Daisy de Melker
Encyclopedia
Daisy Louisa C. De Melker (1 June 1886 - 30 December 1932), (née Hancorn-Smith) simply known as Daisy de Melker, was a trained nurse who poisoned two husbands with strychnine
for their life insurance while living in Germiston in the central Transvaal
(now Gauteng
), and then poisoned her only son with arsenic
for reasons which are still unclear. She is historically the second woman to have been hanged
in South Africa
.
Daisy de Melker was accused of three murders but was only convicted of one, that of killing her son. The charges of poisoning her husbands were never proved in a court of law. It was William Sproat, the younger brother of her second husband, who fingered her because he wanted Robert Sproat's will in favour of Daisy declared invalid. Daisy refused to refund an alleged loan from Mrs Jane Sproat, Robert's mother, to Robert; she regarded it as a gift and argued that it was not stipulated in the will as a loan.
William Sproat won the civil case regarding the will, which ran concurrently with the murder trial, and was awarded costs. Daisy withdrew on the date Justice Greenberg sentenced her for murder. William's was a Pyrrhic victory
however. To pay her exorbitant legal costs Daisy had to hock all her assets. She was declared insolvent and was eventually buried in a prison pauper's grave.
, South Africa. She was one of eleven children. When she was twelve, she went to Bulawayo
, Rhodesia
(now Zimbabwe
) to live with her father and two of her brothers. Three years later, she became a boarder at the Good Hope Seminary School in Cape Town
. She returned to Rhodesia in 1903, but apparently found rural life unexciting, because it was not long before she returned to South Africa and enrolled at the Berea Nursing Home in Durban
.
On one of her holidays in Rhodesia, she met and fell in love with a young man named Bert Fuller who was a civil servant in the Native Affairs Department at Broken Hill. They planned to marry in October 1907. However, Fuller contracted blackwater fever
and died, with Daisy at his bedside, on the very day they had planned to marry. Fuller left a will bequeathing £100 to his fiancée.
In March 1909, about eighteen months after the death of Bert Fuller, Daisy married William Alfred Cowle, a plumber, in Johannesburg
. She was 23 and he was 36. The couple had five children, four of whom died. The first were twins, who died in infancy; their third child died of an abscess on the liver; and the fourth suffered convulsions and bowel trouble and died at the age of 15 months. Their last, and only surviving child, Rhodes Cecil, was born in June 1911.
mixture. But Cowle's condition deteriorated rapidly. Not long after the doctor had left, he took a turn for the worse. His wife summoned the neighbors to help and called for another doctor. Cowle was in excruciating pain when the second doctor arrived. He foamed at the mouth, was blue in the face, and screamed in agony if anyone touched him, until he died.
Faced with these symptoms, the second doctor suspected strychnine
poison
ing and refused to sign the death certificate
. A postmortem was subsequently performed by the acting District Surgeon, Dr. Fergus. The cause of death was certified to be chronic
nephritis
and cerebral hemorrhage. Daisy Cowle, the sole beneficiary of her husband's will, inherited £1795.
similar to those experienced by William Cowle, but he recovered. A few weeks later, he suffered a second fatal attack after drinking some beer
in the company of his wife and stepson, Rhodes. He died on 6 November 1927. Dr. Mallinick, the attending physician
, certified that the cause of death was arteriosclerosis
and cerebral hemorrhage. No autopsy
was performed. Following Robert Sproat's death, his widow inherited over £4000, plus a further £560 paid by his pension fund.
.
Late in February 1932, de Melker had traveled from Germiston on the East Rand
to Turffontein, to obtain arsenic from a chemist
. She used her former name, Sproat, and claimed that she required the poison
to destroy a sick cat
. Less than a week later, on 2 March 1932, Rhodes took ill at work after drinking coffee from a thermos flask which his mother had prepared for him. A fellow worker, James Webster, also become violently sick. Webster, who had drunk very little of the coffee
, recovered within a few days, but Rhodes died at home at midday on 5 March. A postmortem followed and the cause of death was given as cerebral malaria. Rhodes was buried at New Brixton cemetery the following day.
On 1 April, de Melker received £100 from Rhodes' life insurance policy.
Rhodes seems to have been under the impression that he would come into an inheritance at the age of 21. One theory is that he was demanding more than Daisy could give him and was becoming a burden to her. The most obvious answer is that she simply didn't like him and that he was a disappointment to her. She had pampered him all his life, but he rarely showed her any consideration in return.
The first body to be removed was that of Rhodes Cowle. The corpse was found to be in an unusually good state of preservation, which is characteristic of the presence of arsenic
in large quantities. A state forensic pathologist
was able to isolate traces of arsenic in the viscera, backbone
and hair
. Although the bodies of William Cowle and Robert Sproat were largely decomposed, traces of strychnine
were found in the vertebrae of each man. Their bones also had a pinkish discoloration, suggesting that the men had taken pink strychnine, which was common at the time.
Traces of arsenic were also found in the hair and fingernails of James Webster, Rhodes' colleague who had survived.
A week later, the police arrested De Melker and charged her with the murder
of all three men. Public interest in the De Melker case grew, and the newspapers gave the story a great deal of coverage. The Turffontein chemist from whom she had bought the arsenic that killed her son, recognized De Melker from a newspaper photograph as being "Mrs D.L. Sproat", who had signed the poisons register, and went to the police.
The De Melker trial lasted thirty days. Sixty witnesses were called for the Crown
and less than half this number for the defense
. To present the forensic evidence, the Crown employed the services of Dr. J.M. Watt, an expert toxicologist and Professor of Pharmacology at the Witwatersrand University. In summing up, before giving his verdict, the judge
pointed out that the Crown had been unable to prove conclusively that Cowle and Sproat had died of strychnine poisoning. "It does not convince me, nor does it convict the accused," he said.
On the third count, however, he had come to the "inescapable conclusion" that De Melker had murdered her son. This was evident because:
When the judge finally turned to pass sentence on de Melker, her face whitened but she still proclaimed her innocence.
Daisy de Melker (aged 46 years) was condemned to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on the morning of 30 December 1932 at Pretoria Central Prison
.
, and has entered popular myth
. If a door blew shut in the wind they would say "it was the ghost of Daisy de Melker". If a child's hair was unkempt and wild, they said "you look like Daisy de Melker".
Rumour has it that De Melker's spirit haunts Ward 7 of the Transvaal Children's Hospital (now the Florence Transition Home) in Braamfontein
. It is here that she worked as a nurse and learned about poisons.
In 1934, Sarah Gertrude Millin wrote the novel "Three Men Died," based on the de Melker case.
In 1993, a television mini-series was made about Daisy de Melker, with Susan Coetzer in the title role.
In September 2005, a drag
musical "Daisy's Well Hung" starring Robert Coleman as "Daisy" was staged at the Women's Jail on Constitution Hill
in Johannesburg, where de Melker had been imprisoned prior to her hanging. This show attempted to transform the dour figure of De Melker into a poltergeist
of a husband-killing femme fatale
.
Strychnine
Strychnine is a highly toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion...
for their life insurance while living in Germiston in the central Transvaal
Transvaal Province
Transvaal Province was a province of the Union of South Africa from 1910 to 1961, and of its successor, the Republic of South Africa, from 1961 until the end of apartheid in 1994 when a new constitution subdivided it.-History:...
(now Gauteng
Gauteng
Gauteng is one of the nine provinces of South Africa. It was formed from part of the old Transvaal Province after South Africa's first all-race elections on 27 April 1994...
), and then poisoned her only son with arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
for reasons which are still unclear. She is historically the second woman to have been hanged
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.
Daisy de Melker was accused of three murders but was only convicted of one, that of killing her son. The charges of poisoning her husbands were never proved in a court of law. It was William Sproat, the younger brother of her second husband, who fingered her because he wanted Robert Sproat's will in favour of Daisy declared invalid. Daisy refused to refund an alleged loan from Mrs Jane Sproat, Robert's mother, to Robert; she regarded it as a gift and argued that it was not stipulated in the will as a loan.
William Sproat won the civil case regarding the will, which ran concurrently with the murder trial, and was awarded costs. Daisy withdrew on the date Justice Greenberg sentenced her for murder. William's was a Pyrrhic victory
Pyrrhic victory
A Pyrrhic victory is a victory with such a devastating cost to the victor that it carries the implication that another such victory will ultimately cause defeat.-Origin:...
however. To pay her exorbitant legal costs Daisy had to hock all her assets. She was declared insolvent and was eventually buried in a prison pauper's grave.
Early life
Daisy Hancorn-Smith was born at Seven Fountains near GrahamstownGrahamstown
Grahamstown is a city in the Eastern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa and is the seat of the Makana municipality. The population of greater Grahamstown, as of 2003, was 124,758. The population of the surrounding areas, including the actual city was 41,799 of which 77.4% were black,...
, South Africa. She was one of eleven children. When she was twelve, she went to Bulawayo
Bulawayo
Bulawayo is the second largest city in Zimbabwe after the capital Harare, with an estimated population in 2010 of 2,000,000. It is located in Matabeleland, 439 km southwest of Harare, and is now treated as a separate provincial area from Matabeleland...
, Rhodesia
Rhodesia
Rhodesia , officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state located in southern Africa that existed between 1965 and 1979 following its Unilateral Declaration of Independence from the United Kingdom on 11 November 1965...
(now Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...
) to live with her father and two of her brothers. Three years later, she became a boarder at the Good Hope Seminary School in Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
. She returned to Rhodesia in 1903, but apparently found rural life unexciting, because it was not long before she returned to South Africa and enrolled at the Berea Nursing Home in Durban
Durban
Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...
.
On one of her holidays in Rhodesia, she met and fell in love with a young man named Bert Fuller who was a civil servant in the Native Affairs Department at Broken Hill. They planned to marry in October 1907. However, Fuller contracted blackwater fever
Blackwater fever
Blackwater fever is a complication of malaria in which red blood cells burst in the bloodstream , releasing hemoglobin directly into the blood vessels and into the urine, frequently leading to kidney failure...
and died, with Daisy at his bedside, on the very day they had planned to marry. Fuller left a will bequeathing £100 to his fiancée.
In March 1909, about eighteen months after the death of Bert Fuller, Daisy married William Alfred Cowle, a plumber, in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
. She was 23 and he was 36. The couple had five children, four of whom died. The first were twins, who died in infancy; their third child died of an abscess on the liver; and the fourth suffered convulsions and bowel trouble and died at the age of 15 months. Their last, and only surviving child, Rhodes Cecil, was born in June 1911.
First murder: William Cowle (first husband)
Early on the morning of 11 January 1923, William Cowle became ill soon after taking epsom salts prepared by his wife. The first doctor who attended him did not consider his condition to be serious and prescribed a bromideBromide
A bromide is a chemical compound containing bromide ion, that is bromine atom with effective charge of −1. The class name can include ionic compounds such as caesium bromide or covalent compounds such as sulfur dibromide.-Natural occurrence:...
mixture. But Cowle's condition deteriorated rapidly. Not long after the doctor had left, he took a turn for the worse. His wife summoned the neighbors to help and called for another doctor. Cowle was in excruciating pain when the second doctor arrived. He foamed at the mouth, was blue in the face, and screamed in agony if anyone touched him, until he died.
Faced with these symptoms, the second doctor suspected strychnine
Strychnine
Strychnine is a highly toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion...
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....
ing and refused to sign the death certificate
Death certificate
The phrase death certificate can describe either a document issued by a medical practitioner certifying the deceased state of a person or popularly to a document issued by a person such as a registrar of vital statistics that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death as later...
. A postmortem was subsequently performed by the acting District Surgeon, Dr. Fergus. The cause of death was certified to be chronic
Chronic (medicine)
A chronic disease is a disease or other human health condition that is persistent or long-lasting in nature. The term chronic is usually applied when the course of the disease lasts for more than three months. Common chronic diseases include asthma, cancer, diabetes and HIV/AIDS.In medicine, the...
nephritis
Nephritis
Nephritis is inflammation of the nephrons in the kidneys. The word "nephritis" was imported from Latin, which took it from Greek: νεφρίτιδα. The word comes from the Greek νεφρός - nephro- meaning "of the kidney" and -itis meaning "inflammation"....
and cerebral hemorrhage. Daisy Cowle, the sole beneficiary of her husband's will, inherited £1795.
Second murder: Robert Sproat (second husband)
At the age of thirty-six, and three years to the day after the death of her first husband, Daisy Cowle married another plumber. His name was Robert Sproat and was ten years her senior. In October 1927, Robert Sproat became violently ill. He was in great agony and suffered severe muscle spasmsSpasm
In medicine a spasm is a sudden, involuntary contraction of a muscle, a group of muscles, or a hollow organ, or a similarly sudden contraction of an orifice. It is sometimes accompanied by a sudden burst of pain, but is usually harmless and ceases after a few minutes...
similar to those experienced by William Cowle, but he recovered. A few weeks later, he suffered a second fatal attack after drinking some beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
in the company of his wife and stepson, Rhodes. He died on 6 November 1927. Dr. Mallinick, the attending physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, certified that the cause of death was arteriosclerosis
Arteriosclerosis
Arteriosclerosis refers to a stiffening of arteries.Arteriosclerosis is a general term describing any hardening of medium or large arteries It should not be confused with "arteriolosclerosis" or "atherosclerosis".Also known by the name "myoconditis" which is...
and cerebral hemorrhage. No autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
was performed. Following Robert Sproat's death, his widow inherited over £4000, plus a further £560 paid by his pension fund.
Third murder: Rhodes Cecil Cowle (son)
On 21 January 1931, Daisy Sproat married for the third time. Her husband was a widower, Sydney Clarence de Melker, who like her previous two husbands, was a plumberPlumber
A plumber is a tradesperson who specializes in installing and maintaining systems used for potable water, sewage, and drainage in plumbing systems. The term dates from ancient times, and is related to the Latin word for lead, "plumbum." A person engaged in fixing metaphorical "leaks" may also be...
.
Late in February 1932, de Melker had traveled from Germiston on the East Rand
East Rand, Gauteng
The East Rand is the name of the urban eastern part of the Witwatersrand that is functionally merged with the Johannesburg conurbation...
to Turffontein, to obtain arsenic from a chemist
Pharmacist
Pharmacists are allied health professionals who practice in pharmacy, the field of health sciences focusing on safe and effective medication use...
. She used her former name, Sproat, and claimed that she required 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....
to destroy a sick cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
. Less than a week later, on 2 March 1932, Rhodes took ill at work after drinking coffee from a thermos flask which his mother had prepared for him. A fellow worker, James Webster, also become violently sick. Webster, who had drunk very little of the coffee
Coffee
Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...
, recovered within a few days, but Rhodes died at home at midday on 5 March. A postmortem followed and the cause of death was given as cerebral malaria. Rhodes was buried at New Brixton cemetery the following day.
On 1 April, de Melker received £100 from Rhodes' life insurance policy.
Reasoning behind her son's murder
At the time of his death, Daisy de Melker's only son Rhodes Cowle was 20. His sister in law, Eileen De Melker, thought him lazy and remarked that he was often unwilling to get up for work in the morning. However, another witness at his mother's trial described him as "bright and conscientious" and a "real gentleman". Certainly the evidence conflicted, but none of it explained why Daisy de Melker decided to kill Rhodes. In the case of her first two husbands, the motive seemed clearly to be financial gain.Rhodes seems to have been under the impression that he would come into an inheritance at the age of 21. One theory is that he was demanding more than Daisy could give him and was becoming a burden to her. The most obvious answer is that she simply didn't like him and that he was a disappointment to her. She had pampered him all his life, but he rarely showed her any consideration in return.
Arrest, trial and execution
By this time, William Sproat, Daisy de Melker's second dead husband's brother, had become suspicious and these suspicions were conveyed to the authorities. On 15 April 1932, the police obtained a court order permitting them to exhume the bodies of Rhodes Cowle, Robert Sproat and William Cowle.The first body to be removed was that of Rhodes Cowle. The corpse was found to be in an unusually good state of preservation, which is characteristic of the presence of arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
in large quantities. A state forensic pathologist
Forensic pathology
Forensic pathology is a branch of pathology concerned with determining the cause of death by examination of a corpse. The autopsy is performed by the pathologist at the request of a coroner or medical examiner usually during the investigation of criminal law cases and civil law cases in some...
was able to isolate traces of arsenic in the viscera, backbone
Vertebral column
In human anatomy, the vertebral column is a column usually consisting of 24 articulating vertebrae, and 9 fused vertebrae in the sacrum and the coccyx. It is situated in the dorsal aspect of the torso, separated by intervertebral discs...
and hair
Hair
Hair is a filamentous biomaterial, that grows from follicles found in the dermis. Found exclusively in mammals, hair is one of the defining characteristics of the mammalian class....
. Although the bodies of William Cowle and Robert Sproat were largely decomposed, traces of strychnine
Strychnine
Strychnine is a highly toxic , colorless crystalline alkaloid used as a pesticide, particularly for killing small vertebrates such as birds and rodents. Strychnine causes muscular convulsions and eventually death through asphyxia or sheer exhaustion...
were found in the vertebrae of each man. Their bones also had a pinkish discoloration, suggesting that the men had taken pink strychnine, which was common at the time.
Traces of arsenic were also found in the hair and fingernails of James Webster, Rhodes' colleague who had survived.
A week later, the police arrested De Melker and charged her with the murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
of all three men. Public interest in the De Melker case grew, and the newspapers gave the story a great deal of coverage. The Turffontein chemist from whom she had bought the arsenic that killed her son, recognized De Melker from a newspaper photograph as being "Mrs D.L. Sproat", who had signed the poisons register, and went to the police.
The De Melker trial lasted thirty days. Sixty witnesses were called for the Crown
The Crown
The Crown is a corporation sole that in the Commonwealth realms and any provincial or state sub-divisions thereof represents the legal embodiment of governance, whether executive, legislative, or judicial...
and less than half this number for the defense
Defense (legal)
In civil proceedings and criminal prosecutions under the common law, a defendant may raise a defense in an attempt to avoid criminal or civil liability...
. To present the forensic evidence, the Crown employed the services of Dr. J.M. Watt, an expert toxicologist and Professor of Pharmacology at the Witwatersrand University. In summing up, before giving his verdict, the judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
pointed out that the Crown had been unable to prove conclusively that Cowle and Sproat had died of strychnine poisoning. "It does not convince me, nor does it convict the accused," he said.
On the third count, however, he had come to the "inescapable conclusion" that De Melker had murdered her son. This was evident because:
- Rhodes Cowle had died of arsenic poisoning
- The coffee flask held traces of arsenic
- The accused had put the arsenic into the flask
- The defense of suicideSuicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
was untenable
When the judge finally turned to pass sentence on de Melker, her face whitened but she still proclaimed her innocence.
Daisy de Melker (aged 46 years) was condemned to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on the morning of 30 December 1932 at Pretoria Central Prison
Pretoria
Pretoria is a city located in the northern part of Gauteng Province, South Africa. It is one of the country's three capital cities, serving as the executive and de facto national capital; the others are Cape Town, the legislative capital, and Bloemfontein, the judicial capital.Pretoria is...
.
Daisy de Melker in popular culture
De Melker has become somewhat of a South African iconIcon
An icon is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, from Eastern Christianity and in certain Eastern Catholic churches...
, and has entered popular myth
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
. If a door blew shut in the wind they would say "it was the ghost of Daisy de Melker". If a child's hair was unkempt and wild, they said "you look like Daisy de Melker".
Rumour has it that De Melker's spirit haunts Ward 7 of the Transvaal Children's Hospital (now the Florence Transition Home) in Braamfontein
Braamfontein
Braamfontein is a central suburb of Johannesburg, in South Africa. It is well located, straddling Jan Smuts Avenue and Empire Road. The Nelson Mandela bridge is a landmark that connects Braamfontein to the city...
. It is here that she worked as a nurse and learned about poisons.
In 1934, Sarah Gertrude Millin wrote the novel "Three Men Died," based on the de Melker case.
In 1993, a television mini-series was made about Daisy de Melker, with Susan Coetzer in the title role.
In September 2005, a drag
Drag (clothing)
Drag is used for any clothing carrying symbolic significance but usually referring to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender. The origin of the term "drag" is unknown, but it may have originated in Polari, a gay street argot in England in the early...
musical "Daisy's Well Hung" starring Robert Coleman as "Daisy" was staged at the Women's Jail on Constitution Hill
Constitution Hill
Constitution Hill may refer to:*Constitution Hill, New South Wales, Australia*Constitution Hill, Aberystwyth*Constitution Hill, Birmingham*Constitution Hill, London*Constitution Hill, Swansea*Constitution Hill, Johannesburg, South Africa...
in Johannesburg, where de Melker had been imprisoned prior to her hanging. This show attempted to transform the dour figure of De Melker into a poltergeist
Poltergeist
A poltergeist is a paranormal phenomenon which consists of events alluding to the manifestation of an imperceptible entity. Such manifestation typically includes inanimate objects moving or being thrown about, sentient noises and, on some occasions, physical attacks on those witnessing the...
of a husband-killing femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
.