Jan. 13, 1836 – Marie Jeanneret born; Locle, canton de
Neuchâtel, Switzerland.
Dec. 27, 1865 – Julie Juvet dies.
Jan. 1866 – Mme. Juvet, child, dies.
Late Apr. 1868 – Mme. Bourcart-Dolfus, poisoned.
May 22, 1868 – Mme. Mouvier dies.
Jun. 28, 1868 – arrested, at the pension Desarzens,
Plainpalais.
Nov. 23, 1868 – trial opens, Geneva.
Nov. 26, 1868 – convicted, “attenuated circumstances,” and
sentenced to 20 years.
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FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 3): In Geneva, Switzerland, Jeanneret, a nurse, is
charged with poisoning nine different persons, whom she had within the space of
six months been engaged to attend. The substances used were belladonna and
antrophine, an extract of the same; and to obtain them she simulated a partial
blindness, for which they are employed as a remedy. The woman appears to have a
monomania of crime, as she neither robbed her victims nor derived any benefit
from their death; she is even said to have nursed them with great tenderness.
She was at length detected by a French painter, whose wife he attended. The
lady, after showing signs of poisoning, recovered, when she was arrested so
unexpectedly that she had no time to conceal the poison that she had in her
possession, and all of which are in the hands of justice.
[Untitled, The Cincinnati Daily Enquirer (Oh.), Dec. 14,
1868, p. 2]
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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 3): If De Quincey were now alive says an English paper, he might write a champion essay to the one on murder as one of fine arts – taking for theme murder as a passtime, and illustrating it by a case which has just happened at Geneva. A woman named Jeanneret, thirty-two years of age, whose employment was that of nursing the sick, has just been found guilty of nine murders. She was a clever woman with a highly nervous and excitable organization, and she seems to have no other motive for her crimes than a morbid love of the excitement of murder and a grim delight in witnessing the sufferings of her victims. The unusual fatality of patients nursed by her drew the doctor’s attention, and it was found that she gave them atropine, the active principle of belladonna. She did not deny that she had given the narcotic, and of course pleaded that she had done so to produce sleep and lull restlessness. But it was clear that she knew the sleep she produced to be that which knows no waking. Brought into the presence of the exhumed corpses of her victims she showed no signs of horror, and went through her trial with complete coolness and self-possession.
Yet
the woman was no mere monomaniac. She had all her faculties about her; and the
only rational theory other crime was that she had taken to it for amusement. A
kind of gambling passion had taken that direction, and had gained entire
mastery of her. The case is a rare but by no means unique example of the
possibility that all feeling may be lost in one overmastering passion.
Fortunately, such passion is generally some form of self indulgence, and it
rarely happens that any human being is sufficiently callous to indulge a
passion for murder.
[“A Swiss Woman Found Guilty of Nine Murders,” The Herald
and Torch Light (Hagerstown, Md.), Jan. 9, 1869, p. 1]
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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 3): There died recently in the prison of St. Antonio, at Geneva, a woman of the name of Marie Jeanneret, one of the most remarkable criminals of the age, and probably the most extensive secret poisoner of her time. Her case is all the more remarkable in that, it presents some curious psychological problems, and that strangely enough, she was the cause of the abolition of the death penalty in the canton of Geneva.
Marie
Jeanneret belonged to one of the most honorable families in the canton
of Neuchatel, where she was born in 1836. She inherited from her
parents, both of whom died when she was an infant, a modest competency.
Marie remained at school until she readied her nineteenth year, and was
carefully and religiously brought up by her uncle, who was also her
guardian. Her character, as observed by those about her, was peculiar.
She had a defective judgment and a strong will, inconstant taste and a
restless disposition, a tendency to falsehood and a passion for
intrigue. She was vain, too, and liked to attract attention and be
talked about. On the other hand, she was regular in her attendance at
church and assiduous in her religious duties. She did not enjoy very
good health, but was suspected of exaggerating her maladies. By dint of
reading medical hooks and consulting many doctors, she obtained some
knowledge of medicine, of which she was very proud, and often expressed a
desire to become a sick-nurse.
She complained much of her eyes, pretended at one time to be blind, and
in 1865 consulted Dr. Dor, of Vevey, who ascertained by a decisive
experiment that the affection was
imaginary. He did not prescribe for her, but it is probable that she
took an opportunity, while his back was turned, of appropriating a
bottle of atropine.
Another doctor whom she consulted prescribed belladonna, and as she
kept the prescription by her, she was enabled to procure, a supply of
that drug at pleasure. In the spring of 1866 Marie Jeanneret, while
staying at the Pension Beroud, at Vevey, made the acquaintance of a
Mlle. Berthet, of Nyon, whose sympathy was won by her sufferings, real or supposed, her insinuating manners and her religious professions.
They
became fast friends, were nearly always together, and used each other’s
rooms as if they belonged to both. One day, after dinner, Mlle. Berthet
asked for a glass of water, but, the day being warm, Jeanneret
suggested that a mixture of wine and eau sucreé would be the safer beverage. The
mixture was made accordingly and drunk, and shortly afterwards the two
friends started for Clarens. On the way thither Mlle. Berthet became
very ill. She was sick; the pupils of her eyes seemed to be paralyzed;
her heart felt as heavy as lead. Jeanneret showed much sympathy, lifted
the lids of her friend’s eyes to examine them more, closely, and
suggested remedies. After a short rest at Clarens, Mlle. Berthet,
recovered sufficiently to return to Vevey, whither she was accompanied
by Jeanneret.
Upon
arriving home the latter gave her another drink, and while in the very
act of returning her t he glass her friend fell hack on a sofa in a
state of litter nervous prostration.. All the night and the whole of the
next day she was delirious, and her friends, being informed by
telegraph of her illness, fetched her home, and by so doing undoubtedly
saved her life. Three days passed before she could sufficiently command
herself to explain to her medical attendant. Dr. Lamibassy, of Nyon, how
she had been taken ill. After hearing her statement and asking her some
questions. Dr. Lambassy said that it looked very much as if she had
been poisoned by belladonna. The pupils of her eyes were extremely
dilated, her very features were altered, and months elapsed before her
sight was fully restored.
Mlle.
Berthet also believed she had been poisoned, but by mistake, her idea
being that Jeanneret had got her bottles mixed and given her the wrong
stuff inadvertently, and this opinion she retained until subsequent
revelations showed how terrible had been her danger and how narrow her
escape. This was probably Jeanneret’s fist essay at murder, and it will
he observed, as a curious feature of the case, that she had nothing to
gain by her friend’s death. On the face of it the crime was absolutely
motiveless.
From
Vevey, Jeanneret went to Locle, her native place, and in the following
October she entered the nursing school at Lausanne, in order to qualify
herself for the calling for which she had so often expressed a
predilection. After a stay of two months she left the school without
completing her course, on the ground that the state of her eyes rendered
her unfit for work. Whether she tried any experiments on the patients
in the hospital is unknown, but she was occasionally sent out to nurse
patients at their own house, and to one of them, Mme. Chabolz, she
almost certainly gave belladonna. One night Jeanneret called on Mme.
Chabolz’s married daughter, Mme. Eichenberg, and said her mother was
very ill. Mme. Euchenberg found the latter with wide open eyes, a face
expressive of intense terror, and talking wildly and laughing
deliriously. The doctor was sent for and came, but suspected nothing.
Another time she went into the dining room while the Eichenhergs were at
supper, and gave the children some bonbons, which she called
“princesses.” All who ate of them were very sick and vomited much. Still
nobody suspected that Jeanneret was a secret poisoner.
The
scene now shifts to Geneva, where, at the time in question, there lived
a certain Mme. Juvet, wife of a tradesman, who, together with two
friends, had formed the design of establishing a maison de sante,
or private hospital for convalescents. The better to fit themselves for
this undertaking they spent a few days in the nursing school at
Lausanne. While there they made the acquaintance of Marie Jeanneret,
who, when informed of their project, applied
for the situation of nurse in the new hospital. She asked no salary,
only board, lodging and washing. She nursed for the pleasure of nursing,
not for money. Her offer was accepted, and after a visit to Locle she
went to Geneva, and quickly became absolute mistress of the maison du sante.
Mme. Juvet seems to have submitted to her in influence from the first,
and before Jeanneret had been in the house many days she contrived to
set her and her friends by the cars. They quarrelled, and the latter
refused to have anything further to do with the affair. When they were
out of the way, Jeanneret took little Julie Juvet, who, she said, was in
delicate health, to consult a doctor at Lausanne. Shortly after their
return the poor child fell ill, after eating some of the nurse’s
bonbons, and took to her bed never to rise from it again. The doctor
thought she was suffering from meningetis. One day, as M. Juvet
subsequently related, his wife heard her daughter crying in the next
room. On going in she found Jeanneret whipping her, and the child begged
her mother pitiously not to let the nurse come near her any more. But
great was her infatuation, so implicit her confidence, that even this
incident does not seem to have shaken Mme. Juvet’s faith in Jeanneret.
People remembered afterwards that it was about this time that the nurse
told the servants and several others that Mme. Juvet was a doomed woman,
and that her son Emile was threatened with a serious illness. A few
days later Mme. Juvet did in effect fall ill, and one morning Emile,
after drinking a cup of coffee, felt violent pain and vomited profusely.
Fortunately for him, he left the maison de sante on the following day, and henceforward experienced no further unpleasantness, either from drinking cocoa, or anything else.
Meanwhile Mine. Juvet suffered from continual relapses, and whenever Dr. Jeanneret, who
attended her, suggested that she was better, Jeanneret always answered
that she did not think that the improvement would last. And it did not.
Poor little Julie died on December 27, 1865, and a month later her
mother was laid in the same grave. When Julie’s body wife afterwards
exhumed, it was too much decomposed to be analyzed, but in Mme. Juvet’s
body were found great quantities of morphine, antimony and some copper.
Nor
were these two the only victims. Before they died the lives of three
other inmates of the hospital, all of whom were nursed by Jeanneret, had
been quenched by the same means. One was an old woman of the name of
Hahn; another “an aged demoiselle,” who was called day; and the third,
also a demoiselle bore the name Junod. She died, after three days
illness and delirium, in great agony. This finished the maison de sante.
Two servants, M. Juvet and Jeanneret, were the only survivors of the
household. Still the doctors suspected nothing, or, if they did they
kept their suspicions to themselves. Jeanneret, whose occupation was for
the moment gone, went into lodgings, pretended to be ill, and took to
her bed; but more fortunate than her patients she got better.
When
she recovered she began to look out for another situation, and,
accompanied by a friend, paid a visit to the hydropathic establishment
known as the Mains de Divonne, a beautiful place at the foot of the
Jura, and some eight miles from Geneva. She was received by Mme. Vidart,
the wife of the late Dr. Paul Vidart, then the proprietor and physician
of the establishment. In the course of conversation the friend
mentioned that Mlle. Jeanneret had been grade malade in the Maison de
Sante Junet, where five persons had died in three months. “How sad!”
exclaimed Mine. Vidart. “Yes, it is very sad when so many die, returned
Jeanneret, “mais il ya des beaux moments dans la mort.”
(There are some beautiful moments in death.) Then she spoke about a
place as a grade malade. One of the patients happened lo be wanting a
nurse, and Mme. Vidart told Jeanneret she would communicate with her in
the course of a few days. After the two women were gone she wrote to a
physician in Geneva, asking him to make some inquiries concerning
Jeanneret’s character and qualifications. “Don’t have anything to do
with her.” was the answer; “all her patients die.” “I can never think of
that woman without a shudder, said Mme. Vidart. to me one day; she
would have poisoned us all.”
However
Jeanneret was shortly afterwards engaged to nurse a Mme. Lenoir, an old
lady who was suffering from inflamation of the lungs. She too died, and
then Jeanneret leased a furnished room front. M. Gross, a retired
schoolmaster, with whom lived Mme. However, his widowed daughter. Again
Marie obtained an engagement, this time to nurse Mine. Bourcart, a lady
who lived at la Boissiere, a country house near Geneva. Four days after
she entered on her duties Mme. Boucart had a “crisis,” accompanied by
delirium and vomitings, and Jeanneret told the servants that their
mistress would die young like her brother. When Mme. Bourcart became a
little better she showed a strong repugnance to Jeanneret, and would not
have the nurse near her, and as Monsieur Bourcart had begun to suspect
that she was playing some tricks with the medicines, she was sent away.
He remarked one evening that a certain bottle of medicine, of which he
knew his wife
had taken several doses during the day, bad not diminished in volume.
He put the bottle aside, but took no further steps, for though he
distrusted Jeanneret it had not then occurred to him that she was a
poisoner. She went back to her lodgings, and M. Gross and Mme. Bouvier,
whose confidence she had already gained, invited her to live with them
on pension.
Three
days later Mme. Mouvier fell ill, and so rapidly grew worse that it
was deemed necessary to call in two physicians, Drs. Lombard and Goudet.
They look it to be a case of congestion of the brain, albeit Dr.
Lombard several times observed that it presented symptoms the like of
which he had never seen before. She died on May 22, 1868. Her father,
after nursing her a few days, had also been taken ill; his illness
followed precisely the same course as hers, and, like hers, ended
fatally. They were killed, as was afterwards abundantly proved, by
atropine, morphine and antimony. During their sickness one of their
relations, a Mme. Legeret, after drinking a glass of eau sucreé
given to her by Jeanneret, became so seriously indisposed that she had
to be taken home in a cab. The doctor who was called in recognized
symptoms of belladonna poisoning, but thinking that Mme. Legeret had
swallowed by mistake some atropine intended for external use, he did not
suspect foul play. Proper remedies were administered, and after a
severe struggle she recovered.
Jeanneret
next took up her abode at the Pension Desarzens, and made the
acquaintance of Mile. Fritzges who, one day after drinking a glass of
lemonade, given to her by the garde malade,
became delirious and terribly ill. The doctor who was called in,
recognized symptoms of poisoning by belladonna and suspecting foul play,
ordered her immediate removal to the cantonal hospital. Doctor Rapin,
of the hospital, made a similar diagnosis. he had heard of Jeanneret
before. She never went into a house whether as guest or nurse, that a
death did not follow. He communicated his suspicious, together with a
sketch of Jeanneret’s career, to the procureur general, who for with had
her arrested. A long inquiry followed; the bodies of her supposed
victims were exhumed. Marie was examined in secret, and after a
prolonged inquiry she was placed on her trial. The charge against her was
that in 1867, and 1868 she had attempted, in the Canton
of Geneva, the lives (1,) Douise Junod; (2,) Jeanne Gay; (3,) Jenny
Julie Juvet; (4,) Louise Henriette; (5,) Mme. Bourcart; (6,) Jacques
Gros; (7,) Julie Bonvier; (8,) Mme. Legeret; (9,) Demoiselle Fritzges. There
were several other charges that might have been brought against her,
but as the relatives of the persons whom she may have poisoned did not
suspect foul play the bodies were not exhumed, and the attempts she had
made in the canton Vaud did not fall within the jurisdiction of the
tribunal of Geneva.
Before
the trial began the Judge’s instruction entered the accused to be
examined by three experts in mental disease, for it was hardly
conceivable that any sane person could be guilty of the series of
purposeless and diabolical crimes imputed to Marie Jeanneret. After a
long investigation the experts came unanimously to the conclusion that
there was discernible in her no sign of feeble-mindedness or mental
alienation. She was found guilty of murdering six persons and attempting
to murder two others by administering to them poisonous drugs. But as
the jury gave for the benefit, of “extenuating circumstances” the
court could pronounce no heavier sentence than twenty years
imprisonment. At that time death was the penalty of unqualified murder
in the canton of Geneva, and if Marie had been a man she would most
assuredly have lost her head. But the jury could not bring their minds
to decree the death of a woman, and so the worst and most dangerous
prisoner of the age escaped the rightful penalty of her crimes. After
letting off Marie Jeanneret with a term of imprisonment, it was clearly
impossible to punish any other murderer more severely, and a law abolishing capital punishment was shortly afterwards adopted by the local legislature.
[“Marie Jeanneret’s Death – Grim Facts In The Career Of This Famous Poisoner. – How She Did Her Work, Her Trial, And The Motive For Crime – Causing The Abolition Of The Death Penalty.” (reprinted from The London Daily News), New York Times (N.Y.), May 11, 1884, p. 5]
[Illustration: Walt Mason, “Historic Crimes and Mysteries – The Poetry of Poison,” Syndicated (Adams Newspaper Syndicate), The Caldwell Watchman (Columbia, La.), Jul. 21, 1916, p. 8]
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Jun. 28, 1868 – “Cette arrestation fut opérée le 28 juin, à
six heures du matin, dans la pension Desarzens, à Plainpalais, et l'on saisit
en même temps dans la chambre de l'inculpée une certaine quantité de fioles
ayant contenu ou contenant encore des drogues diverses, qui furent mises sous
scellées.” [“Le Palais,” Le Gaulois (Paris, France), Dec. 4, 1868, p. 3]
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For more cases, see Sicko Nurses
For more cases, see Sicko Nurses
[4308-1/2/21]
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