Career
However, as with Phoebe Veitch in 1883, her sentence was commuted and she was instead sentenced to life imprisonment. Another daughter (unnamed) escaped from her mother and told an older sister (16) about the circumstances, leading to a police search for the bodies of the children and to investigate whether Mrs Whitting herself was still alive. The bodies were located in the water and Mrs Whitting was taken into police custody.
A subsequent inquest turned up a judgement of "wilful murder" on the same day.
However, it seems to have been mitigated to life imprisonment
Mrs Whitting was escorted into Dunedin Gaol on 24 November 1872
Comparing the case with those of Phoebe Veitch and Minnie Dean, Bronwyn Daley has suggested that the courts were willing to recognise that circumstances could lead to maternal madness and may have prompted commuted sentences, while Dean"s death sentence was related to an element of deliberation absent in the Veitch, Whitting and other cases of parental child murder.
