Male prisoners weren't the only ones to face the hangman's noose and the death mask creator. Here we see the image of Martha Needle, described by some as an attractive woman with a kindly disposition.

Her only slight character flaw was having murdered her husband, three daughters and prospective brother in law.

Born in 1864, she grew up in a violent household before marrying Harry Needle, a carpenter, when she was 17. They moved to Richmond in Melbourne in 1885 and by 1891 Harry and the girls were all dead. She then became a housekeeper to two brothers, one of whom proposed marriage to her. The other brother objected, and down he went with severe stomach pains. A second brother almost suffered the same fate but his doctor became suspicious and called the police who caught her offering him tea laced with rat poison. The bodies of her former family were exhumed and revealed traces of arsenic. She was hanged in 1894.