“Women’s Clubs Devoted to Murdering Husbands,” by Robert St. Estephe, July 1, 2015
***
Here are some overlooked facts about the relations between the sexes in Eastern Europe (Bohemia, Croatia, Romania, Russia, Serbia) – from the past which are worth knowing about – and, we suggest, also worth thinking about. Compare them to the so-called theory you’ve been sold (“theories” which actually are more wish-lists, scapegoat myths, and magic words than anything resembling a legitimate theory of any kind).
Sometimes old news ends up becoming new news.
~ A Bohemian Death
Soirée ~
A tantalizing snippet of crime news from far away turned up
in a few American newspapers back in the early Spring of 1871. The story was
only two sentences in length describes the outcome of a trial in a region
(proper Czech spelling: Podbrdský) close to Prague.
“Four married woman of Podbizka, in Bohemia, were convicted
of having poisoned their husbands at a party which one of them had given for
that purpose. They were sentenced to penal servitude for life.” [1]
So far, no other report of these crimes have been located in
English language sources. Czech sources are inaccessible to this writer.
Our apologies for offering up such an intriguing tease with
no prospect for filling out the picture any time soon. But this little item
prompts a discussion of a little known phenomenon for which, in other
instances, there is a bit of detailed information available: Eastern European
“clubs” formed by wives for the express purpose of killing off husbands. There
are dozens of historical instances of professional poisoners located in eastern Europe, who specialized in assisting
wives in murdering husbands [2]. Most, of course, used poison, but some used
other methods. Here we will look at only five of these conspiracies, those
involving particularly organized activities: killing “clubs,” killing
“parties” and a “marry for the purpose of killing scheme” that was organized
for the benefit of unmarried young women who wished to gain quick inheritances.
~ The Croatian
Matchmaker from Hell ~
In eastern Croatia (currently Serbia) in the town of Bingula, Syrmia district,
in October1887 newspapers reported what was perhaps the most cynical scheme
conceived by one of these professional “widow-makers.”
“Young married farmers have been
dying off with dreadful suddenness in villages of Syrmia in Eastern Croatia. These young farmers
were all brand new husbands, and at last their deaths, all coming so soon after their
marriage, excited suspicion, and the matter was investigated. It was found that
an old woman had conceived the idea of getting pretty young girls to marry
farmers and then poison them and divide the spoils. The old woman is now in gaol, and
so far seven young widows to whom she had furnished poison with which to kill
their husbands. These arrests have all been made in a single village, and a lot
of other arrests are anticipated.” [3]
~ An Exclusive
Romanian Wives “Club” ~
In 1903 Romania (then part of the Austo-Hungarian Empire) in
the town of Veresmacht near Arad, a coroner formed what English language
newspapers called a “club.”
“A sensation has been caused by the arrest of five women on
the charge of poisoning their husbands. It is charged by the authorities that
the women were members of a club which was formed among the married women of
Veresmacht [or, Beresmait], near Arad, Hungary [currently in Romania]. None but
women who were dissatisfied with their husbands could become members of this
organization. Whenever a woman was heard to say that she wished she was never
married, or that she would like to have her husband out of the way, she was
immediately visited by one of the agents the club. Once in the toils of the club
the women had no alternative but to go on with the plot of murder. The members
of the club were supplied with poison, which, it is charged, was obtained from
the coroner of the district, who then put it on the record that the men had
died of heart disease. The coroner, whose name is Hansuch, is under arrest,
accused of being accessory to the murders that are charged against the women.”
[4]
It would seem that after assisting the women by selling them
poison the opportunistic coroner would – after the husband was successfully
been rendered a corpse – blackmail the self-made widow. This must have been
quite a disappointment since in the majority of cases of this sort in eastern
Europe the primary motive was to possession of the assets of the deceased.
~ The Serbian “Saint
Lucretia Club” ~
While the husband-killing club in Veresmacht was, it goes without saying, a secret sort of thing, in
one town in Serbia, Nagy Kikinda it is called, a group of women were so bold as
to form a public club and to register it as an official charity (if the news
clipping is accurate in this detail). Here is the extraordinary story of the
“kill your husband club” (as one American newspaper called it) that burst into
the headlines internationally in 1926:
“Everybody in the little Jugoslavian town of Nagy Kikinda
thought the women’s club of Saint Lucretia was a very respectable society and
above suspicion, until the number of deaths among the male population showed a
striking increase which nobody could explain. Rumors arose. It was found that
many of the men who died had been married to or were friends of women who were
members of the Saint Lucretia club, that their deaths had been more or less
unexpected and that there was a striking resemblance of the circumstances under
which they took place.
“Every one of the dead men had been wealthy and respected in
the little community. Some of the widows spent more money than they had ever
done before, purchased costly clothes, automobiles, and led the lives of
grandes dames. When things had developed so far, somebody remembered that Saint
Lucretia had a namesake who was one of the worst poisoners in history, namely
Lucretia Borgia, the daughter of Pope Alexander VI [note: the name “Lucretia
Borgia” had been synonymous with “female serial killer” until research in the
mid-20th century showed that her homicidal reputation was based on
legend, not fact] This stirred the suspicion that the women’s club was not
named after the saint, but after Lucretia Borgia, and that it really was a
league of poisoners.
“At first there was no absolute proof of these dreadful
suspicions, but the police considered them sufficiently grave to arrest several
of the members of the club, among them the ringleader, who disappeared when she
smelled danger, but was so imprudent as to return to Nagy Kikinda because she
believed her social position and that of her friends would be sufficient
protection. Her husband was among the persons who died recently from a sudden
illness.
“The police had meanwhile found out that one of the women
made frequent excursions abroad and
supplied the necessary poison, which she obtained from chemists under some
pretext or other. Naturally, the little town is in seething excitement and the
scandal is great.
“The unprecedented criminal affair had a tragic-comical result. The men of Nagy Kikinda have been caught by a general panic. None of them had ever thought of the faint possibility of an organization for the purpose of their removal by poison. Certainly not in their social circles. Who could still trust his wife or fiancée in such a depraved milieu? Thus it happened that numerous men left their families because they were not certain whether their wives were secret members of the Lucretia club. Engagements were dissolved, and new arrests are hourly expected. It will take women in Nagy Kikinda a long time to win back the confidence of the male part of the population.” [5]
Only today (July 1, 2015) has a source been uploaded in a
newspaper archive that states that name of the club’s founder – Maria Vukitch –
and gives the details of the scheme’s origin and its judicial denouement.
Maria Vukitch murdered two husbands and aided seven other women in becoming
poison widows. Nine men in total were killed by the blessed Society of Saint
Lucretia. Two of there were spouses of Maria Vukitch. She and her acolytes are,
it is reported, hanged for their crimes.
It was following the murder of her first husband, Dusan,
that she began to perform services for her young lady friends. Two became her
beneficiaries – through willed widowhood – in short order. The poison was a
mixture of arsenic and opium. Maria started a worship group in her home, where
young women visitors, were seen entering, Bible in hand, and remained for hours
on end. They made it known their patron saint was Lucretia. Their piety became
so famous in the town that others clamored to be allowed into Maria’s inner
sanctum, her “day room.” But these woman were rejected, adjudged as
insufficiently pious for her exclusive club.
Finally the body count of healthy men dropping like flies
grew so large that masculine members of the community demanded an
investigation. It did not take long for the gendarmes to find the evidence of
murder: a mix of arsenic and opium in each and every corpse.
~ Sophie, the Russian
Party Monster ~
For our final story, dating from 1927 – the year of the
hangings of the Kikinda women – we
shall return to the “party” theme. But we’re talking husband-killing party on a
grand scale here. It took place in a tiny village to be sure, yet the effect
was grand nevertheless. According to the few and scanty reports available at
present, every single husband was ‘whacked” in the course of a single festival.
“The Russian authorities have been surprised to discover the village of Navoia is inhabited only by widows. After investigations they discovered that all the husbands in the village, numbering 58, had been murdered. The women confessed to poisoning them when they were intoxicated during a village festival, after the War, when the men returned and disturbed their wives’ untroubled lives.
The ring-leader, Sophie Safarine, stated that she committed thirty murders. She says she developed androphobia owing to the brutality of her first husband whom she killed in addition to the second and third husbands.” [6]
“The Russian authorities have been surprised to discover the village of Navoia is inhabited only by widows. After investigations they discovered that all the husbands in the village, numbering 58, had been murdered. The women confessed to poisoning them when they were intoxicated during a village festival, after the War, when the men returned and disturbed their wives’ untroubled lives.
The ring-leader, Sophie Safarine, stated that she committed thirty murders. She says she developed androphobia owing to the brutality of her first husband whom she killed in addition to the second and third husbands.” [6]
The phrase “party till you drop” takes on an entirely new
meaning when there is a proactive “androphobe” around on a crusade to rid the
world of representatives of the condemned sex, personal sacrifices in military
service notwithstanding.
Among the dozens of other cases of “husband-killing
syndicates” – mostly in Eastern Europe, but some in Italy, Sicily and France –
there are stories as remarkable as these – with large conspiracies that
operated sometimes over a period of decades. These party-killers and killing
clubs are but a quaint subcategory of a widespread phenomenon that has been
with us many centuries. Gangs that lure men into marriage only to be killed off
by their wives for their assets – and life insurance pay-outs – are still
operating, the most recent of which to be discovered was in Medellin, Colombia
in 2011.
Husband-Killing Syndicates
***
NOTES / SOURCES:
[1] “Podbizka,” Bohemia – [Untitled, The Brooklyn Daily
Eagle (N.Y.), Mar. 11, 1871, p. 3; Same text:
Pittsburg Post-Gazette, Mar. 4, 1871, p. 1]
[2] See: “Husband Killing Syndicates” on blog “The Unknown
History of Misandry”
[3] Bingula, Serbia [Eastern Croatia] – [“Poisoning Manias.” The Maitland
Mercury & Hunter River General Advertiser (NSW, Australia), Dec. 27, 1887,
p. 3]; quotation from [From column “Town Talk.” The Record (Melbourne,
Australia), Dec. 24, 1887, p. 5]; [“Our Cable Dispatches – Remarkable Murders
in Southern Europe,” The Oldensburg Journal (N.Y.), Oct. 31, 1887, p. 1]
[4] quotation from [“Women Formed Club To Murder Husbands –
A Strange Conspiracy Is Unearthed at Arad, in Hungary.” The Pittsburgh Press
(Pa.), Nov. 29, 1903, p. 1]; [“Coroner Advises Poisoning Of Men - Woman
Administers Potion Because the Official Was Her Lover.” The San Francisco Call
(Ca.), Jan. 3, 1904, p. 17]
[5] Some reports use the obsolete term “Velika Kikinda”];
source for name of founder: [“Arsenic Poisoners -
Past and Present.” The Wellington Times (Australia), May
8, 1930, p. 5]; [“Club Of Women
Poisoners Is Unearthed In Belgrade,” syndicated (AP), The Galveston Daily News
(Tx.), Oct. 20, 1926, p. 1]; long quotation from: [“Woman’s Murder
Society Forces Husbands From Town in Terror – Police in Jugoslavian Village
Hold Modern Borgias on Charge of poisoning Rich Mates; News Causes Men to Break
Engagements and Leave Families,” New York Herald-Tribune (N. Y.), Oct. 17,
1926, part III, p. 2]; [“A Poison Your Husband Club.” Springfield Republican
(Mo.), Dec, 15, 1926, Editorial Page (p. 8)]
[6] Regarding the identification of the place: there are
over 50 different locations with the name Navoija in Russia. An Italian book on
serial killers, published in 2011, identifies the village as Novaja Laloga.
[“Husbands Slain - Russian Women Confess - Fifty-eight Murders,” The News
(Adelaide, Australia), Sep. 29, 1927, p. 7]; quotation from: [“Women With A
Grievance. - 58 Husbands Killed.” The Singapore Free Press and Mercantile
Advertiser, Oct. 15, 1927, p. 6]
http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.com/2014/01/sophie-safarine-triple-black-widow-and.html
http://unknownmisandry.blogspot.com/2014/01/sophie-safarine-triple-black-widow-and.html
***
***
For more than two dozen similar cases, dating from 1658 to 2011, see the summary list with links see: The Husband-Killing Syndicates
***
SEE MORE: Female Serial Killer Collections
***
No comments:
Post a Comment