Sarah-Jane (born 1841) and Anna Flannagan (born 1866) were 19th-century New Zealand murderers. Like Caroline Whitting (1872) and Phoebe Veitch (1883) before them, but unlike Minnie Dean subsequently (1895), the two women were initially sentenced to death for the killing of Anna's 'illegitimate' child and Sarah Jane's grandchild but were subsequently reprieved. In this instance, the intervention of the then-Governor-General of New Zealand William Onslow, 4th Earl of Onslow was required for mitigation of the death penalty to life imprisonment. Trial, verdict and psychiatric incarceration On January 10, 1891, the body of Anna Flannagan's illegitimate infant was found mutilated, after Miss Flannagan had taken her from Jane Freeman, the wet nurse who was feeding her; although Anna Flannagan had been introduced as "Mrs Stevens", Freeman knew her to be the latter. It was alleged that in a moment of maternal madness, Anna Flannagan had killed the child, although she was later lucid enough to be arrested on attempting to flee to Sydney, Australia. In February 1891, Christchurch, New Zealand residents Anna Flannagan (25), her mother Sarah Jane Flannagan (50) and Sarah Jane's husband, former Constable Daniel Flannagan, were all accused of killing Anna's illegitimate child, although they claimed to have been attacked by a gang of male assailants who killed the infant and dragged Anna through the streets at the end of a rope. Daniel Flannagan was later discharged, but on February 25, 1891, Sarah-Jane and Anna Flannagan were found guilty and sentenced to death. On March 13, 1891, the sentence was then commuted to life imprisonment. However, in November 1892, it was reported that Anna Flannagan had become a 'hopeless lunatic' and she was taken from Lyttelton Gaol to Sunnyside Hospital, a Christchurch psychiatric institution. Subsequently, it was reported that there were petitions for the release of Anna Flannagan from psychiatric care to the Minister of Justice and Governor-General in 1894. Anna was subsequently released in 1895 Sarah-Jane was also relocated to the Terrace Gaol, but was released in 1906 after serving 15 years of imprisonment. Daniel Flannagan was never able to rejoin the New Zealand Police thereafter, despite his earlier acquittal. However, given the social stigma attached to illegitimacy during the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the leniency meted out to perceived 'spontaneous' infanticide cases born of wretched parental circumstances such as poverty, lone parenting, family violence, and other contextual factors, Bronwyn Daley has suggested that capital