated by a brilliant
advocate. The belief in Greenwood’s
guilt – in Wales, at least – persisted.
When he attempted to pick up the pieces
of his life in Kidwelly, he found that they
simply couldn’t be mended.
Even his old friend Dr. Griffiths had
turned against him. Having testified
for the prosecution the physician now
sued Greenwood for some outstanding
medical fees. So the solicitor, realising
that he had become a social leper and
that the old life at Rumsey House was
dead, eventually decided to lose himself
in an English rural district where his
face would be unfamiliar.
But before shaking the dust of
Kidwelly from his heels for good,
he wrote an article for the magazine
John Bull at the time of the trial of
another solicitor, Major Herbert Rowse
Armstrong, of nearby Hay-on-Wye,
who was convicted and hanged for
the poison-murder of his wife. In that
article Greenwood described how it felt
to be accused of murder.
He then moved away – to die nine
years later in a Herefordshire village
where his neighbours knew him as “Mr.
Pilkington.’’ He had little money and,
broken in health, he had become a mere
shadow of his once-ebullient self.
Was he guilty? Surely not. Only an
innocent man could have behaved so
stupidly.Sir Edward Marshall Hall who
robustly defended Greenwood
against some flimsy evidence