Emma Hepperman, The Potato Soup Black Widow Serial Killer – Missouri, 1940

Emma Hepperman was suspected to have murdered up to six husbands, a mother-in-law, possibly a daughter, and to have poisoned a step-daughter, who survived due to diagnosis following her father’s death. Newspapers spell the name in two ways. Apparently, the spelling with one "n" is correct.

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FULL TEXT: St. Charles, Mo., June 4 – Mrs. Emma Sarana Hepperman, who was married seven times, was charged in a warrant today with murder by poison of her last husband, Tony Hepperman, whom she met through an advertisement for a position as a housekeeper.

The warrant was issued by Justice of the Peace Gus Temme after a coroner’s jury had returned a verdict stating that Hepperman, 53-year-old farmer, had been poisoned. He died six weeks after his marriage.

In a deposition read at the inquest, Dr. J. L. Neubeiser, who treated Hepperman at a hospital here, said the farmer made “a ‘dying declaration’ that he believed his wife had poisoned him.”

A short, heavy-set woman with gray hair, Mrs. Hepperman, 46, has exhumed several days ago and the vital organs were examined in the laboratory of the state highway patrol at Jefferson City, Schneider, 56, a farmer living near St. Peter’s, Mo., died last September 19 after being ill two days.

[“7-Times Widow In Murder Net,” The Spokesman-Review (Wa.), Jun. 5, 1940, p. 3]

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FULL TEXT: A Franklin County jury found Emma Heppermann of St. Charles County guilty of poisoner her punishment at life punishment. Judge Breuer gave the case to the jury Thursday evening shortly before six o’clock but no verdict was returned until 11:30 Friday morning. Mrs. Heppermann was found guilty on the first ballot taken by the jury, but it required nearly nine hours of balloting before her punishment was fixed, two jurors holding out for the death penalty.

Mts. Heppermann was married seven times; two husbands secured a divorce but the other five died under rather unusual circumstances. A son of her sixth husband told a representative of the Tribune that his father had the same “stomach trouble” as Tony Heppermann; that there was also a “robbery” and that all circumstances of his father’s life with the defendant had paralleled the incidents leading to Heppermann’s death.

Arguments for a new trial were presented before Judge Breuer Thursday afternoon at two o’clock.

[“Jury Brings in Life Sentence – Emma Heppermann Found Guilty of Poisoning Husband,” Franklin Couny Tribune (Union, Mo.), May 9, 1941, p. 1]

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Chronology:

Jun. 20, 1883 – born Emma Sarana Stinnett, Steelville

Prior to Apr. 25, 1910 – marries first husband; Charles Schwack, 33.

Jul. 15, 1925 – Charles Schwack, 1^st husband, died

May 12, 1931 – Frank Bessmer (b 5-1-1893), 2^nd husband, died

Aug. 30, 1932 – Lola May Schwack, daughter (almost 14), died

Ca 1932-33 – Frank Lee, 2^rd husband (no record found), divorced (reportedly)

Mar. 25, 1933 – Myra King, mother-in-law (Roberts), died

July 21, 1933 – Bert Roberts, 4^th husband, died (housekeeper advertisement)

Oct. 19, 1935 – William A. Vaughn, 61, 5^th husband; separ. after 6 mo.; divorced. Oct. 1937

1935 – Vaughan house burned

Sep. 19, 1939 – Aloys Schneider, 6^th husband, 55, died

Early May 1940 – Ethel Hepperman, 12, step-daughter – poisoned, survived May 28, May 28, 1940 – Tony Hepperman, 53, 7^th husband; St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Charles.; had been married 6 weeks (Emma was 46)

May 29, 1940 – Emma arrested

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Notes based on the research of Marsha Corley:

OVERVIEW: Emma Hepperman, 46, was arrested the day after her 53-year-old seventh husband, Tony Hepperman, died in St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Charles, Missouri. They had been married only five months.

She was born in 1883 and claimed she was married to her first husband at the tender age of 14 and had twelve children from that marriage, yet no records have been found that would support her claim. Charles Schwack died in 1925 and Emma went hog-wild from then on in the marriage department, picking up six additional spouses, four others of whom died in her home, and, according to her, two who divorced her.

After arsenic had been found in the blood of the deceased Tony Hepperman it was discovered that 12-year-old step-daughter Ethel Hepperman who had been ill for weeks had also been poisoned. Investigation brought out the facts of her busy matrimonial career involving spousal suspicious as well as ordinary seeming (at the time) deaths, including a daughter from her first marriage and a mother-in-law.

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EXCERPT 1: At the trial for the murder of Tony Hepperman Alphonse Schneider, brother of husband number six:  “She told me three times she wanted to kill me,” he testified. “One day, in the midst of a quarrel, she said she wanted to cook me some soup.” Schneider leaned close to the jury and said, “I sure am glad I didn’t eat any of that soup.”

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EXCERPT 2: Mrs. Eagan [daughter of Tony Hepperman] said that on the Friday before her dad’s death he told her his wife had talked him into the notion of selling the farm and getting away as everyone was butting into their business.

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EXCERPT 3: Inquest Testimony: The oldest daughter said that after her father was brought to the hospital he told her that when he was in St. Louis the Sunday evening his wife brought him coffee with the poison in it and also water with the same stuff in it but he refused. “She sat at my bedside, waiting for me to die,” the victim told his daughter. Shortly after that the officers came and took the woman away. [“Startling Evidence At Inquest Into Death Of Hepperman Brother Was Suspicious Of Woman’s Actions - Prosecuting Atty. Dyer Announced First Degree Murder Charges Would Be Filed,” St. Charles Weekly Cosmos-Monitor (St. Charles, Mo,), Jun. 5, 1940; quoted in e-book]

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EXCERPT 4: Inquest Testimony of Steve Hepperman, Tony’s brother: “When got back wheeled him on a chair to his bed, and he looked at me and he said: ‘My God who would have thought she would poison me,’ and he asked me, ‘do you think why would she want to poison me I was so good to her?’ He said ‘where is she?’ and I said ‘in jail.’ He said ‘then keep the dam old bitch there.’” [“Startling Evidence At Inquest Into Death Of Hepperman Brother Was Suspicious Of Woman’s Actions - Prosecuting Atty. Dyer Announced First Degree Murder Charges Would Be Filed,” St. Charles Weekly Cosmos-Monitor (St. Charles, Mo,), Jun. 5, 1940; quoted in e-book]

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EXCERPT 5: Trial: Witnesses for the State yesterday included Steve Heppermann, brother of Tony and Mrs. Rosie Simpson, Negro laundress, who worked occasionally for the Heppermans. The brother testified that four days before his death his brother had known he was poisoned. Mrs. Simpson testified that Mrs. Hepperman told her shortly before Hepperman’s death, “Hep has $1,000 and I’m going to get it.”

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EXCERPT 6: Mrs. Emma S. Hepperman, seven times married woman, was found guilty by a jury of twelve men in the circuit court of Union, shortly before noon today and was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment in the Missouri penitentiary. The verdict was returned after deliberation of nine hours. Three ballots were necessary before her punishment was fixed. Two of the jurors held out for the death penalty on the first vote while one voted for death the second time. The third ballot was unanimous for life.

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SOURCES:

Book: Marina Corley, Emma Heppermann, Sr. Charles Black Widow, 2014? (ebook)

http://carpediemdona.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/emma-heppermann-st-charles-black-widow1.pdf

Blog: Carpe Diem Dona [Marina Corley] http://carpediemdona.com/tag/st-charles-black-widow/

[Bill McClellan, “McClellan: Remembering Emma’s Deadly Potato Soup,” St. Louis Post (Mo.), Jun. 28, 2013; contains claims made by perpetrator, treated as factual,  that were apparently false.]

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More: Champion Black Widow Serial Killers

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For links to other cases of woman who murdered 2 or more husbands (or paramours), see Black Widow Serial Killers.

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More Lonely Hearts Rackets

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[3587-12/31/20]

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Romania – Female Serial Killers & Husband Killing Syndicates

The sources used in this preliminary research are all English language. As such the reports contain many variants in transliteration of place names and personal names. During the period in question the locales were within the Austro-Hungarian empire and English newspapers typically listed the nation as “Hungary.” It should also be noted that since several different languages are used in these regions there are numerous different “correct” place names for each locale and that some of the names’ standard spelliung has chaned over time.

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1877 – Gross-Szent-Miklos – Rakitta Fira Bogyok & Softa Esutorina

1895 – Pecia (Pecksa) – Marie Hevesy

 

1897 – Maria Ulica – Zsebely, Temesvar, Romania

 

1898 – Emilie Thiele, Maria Pisturin & Ida Gro – Temesvar, Romania

 

1899 – Jebel, Timisoara (Timis county) (Szebely, Temesvar) – Marie Nikodem & Lisa Triku

1900 – Chisoda – Nikola Bettuz

1906 – Satchinez commune (Serbian: Kneez, Knez), Temesvar – Martha Petromany (Petrobany, etc.)

 

1912 – Johanna Kapruczan – Lippa, Romania, "Hungary"

 

1933 – Villagos (Siria), Arad – Florica Duma & Ilona Kovacs

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►Also, posts on individual cases related to a “syndicate”:

1906 – Satchinez commune (Serbian: Kneez, Knez), Temesvar – Catherine Biber

1906 – Satchinez commune (Serbian: Kneez, Knez), Temesvar – “Knez Four-Time Black Widow” (name yet undetermined)

1907 – Satchinez commune (Serbian: Kneez, Knez), Temesvar – Frau Hazyok

►Also, a female bandit serial murderess from Romania:

1902 – Jassy – Female Bandit (name presently undetermined)

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For more than two dozen similar cases, dating from 1658 to 2011, see the summary list with links see: The Husband-Killing Syndicates

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[948-11/12/21]

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Chisako Kakehi, Suspected Champion Black Widow Serial Killer – Japan, 2014

On November 19, 2014, a 69-year-old Chisako Kakehi widow and retired bank employee was arrested in Kyoto, Japan on suspicion of murdering her fourth husband. She is additionally suspected of murdering six others between 1994 to 2013: her first four husbands, a boyfriend and a fiance.

In March of this year, during the early part of the criminal investigation, the suspect told reporters: “If people suspect murder, I’d find it easier to bite my tongue off and die,” she told reporters in March. She added that she saw herself as “doomed by fate.”

Over the past two decades she has been the beneficiary of insurance money totaling 800 million yen (US$ 6.8 million) in addition to other property and money she inherited following the seven men’s deaths.

Police are investigating all seven deaths, stating that the older men may possibly have died of natural causes, yet all must still be regarded as possible murders.

~ Suspected murder #1 ~

Kakehi’s first husband died in 1994 at the age of 54.

~ Suspected murder #2 ~

In 2006 her second husband, whom she had met through a dating agency, died at the age of 69. The presumed cause was “stroke.”

~ Suspected murder #3 ~

Her third marriage ended in 2008 with the death of her 75-year-old spouse.

~ Suspected murder #4 ~

In 2012 her then-fiance met his fate after collapsing while riding a motorbike.

~ Suspected murder #5 ~

In 2013, a boyfriend, believed to have been suffering from some form of cancer, died.

~ Suspected murder #6 ~

In September 2013 a 75-year-old boyfriend fell suddenly ill after the couple ate together at a restaurant and soon was dead.

~ Suspected murder #7 ~

Husband number four Isao Kakehi fell sick suddenly at home and was confirmed dead at a hospital in December 2013, less than two months following the couple’s marriage. An autopsy showed the presence of  cyanide compounds.

[Based on: Miwa Suzuki, “‘Black widow’ with seven dead partners arrested in Japan,” AFP, Nov. 19, 2014]

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“I killed my husband,” Ms Kakehi said from the witness stand on Monday. “I have no intention of hiding the guilt. I will laugh it off and die if I am sentenced to death tomorrow,” [“‘Black Widow’ confesses to killing fourth husband,” New York Times, Jul 12, 2017]

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かけひちさこ / Kake hi chisa ko / Chisako Kakehi

Checklist:

1994 – first husband, 54, died.

2006 – second husband, 69, died.

2008 – third husband, 75, died.

2012 – fiance died.

2013 – boyfriend died.

Sep. 2013 – boyfriend, 75, died.

Dec. 2013 – Isao Kakehi, fourth husband died.

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MORE Female Serial Killers of Asia

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More: Champion Black Widow Serial Killers

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For links to other cases of woman who murdered 2 or more husbands (or paramours), see Black Widow Serial Killers.

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[2874-1/16/21]

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Dear Diary, I’m a female serial killer!

Female serial killers who kept diaries or other written records of their murders. Some discuss their murders and some merely discuss “relationships” and “feelings.”

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1610 – Elizabeth Bathory – Csejte, Kingdom of Hungary (today Čachtice, Slovakia) 

Castle servants claimed 100-200, but legend has it that Erzebet kept a diary that listed all 650 of her victims.

1676 – Marquise de Brinvilliers – Paris, France

The Marquise fled to London, where she remained three years. Then she returned to France and entered a convent. She was enticed from it and arrested. In her cell was found a diary. It showed that had not only poisoned her father and two brothers, and many hospital patients, but her own child and two servants as well.

1889 – Sophie von Mesko – Lipes, Hungary

Quite recently the police, in the course of a domiciliary visit, discovered the diary in which she had entered with the greatest minuteness a number of details concerning her relations with her many lovers, and the still more damaging revelation that she had killed four other children by different lovers.

1893 – “Kuttenberg Baby-Killers” – Bohemia (Czech, Austrian Empire) 

“The discovery of this wholesale system of baby murdering was brought about by accident, or the women might have continued their prosperous business for for years to come. So safe did they feel themselves from detection that one of them kept regular ledgers, in which was inscribed the sums received, the person the money was received from, the age and description of the child, and the date it was disposed of. But the help of this horrible record of crimes the authorities anticipate not only convicting and effectually disposing of these two female friends, but they also anticipate being able to make a large number of arrests and bring numbers of others to the bar of justice.”

1912 – Louise Lindloff – Chicago, Illinois, USA

“A ledger found hidden behind a secret lock in the closet in Mrs. Lindloff’s home is said by the police to show a complete record of the deaths of members of the household, together with the amounts of insurance collected. This book, written in German, is regarded by the prosecution as circumstantial evidence to uphold the theory of murder carried on as a cold, commercial proposition. It is held by the prosecution that in this book Mrs. Lindloff kept careful account of her resources and that whenever she needed money she planned a death. Suspicion was diverted, it is believed, by her frequent changes of residence.”

1920 – Raya & Sekina Aly Hammam – Alexandria, Egypt

“[T]he sisters gave the names of the miserable cutthroats whom they employed, and Sekina capped the mountain of atrocities by producing a notebook in which she kept accurate entries of the amounts in cash and in gems realized from the corpses and the sums each had cost her in miserly fees to the executioners.”

1926 – Josefa Szanyi (Josephine Tsany) – Budapest, Hungary

She has preserved diaries in which she records with amazing details the facts of each case, describing the sufferings of the victims as each in turn lay writhing in her arms in his death throes.

1965 – Myra Hindley – Hattersley, England

Her diary was devoted primarily to her obsession with her serial rape/murder partner, Ian Brady:

“I hope he loves me, and will marry me some day.”

“He is cruel and selfish, and I love him.”

1968 – Mary Bell – Scottswood, England

MARY’S NOTEBOOK: On May 27, 1986, the day Mary and Norma ransacked the Day School nursery and left behind scrawled boasts of having murdered, “Mary Bell drew a picture in her notebook of a child in the same pose as that in which Martin Brown had been found, with a bottle near him with the word "TABLET.." There was a man walking toward the child. It read, ‘On saturday I was in the house, and my mam sent Me to ask Norma if she Would come up the top with me? we went up and we came down at Magrets Road and there were crowds of people beside an old house. I asked what was the matter. there had been a boy who Just lay down and Died.’ Mary's notebook entry did not strike the teacher as odd, although she was the only student who wrote on Martin's death.” [Shirley Lynn Scott, “Mary Bell: Portrait of a Killer as a Young Girl.” Crime Library, Tru.tv, undated]

1978 – Cecile Bombeek – Ghent, Belgium

Time magazine reported that the killer was caught through the efforts of fellow nuns working in the 38-bed geriatric ward, who kept a diary of mysterious deaths and other irregularities.

1986 – Bobbie Sue Terrell (Dudley) – St. Petersburg, Florida, USA

Police found, under the nurse’s mattress, five pages of notes “listing the patients’ deaths, identifying them by number and indicating what time they died.

1996 – Lyudmila Spesivtseva – Novosibirsk, Siberia

Mother and son serial killer cannibal team: A diary was found that documented the murders of 19 girls. They were suspected in a total of at least 32 murders.

1998 – Sante Kimes – New York, Bahamas, California

"Despite the fact Silverman’s body was never found, both mother and son were convicted of murder in 2000, in no small part because of the discovery of Kimes’ notebooks detailing the crime."

2001 – Kathleen Megan Folbigg – Mayfield, NSW, Australia – murdered 3 of her own children.

– “With Sarah, all I wanted was her to shut up. And one day, she did.”

– “Even though I’m responsible, it’s alright. She accepts and is happy... She’s a fairly good-natured baby, thank goodness - it saved her from the fate of her siblings. I think she was warned. …another one like Sarah. She saved her life by being different.”

– “I feel like the worst mother on this earth, scared that she’ll leave me now like Sarah did. I knew I was short-tempered, and cruel, sometimes, to her, and she left - with a bit of help.”

– “…would like all my mistakes and terrible thinking be corrected and mean something, though. Obviously, I’m my father’s daughter.”

2004 – Sonya Caleffi – Como, Italy

An anorexic nurse who has admitted killing patients at a new Milan hospital to make herself feel powerful and important kept a diary noting details of their deaths.

2009 – Harsimrat “Simmi” Kahlon – Calgary, Canada

Three infanticides over a period of four years were discovered following the death of the serial killer mom.

Forensic psychologist Dr. Thomas Dalby worked with investigators to perform a kind of “psychological autopsy” to reconstruct the woman’s state of mind. In Kahlon’s diary, which she kept in Urdu, Hindi and Punjabi, she wrote often that she felt worthless but there were few references to the babies.”It was clear that she was significantly depressed at times, looked at herself as worthless, and had lost her will for life,” said Dalby. Through interviews with friends and family, investigators found that Kahlon often overreacted to situations and would be happy one day and totally depressed the next. Dalby said it was unusual for a mother to keep the bodies of infants in close proximity after killing them.

2012 – Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva – Brazil

Bruna kept a diary. After her arrest a controversy arose resulting from her written claim that the mayor of of the municipality of Conde, Aluísio Régis, was connected through “The Cartel” to the cannibal sect.

2015 – Elena Lobacheva – Moscow, Russia

“When Elena Lobacheva’s apartment was searched, police found five knives and on her computer, a “step-by-step instruction to killing people and photos of all of her victims with their stomachs cut open and body parts cut off.” Folders titled “Tenderness” and “Need this” contained hundreds of pictures and videos of torture and executions. In a notebook Lobacheva had recorded the number of knife wounds on the gang’s victims’ bodies.” [Will Stewart, “‘Bride of Chucky’ serial killer felt ‘sexual pleasure’ while knifing victims,” The Sun, June 22, 2017]

2015 – Tamara Samsonova – St. Petersburg, Russia

Arrested at the age of 67 on suspicion of murder, Samsonova’s diary, written in Russian, German and English, detailing a reported ten murders. Initial accounts of the case imply that all of the suspected murders involved the dismemberment of victims' corpses and the distribution of body parts in plastic bags throughout St. Petersburg.

2018 – Lucy Letby – Chester, England

 

"I am evil."

 

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Lucy Letby

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SEE MORE: Female Serial Killer Collections

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[2214-8/19/21]

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