Unknown Gender History: Sienna Engelbrecht, South African Black Widow Knifed 3 Husbands to Death

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Sienna Engelbrecht, South African Black Widow Knifed 3 Husbands to Death - 1962

The original sources contain spelling variants, “Sienna,” and “Siena;” “Engelbredht” is clearly an error.

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FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 2): Capetown, Tuesday (A.A.P.).— A judge fold a 38-year-old woman yesterday that “you cannot continue killing your husbands.”

Mrs. Siena Engelbrecht was gaoled for five years for having killed her third husband in four years.

Husband No. 3 was slabbed to death with a pocket knife after a quarrel on the Engelbrecht farm at Grootgewaag, near Paarl, British United Press reported.

Judge Beyers told Mrs. Engelbrecht, charged with manslaughter, that if the charge had been murder, he would have sentenced her to death.

“You cannot continue killing your husbands,” he added.

In May, 1958, Mrs. Engelbrecht was given a suspended sentence for having killed her first husband. In September, 1958, she was sent to prison for three years for having killed her second husband. Both had been stabbed to death, the news agency said.

[“End To Husband Killing,” The Canberra Times (Australia), Sep. 26, 1962, p. 33]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 2): Cape Town, South Africa – Sienna Engelbredht [sic], 38, who admitted the fatal stabbings of her first two husbands, was found guilty of homicide in the knifing death of her third husband.

The judge handed out a five year sentence and told her: “You apparently do not believe in divorce but you cannot continue to kill your husbands.” The woman drew suspended sentences in the first two deaths.

[“Can’t Substitute Knife for Court,” (AP), Milwaukee Sentinel, Sep. 26, 1962, part 1, p. 9]

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“Siena Ruiters” is the name given in: [Dorothy C. Woodson article in: Julian W. Witherell (ed.), Africana Resources and Collections: Three Decades of Development and Achievement, The Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, N. J., & London, 1989, p. 235]

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