The Mad Love of Mrs. Mort, Part 12 (final installment)

/ Kimberly

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

Part 12: Dorothy’s Fate

After her trial, we have only a sketch of Dorothy’s life. She remained at Long Bay Gaol for nine years as various supporters, including her husband, tried to secure her release. Her life bore no resemblance to any other asylum inmate and certainly none to that of a prisoner. During her residence there, Dorothy did not live in a cell or endure any other prison or asylum conditions. Instead, she had a “screened-off corner of Long Bay prison hospital with a carpet and the general demeanor of a small bedroom.”

Harold worried lest his wife feel deprived of the luxuries she enjoyed. This is very forgiving of him, don’t you think? After all, his wife had an affair and she planned to leave him. She had murdered her lover only when he discarded her. The resulting trial was salacious and humiliating to him and it turned his life (and the lives of their children) upside down.

Nevertheless, Harold was determined his wife would not do without. He paid to ensure Dorothy had fresh flowers, a butcher on call, and a baker to send any treats she wanted.  It sounds outlandish but many wealthy people have enjoyed luxuries in prison from Harry K. Thaw to Al Capone to Jeffrey Epstein. However, Mrs. Mort is the only prisoner I’ve ever heard of who had a servant. Harold employed a woman named Bella Carr to be Dorothy’s servant while she was incarcerated. It would be interesting to know what was expected of Bella.

It would probably surprise anyone who encountered Dorothy to learn that she was a prisoner.  She was not required to wear a prison uniform. She generally dressed in the fashionable and expensive clothing Harold sent to her, often accompanied with beautiful diamond jewelry. She was also allowed to leave the prison for short holidays.

Dorothy’s lifestyle in prison would be considered to be a significant step up for many free people!

About halfway through her time at Long Bay, an article featured an update on the infamous Mrs. Mort, noting she spent her time in “genteel seclusion.” She enjoyed sewing and reading romantic novels.

“The ordinary prisoners who have killed nobody she shuns with aversion, even refusing to sit near them when she enters the hall dressed up for gaol concerts. She prefers the association of the inebriates, who are not classed as prisoners.” Mrs. Mort was aloof and preferred to maintain some distance between herself and the ordinary prisoners. She was spoken of as a very educated and delicate person.

On October 16, 1929, Dorothy Mort was released. She returned to Harold and their children. By then, Poppy was 17 and Maurice was 14.

Harold passed away in 1950, and Dorothy lived alone until her own death in 1966.

Dorothy’s mugshot before leaving prison

To return to her case, Dorothy Mort could be perceived as showing some repentance by permitting her letter to Mrs. Tozer to be publicized to clear Claude Tozer’s name. She suggested that, had she been well during her trial, she would never have permitted her counsel to say the things he did against the doctor. But is this disingenuous?

Mr. Mack’s defense of Dorothy was successful. If not for his skill, she would have been executed or spent the remainder of her life in prison. Mrs. Mort may have felt ashamed about the way her case was handled but she couldn’t have wished for a different outcome.

What do you all think of the story of Dorothy Mort and Dr. Claude Tozer and their doomed love affair? Dorothy murdered Claude and she was sent away for nine years to pay for her crime. Was that justice? I’m eager to hear your thoughts on this amazing tale!

As a post-script to this story, the etymology of the names Claude Tozer and Dorothy Mort are interesting.

Mort is a Latin word that means death. I was curious about the meaning of the rest of her name. Dorothy is a combination of the words dōron meaning gift and theos meaning God, from the Greek name Dōrothéa. A gift from God.

The name Claude is of Latin origin, from the Latin word claudus meaning crippled. The name Tozer is British and refers to textile workers who teased wool. Tozer comes from the word tōsen and means to tease.

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25 thoughts on “The Mad Love of Mrs. Mort, Part 12 (final installment)”

  1. Pingback: The Mad Love of Mrs. Mort, Part 11 | old spirituals

  2. I don’t know, but I think she was sane and as guilty as hell. She was an aspiring actress who struck me as being a grandiose narcissist whose narcissistic ego was wounded terribly when she was dumped by Dr. Tozer. So she killed him and then put on an act which included actually shooting herself. Some of these sociopathic types will stop at nothing. That’s how she strikes me, as a complete sociopath with a wounded ego who acted her way to a charge of innocence and charmed her way to a life of relative ease until she was released. Some narcissistic wounds are serious enough to produce some pretty bizarre results, but they are still sane. Well, that’s my opinion anyway. What a crazy story!

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  3. I think the only insane person in the story is the husband and Dorothy is quite the actress. I’ve never seen more bizarre handwriting than Dorothy’s. What did these two men see in this woman? I can’t believe she fooled so many people and didn’t hang for her crime. Sad.

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    • Those men saw exactly what she wanted them to see. That’s how a narcissist works. They feed you a line which you believe and then you reflect it back to them so they know it has worked. They are shallow, empty creatures who only allow you to see what they want you to see, and when you reflect it back, they are confirmed in their own lie. Put more simply, she charmed them both, and with the wardens and whomever cared for her, she was the poor, wilting flower who commanded their sympathies. She was a con artist.

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        • Didn’t you mention in the story line that there were letters that she had kept from him? Without going back through the story, I thought I remembered that being mentioned somewhere.

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            • Dr. Claude Tozer probably suffered from PTSD, the result of his time as a physician in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (“ANZAC”). ANZAC was given the responsibility of fight the Ottoman Empire (Turks) on the Gallipoli peninsula. Tens of thousands of soldiers were killed and wounded during that nearly 12 month campaign, and Dr. Tozer would have been exposed to the ugly results of the fighting. It is highly possible that Dr. Tozer suffered from PTSD which was manifested by his need to satisfy his own sexual drive . . . a worldly pleasure and not death and destruction. PTSD may have created a sexual predator perhaps? 

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    • Harold is peculiarly annoying, isn’t he? I appreciate defending his wife but come on. She was going to leave him for the doctor. He seemed so weak and hen-pecked. I guess it wasn’t his fault, but it annoys me that instead of being tried for murder and going to prison, Dorothy was treated like a celebrity with her emotional support person and then did about nine years in a resort, modeling the latest fashions, and having a servant to pick up after her. I don’t know much about Australia but I would guess that is not the standard treatment a murderer receives.

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      • It seems to be a given that Dorothy Mort suffered from mental illness, a trait that ran in her family’s DNA. But what about Dr. Claude Tozer?

        As a doctor in the Australian Medical Corps during WWI, Tozer was probably in the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (“ANZAC”) formed at the beginning of WWI. ANZAC troops were given the responsibility of fighting the Turks (Ottoman Empire) on the Gallipoli peninsula. That fighting last nearly 11 months before ANZAC troops were withdrawn and sent to Egypt. ANZAC suffered over 12,000 killed and 22,000 wounded. The battle conditions were as bad if not worse than those in France and Belgium. Dr. Tozer was one of the doctors that treated and cared for those thousands of soldiers.

        It is expected that a person, particularly a doctor, exposed to the fighting that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula would returned home suffering from some form of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (“PTSD”). Dr. Tozer was bound to have a mental and/or behavioral disorder. Could PTSD have resulted in Dr. Tozer becoming a sexual predator who cared more about his own “therapeutic needs” than those of his patient?

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      • Harold Mort was my great Uncle. He was a gentle and kind man. The family was extremely wealthy and Dorothy was kept in the manner to which she had become accustomed. Money and status can buy you anything in most parts of the world … More-so 100 plus years ago. There is much more to this story than meets the eye. She had mental health issues and her trusted doctor took advantage of her. FAFO.

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        • Every once in a blue moon I hear from someone like you who is directly connected to the people from the past I’ve researched and written about.
          It always delights me! Thank you for writing.

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      • Right? Narcissists target their prey very precisely. They intuitively know and seek out the weak. I know this because my mother and brother were both like that (my dad and I were the weak ones), and then of course I married what I knew, another narcissist. So for 43 years I was prey to these people. After 3 1/2 years of weekly counselling many years ago, I can now smell them a mile away. They have a very decided stink about them, and weirdly, they have the same way of acting. They are very charming in some lights, but when their prey accepts them and is charmed, they can become very different people which is quite disarming if you are under their spell.

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  4. Tozer never had a relationship with her. I think she made that story up and romanticized their relationship in her head. She lost it when she found out he was getting married. Her family and professionals like the physicians and producer said she was off. Her husband continued to support her because divorce wasn’t as common back then and their image was already tarnished.

    Was Dorthy’s husband ever a suspect? Maybe he was jealous of Tozer and Dorthy’s fondness of him. He killed him then he felt guilty for setting up his wife, so he continued to support her. Thoughts?

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    • Wow! That’s a very interesting theory! I think you might be on to something. One thing we don’t know is whether the letters from Tozer were ever verified. The papers reported on the assumption they were legit. At the time, I think Mr. Mort was seen as the wronged husband and no one questioned him. But there is something suspicious about him. One thing that was odd about Dorothy’s husband was that he seemed too afraid to leave her until Tozer promised to come over. Then he left and stayed away for 12 hours. The companion tried to reach him when she heard a gunshot but he wasn’t at the office and she couldn’t reach him all day. He didn’t call, he didn’t answer messages. He turned up much later that night, after the police came on the scene. It’s a very good point…Very smart thinking !

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    • You’ve conveniently forgotten his many love letters to her, some of which were reproduced in the article. Not to mention that he had a rock solid alibi for being at work all day …

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      • Hi Belinda. I write about real people and events that were in the news over a century ago. These cases are long forgotten and the people who were directly affected are gone. Still I imagine it’s a bit weird to see a stranger writing about something that happened to your family!
        The information on any of these older cases is nearly always incomplete but Dorothy’s family history, Claude Tozer’s love letters, and Harold Mort being at work are all covered in earlier parts of the story. (This is Part 12–the conclusion—you’re commenting on.) One thing that invites speculation is that the newspapers seemed to accept Dorothy’s version of events without any skepticism. Given how clouded and confused her mind was, and how much her account of Claude Tozer conflicted with what others said about him, it’s at least possible that her story wasn’t a true reflection of what occurred.

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        • I was replying to one of the other comments, not to you specifically. I think your story was well researched & written, and pretty balanced, considering the events happened so long ago. Poppy and her brother were badly affected by the whole saga. My father remembered Harold coming to dinner every Sunday after he visited Long Bay. He was a very quiet and sad man. Dorothy was quite mad and delusional. I think with what we understand now about depression and mental health issues (she was probably bipolar), the verdict would be the same if she was tried today.

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          • That’s so sad. Harold must have loved Dorothy very much if he never considered separating from her during all the time she was at Long Bay. It was probably a bleak environment at home for Poppy and her brother. And then there was another adjustment years later when their mother returned to them. They were probably older than their years from living through that.

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  5. What a story!

    An unstable woman, a handsome, dashing athletic doctor and a wealthy husband who seems to have supported her no matter what happened.

    A fun read. thanks!

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