The following story has many twists and turns and has been difficult to trace in a timeline with various marriages and children born. If anyone has any further details to add I would love to hear from you so that the story is told correctly.
Daily News Perth 7 March 1936, page 1
Sensational Disclosures at Inquest Likely
Sensational disclosures are expected at an inquest, resumed here today, into the death of Martin Hector Alexander McDonnell (36), who died at Yalgoo on January 14 1936. McDonnell’s body was exhumed from the Yalgoo Cemetery on February 1, following police inquiries, and the contents of the stomach were sent to Perth for examination by the Government Analyst Department.
Rose Marie Patricia Davis and Hector McDonnell
Happier Times – The wedding of Mrs Rose Marie Patricia Davis to Hector McDonnell in Fremantle WA in 1923. She is now accused of killing her husband.
Following the exhumation an inquest was opened and adjourned to today. Nineteen witnesses, including a member of the staff of the Government Analyst’s Department, will give evidence at the inquest. The Coroner (Col W. O. Mansbridge) is being assisted in the examination of witnesses by Detective-Sergeant P. Cameron, whose investigations in connection with the case have involved travelling 3000 miles. Mr. C. E. Stow, instructed by Messrs. J Alderfer and Stow, of Geraldton, is watching the interests of McDonnell’s widow, Rose Marie McDonnell. When the inquest was opened on February 1, evidence was given by two witnesses. Ernest John Taylor, a miner, said that he lived in Yalgoo from October 1935 until January 22, 1936. He was a lodger with McDonnell, and his wife and her child. McDonnell had no extended illness, he was ill from January 10 and died on January 14 at 1.20 p.m. Taylor was present when. he died.
The Mullewa Mail 18 Jan 1936 Page 1
The undertaker took possession of the body from the house. No doctor or nurse was called in. Taylor, he said, was unable to say from what McDonnell died. He had known McDonnell from two to two and a half years.
Body Exhumed
Edward Hope, blacksmith and undertaker, stated that he took possession of the body of McDonnell on January 15, having been shown it the previous day. McDonnell’s widow was present and said that it was the body of her husband. He was asked to make arrangements for the burial. Hope said that he personally placed the body in a coffin and conveyed it to the cemetery and placed it in a grave.
Ernest John Taylor who was also committed to trial for the murder of Hector Alexander McDonnell.
He again attended the cemetery on February 1 and assisted in exhuming the body by order of the Coroner. He subsequently identified the remains as those of Hector Alexander McDonnell. At the morgue, he left the body in charge of Dr. F. W. Cotton, Detective-Sergeant Cameron and Constable Campbell.
Daily News – Perth – 18 April 1936, page 1
A panel of 50 to choose
from for a jury of 12.
Fifty men have been summoned to attend the Criminal Court on Monday. From them will be chosen the 12 jurymen to decide the fate of Mrs Rose Marie McDonnell, who is charged with the willful murder of her husband, Hector Alexander McDonnell, at Yalgoo.
McDonnell, who was a railway repairer at Yalgoo, died on January 14 at Yalgoo. It is alleged that he was poisoned by his wife and a man named Ernest John Taylor, who lived at McDonnell’s house. So far there are 21 witnesses for the Crown listed, but it is likely that these will be added to. Mrs McDonnell will be defended by Mr F. Curran, who has been briefed that Taylor will be tried separately. It is probable that his trial will take place during the May sessions of the Supreme Court.
Both Rose and Taylor were subsequentially acquitted. No evidence was supplied by the defence and the jury only retired for 1/2hr before giving their verdict.
Daily Telegraph and North Murchison and Pilbara Gazette 16 October 1936
Woman in Yalgoo Case Gets New Husband
Banns have been declared for the intended marriage of Rose Marie McDonnell and John Forrest Jeffrey. Rose Marie McDonnell stood her trial on a charge of the murder of her husband earlier this year, Hector Alexander McDonnell, a railway line repairer, who died at his home in Yalgoo. She was acquitted, after a sensational trial, at the April sittings of the Criminal Court, in Perth. It was alleged against her that McDonnell’s death was due to poison administered by her.
Mrs Rose Marie McDonnell happily reunited with her bonny 11-year-old daughter Thelma after the Yalgoo widow had been freed from the willful murder charge against her.
Martin ‘Hector’ Alexander MCDONNELL was born in Leeds Yorkshire, England on 12th May 1900. He arrived in Fremantle WA in 1922 and was described as a farm worker. He was the eldest child of Alexander McDonnell and Ada nee Anson. He married Rose Marie Marie Davies in Fremantle WA in 1932.
Before her marriage to Hector, Rose had been previously married twice, first to Alfred Tuller in 1923 in Cottesloe WA, to whom she had one child, Thelma McDonnell Tuller, born 1924 in South Australia. They were not officially divorced until 1940. She then married Clarence Gilbert Gamlen in Kalgoorlie WA in 1931, she had one child to him, Ramon Clarence Gamlen, born in Kalgoorlie WA in 1929.
After she had been acquitted of the murder of her husband Hector McDonnell, Rose was to marry or have relationships with three more partners. Only a marriage to John Jeffrey was to be found. She had no further children to any of them. They were
John Francis JEFFREY married in Geraldton WA in 1936.
William James BAXTER married in Kattaning in 1940.
George Henry PEARCE (no marriage found).
Moya Sharp
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