Murderess’s mystery gravestone
Posted 2 February 2009 // Helen Rickerby
Minnie Dean in 1872
For more than 100 years the body of murderess Minnie Dean has lain in an unmarked grave in Winton cemetery, since her death by hanging in 1895.
But some time last week, probably in the dead of night, a plaque was laid above her grave. It reads: ‘Minnie Dean is part of Winton’s history. Where she now lies is now no mystery.’ Apparently, according to locals, everyone already knew where she lay; and now the big mystery is who put the plaque there.
In a further strange twist, overseas relatives of Minnie Dean were soon to lay a headstone of their own. Dean’s great-grandnephew Martin McCrae, of Stirling, Scotland, asked permission of the Winton Community Board. It seems they approved it after realising they had no legal right to turn down the request. According to this Southland Times editorial, the Southland District Council considered a headstone was considered inappropriate as recently as 2001, showing how alive these century-old crimes are in the minds of some locals.
Minnie (Williamina) Dean is possibly Winton’s most famous resident, past or present – at least, she’s the only one I’d ever heard of. She bears the dishonourable distinction of being the only woman to have ever been hanged in New Zealand, after she was convicted of child murder. She was a baby farmer – an old-fashioned term for people who took in unwanted or illegitimate children for money. She looked after as many as nine children under three in her small house, The Larches.
She was arrested after the bodies of three children were found buried in her garden. Even though she was convicted of murdering them, some believe their deaths may have been accidental.
Since her execution, Minnie Dean has lived on in Southland folklore. She grew into a mythic bogeywoman to frighten children with – especially misbehaving ones. Legend has it that grass never grows on her grave, which locals put down to ‘the odd spray of weed killer rather than any curse,’ according to a TV3 news report. Though I note that the news item showed as healthy a coverage of grass on her grave as anyone else’s.
The efforts of the poetic mystery-plaque placer look to be short-lived – the family intend having it removed and replaced with their official headstone.
Yesterday, Minnie Dean’s great, great nephew Martin McCrae laid the family’s gravestone - http://www.3news.co.nz/Video/National/tabid/309/articleID/89763/cat/64/Default.aspx#video
Having just read Lynley Hood’s account of the life and ‘crimes’ of Minnie Dean, I am glad her distant family has now had an official headstone erected on her grave. She was a victim of the times and I don’t believe she deliberately set out to kill any of the children in her care. Although she may have been inadvertantly responsible for the deaths of some of the babies in her care, it’s a fact of life that babies died inexplicably, in those days. There were accidents and cot death was certainly not recognised or understood. Almost all the rumours about Minnie Dean are fiction. Poor Minnie didn’t do herself any favours at times and she was convicted of murder as we all know. It saddens me to say that people today are as malicious as they were in her day. Thriving on gossip, they hear something about somebody, never get the facts right, pass it onto somebody else and within a few days a man who has the ocassional drink is an alcoholic. Rest in peace Minnie.