In 1932 Dorothy Thorne was living in this rather modest home in Brierly Street Mosman, on Sydney’s Lower North Shore.
It must be the only home in the upmarket suburb not to have been remodeled or enlarged in the succeeding 90 plus years! Mind you, it’s still worth millions in our crazy housing market.
Thirty five year old Dorothy Thorne was the only and adored daughter of William Cropley, who had made a fortune by manufacturing boots. Her English born husband Reg was an engineer. He ran a successful garage in Military Road. The couple had a little girl called Joan, who was two and a half years old.
It was a somewhat unorthodox household, in that although Dorthy Thorne and her Husband were very comfortably off, they had a boarder, Afred Lockyer. Lockyer, also English born, was an aspiring artist who barely supporting himself by working as a gardener. He had met Reg Thorne while working in the area and the two Englishmen struck up a friendship. It seems that Lockyer was lonely and depressed over his struggle to find employment and in February 1932, Reg and Dorothy Thorne invited him to share their home. Another unusual thing was that the Thorne’s, who had been married for eight years, had separate bedrooms. Thorne would later explain that this was because he like to listen to the wireless, which disturbed his wife. It was also suggested that because Dorothy had been very ill when Joan was born, the couple did not want more children.
On July 4 1942, Reg Thorne was among the large crowd attending a boxing match at Sydney Stadium.
He returned home at around 11pm. Dorothy Thorne and the boarder were sitting in the lounge chatting about one of Lockyer’s paintings. Thorne said he had a headache and retired for the night after taking an APC tablet.
Alfred Lockyer was often the first in the Thorne household to get up. and would make tea and breakfast for the others. However, on July 5 it was Mrs Thorne who rose first. She took her little girl to her husband’s room and then made tea. She took a cup to Afred Lockyer’s room saying, ‘I have beaten you to it this morning.’
Dorothy Thorne was in the habit of taking a popular ‘pick-me-up’; Seidlitz Powders . They came in two separate sachets, to be mixed then consumed quickly while their effervescence lasted. Note the directions below. It seems there were fairly innocuous compared to the later, highly addictive Bex and A. P. C. powders of the 1950s and 60s.
Ten minutes later she returned and told the boarder that she had taken a Seidlitz powder that tasted very bitter, was lumpy and did not fizz much. She retrieved the glass and Lockyer tasted the dregs, which he said tasted like quinine.
Mrs Thorne rapidly became ill. She took a mustard emetic on the advice of Lockyer, and the doctor was called by her husband. Unfortunately her condition worsened and she died in the doctor’s car before they had driven more than a quarter of a mile. Dr Paulette had known Mrs Thorne virtually all her life and lived nearby.
Mrs Thorne was laid to rest in the Church of England section of the Northern Suburbs Cemetery.
Understandably, the dead woman’s husband and father were in a state of near collapse.
Shockingly, the death was found to be the result of poisoning by strychnine.
At the coronial inquest it was established that it was impossible for the poison to have introduced during manufacture. Someone had unwrapped one of the powders after purchase and ‘doctored’ it with enough strychnine to kill several people. No other trace of strychnine was found during a thorough search of the Thorne home.
There was not the slightest reason why Mrs Thorne might have taken her own life, particularly as she was so devoted to her little girl.
The coroner returned an open verdict, commenting that it was the most mysterious case he had experienced. He concluded by saying;
‘I intend to exclude the husband and the boarder…I have watched them carefully, and their whole attitude seems to point to nothing but innocence. I also exclude any idea of suicide. While I bring in an open verdict and the husband and friend are exonerated, the whole thing is enveloped in mystery, and no doubt the police, as well as myself, would be pleased if the mystery could be solved.’
Despite the coroner’s findings, one man felt that the police suspected him.
CONTINUED HERE