One of Australia’s most famous ‘murder’ cases you’ve never heard of.

A little over 48 hours after returning home to Victoria with her baby daughter, Ethel Griggs was confirmed dead. 

She'd been in Tasmania with family for six months after asking her husband, Ronald Griggs, for a divorce. She'd accused him of cheating on her with a local girl from his church, who he insisted was just a friend. 

To divorce would mean the end of Ronald's dream of becoming a Methodist minister, so instead he told her to go home for a while to give them both time to think. 

But while Ethel used the time to make plans to move forward in her marriage, her husband continued to sleep with and secretly date the young woman he'd been cheating with, Lottie Condon.

Nonetheless, Ronald was there to greet Ethel and their daughter Alwyn when they arrived back home to Omeo, on New Year's Eve, 1927. 

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He served his wife some tea, cheese sandwiches and buttered bread and very soon after she started vomiting. 

She didn't stop vomiting, and remained bedridden for the next two days. 

Ronald found her unresponsive in the early hours of January 3, and by the following day she'd already been farewelled and buried with her cause of death attributed to heart failure. 

He sent off a lengthy letter to her family telling them, "Her heart just stopped beating. It was a really beautiful way to go. She just fell asleep and woke in heaven. Apart from two days' sickness and weakness there was no pain, and there was nothing at all to indicate anything serious. She simply fell asleep and heard the call".

But the people of Omeo were immediately suspicious – they'd noticed Ronald and Lottie's close relationship, and they also noticed that Ronald's wife had died mere days after returning home from interstate. 

Within a fortnight police had exhumed Ethel's body and confirmed there was enough arsenic in her stomach to kill an entire family. They also quickly gained a full confession from Lottie as to her and Ronald's extra-marital affair, forcing him to admit to hiding the truth.

'He Promised To Marry Me When His Wife Left Him,' read a newspaper headline from the time, with Lottie telling police detectives all about their trysts in the Griggs' marital home.

Image: Forgotten Australia/The Sun newspaper in 1928, Trove.

Ronald was arrested and charged with the murder of 21-year-old Ethel on their daughter's first birthday, and pretty soon the story of the respected pastor turned confessed adulterer and accused wife killer was making headlines all across Australia. 

"It was absolutely humongous news all over Australia," Michael Adams, host of Forgotten Australia told Mamamia's True Crime Conversations.

"It was so lurid; a wife poisoner is one thing, a wife poisoner who does it because he's having an affair is another thing, and a wife poisoner who's a Reverend.. the newspapers went berserk."

Alongside the antics of Melbourne gangster "Squizzy" Taylor, the Griggs poison case was the biggest crime news of the 1920s in Australia. Papers like The Herald and Truth gave it blanket coverage, sending photographers to snap images of the accused alongside headlines like; 'Married Clergyman's Secret Passion For Young Country Girl,' and 'The Secret Life of Parson Griggs.'

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Women weren't allowed to be jurors in 1928, and the 12-person strong jury were all middle-aged, conservative men. 

Despite Ronald having the means, a motive and the opportunity to murder his wife, they couldn't reach a unanimous decision. While 10 wanted to send him to the gallows, two were not convinced beyond reasonable doubt of his guilt. 

As Adams explained, "It's very difficult to prove poisoning beyond a reasonable doubt".

The other scenarios suggested by the defence included suicide, or an attempt by Ethel to become unwell to attract her husband's sympathies on her return to Omeo, to bring them closer together. There was even a suggestion that the town's pharmacist might've given Ronald arsenic instead of stomach settlers on New Year's Day when he sought out treatment for Ethel's condition.

"While they were unlikely [scenarios], they planted the seed of doubt," said Adams.

A re-trial was ordered, where Lottie took the stand for the first time before an enormous audience.

"Everyone wanted to see her take the stand. There was a rush.. women and men punching each other out to get into the public gallery to get seats. VIPs were given seats in special areas and there were massive crowds outside. [They were] so big that while the jury was deliberating, they could hear them outside discussing the case and the police had to move them on," said Adams.

Lottie didn't share anything new, and the rest of the evidence was fairly similar to that in the first trial.  

An article in Smiths Weekly. Image: Trove.

After a second deliberation, Ronald was found not guilty. 

"When you read about these cases, when people are believed to be innocent usually the gallery erupts in cheers and clapping and that didn't happen," said Adams, who is among those confident of Ronald's guilt.

Ronald might have been a free man, but the case left him a pariah. He did attempt to change his name, move to Adelaide and become a local parishioner there under a new identity - but he was quickly discovered and shunned. His planned marriage to Lottie never eventuated either, with her father forbidding the union. 

He did eventually remarry and managed to live a quiet life out of the limelight. He had nothing to do with his daughter Alwyn, who he sent off to be raised by his family soon after her mother's death. He didn't have any more children. 

Alwyn was raised believing that her mother died of natural causes and her father just wasn't interested. Once she discovered the truth as an adult, she sent a letter to Ronald after the birth of her first child but he wanted nothing to do with her. 

The story of Ethel, Ronald and his lover Lottie is one that's seemingly been buried in Australia's history. 

Adams told True Crime Conversations he came across the story by chance, and was surprised by how much detail he could find out about it in newspaper clippings from the time. 

"Newspapers went bonkers for it," he said. "There was huge public interest in this and all the court proceedings and inquest and various trials. There were hundreds if not thousands of people crowded around outside hoping for a glimpse of Lottie, Ronald or anyone involved." 

Feature Image: Trove/National Library of Australia/Forgotten Australia.