Sydney Morning Herald (NSW : 1842 - 1954), Thursday 9 July 1953, page 1


WOMAN IS

CHARGED

Four Murders

Alleged

Detectives last night charged a 63-year-old woman with having murdered four people — three elderly women and a man — and with having attempted to murder another man, all with thallium poison.

The woman is Mrs. Carolina Grills, of Gerrish Street, Gladesville. She was charged at Central Police Station last night.

DETAILS OF THE CHARGES

Mrs. Grills was

charged with the murder

of:

. Mrs. Christina Louisa Adelaide Mickelson, 87, of Sydney, on November 30,

1947.

. Mrs. Angelina Thomas, 84, widow, of Rawson Parade, Leura, on January 17, 1948.

. Mrs. Mary Anne Mickelson, about 60, widow, of Sydney, on Feb-ruary 15, 1949.

. John Lundberg, 67, of Sydney, on October 17,

1948.

She was also charged with the attempted murder of John Downey, 50, of Sydney, on or about April 22, 1953.

AWAITS TRIAL

Mrs. Grills is at present on remand on charges of having administered thal-lium poison with intent to murder Mrs. Evelyn Lund-berg, 67, and her daughter, Mrs. Christina Downey, 40.

Detective-Sergeant D. Ferguson and Detective F. Krahe arrested her on May 11 this year on these charges.

She appeared at Central Police Court on May 12,

and was remanded on £1,000 bail to June 10. She was then further re-manded until July 21.

It is believed that Mrs. Christina Mickelson was the mother-in-law of Mrs. Mary Mickelson, that John Lundberg was the husband of Mrs. Evelyn Lundberg, and John Downey was the husband of their daughter, Mrs. Christina Downey.

Police exhumed the body of Mrs. Thomas from the Church of England section of the Katoomba cemetery on June 10 this year. She had been buried since Janu-ary, 1948. Her grave was covered with bracken fern and weeds.

Her remains were sent to

Sydney for examination by the Government Analyst, Dr. H. B. Taylor.

EXHUMED

Mrs. Thomas was the first of the four to be ex-humed. Her body was re-interred the next day.

Police said that two of the other three were cre-mated.

Detectives and gravediggers exhumed the re-maining body from a Syd-ney cemetery.

LAUGHED WHEN CHARGED

Detective-Sergeant Fer-gusson and Detective Krahe, accompanied by police-woman M. Fisher, drove to Mrs. Grills's home at Gladesville early yesterday afternoon.

They arrested her and brought her back to the

ZONE C

The Electricity Com-missioner, Mr. H. G. Conde, said last night that metropolitan black-outs to-day should be confined to the rostered Zone C.

C.I.B., where detectives in-terviewed her for several hours.

She was then taken to

Central police station, where she was charged.

Mrs. Grills, who is short and plump, joked and

laughed with police while she was being charged.

She was dressed in a pale green frock, fawn coat,

brown hat and shoes.

While she was waiting in

the dock to be charged, a detective handed her a small stool on which to sit.

HUSBAND THERE

During the reading of the charges, Mrs. Grills's hus-band, a city businessman, accompanied by Mrs. Grills's sister and her hus-band, entered the charge

room.

As they walked across the room, Mrs. Grills smiled and extended her arms to-wards Mr. Grills.

They spoke together for a few moments before the

reading of the charges was continued.

Throughout the reading, Mrs. Grills laughed fre-quently.

When the charges were completed, a policewoman removed Mrs. Grills' ear-rings and necklace before she was led away to the

cells.

Mr. Grills was later allowed to see his wife for a few minutes.

Bail was refused and Mrs. Grills remained all night in

the cells.

She will appear at Central Police Court to-day.