Notorious murderer Daisy De Melker

SHE killed two husbands in cold blood, and then, still unchecked, killed her only child. She is Daisy de Melker, Johannesburg's most notorious criminal, and the second woman in the country to be hanged.

You'll learn about De Melker and other city ghosts in the Mystery Ghost Bus Tour, running the first and last weekend of the month, and end up exploring ghosts in the Braamfontein Cemetery.

De Melker's spirit still lingers in the city, in particular in Ward 7 of the Transvaal Children's Hospital (now the Florence Transition Home) in Braamfontein. It is there that she is believed to have learnt about poisons. She poisoned her first husband by putting strychnine in his Epsom Salts. She gave strychnine to her second husband, in a glass of beer. She gave arsenic in coffee to her son.

Her third husband, a plumber, unlike the previous two, was spared, not because she had stopped murdering, but because she was caught before she could murder again.

Florence Transition Home where it is said Daisy de Melker's spirit still roams

Why did De Melker do it? She stood to collect insurance money from her dead husbands - £1 795 from her first husband, William Cowle, to whom she was married for 14 years (they had five children, four of whom died); and £4 560 from Robert Sproat, to whom she was married 18 months.

So there's some mystery as to why she bumped off her only surviving son, as she wouldn't gain financially from his death. Speculation has it that he believed he would inherit money from her when he turned 21 - he was 20 when he died. Perhaps she didn't like the idea of giving him her money, or perhaps she simply didn't like him.

For that murder she tried to cover her tracks by going south to Turffontein to obtain arsenic from a chemist. She used her second married name, Sproat, and claimed that she needed the poison to destroy a sick cat. Her son, Rhodes Cowle, drank coffee laced with arsenic, from a thermos flask which his mother had prepared for him.

Rhodes took five days to die and a post mortem revealed he died of cerebral malaria. She got £100 from Rhodes' life insurance policy.

Her first husband had also had a post mortem, and the cause of death was certified as "chronic nephritis and cerebral haemorrhage". The post mortem was called for after the doctor suspected strychnine poisoning and refused to sign the death certificate.

The death certificate of her second husband reflected the cause of death as being "arteriosclerosis and cerebral haemorrhage", with no need for an autopsy.

But after her son's death, suspicions were aroused. The brother of her second husband, William Sproat, alerted the police, and the three bodies were exhumed. Although the bodies of Cowle and Sproat were largely decomposed, traces of strychnine were found in the bones of both. They also had a pinkish discolouration, suggestive of pink strychnine. Rhodes' body revealed traces of arsenic, particularly in his hair and spine. His body was also well-preserved, a sign of arsenic in large quantities.

De Melker was arrested a week later and taken to The Fort, and charged with the murder of all three men. The story hit the newspapers and the chemist who sold her the arsenic recognised her photograph, and went to the police with his evidence.

The trial lasted 30 days. The judge concluded that the State had been unable to prove conclusively that her husbands had died of strychnine, but agreed that Rhodes had died of arsenic poisoning - traces of the poison were found in the flask. Her defence, that her son committed suicide, was rejected.

When she was condemned to death, she paled, still claiming that she did not kill her son. On the morning of 30 December, 1932, at the age of 46, she was hanged in the Pretoria Central Prison, where it is believed her spirit still lingers.

There is one clue to her psychopathic behaviour: in 1907 at the age of 21, she became engaged to Bert Fuller but on the day of their marriage he contracted black water fever and died. She inherited £100 as his fiancé. Maybe she got hooked on the idea of inheriting money.

More ghosts
Another woman story you'll hear about on the tour is Bubbles Schroder, a good time girl who was murdered in 1949, under mysterious circumstances. Her killer was never found. It is believed her spirit haunts several houses in Sandton.

You'll also get to know about the Boksburg suitcase murder, where the murderer cut up the body - the head was found in Zoo Lake.

While at Zoo Lake you'll be given two dowsing sticks, and be asked to walk in a circle and observe what happens to your sticks.

You'll stop at Thomas Cullinan's house The View and learn about ghosts there. You'll be invited to have a drink or two in preparation for your visit to the cemetery - take up the invitation.

It makes for a fun evening, but wear a warm sweater so you don't get too chilly from the spine-chilling tales and ghost hunting.