KEY POINTS:
The details of a sensational trial of a prominent Canterbury man, found guilty of attempting to murder his wife for the insurance money more than 120 years ago, have resurfaced in a recently published book.
In perhaps the country's first celebrity trial Tom Hall, a well known Timaru businessman and nephew of former New Zealand premier Sir John Hall, was imprisoned in 1886 for trying to murder his wealthy wife Kitty by poisoning her.
The grisly details surrounding the trial were picked up by the nation's and the world's press.
Hall slowly poisoned his wife over a number of weeks, leaving her in pain, desperately ill and on the verge of death . Her murder was foiled by doctors who almost at the last minute realised what was happening.
Mrs Hall survived and for years refused to believe her husband was almost her murderer.
Central Canterbury lawyer Peter Graham picked up on the story after spotting an account of it in a rare book catalogue and then memoirs about the case.
"It was a huge scandal at the time - it was something that just ripped everybody's imagination," Mr Graham told NZPA.
The country was fascinated and transfixed by the trial, mostly because of who Tom Hall was, he said.
"He was a well-known man in Timaru, was very charming and popular. People liked him, particularly women.
"He was a well-known businessman and came from a well-connected, prominent local family."
Mr Graham worked on the book, Vile Crimes: The Timaru Poisonings, for two-and-a-half years.
"I wanted to write and I was always interested in history, and I thought this was a good subject to cut my teeth on.
"It was certainly very enjoyable to write."
It was rare to find such an old case covered so fully in so many documents, and Mr Graham said because of that he was also able to include a social commentary on Canterbury life during the late 19th century.
" So it really looked like a window into the past in this really funny society in Timaru in the 1880s and all the petty snobberies and so on, it all seemed to me to be an interesting part of the story."
After Hall was found guilty of attempting to murder his wife, police realised Mrs Hall's father, Captain Henry Cain, had died in suspiciously similar circumstances.
He was exhumed, but there was not enough evidence to find Hall guilty.
But Mr Graham said he believed Hall poisoned his father-in-law to death.
" It seems to me he was one of those people who was absolutely fascinated by poisons."
Mr Graham said he was interested in history more than historic murder cases, so would not be writing a series of vile crimes.
However, his next book was going to study the Hulme, Parker murder case, where 15-year-old friends Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker murdered Pauline's mother in Christchurch in 1954 by bludgeoning her with a brick.
The case captured the nation and in 1994 film maker Peter Jackson turned the story into the hit movie Heavenly Creatures.
"The Hulme, Parker case is one I find pretty irresistible really," Mr Graham said.
- NZPA
