Andrew William Hart

Similar motives appear to have induced Ellen Hart to murder her three young children and attempt suicide in 1925. Ellen's 'spur of the moment' decision to slash the children‟s throats with a razor as they were getting ready for school, occurred after weeks of heated argument with her husband over his changing views on religion... The jury found that Ellen Hart had committed her crimes „while in the grip of an uncontrollable impulse‟. She was acquitted of murder on the grounds of insanity and readmitted to Seacliff Mental Hospital. Source: THE OGRESS, THE INNOCENT, AND THE MADMAN: Narrative and Gender in Child Homicide Trials in New Zealand, 1870 - 1925 by Debra Powell https://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/7349/t...