Caroline Grills was the relative who brought the tea. She often visited her in-laws and friends, made tea for them and baked cakes and biscuits, and to her extended family she was "Aunty Carrie." In May 1953 she was arrested and charged with trying to kill two of those relatives with thallium, the poison then used in rat bait. Police went on to charge her with four murders and another attempted murder. Only one charge went to trial. On October 15, 1953, she was found guilty in the Central Criminal Court of the attempted murder of her sister-in-law, and she was sentenced to death.
Her appeal failed in April 1954, and the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. She spent about six and a half years at the State Reformatory for Women and died in October 1960. No court ever decided whether she caused any of the four deaths she was charged with. Stephen Garton, who wrote her entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, called her an enigma.
She was born Caroline Mickelson, probably in 1888, at Balmain in Sydney. Her father was a laborer, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography. The year is probable; her exact date of birth is not known.
On April 22, 1908, at the district registrar's office in Balmain South, she married a laborer named Grills. Her father gave his consent to the marriage. The couple had five sons and a daughter. Two of the sons died. One of them caught typhoid while working as a lifesaver at Maroubra beach; how the other died is not known.
The family lived in a series of rented houses in the city and the Randwick area, and in time her husband worked as a real estate agent. Her father died in 1948. She inherited his home at Gladesville and moved into it.
Garton describes her as short and dumpy, with thick-rimmed glasses, a matronly figure who did the things a favorite aunt was expected to do. She was a frequent visitor in the homes of her husband's relatives and of family friends, and the visits followed a pattern: she made the tea, and she brought cakes and biscuits.
Thallium was sold as a rat poison, and in the early 1950s it was easy to get. Rats were a serious public health problem in Sydney, and rat poison was readily bought, a point made in a review in The Conversation of Tanya Bretherton's 2021 book The Husband Poisoner, which profiles women who used thallium. The review described thallium as highly toxic and indiscriminate, killing insects, rats and people alike.
By 1953 Sydney was in the grip of what the Australian Dictionary of Biography calls a thallium panic. From March 1952 until Grills's arrest there were 46 reported cases of thallium poisoning in Sydney, ten of them fatal. More cases came to light in the months after her arrest, among them one involving a prominent footballer. The Conversation review refers to several high-profile cases and prosecutions in the 1950s.
Her sister-in-law and the sister-in-law's daughter lived in Redfern. Both fell ill with thallium poisoning. Both recovered when Grills did not visit, according to Garton's account. Who first suspected her, and how the poison was first detected, is not known.
Grills was arrested on May 11, 1953, and charged with attempting to murder her sister-in-law and the sister-in-law's daughter by administering thallium. The police investigation widened after the arrest. She was charged with four murders and one more attempted murder. All of the people named in those charges were in-laws, except one, a friend of her mother.
Police speculated that the poisoning had begun in 1947, with the death of her stepmother. The bodies of two of the people she was charged with killing were exhumed, and traces of thallium were found. The detectives believed they had a strong circumstantial case on the murder charges, Garton writes, but the Crown went ahead only with the original charge of attempting to murder her sister-in-law.
The four deaths were therefore never tested in court. Grills was not convicted of murder, and the allegations that she poisoned her stepmother, the family friend and her in-laws remained allegations.
The trial was held in the Central Criminal Court in Sydney in October 1953. Grills said she was innocent. She claimed that the police had pressured her relatives into giving evidence that would convict her, and she told the court that she had "helped to live, not kill."
Her manner in the dock worked against her. She broke into laughter at times during the hearing, and those outbursts, in Garton's assessment, strengthened the view of her as a malevolent killer.
On October 15, 1953, she was found guilty of the attempted murder of her sister-in-law and sentenced to death.
Grills appealed. The Court of Criminal Appeal of New South Wales dismissed the appeal in April 1954. The death sentence was then commuted to life imprisonment. The date of the commutation is not known.
She was admitted to the State Reformatory for Women, where she spent about six and a half years. Within the family she had been "Aunty Carrie"; to the public she became "Aunt Thally."
In October 1960 she was rushed to Prince Henry Hospital in Sydney. She died there of peritonitis on October 6, 1960. She was cremated with Anglican rites. Her husband, her daughter and three of her sons survived her.
The question of why she did it, if she did, was left open. Garton writes that the envy, anger or revenge that might have driven her can only be guessed at. He found her case unsettling because she did what favorite aunts were supposed to do, serving tea and cakes.
The record supports a narrow legal finding: the court found that she tried to murder her sister-in-law with thallium. The four murder charges, the second attempted-murder charge from May 1953 and the further attempted-murder charge were not pursued to trial, and no verdict was given on them. The police theory that the poisonings began with her stepmother's death in 1947, and the exhumation findings in two of the deaths, were never put to a jury as murder counts.
The four deaths: Grills was charged with four murders, but the Crown did not take any of them to trial. They are allegations, and no court ruled on them.
The start date: the claim that the poisoning began in 1947 with her stepmother's death was a police theory, described by Garton as speculation.
The number of victims: The Conversation review of Bretherton's book refers to "her four victims." That count rests on police charges, not on any finding of a court.
Motive: no motive was established. Garton's account offers only possibilities, and no property motive for any death has been established.
1888 (probable): Caroline Mickelson is born at Balmain, Sydney.
April 22, 1908: she marries at Balmain South.
1947: according to police, the poisonings begin with the death of her stepmother (alleged; never tried).
1948: her father dies; she inherits his home at Gladesville and moves in.
March 1952 to May 1953: 46 reported thallium poisoning cases in Sydney, ten of them fatal.
Before May 1953: her sister-in-law and the sister-in-law's daughter, of Redfern, suffer thallium poisoning; both recover when she does not visit.
May 11, 1953: Grills is arrested and charged with the attempted murder of the two women.
After the arrest: she is further charged with four murders and another attempted murder; two bodies are exhumed and traces of thallium are found.
October 1953: trial in the Central Criminal Court on one count, the attempted murder of her sister-in-law.
October 15, 1953: found guilty and sentenced to death.
April 1954: the Court of Criminal Appeal dismisses her appeal.
After the appeal: the death sentence is commuted to life imprisonment; she serves about six and a half years at the State Reformatory for Women.
October 6, 1960: dies of peritonitis at Prince Henry Hospital, Sydney.