The hamlet of Rosemont is on the far northern fringe of the circulating area of this newspaper. It is familiar to anyone driving on Highway 89 toward Alliston. Though it seems that has always been a sleepy place, where little ever happens, it was the setting of a notable homicide in 1921.
On Saturday, August 20 of 1921, Mabel and Bob Lee of Rosemont drove to Alliston to consult his doctor, concerning trouble he seemed to be having with his stomach. Doc Cunningham supplied him with some medicine.
The following day the couple went out to pick berries, then returned home, and turned in after some supper and completing their evening farm chores.
A little after 11 that night Bob rose up in bed and asked his wife to get help from the neighbours. He said he had been poisoned.
Mabel went out to fetch Norm Palmer, who ran the general store in Rosemont. She told him that someone must have broken into the house and put poison in Bob’s medicine.
Rev. Grey, the Anglican minister in Rosemont, heard Mabel Lee yelling that her husband had been poisoned. Soon she was at his door, this time saying that they all had been poisoned by someone who put poison in their food while they were away from the house. Mabel tried to vomit to prove her point, but could not.
Bob Lee told Rev. Grey and Norm Palmer he had taken his medicine before retiring, and that it had tasted very bitter.
The men went to retrieve Dr. McLean, but when the doctor arrived about 1am poor Bob was quite dead. Doc McLean told Mabel and the others present not to touch anything in the house until he returned in the morning.
Mabel, though, insisted in tidying up the house. A neighbour present that night, Mrs. Arthur Cockerill, saw Mabel remove the medicine in question from the dining room table and hide it.
When he returned the next morning, Dr. McLean was very suspicious of the whole affair. He had contacted the coroner and several medical colleagues in Orangeville. All were convinced that Bob Lee had been poisoned with strychnine.
The case was soon a sensation, capturing the attention of almost everyone from Alliston and Orangeville west to Arthur and Mount Forest, where Bob and Mabel were well known.
The case moved at a glacial pace. Coroner Rooney did not convene an inquest until Sept. 22, fully a month after the death. By then Rooney had expert testimony from several doctors, the coroner’s report, and a number of witnesses from Rosemont and Orangeville.
A druggist testified that he had twice sold strychnine to Mabel in the previous year, first “to kill dogs” and the second time “to kill rats.”
The jury took little time in reaching a verdict that Bob Lee had died from strychnine, administered by his wife Mabel. Crown Attorney J.L. Ireland made out a warrant for her arrest.
About midnight a provincial constable and police chief Ewing of Orangeville set off for Rosemont. Surprisingly, Mrs. Lee was still up, though by then it was past 2am. She made a big fuss about leaving her house, and then began complaining of her poor health.
On the journey to Orangeville in the early morning hours she at first complained of her delicate health, which was being aggravated by the distress of her arrest. Soon she switched to other topics.
During the journey to Orangeville Mabel kept up a continuous monologue to the policemen. An Orangeville paper described her as a woman of “considerable volubility.”
Mabel was 43 years of age, and had five children. She was a tall woman, seemingly robust, with a commanding presence. The eldest daughters were married, and the youngest of the brood was a 10-year-old boy. The Lees were long-time residents of the area, and widely known.
In a court appearance later that morning, police Magistrate Pattulo quickly concluded that there was sufficient evidence to hold Mabel on a charge of murder.
She beseeched the magistrate not to send her to jail, arguing that a term in custody would be the equivalent of a death sentence, considering her delicate health.
Puttulo did not send her to jail, but rather placed her in the custody of a family trusted by the court. That decision was quickly overturned, and Mabel went to jail late on the evening of Sept. 24 to await her next day in court.
While under house arrest Mabel wandered away from the house, though she had been instructed not to do so. She attempted to enlist the support of anyone she encountered. She made statements such as, “How can they prove it against me?” and, “They cannot prove it.”
Her arrest caused an even higher degree of public interest across North Wellington, and everyone awaited the preliminary hearing scheduled for Oct. 3. There had never been a case like this one in the area, as far as anyone could recall.
In the absence of new developments in the case, rumours gripped the county. Mabel Lee told reporters that she and her husband had once lived in a house formerly occupied by a veterinary surgeon, and that her husband had undoubtedly found the strychnine there.
A major problem for the prosecution was that there was no apparent motive for Mabel to kill her husband, other than a $1,000 life insurance policy. That soon became a matter of speculation. Rev. Gray told reporters that Mabel had asked him to take her to Shelburne the day after her husband died. He had told her to wait until after the funeral to deal with the insurance.
The preliminary hearing was a short session. The accused entered a plea of “Not Guilty,” as she would do throughout her ordeal.
The result was that Mabel was committed on a murder charge to be heard on Oct. 15. Realizing the seriousness of her situation, Mabel was unusually silent for this court session, wearing a black dress and a black hat. She did break her silence occasionally to consult her lawyer and to request that she be released from jail on account of her frail health. She presented the judge with a list of potential sureties, which the judge rejected.
Mabel’s day in court at the fall assizes, to face the murder charge before Justice Latchford, lasted only about four hours. The jury returned after a mere two hours, and presented their verdict: “Not Guilty.”
Few were surprised; the Crown Attorney had presented a case that was weak and full of holes.
The veil of seriousness suddenly lifted from Mabel’s shoulders. She leaned over and clapped her lawyer, the solemn and stone-faced Charles Mckeown, QC, soundly on the back, shouting, “Charley! Oh Charley!”
Justice Latchford soon restored a sense of decorum. He told the jury that, given the evidence presented, it was difficult for them to arrive at a verdict other than the one they agreed on.
The Justice went on to say, with more than a hint of dark sarcasm in his voice, that, “I trust that the result will not make the poisoning of husbands popular as an indoor sport in this country.”
Mabel Lee slipped back into an anonymous life, but the question of her motives and innocence remained matters of debate for months in parts of Wellington, Grey and Dufferin counties.