John and Sarah Makin

John Sidney Makin (14 February 1845 - 15 August 1893) and Sarah Jane Makin (20 December 1845 - 13 September 1918) were Australian baby farmers accused of the murders of at least 15 infants. They were convicted of murdering infant Horace Murray in 1893 and sentenced to death, although only John was executed.

Biography

John Makin was born in 1845 in Wollongong, whereas Sarah was born later that year in Sydney. They met in 1871 while John was working at a brewery and married on 27 August, having ten children together. John later accepted work as a delivery driver but left after only six weeks.

John was rendered unable to work in an accident, and he and Sarah turned to baby farming - taking in illegitimate babies in exchange for payment - to make a living. However, many baby farmers were known to kill babies after receiving payment to save the trouble of taking care of them. The Makins were implicated in this kind of baby farming, generally moving away soon after taking on a baby in order to prevent the parents from seeing if they were alive. Occasionally they would send the parents a letter telling them the baby had died from an illness and asking for money to pay for a burial.

The Makin's activities began to come to light on 11 October 1892, when workmen digging a pipeline behind 25 Burren-street in Macdonaldtown, one of the Makin's hideouts, found the decomposing body of an infant. The following day they found another infant's corpse buried 30 yards away. Two days later on 14 October, a decomposing infant was found was found in a vacant allotment in Redfern, across the street from the Makin's present hideout. A constable investigating the scene noticed recently disturbed earth outside the Makin's house and, upon digging and finding the spot to be empty, concluded that the infant had been buried on the spot, dug up and moved across the street. An open verdict was recorded in all three cases as the bodies were too badly decomposed to determine a cause of death and the Makins moved to Chippendale soon after.

Police remained suspicious and began digging up properties at which the Makins had lived. Five dead infants were recovered from the Burren-street house's yard, four more from another house on George-street, Redfern, where the Makins had operated as baby farmers, and one in another Redfern home briefly rented by John Makin. Both Makins were arrested on 3 November. While they were in custody, the home in Chippendale where they were living at the time was dug up and two infant skeletons were found buried in the garden.

An examination by the City Coroner identified one of the victims found in Redfern as Horace Murray, a one-month-old child given into the care of the Makins in 1892, after his mother Amber Murray testified that the clothes found on the corpse were those her son was wearing when she handed him over. The Makins were charged with murdering Horace Murray, and with having "caused the death of" an unidentified child at the same location on the same day in case the first charge failed due to questions about the body's identity. At trial, John Makin's cellmate Edward Jordan testified that while awaiting trial, John had told him there was at least one victim the police had not yet found, and that "No doctor can prove that I poisoned any of them". Both John and Sarah were found guilty on 8 March 1893 and sentenced to death. An appeal arguing that evidence about the deaths of other babies should not have been heard was dismissed. However, Sarah Makin's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

John Makin was hanged at Darlinghurst Gaol on 15 August 1893. Sarah Makin remained in prison for the next eighteen years before being released on compassionate grounds in 1911 after her health deteriorated. She was discharged into the custody of her daughter Florence and lived with her adult children until her death in 1918 from heart failure.