Funeral Fetishism of Female Serial Killers

This collection contains cases involving particularly interesting aspects dealing with funerals and graveyards, most notably those in which the killer demonstrates an obsession with funerals.

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1831 – Gesche Gottfried – Bremen, Germany

“She declared herself persecuted by the apparitions of her victims; and strangely enough sought refuge at the graves to which she had sent them.” [“Remarkable Female Criminals – The Poisoners of the Present Century. Second Part” (pp. 213 ff.). The Dublin University Magazine, Volume 29, Feb.1847, 222]

1850 – Marie-Catherine Moitrier Segard (Ségard) – Nancy, France

"When he died she displayed most unseemly joy—even the gravedigger, who attended the funeral repast, was shocked at it. “I have been,” he said naively, 'to a great many funeral repasts, but never saw one so merry.'”

She created some indignation were also exited by the proof  that she had herself written and caused epitaphs to be placed on the graves of her victims: –

“Here lies the body of Joseph Arsène Segard on the 15th of March, 1848, aged ten months.”

“Here lies the body of Anne Marie Florine Segard, who died the 28th of February, 1848, aged ten months.”

“Here lies the body of Anne Marie Florine Marchal, who died the 28^th of February, 1848, aged eight years. This child, notwithstanding her tender years, displayed rare qualities of mind; her obedience and modesty caused her death to be deeply regretted by her mother, who has erected this monument to her memory.”

“Here lies the body of Jean-Baptiste Segard, aged thirty-seven. He was a good husband, an affectionate father, and a Christian devoted to the poor. To her dear and virtuous husband his grateful wife erects this monument. May he repose in peace.”

1857 – Polly Frisch (Hoag) – Alabama, New York, USA

"She had the bodies of her husband and children removed from the old grave-yard to the new cemetery, paid for the new lot herself, bought tombstones, which she paid for in sewing, and left a little space between Hoag’s and little Frankie’s graves, where she was to be buried."

1866 – Martha Grinder – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Before she became a murderess, she loved to prepare corpses for burial. Eventually she satisfied her mortician mania by supplying the corpses herself, about a dozen of them eventually. She loved to watch her victims suffer from the arsenic she gave them. Her confession was a remarkable revelation of human depravity. She had become obsessed with the liking for scenes of moral agony, and her mania went even farther, making her revel in coming into contact with dead bodies, which she loved to handle and prepare for burial. In the early stages of this monomania she tried to satisfy her cravings of bereavement, and by assisting in bathing and dressing the remains. These natural deaths came too infrequently to satisfy her, however, so she desperately started out to manufacture funerals by supplying the dead bodies.

1881 – Jeanne Raies – Geneva, Switzerland

She was paid by funeral parlor a tiny amount to be notified first of recent deaths.

1892 – Ella Holdridge – Tonawanda, New York, USA

She was only 14 at time of her apprehension. Ella had a passion for attending funerals. When a lull came about, offering no opportunities for her favorite form of amusement, she solved the problem by poisoning a number of children in series. She remarked with respect to the corpse one of her victims, Louisa Stormer who she said “made the prettiest corpse ever put under New York soil.”

1894 – Martha Needle – Richmond, Australia

It is a bizarre fact that Martha Needle spent most of the insurance money she gained from murdering her family on an elaborate grave for her family, which she visited almost every day.

1901 – “Kisoda Female Serial Killers” – Kisoda, Romania (“Hungary”)

The execution of this order met with unexpected difficulties. When the commission had the graves of the men who had died within the last few weeks opened, it became plain that the inscription on the graves had been falsified. The corpses of such persons as had born buried scarcely a month were quite decomposed. It was discovered that the crosses had been interchanged, obviously with a view to frustrating the judicial investigation. Consequently long and troublesome inquiries were necessary for the identification of any desired graves.

1901 – Jane Toppan – Boston, Massachusetts, USA

No one could have guessed that during her tenure at a Massachusetts hospital the amiable "Jolly Jane" was morbidly obsessed with autopsies, or that she conducted her own after-hours experiments on patients, deriving sexual satisfaction in their slow, agonizing deaths from poison. (Harold Schechter, Fatal)

1903 – Mary McKnight – Kalkaska, Michigan, USA

“Serial killer Mary McKnight, who between 1887 and 1903 murdered between 12 and 18 people with strychnine poisoning, including her whole family, just because she liked to go to funerals. Her crime spree stretched from Alpena to Saginaw.” [Ellen Creager, “’Blood on the Mitten’ recalls Michigan true crime tales,” Detroit Free Press (Mi.), Sep. 17, 2016]

1911 – Louise Vermilya – Chicago, Illinois, USA

In her flat her detectives say apparently the most cherished personal belonging was a big photograph of a well filled graveyard. They do not think it was preserved because of departed relatives, but simply because of the owner’s mental twist. This morbid characteristic is revealed likewise in the stories told the police by at least one undertaker in the small Illinois towns where Mrs. Vermilya lived prior to her residence in Chicago.

“I never saw such a woman for being anxious to work around dead bodies,” said E. M. Block, an undertaker at Barrington, in which town Mrs. Vermilya resided during their first marriage. “She actually seemed to enjoy it. I never employed her, but she went around and said she was working for me. at every death she would hear of it almost as soon as I, and wouldn’t be far behind me at the house to take care of the body. More than that, the woman seemed to glory in thinking about prospective deaths.”

1923 – Tillie Klimek – Chicago, Illinois, USA

She joked about discount for caskets.

When visiting a fabric store to purchase black material to make a dress for her fourth husband, Joseph Guszkowski’s funeral, the clerk offered her condolences and asked Tillie when her husband died. "My husband's," said Tillie. "When did he die?" “Ten days from now,” Tillie's next stop was at an undertaker's, where she bought the cheapest coffin in the place and had it delivered to the basement of the tenement. (Alan Hynd, Murder, Mayhem, And Mystery: An Album Of American Crime, 1958, p. 360)

“It’s too bad that I have such bad luck with husbands. I hope the next one lasts longer.” (Alan Hynd, Murder, Mayhem, And Mystery: An Album Of American Crime, 1958, p. 360) 

1924 – Annie Hauptrief – San Marcos, Texas – 4 step-chn, 2 husbands (1 surv)

“Sympathy for the seemingly grief-stricken widow governed Hauptrief’s actions. He gave her the solace of a home and the comforts of a cheerful fireside. Hauptrief heard of his wife’s confession to killing her first husband only a few days ago, as his condition had been too serious. ‘Annie’s grief at Court’s burial was natural and unassumed, as far as I could tell,’ Hauptrief said. ‘Clad in black, and with her young eyes rod from long weeping, my heart was filled with sympathy for her as she became near-hysterical when they begun throwing dirt into the grave.’ At four other funerals the woman was a living picture of a mother overcome with life’s sorrows.”

1925 – Martha Hasel Wise – Valley City, Ohio, USA

“I liked their funerals. I could get dressed up and see folks and talk to them. I didn’t miss a funeral in twenty years. The only fun I ever had was after I kilt people.”

1926 – Anoinette Sierri (Scierri) – Nimes, France

Nurse – The only motive which the French police now hold in the mysterious poisoning of six persons by Antoinette Scierri, a nurse, is that she liked to see her victims’ death struggles. Although small sums of money were taken in several instances, it is believed that this was not the basic death motive. The nurse made wreaths for the graves of her victims and showed tender care during their last moments. 

1925 – Della Sorenson – Dannenborg, Nebraska, USA

“I had feelings which would steal over me at times forcing me to destroy and kill. I felt funny and happy. I like to attend funerals.”

1928 – Bertha Gifford – Meremec River, Missouri, USA

Nurse – Mrs. Gifford had a passion for death-beds and funerals of which she missed only one in 18 years. But just as youths sometimes become so overenthusiastic about running to fires that they finally get to setting some themselves, this death-bed fan, it is charged, could not resist the temptation, when anyone started to withdraw from the edge of the grave to just push him in with a little arsenic. She took command of the funerals too and liked to see everything done right, even going so far as to pay for the embalming of one of her victims.

1931 – Rose Veres – Detroit, Michigan, USA

It had been the custom each time one of her roomers died to have photographs made of the funeral showing her giving the corpse a final embrace.

1938 – Marie Becker – Liege, Belgium

“Marie Becker was known to attend the funerals of her victims and to gesticulate wildly her grief over their passing. She was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.” [Jay Robert Nash, Look For the Woman, M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1981.] 

1952 – Marie Emilie Raymond – Galan, Hautes-Pyrénées, France

A serial killer nurse who kept a rake, because, as she said: “I love raking freshly filled graves.” 

1954 – Daisie “Nanny” Doss – Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

Relatives who escaped Mrs. Nannie Doss’s arsenic-spiked cups of death disclosed that the gentle grandmother loved to compose epitaphs for tombstones. Three examples:

Arlie J. Lanning – Lexington, Kentucky - “We will meet again.”

Robert Lee Higgins – Jacksonville - “Darling how we miss thee.”

Frank Harrelson  - Alabama – “God be with you till we meet again.”

1954 – Christa Lehmann – Worms, Germany

“A weeping Christa Lehmann visited her dead friend’s family and told how the two bonbons she ate made her violently ill Saturday night. But she told the police a different story. After the funeral Christa threw a shovelful of earth on the dead woman’s grave and was taken into custody.”

1957 – Mary Elizabeth Wilson – Jarrow on Tyne, England

One of her gruesome jests which led ultimately to police inquiries was voiced at a reception following her marriage last October to 76-year-old Ernest Wilson. A friend asked what she was going to do with a large number of cakes and sandwiches left over. “Keep them for the funeral,” she replied. Wilson laughed with the rest – and lived just 15 days more. Then it was recalled the widow of Windy Nook made another of her jokes at the registrar’s office, where she had been married and had then returned to record her husbands’ deaths. “There should be a discount for me,” she quipped.

1992 – Karla Homolka – Saint Catharines, Ontario, Canada

Karla Homolka complained her parents spent too much on her sister’s funeral. She wanted the money to be spent on her upcoming wedding.

1978 – Velma Barfield – Lumberton, North Carolina, USA

 “Velma always attended the funerals of her victims and appeared to grieve genuinely for them.”

1986 – Marybeth Tinning – Schenectady, New York , USA

“Marybeth Tinning loves the attention she receives after her third child died of meningitis as a baby. To keep receiving that attention she quietly kills her other eight children over a span of years. She's seen as a woman with a series of unfortunate events, until she goes one step too far by smothering an adopted child.” [Wikipedia, “Deadly Women Episodes”]

Histrionic grief behavior at victim’s funerals: her own children. 9 deaths.

1996 – Waneta Hoyt – Tioga County, New York, USA

“She fainted during the first burial; during another, she was so overwhelmed by her emotions that she hurled herself to the ground.”  [Joyce Johnson, “Death Runs in the Family,” New York Magazine, Apr. 10, 1995, p. 58]

2009 – “Sunday” – Juban, South Sudan

On November 3, 2009 a woman identified by police as “Sunday” was arrested in Juba in Southern Sudan after she was found in a cemetery near Konyo-Konyo market feasting on a corpse of a child.

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Female Serial Killers Who “Predicted” Their Victims’ Deaths

► 1) To Fulfull a Prophecy

1816 – Susannah Holroyd – Ashton-Under-Line, England

She told her that she had had her fortune read, and that in the course of one week, and within the period of the ensuing six weeks, three funerals would go from her door. She did not delay her destined purpose, however, until the six weeks of the fortune-teller had expired; for in about a month afterwards she went to the shop of a chymist, and purchased an ounce and a half of arsenic, to fulfil the prophecy. [archaic spelling in orig.]

1903 – Anna (Caroline) Przygodda – Allenstein, East Prussia (Germany)

The motives of the murderess remain a mystery, but it is stated that a fortune-teller once informed her that she was destined to have six husbands before attaining happiness with the seventh. It is suggested that the woman shared the superstition common in East Prussia, and got rid of her husbands to fulfil the prophecy.

►2) Premonitions of Deaths

Early 1600s – La Toffania & Hieronyma Spara – Italy

In 1659, it was observed, at Rome, that many young married women were left widows, and that many husbands died when they became disagreeable to their wives. It was at length discovered that the mischief proceeded from a society of young married women, whose president, a little old woman, pretended to foretell future events, and who had often predicted, very exactly, many deaths to persons who had cause to wish for them. The old lady’s name was Hieronyina Spara. She was a Sicilian, and had acquired the art from Toffania, at Palermo. She, her assistant and three other women were hung.

1680 – Catherine Deshayes – Paris, France

Wikipedia: During her work as a fortune teller, she noticed the similarities between her customers wishes about their future: almost all wanted to have some one fall in love with them, that some one would die so that they might inherit, or that their spouses would die, so that they might marry some one else. Initially, she told her clients that their will would be true if it was also the will of God. Then, she started to recommend to her clients some action that would make their dreams come true. These actions were initially to visit the church of some particular saint; eventually, she started to sell amulets and recommend magical practices of various kinds. The bones of toads, teeth of moles, Spanish flies, iron filings, human blood and mummy, or the dust of human remains, were among the alleged ingredients of the love powders concocted by La Voisin.

Finally, she started to sell aphrodisiacs to those who wished for people to fall in love with them, and poison to those who wished for some one to die. Her knowledge of poisons was not apparently so thorough as that of less well-known sorcerers, or it would be difficult to account for Louise de La Vallière's immunity. The art of poisoning had become a regular science at the time, having been perfected, in part, by Giulia Tofana, a professional female poisoner in Italy, only a few decades before La Voisin.

She arranged black masses, where the clients could pray to the Devil to make their wishes come true. During at least some of these masses, a woman performed as an altar, upon which a bowl was placed: a baby was held above the bowl, and the blood from it was poured into the bowl. She had a large network of colleagues and assistants, among them Adam Lesage, who performed allegedly magical tasks; the priests Étienne Guibourg and abbé Mariotte, who officiated at the black masses; and poisoners like Catherine Trianon.

1831 – Gesche Gottfried – Bremen, Germany

In the meantime, Gottfried’s proposals were not forthcoming; and, believing him to be withheld by the objections her parents made to the match, on the one hand, and by the consideration of her having a family of children on the other, she thought it was time to remove these obstacles out of his way. She said that her resolution, with respect to her parents, had been fortified by the pious and frequently-expressed wishes of the old people, that neither might long survive the other. She also consulted several other fortune-tellers, who all predicted the mortality that was to ensue amongst her connexions. She made no secret of this prophecy, but, on the contrary, frequently lamented that she knew she was doomed to lose her children and all her relations. She always concluded these communications by pious ejaculations, expressing a most perfect resignation to the will of Providence. "God's will be done! The ways of the Lord are inscrutable, and we must bow to His decrees," &c. [Catherine Crowe, Light and Darkness: or, The Mysteries of Life, Part I - The Poisoners (pp. 23-136), 1850, London: Henry Colburn, Publisher]

1883 – Maria Swanenburg (Van der Linden) – Leiden, Netherlands

She [Van der Linden, or, Swanenberg] went the length of marking down her victims beforehand. “It will be your turn in a month,” she openly told one man, who had been bemoaning the sudden death of a relative. The month passed, and this man was carried to his grave.

1886 – Sarah Jane Robinson – Boston, Massachusetts, USA

“Testimony showed that Annie Freeman was stricken with pneumonia in her home in South Boston. She was gradually improving, but took a turn for the worse after Mrs. Robinson fired her nurse and took sole charge of her sister’s health. Mrs. Robinson had a premonition that her sister would never recover, and, sure enough, Annie died soon after. She convinced Prince Freeman to move his family to her home in Cambridge and few weeks later, one-year-old Elisabeth Freeman died. Mrs. Robinson had another premonition; her dead husband appeared and told her that Prince would soon die. This premonition came true as well.” [“The Massachusetts Borgia,” Murder by Gaslight, online, Mar. 2, 2013]

1900 – Nikola Bettuz – Kissoda, Romania

The fact is that the men were murdered by their own wives or sweet hearts. The instigator of all these heinous crimes is Nikola Bettuz, the seer of the town, who sold the subtle poison with which the murders were committed.

1906 – Rosa Vrzal – Chicago, Illinois, USA

1912 – Louise Lindloff – Chicago, Illinois, USA

While chemical experts are testing bodies of her dead family to prove that they were poisoned with arsenic, Mrs. Lindloff sits serenely studying the events which, she says, the crystal reveals to her. "I can see my family arising to defend me against this cruel charge." She said yesterday. "From the spirit world they come in filmy forms to stand beside me and protect me from my enemies."

The original theory of the police in arresting Mrs. Lindloff was that she committed the murders in order to collect insurance on the victims’ lives. Captain Baer, as the result of the disclosures he says were made yesterday, modifies this by the declaration that vanity contributed to urge the woman to her crimes. He asserts that she deliberately planned her poisonings so as to fit in with her predictions as a seeress and that she killed her victims on a schedule which she made up at her clarvoyant séances.

“The precious material in the ball makes it so valuable,” she tells the police. “I wouldn’t willingly part with it for many times the $500 it cost me. It contains a love teardrop shed by Cleopatra, the Egyptian Queen. That one drop permits me to read the past and the future. When I gaze into the ball the teardrop expands, and before me I see what will happen in future years. With it I could read and avoid the machinations of my enemies. I place my hope on safety in it, and must have it.”

Since the exhumations of the revelations attending them, persons have come forward with the the statement that several of the Lindloffs died on the dates predicted for their deaths by Mrs. Lindloff as a seeress, and this has led to the theory that she committed the murders to uphold her reputation in her “profession.”

1912 – Frieda Trost – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Summoned to Philadelphia, the bother-in-law told his story. He told of the time when Frieda’s second baby was born, Frieda had said that the spirits had told her that the baby would not live a week. And the next day the baby died.

1922 – Tillie Klimek – Chicago, Illinois, USA

"Tillie Klimek (or Tillie Gburek) (born 1876-1936) was an American serial killer. She poisoned in turn her husbands John Mitkiewicz, John Ruskowski, Frank Kupszcyk, Joseph Guszkowski, and Anton Klimek, as well as three neighborhood children and others. She became known as a fortune-teller, for predicting their deaths in advance. She also had sex with all of them before she killed them." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillie_Klimek

1932 – Anna Allas, Mary Chalfa & Gizella Young Allas –  Munhall, Pennsylvania, USA

Mary, he said, visited his home so frequently at one time that he protested to his wife. She answered, Young said:

“Oh, that’s all right. I just told her fortune,”

“What was it?” Young said he then asked and his wife replied:

“Well, she’s having a lot of trouble with her husband, so I told her to insure him and he would die in three months.”

Trial of the two women lasted two weeks and was featured by the testimony of Mrs. Gizella Young, an alleged fortune teller, that the women came to her for “card readings” as to when the two boys would die. The defendants built their case around a claim that anything they had done was done while under Mrs. Young’s “spell.”

The women claimed they went to a fortune teller, Mrs. Gazella Young, who immediately put a magic spell on them. They said she would lay out her magic cards, brought from Czecho-slovakia, and predict death for members of their families. Then, they said, she would advise them to take out large insurance policies on their husbands, children and cousins and even go so far as to send insurance men to their homes.

1958 – Anjette Donovan Lyles – Macon, Georgia, USA

“Jackson also remembered Anjette’s prediction that Martha would die within a day or two of entering the hospital.” [Michael Newton, Bad Girls Do It! 1993]

1989 – Maria Aldrete – Matamoros, Mexico

►3) Victim who predicted her own murder

1925 – Birdie Strome – New Carlisle, Ohio, USA

The girl died Saturday under mysterious circumstances. It was said she had twice predicted she would die soon, once three weeks ago and the second time the day before her death.

►4) Premonition Of Fires

1886 – Harriet Nason – Rutland, Vermont, USA –  “predicted” two fires

Neighbors of Mrs. Nason ascribe to her remarkable powers in the way of prophesying fires. Her house on Grove street, it is said, was burned in accordance with her prediction about three years age. Subsequently she had another fiery vision. This alarmed another family in the same block and a watchman was employed. But the second fire occurred on scheduled time, though not until Mrs. Nason had been notified by the owners of the property to vacate. The popular impression is that Mrs. Nason is afflicted with a most dangerous and insidious form of insanity and that all the results of her secret work are not yet known.

►5) Fortune-tellers (without premonitions of victims’ deaths)

1679 – Marie Bosse – Paris, France

Fortune teller and poisoner; burned at the stake May 8, 1679.

1808 – Mary Bateman – Leeds, Yorkshire, England

During the 1780s, Marty Bateman became a minor thief and con artist who often convinced many of her victims she possessed supernatural powers. They called her the “Yorkshire Witch.” By the end of the century, she had become a prominent fortuneteller in Leeds who prescribed potions which she claimed would ward off evil spirits as well as acting as medicine. [Wikipedia]

1868 – Fanny Lambert (Joye) – Marseilles, France

EXCERPT: The fortune-teller, Fanny Lambert, had aided the wives in procuring the poison, and was even charged by the woman Ville with having first instigated her to the crime. The man Joye added the profession of fortune-teller to his trade of herb-seller, and two witnesses who had consulted him as such declared that he had first suggested to them that they were unhappy in their married life, and then offered his services to rid them of their husbands. His method was first to propose supernatural means, and then gradually accustom them to the idea of employing poison. One woman he had instructed to procure a nail from a coffin in a certain cemetery, and to plant it in the ground while pronouncing the name of her husband; he then added, “After that come to me and I will give you something that will do the rest.” The substance which he usually employed was arsenic, of which a large quantity was found concealed in his shop.

1873 – Kate & Katie Bender – Cherry Vale, Kansas, USA

“Kate was the most outgoing of the Benders, and advertised herself as a fortune teller and healer. It was rumored that she and her mother practiced witchcraft. Kate was attractive, and her psychic abilities drew extra customers to the inn, when she wasn't traveling to give lectures on Spiritualism and holding healing services.” [Miss Centania, “The Bloody Benders, America's First Serial Killers, Mantal Floss, Nov. 14, 2013]

1882 – Sophia Ivanovitch & Anna Minity – Melencse, Hungary

It is stated that no fewer than 80 women of the Servo-Magyar village of Melencie are accused of having poisoned their husbands and other near relatives, and that they procured the deleterious stuff from two professional fortune-tellers, Sophia Ivanovitch and Anna Minity, who drove a regular trade in noxious drugs, and earned considerable sums of money thereby.

1924 – Anastasia Permiakova – Perm, Russia

She settled down as a clairvoyant at Perm. She had a huge clientele of women, many of whom mysteriously disappeared. The crimes were undetected till Permiakova called at a solicitor's house and told his beautiful daughter her future. She ordered the girl to bare her neck to see if she had a lucky mark and then murdered her with a hatchet. The police found in the woman's flat ten bloodstained hatchets. Thirteen other accomplices received long sentences.

1941 – Leonarda Cianciulli – Correggio, Reggio Emilia, Italy

Mrs. Cianciulli claimed the power to foretell the future, to hypnotise people, and police believe that her three known victims were so influenced by her as a clairvoyant that she was able to lure them to her neatly kept house, where she murdered them and cut each of their bodies into nine separate sections.

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[677-10/18/21]

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Wife in the Way: Female Serial Killers Who Eliminate a Wife to Marry a Husband

597 – Fredegund, Queen of Franks – Merovignian Kingdom, Soissons, France

Fredegund is said to have strangled the Queen Galswintha in order to marry the king and to have murdered her three stepsons. Because her first two sons died in infancy, she accused a number of women of witch craft and had them tortured. She is also reputed to have ordered the assassination of Sigebert I of Austrasia in 575 and also to have made attempts on the lives of Sigebert's son Childebert II, her brother-in-law Guntram, king of Burgundy, and Brunhilda (sister of Galswintha).

1871 – Catherine Melchoir-Shoemaker-Sharp-Batchelor – Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Catherine Shoemaker was a very pretty girl in the employ of Mr. Sharp, a very wealthy citizen of Spencer County, Ky. Her mistress died – with a bad taste in her mouth, This Catherine married the widower, and he only arrived long enough to bequeath all his property to his young wife; when he died – with a bad taste in his mouth. – One more husband was to died before the black widow’s poisoning career was terminated.

1878 – Alice Danbrough – Lebanon, Illinois – intended

It is … stated that Mrs. Danbrough had contemplated murdering a Mrs. McCloud, a neighbor, so that she might marry her husband, but these latter statements are not fully corroborated.

1875 – Brigitte Burckel – Alsace

“Brigitte seems to have been very fond of married life, but unfortunate does not appear to have met with a husband entirely suited to her tastes.” She murdered her first husband before the honeymoon was completed. Number two was put out of the way a few months following nuptials. The murderess ran into problems when, after murdering the wife of her latest desired mate, a physician spotted the evidence of the poison homicide.”

1886 – Sarah Jane Robinson – Boston, Massachusetts, USA

She murdered sister so she could, she hoped, marry her brother-in-law. He declined, however, and thus was killed off too. [Jay Robert Nash, 1981]

1898 – Mary Tressa – Trieste, Austria (Italy)

“Mary Tressa fell in love with a married man with a wife and three children. She contrived to poison his wife and  the children, in the hope that she would then be able to marry the man herself.” Finally, she murdered the then-childless widower.

1911 – Louise Vermilya – Chicago, Illinois, USA

The woman Nemesis who gave the police important information regarding the deaths of nine persons that center mysteriously about Mrs. Louise Vermilya, and that promise to form the greatest poisoning mystery in the history of Chicago, was revealed today as Mrs. Minnie Mystock. She is employed in a bakery at No. 2902 Cottage Grove avenue. Mrs. Mystock is said also to have been interested in Bisonette, when Mrs. Vermilya said was her fiance.

1921 – Mary Demmer – Schiller Park, Illinois, USA

Mrs. Demmer was investigated but not brought to trial. She was suspected of five murders. She claimed the man she was the housekeeper for (and “more”) had murdered his wife and later committed sucide. In any case, all the corpses exhumed contained arsenic. One of the deaths was that of a woman the soon-to-be-dead widower Mrs. Demmer was living with had been “paying too much attention to.”

1921 – Ineigo Kaneiko – Kamakura, Japan

“A young Japanese woman named Kaneko is being tried here on a charge of poisoning 18 people whose lives she had insured in her favour. Good-looking and well-educated, she cleverly tricked both doctors and insurance companies. First she murdered her sister, with whose husband she had fallen in love. Kaneko asked him to meet her at a Geisha house, where he told her that he had grown tired of his wife.”

1926 – Elsie Bible Malinsky – Flora, Illinois, USA

Murdered the wives of two men, Bible and Malinsky, afterwards married them. Later on she murdered Mr. Bible. Mr. Malinsky fell under suspicion but was absolved by Elsie.

1929 – Therese Blauensteiner - Tragwein, Friestadt, Austria

1935 – Marie Becker – Liege, Belgium

Marie Becker murdered Marie Castadot in the hopes of marrying the widower. Her passion was, however, unrequited.

1952 – Roberta Elder – Atlanta, Georgia, USA

African-American, 13 insurance murders, combining “Black Widow,” “killer mom,” killer step-mom.” She killed the wife of a minister to free him for marriage, then proceeded to murder him and the motherless children. She murdered 3 husbands altogether.

1980 – Laverne O’Bryan – Louisville, Kentucky

A variation on the theme. Laverne was suspected of having lured away husbands from their wives, marrying them, and then later murdering her matrimonial “catches.”

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[656-6/12/19]
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