Dorothea Waddingham
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Dorothea Nancy Waddingham (1899 - 1936) was a nursing home matron and convicted murderer in the United Kingdom.
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[edit] Murders
She was tried by Judge Rayner Goddard[1] and convicted of using morphine to poison two patients: 89 year old Mrs. Baguely and her daughter Ada Baguely. The purported motive behind the murders was to gain the Baguelys' estate, which amounted to ₤1600. After a post-mortem of the patients revealed they had been given morphine contrary to medical orders, she and her husband, Ronald Joseph Sullivan, were arrested. In trial, Sullivan was discharged for insufficient evidence. Waddingham, however, was convicted and hanged in 1936, having confessed to the crime shortly before her execution[2].
[edit] Popular culture
The execution is dramatised in the 2005 film Pierrepoint, in which Waddingham is played by the actress Elizabeth Hopley.
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.real-crime.co.uk/Murder1/JUDGE.HTML
- ^ News | List of highlighted files, with notes by Sara Wajid