Knitted Homes of Crime

Knitted Homes of Crime
Knitted Homes of Crime by Freddie Robins

The one in the middle is a woolen 16 Gloucester Place, Brighton, East Sussex, circa 1871.  From the site of textile artist Freddie Robins, we learn:

Christiana Edmunds was a 43 year-old spinster, who lived with her widowed mother. She had become infatuated with a married man, Dr. Beard. In September 1870, she brought a box of chocolates to the Beard’s house and insisted that Mrs. Beard eat some over a pot of tea. Christiana had filled these chocolate creams with strychnine. Immediately after eating one, Mrs. Beard became severely ill. As a result, Dr. Beard accused Christiana of trying to poison his wife. Christiana denied the charge and set about trying to prove that there was a poisoner at-large in Brighton.

Christiana would pay children to buy chocolate creams from the same sweet shop where she purchased the box of chocolates for Mrs. Beard. She would inject these with strychnine, then re-wrap them and pay another child to return them. The innocent shop-keeper re-sold the poisoned sweets. On 12 June, 1871, this resulted in the death of 4 year-old Sidney Barker. Christiana even sent poisoned cakes and fruit through the mail, addressing some to herself, to try to emphasize her innocence. She was eventually caught and sentenced to death.  When it transpired that she was mentally ill, her sentence was commuted, and she was sent to Broadmoor. She died there in 1907, aged 79. It later transpired that no fewer than four members of her immediate family had died as a result of mental illness.

Each adorable building houses another horror.
See more perversely adorable, knitted models of the homes of female killers and the households of their victims at the artist’s website. 

Hat tip: grrl + dog blog.