Perth’s wicked stepmother

Born on 10 August 1871, Martha Rendell was reported to be the kind of stepmother that would put Cinderella’s to shame. Convicted in 1908 for murdering her de facto husband’s 15-year-old son, Arthur, and suspected of killing her two young stepdaughters, Rendell’s trial was sensationalised in the media, with the press calling her a ‘scarlet woman’ and ‘evil stepmother’. Yet, more than 100 years on, Rendell’s execution remains controversial.

The beginning of the end

Our tale begins with an affair. Thomas Nicholls Morris and his wife, Sarah, had what she described