The City Coroner would normally have taken the lead in a case where multiple victims of one perpetrator had come to the attention of two neighbouring authorities. But both coroners had agreed with Dewey that, in this instance, it would be beneficial to have two courts on the case, creating a greater possibility of sustaining a conviction.
At the Victoria tavern in St Philip’s Marsh, Mr Wadborough conducted the inquest into the deaths of Elizabeth Thomas (Bessie), and Evalina Townsend, on behalf of the city. He drew attention to the fact that both infants had been nursed primarily by the woman Dyer, and that two others had died in her care. While carefully instructing the court to consider only the cases brought before them, he added, “The fact of all the children appearing to suffer in the same way, and being instructed into the care of other people when they appeared to be dying, is very remarkable.”
Mr Biggs, the County Coroner, held his inquest at the Turnpike Inn, a small coaching inn on the Bath Road in Totterdown. Biggs shared Wadborough’s gravity:
It is idle to disguise that this enquiry into one child opens up a very wide question as to the deaths of many children placed under the charge of this woman Dyer.
Bristol Times & Mirror, 25 August 1879
To the consternation of the court, Sergeant Dewey took the stand at the commencement of the proceedings, announcing that Mrs Dyer had just now taken an overdose of laudanum and was lying, near death, at the house in Poole’s Crescent.
Suicide was a criminal offence under nineteenth-century British law. Those found guilty of a genuine attempt to bring about their own death were frequently imprisoned. The coroner was highly disgruntled to learn that the woman already accused of criminal misdemeanour had been permitted by the local constabulary to carry out this latest offence.
“Did she do it with criminal intent?” Mr Biggs asked Dewey.
“Oh, yes. I took the bottles out of her pocket not long ago.”
Mr Biggs was noticeably irritated by this inconvenient turn of events. “We shall not be able to conclude this inquiry without her evidence.”
The coroner was at pains to make sure the sergeant realized his duty to the court: it was his responsibility to see to it that the woman be kept in his charge, and kept alive, until able to take the stand. “What course do you propose to take? If the enquiry adjourned I should hold you answerable for producing her.”
Sergeant Dewey shamefacedly accepted his charge, assuring Mr Biggs he would take the woman into police custody on the charge of attempted suicide.
The foreman of the jury, a Mr Parfitt, was moved to speak out in Sergeant Dewey’s defence: he was a Totterdown man, familiar with and supportive of his local sergeant. He wasn’t happy with the coroner’s implied accusations of ineptitude. After all, Dewey had not yet had time to take decisive action. “It is only within the last hour and a half that she has done this.”
Mr Biggs took a moment to consider the matter, before turning again to face the police sergeant before him. “Supposing no fatal consequences ensue, you will produce her at the adjourned inquiry, I assume?”
“Most decidedly.”
Satisfied, Mr Biggs then called for the jury to proceed to 14 Poole’s Crescent to view the body of the deceased child. He accompanied them, determined to see for himself the woman Dyer in order to ascertain her chances of survival.
When the inquest was reconvened later that same day, Mr Biggs was struck by the cunning shown by Dyer in her attempts to disguise her part in these deaths. By ensuring that the fast-failing infants were put out to nurse within the city boundaries, and thereafter insisting these women register the deaths with the city registrar, Dyer had moved beyond the reach of the Somerset administration in which she lived; she had “apparently thrown dust into the eyes of the authorities”. This, combined with the secrecy with which she had conducted herself, left him in “no moral doubt that these children were hurried to their grave by improper food and drugging”.
The problem was proving it. It could not be stated with certainty that Dyer had drugged the child May after Mrs Williams had taken her into her care: a verdict of manslaughter required that they show some direct act on the part of the woman. He told the court,
It is true that general neglect, incompetence and carelessness might constitute a criminal charge, but that has not been shown to such an extent as to justify the hope that if sent for trial there would be a conviction … so far as this case is concerned we are powerless to deal with one of the worst matters that has ever come under my notice. It is perfectly clear this woman’s establishment has simply been an infant’s hell, and if ever the inscription the Italians spoke of in connection with another region should be inscribed anywhere, it should be placed here. “All hope abandon ye who enter here.” This is baby-farming in its worst and most vile aspect.
With obvious regret, Mr Biggs told the jury that he was obliged to tell them the same as his esteemed colleague Mr Wadborough had done the previous day. They would have to return an open verdict. However, proceedings could be taken out against her for acting in breach of the 1872 Infant Life Protection Act, by whose terms a nurse was not permitted to care for more than one infant under the age of one year for longer than twenty-four hours, without first having registered the house with the police. Also following the death of an infant residing in such a baby farm, a keeper of such a house was obliged to bring the attention of the coroner to the death.
He addressed Mrs Williams in the strongest terms: “You have been residing on the edge of a precipice for some time without knowing it.”
After twenty minutes the jury returned their verdict, reluctantly affirming “that the deceased died from natural causes”, but appending the following rider: “The jury are of the opinion that Mrs Dyer, who had charge of the deceased, is deserving of severe censure for the manner in which the children under her care are treated.”
Sergeant Dewey, conscious of the coroner’s admonition of his accountability, had Dyer on twenty-four-hour watch until the moment came when the constabulary’s prison van, the Black Maria, could be sent to escort her to the Police Court at Long Ashton for trial on the morning of Tuesday 26 August 1879. Dewey must have breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the woman stepped into the van in driving rain, watched by a crowd of onlookers who had gathered, despite the storm. He had kept the woman alive and delivered her to the magistrate. His duty done, justice could now be served.
Dyer was remanded in police custody for three days, following an initial hearing. Then, on Friday 29 August, the magistrate Sir A. H. Elton heard her case at the Long Ashton Police Court petty sessions. Like the coroners before him, he took a grim view of Dyer’s crime. He was prepared to treat the attempted suicide with little more than a few stern words and an instruction for the prison chaplain to take a special interest in her soul. But in sentencing her on the graver matter of the infant deaths he said:
You have pleaded guilty to the commission of gross negligence, and the bench find it necessary to impose on you the highest penalty in their power, namely six months’ imprisonment with hard labour … that it may act as a warning to others. You have narrowly escaped standing there upon a much more serious charge, but we have no evidence before us as to how those infants came by their deaths, but there is very little doubt that you treated them with great negligence. I mention this that you may think it over in the hours now before you. You will be imprisoned in Shepton Mallet gaol.