Caroline Grills

Caroline Grills (née Mickelson) (c.1888 in Balmain, New South Wales, Australia – 6 October 1960), was an Australian serial killer, whose modus operandi was poisoning her victims.

Biography

Grills was born to George Michelson and Mary (née Preiers) in Balmain, Sydney and married on 22 April 1908 to Richard William Grills, and had six children, five daughters and a son. She first became a murder suspect in 1947 after the deaths of four family members: her 87-year-old stepmother Christine Mickelson; relatives by marriage Angelina Thomas and John Lundberg; and sister in law Mary Anne Mickelson. Authorities tested tea she had given to two additional family members (Christine Downey and John Downey of Redfern) on 13 April 1953, and detected the common household rat poison, thallium.

Grills, a short woman who wore thick rimmed dark glasses, commonly served her friends and in-laws tea, cakes and biscuits, and lived in Gladesville, after the death of her father in 1948. She appeared in court charged with four murders and three attempted murders (the third being Eveline Lundberg, of Redfern, Christine Downey's mother) in October 1953. She was convicted on 15 October 1953 and sentenced to death, but her sentence was later changed to life in prison. She became affectionately known as "Aunt Thally" to other inmates of Sydney's Long Bay prison. In October 1960, she was rushed to the Prince Henry Hospital at Randwick where she died from peritonitis from a ruptured gastric ulcer. In the months that followed more cases of thallium poisoning were stated, including notably, prominent Australian Rugby League footballer Bobby Lulham.