Caroline Grills
Encyclopedia
Caroline Grills, born Caroline Mickelson (1890 – October 1960), was an Australian serial killer
.
Grills became a suspect in 1947 after the deaths of four family members: her 87-year-old stepmother Christine Mickelson; relatives by marriage Angelina Thomas and John Lundberg; and sister in law Mary Anne Mickelson. Authorities tested tea
she had given to two additional family members (Christine Downey and John Downey) on 13 April 1953, and detected the poison
thallium
.
Grills appeared in court charged with four murders and three attempted murders (the third being Eveline Lundberg, Christine Downey's mother) in October 1953. She was convicted on 15 October 1953 and sentenced death, but her sentence was later changed to life in prison. She became affectionately known as "Auntie Thally" to other inmates of Sydney's Long Bay prison. In October 1960, she was rushed to the hospital where she died from peritonitis
from a ruptured gastric ulcer.
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
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Grills became a suspect in 1947 after the deaths of four family members: her 87-year-old stepmother Christine Mickelson; relatives by marriage Angelina Thomas and John Lundberg; and sister in law Mary Anne Mickelson. Authorities tested tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
she had given to two additional family members (Christine Downey and John Downey) on 13 April 1953, and detected the poison
Poison
In the context of biology, poisons are substances that can cause disturbances to organisms, usually by chemical reaction or other activity on the molecular scale, when a sufficient quantity is absorbed by an organism....
thallium
Thallium
Thallium is a chemical element with the symbol Tl and atomic number 81. This soft gray poor metal resembles tin but discolors when exposed to air. The two chemists William Crookes and Claude-Auguste Lamy discovered thallium independently in 1861 by the newly developed method of flame spectroscopy...
.
Grills appeared in court charged with four murders and three attempted murders (the third being Eveline Lundberg, Christine Downey's mother) in October 1953. She was convicted on 15 October 1953 and sentenced death, but her sentence was later changed to life in prison. She became affectionately known as "Auntie Thally" to other inmates of Sydney's Long Bay prison. In October 1960, she was rushed to the hospital where she died from peritonitis
Peritonitis
Peritonitis is an inflammation of the peritoneum, the serous membrane that lines part of the abdominal cavity and viscera. Peritonitis may be localised or generalised, and may result from infection or from a non-infectious process.-Abdominal pain and tenderness:The main manifestations of...
from a ruptured gastric ulcer.