The Baby Farmers: A Chilling Tale of Missing Babies, Shameful Secrets and Murder in 19th Century Australia

As in the very best true crime, criminologist Cossins uses the murders she recounts as a way of exposing an aspect of society that has been hidden. The horrific attitude toward infants in late-19th-century Australia is brought to light through the story of John and Sarah Makin, baby farmers in Sydney (in the Victorian era, children born out of wedlock were often given to professionals, who raised them—at a price). Their story reveals a larger societal problem—infanticide was so rampant at the time that the newspapers actually ran tallies of the numbers of dead babies found in a week. Against this background, Cossins, who was inspired to write the book after portraying Sarah Makin on an episode of the TV docu-drama series Deadly Women, gives a gripping account of the investigation and prosecution of the Makins after 13 corpses of babies were unearthed in 1892 in the backyards of homes where the Makins had lived. The book’s power stems from its devastating details; Cossins establishes a tone so vivid it’s reminiscent of Dickens. Photos. [em](Aug.) [/em]