Amelia Sach, born Frances Amelia Thorne in 1873 in Hampreston, Dorset, was the fourth of ten children. She married Jeffrey Sach, a builder, in 1896. By 1902, Amelia operated a "lying-in" home, Claymore House, in East Finchley, North London, offering services to unmarried pregnant women seeking discreet childbirth and adoption solutions. She was a qualified midwife and a mother herself, having a daughter named Lilian.

Annie Walters, born in 1869, had a less documented background. She had been married and reportedly struggled with alcohol dependency. Walters occasionally advertised herself as a nurse and was described as "feeble-minded" upon her arrest.

Around 1900, Amelia Sach began advertising adoption services, charging clients—primarily local servants who had become pregnant—between £25 and £30 for the assurance that their babies would be placed with wealthy families. In reality, after the infants were born, they were handed over to Annie Walters, who would poison them with chlorodyne, a medicine containing morphine. This operation allowed Sach to maintain the facade of a reputable maternity home while systematically disposing of the infants.

The scheme unraveled when Walters's suspicious behavior drew the attention of her landlord in Islington, who was a police officer. Authorities arrested Walters after she was found with a deceased infant. Subsequent investigations led to Sach's arrest. During their trial at the Old Bailey, evidence presented included the substantial amount of baby clothing found at Claymore House, indicating the scale of their crimes. Despite a local campaign to commute their sentences, both women were convicted and became the first women to be hanged at Holloway Prison on February 3, 1903, in what was the only double hanging of women in modern British history.