The house where Daisy killed seeks new owner
Repo...@home.net
Johannesburg Sunday Times newspaper:
26 September 1999
The house where Daisy killed seeks new owner
NICKI PADAYACHEE
THE gracious home of South Africa's most infamous
murderess, Daisy de Melker, is up for sale.
The house, where the first woman to be hanged in South
Africa is said to have murdered two husbands and a
son, has been freshly painted and a "for sale" sign
hangs on the front gate.
One of Johannesburg's most notorious landmarks, the
White House - as it has always been known - seems to
stand aloof from its more modest middleclass
Turffontein neighbours.
A grand double-storey building situated over the road
from a sedate bowling club, it towers over the
surrounding houses.
The 14-roomed gabled home is on sale for an asking
price of R285 000.
Built in 1903, it is remarkably well-preserved, standing
much as it did when its notorious owner lived there.
The large bay windows and sunny voorkamer are typical
of the period in which they were built. The large rooms
still have their original pressed steel ceilings, brass
doorknobs on thick wooden doors, crystal light fittings
and pine floors, although these have been carpeted over.
The bathrooms and kitchen have been modernised
since De Melker's day, but it is still easy to imagine her
standing in the latter making cups of coffee laced with
arsenic and strychnine.
One can only wonder how many poisonous offerings
she took to the victims she was "nursing" in the upstairs
bedrooms.
The neighbourhood, however, has seen mixed fortunes
since De Melker's day and the house is one of the last
relics of a more glamorous era.
"Turffies is near the racecourse and used to be a very
elegant area - people had stables and horses," said the
estate agent commissioned to sell the house, Barbara
Knoth.
But it was now considered a high-risk area, and banks
no longer easily granted loans to prospective buyers,
she said.
Despite the White House's horrific associations, many
owners have lived there happily for long periods. One
woman, Doris Poland, lived there for 19 years.
"The really strange thing is that everybody who has lived
here and been here says it is a peaceful home," said
Knoth.
Its most notorious occupant poisoned two husbands
and a son to get her hands on their life insurance
money.
First married to William Cowle in 1909, De Melker
poisoned him with strychnine after 14 years of marriage
and five children.
The doctor who performed the autopsy said the cause of
death was chronic kidney failure and cerebral
haemorrhaging - an error on his part that was to let De
Melker believe that she could get away with it, and lead to
two more murders.
She killed her next husband, Robert Sproat, after a mere
22 months of marriage.
He died shortly after drinking a beer laced with
strychnine. Again doctors got it wrong, blaming Sproat's
death on his calcified arteries.
De Melker's third husband, Springbok rugby player
Sidney de Melker, escaped a similar fate because she
decided instead to murder Rhodes Cecil Cowle, her son
from her first marriage, whom she regarded as
promiscuous, irresponsible and lazy.
This time she used arsenic bought from a pharmacy a
long way from her house, telling the counter assistant
that she needed it to get rid of an irritating cat.
She mixed the poison in her son's coffee - and again the
autopsy missed the real cause of death.
The doctor said Cowle jnr had died of cerebral malaria.
But it was the last murder De Melker was to commit
because a family member became suspicious and
alerted the police to her interesting past.
After a marathon 90-day trial, Judge Greenberg found De
Melker guilty of murdering her son but ruled that there
was insufficient evidence to prove she had also killed
her husbands.
De Melker was executed on December 30 1932 - going
to her grave without showing remorse or admitting any
guilt.
And, besides what is written in history books, the only
tribute left to the infamous murderess is the unmissable
large white house on the corner.