NOTE: In this case, a murdered husband is accused by the killer wife – but only after two previous sworn statements that made no reference to the accusation – that the man was a pedophile (“indecent relations” with two young girls).
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FULL
TEXT (Article 1 of 3): L'Anse, Mich., Oct. 7 – Widow who claims, officers so
said, that she gave her late husband poison at his request to relieve severe
stomach pains, was held for trial today on a charge of first degree murder.
She
is Mrs. Elizabeth Ziolkowski, 60, half breed Indian.
She
was bound over for trial yesterday after she had waived examination.
Her
statement which Sheriff William Netti, of Baraga county, and Fred Ennis, state
police detective, said was tantamount to a confession that she was responsible
for the death of her husband, John Ziolkowski, 35, was made after her
arraignment.
Ziolkowski
died on September 4. Officers said they also would investigate the death in
1928 of the woman's second husband, John Boston. They said they were told the
woman mixed him a hot drink shortly before death.
Both
Boston and Ziolkowski, they said, were insured, Boston for $1,800 and
Ziolkowski for, $2,500.
[“Woman
Is Held For Husband’s Murder - Claims She Gave Him Poison at His Request to
Relieve Pains.” (AP), Ironwood Daily Globe (Mi.), Oct. 7, 1932, p. 1]
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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 3): Mrs. Elizabeth Ziolkowski, who
has been held in the Baraga county jail since last October on charges of
poisoning her husband, John, who died last Labor Day, yesterday told
authorities she was telling she was willing to plead guilty, and will be
arraigned in the circuit court at L’Anse before Judge Stone 9 o’clock this
morning. Prosecuting Attorney Harry R. Corgan of Baraga county was transacting
business in Escanaba yesterday morning when he was notified when he was notified
by the Baraga county clerk by long distance telephone that Mrs. Ziolkowski had
decided to plead guilty.
~ Visited in Fairport ~
The mysterious death
of John Ziolkowski followed a visit he and his wife made with relatives
in Fairport, Garden peninsula, about last Aug. 15. Because of illness, they
remained in Fairport only a couple days, and returned to their home in Baraga.
In two statements given to Baraga authorities on Oct. 6,
Mrs. Ziolkowsi said that her husband asked her to make him a drink of some
arsenic of lead that was stored in a paper bag on a shelf in their home. She
explained in her confession that her husband too the drink to relieve the pains
in his stomach, but that her cautioned her against telling anyone about the
“medicine.” She also stated in the first two statements that she loved her
husband.
In her third signed statement, dated Nov. 25, however, Mrs.
Ziololkowski confessed: “I gave my husband this poison because I figured by
getting rid of him I would also be rid of the other Ziololkowski’s.”
She said she was disgusted with her husband because of his
actions. She charged in her third statement that that he had had indecent
relations with her granddaughter and another small girl, and that while she
went on a visit to New York he had been unfaithful to her and had contacted a
serious social disease. She also complained that his relatives were always
interfering with her affairs, and that her husband always sided with them.
Following her last confession, Mrs. Ziolkowski was arraigned
in circuit court at L’Anse at the December term, but stood mute. Trial of her
case was set for the next term.
~ Other Husband Poisoned ~
Meanwhile, authorities investigated the death of John
Boston, a former husband of Mrs. Ziolkowski, who died four years ago. Boston’s
body was exhumed in November, and an analysis of his internal organs by the
state laboratory at Lansing revealed a large quantity of arsenic. At the time
of Boston’s death, the woman explained that Boston had come in from a fishing trip,
complaining of being ill. She said she gave him a “hot drink,” and he died
shortly afterward. The physician who signed the certificate had presumed that
Boston had died of heart disease.
It was understood that Mrs. Ziolkowski at one time lived at
Cedar River in Menominee county. She is a woman almost sixty years of age,
while her last husband was in his thirties.
[“Baraga Woman Says She Will Plead Guilty To Poisoning Her
Husband,” The Escanaba Daily Press
(Mi.), Jan. 4, 1933, p. 1]
***
FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 3): Lansing, Mich. – A little old
lady with bright dark eyes and an unwrinkled face told the men on Michigan’s
State Parole Board why she wants to leave the prison that has been her home
since 1933.
“I haven’t very long in this world,” she said. “I would like
to be free.”
Elizabeth Ziolkowski, 85, is the coldest of some 400 women
prisoners at the Detrot House of Correction. She was sentenced to life
imprisonment 28 years ago after a jury convicted her of poisoning her third
husband with arsenic.
The sentencing judge is a statement, said it was thought
that she murdered her spouse to collect his insurance. The judge, now dead,
said there were indications that she killed her second husband the same way
although she never was brought to trial for his death.
Mrs. Ziolkowski, a plump, pleasant-faced grandmother, said
at her trial that she was innocent. She still says so.
She told her story to the parole board Thursday in hopes
that Gov. John B. Swainson will commute her sentence, making her eligible for
parole.
John Ziolkowski, 41 when he died, bought lead arsenic powder
and used it in an attempt to heal sores on his body, she said. Some of it, she
said, apparently got into his blood system.
“I didn’t even know what it was,” she said.
She said her second husband died of a heart attack after
eight years of marriage. She and Ziolkowski, an auto plant worker, were married
for years. She and her first husband were divorced.
Only a son and daughter of her eight children are still
living.
[Tom Sawyer, “In Prison Since 1933 As Killer; Little Old
Lady Begs For Freedom,” (AP), The Tuscaloosa News (Al.), Feb. 22, 1961, p. 2]
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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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[1312-1/2/21]***
My Mother told me about these events. Believe me or not; she was a young girl when the latter of these horrid things were going on. My Mother and her cousins all lived within a mile of the Ziolkowski place in Laird Township, Michigan. Many years later after all those involved were dead, my second cousin bought the former Ziolkowski house and had it moved west onto his property for a work building and storage.
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