Florence Maybrick: Death Sentence Commuted

Just before her husband became desperately ill, Florie lost her arsenic-based cosmetic prescription. In Mid-April, 1889, she decided to make up the concoction herself by soaking flypaper to distill out the arsenic. Not making any effort to hide what she was doing, Florie and her flypaper were spotted by all the Maybrick's house servants. Unknown - at least initially - to Florie, Nurse Yapp's tongue started to wag: Was the mistress trying to poison Master Maybrick? By early May, as Maybrick's condition deteriorated, Nurse Yapp talked to a family friend. Mrs. Briggs telegraphed Maybrick's brothers with the words:

Michael Maybrick took charge. By all accounts he saw to it that Maybrick changed his Will. Michael was now given the authority to handle his brother's estate. Florie was all but cut out. It never was completely clear - and still isn't to this day - whether Maybrick's last Will was a forgery. The certified copy of the Will is hard to read, but contemporary newspapers published transcriptions of it.

Florie was essentially banned from her husband's sick room, although she was able to see Maybrick occasionally. She continued to see Alfred Brierly and, to her everlasting regret, Florie wrote a note to Brierly which she asked Maybrick's nurse, Alice Yapp, to mail.

When things go wrong, they often go really wrong, and such was the case with Florie's ill-conceived letter to Brierly. Little Gladys Maybrick, walking to the post office with the nurse, was holding the letter and dropped it into a mud puddle. Instead of returning the letter to Florie for a new envelope, Alice Yapp opened it. Instead of simply putting the letter - unread - into a new envelope, the nurse studied what was inside. Here is part of what she read.

Dearest

...I cannot answer your letter fully to-day, my darling, but relieve your mind of all...fear of discovery now and in the future. M. has been delirious since Sunday, and I know now that he is perfectly ignorant of everything... Excuse this scrawl, my own darling, but I dare not leave the room for a moment, and I do not know when I shall be able to write to you again. In haste, yours ever. Florie

Florie's words to Brierly were never read by Brierly. But within hours her words were known to everyone at Battlecrease Mansion. What better way to fan the flames of rumor? Florie had set herself up for bad things in the event her husband died.