If you haven’t read the earlier installments of this series, go to The Mad Love of Mrs. Mort, Part 1

Part 5: “Did you ever shoot anyone?”

Dr. Erasmus Bligh of North Sydney had known Mrs. Mort and her family very well for 16 years. When her father attacked her mother and brother, the victims were taken to Dr. Bligh’s private hospital for treatment for fractured skulls. Therefore, Dr. Bligh made a point of going to see Mrs. Mort at the North Shore Hospital, shortly after she was brought in.

“She struck me as being insane because she was so elated at what had occurred,” Dr. Bligh said. “She made statements I knew were not rational. She said that after the shooting she was taken to someplace but she was not sure of her surroundings. She told me she was going to have a child by Dr. Tozer. Although the doctor was dead, she said, she was going to marry his brother.” Claude Tozer had no brother.

Mrs. Mort told Dr. Bligh she wanted to get away for a while to get ready for a trip around the world. At the same time, Dorothy talked about her own death. She told Dr. Bligh that her husband had “a beautiful little coffin for her at home” and she would die soon. The doctor described Mrs. Mort’s condition as “quite consistent” with being insane for quite a while.

He consulted with the doctors in residence and urged them to put Mrs. Mort under close supervision. Her ill health, the shock of killing a man, the overdose of laudanum, and shooting herself would not account for this kind of insanity, he told them. Dorothy was given a private room but she could not be induced to go to sleep. A female attendant was left in the room with her to intervene in case she attempted to harm herself.

The next day was Christmas Eve. Dr. Arthur Palmer performed the post-mortem examination of Dr. Tozer. Later that afternoon, he saw Dorothy. “In my opinion, she was certifiably insane,” he explained. “Her condition of insanity was consistent with being so for some considerable time. I don’t think she would get into the condition she was in suddenly.”

By the time Dr. Bligh saw her, Mrs. Mort had already told the hospital nurses she was pregnant and was going to marry Dr. Tozer’s brother. They would travel overseas where the baby would be born without any scandal. She was happy because Claude’s mother and all the family would be pleased.

Sergeant Fowler was put on duty as a guard at the Royal North Shore Hospital. Around 5 p.m. on January 6, Mrs. Mort sat up in bed and called to him.

“I went to her bedside,” Fowler recalled. “She said, ‘Did you ever shoot anyone?’ I told her no and she said, ‘I did.’ I told her not to say that because it will have to be given in evidence against you.”

Dorothy shrugged off his warning. “I don’t mind; I am prepared to suffer any punishment the law will inflict.” She was evidently prepared to give the details of the murder that she had so far refused to divulge. “I shot Dr. Tozer. He was sitting on the couch and I was standing behind him, showing him a little present I bought for him with my left hand.”

Mrs. Mort paused before adding: “I took the revolver off the ledge behind me with my right hand and shot him in the back of the head. I then went round the end of the couch and shot him through the side of the head. I then undid his vest and shot him through the chest. I buttoned his vest up again.”

Sergeant Fowler stared at her, seemingly at a loss for words.

Dorothy did not cry. Instead she merely continued: “I don’t know what made me do it; it was awful. I wished I could die. I lay in his arms for two hours afterwards.”

After a week at the hospital, Mrs. Mort was moved to a hospital ward at the State Reformatory. Police Inspector Leary visited her there but she didn’t remember him. At the Reformatory, she was under the care of Dr. Lee Brown. At her request, the doctor examined her to see if she was pregnant. She was not.

The rumor mill in Sydney had it that Mrs. Mort would probably be committed to a private asylum. She would not serve time like any other murderer. The Lunacy Act would likely confine Dorothy Mort to a government asylum.

Go to Part 6: The Inquest

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