The Female Serial Killer Thread (1 Viewer)

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Constance Fisher ... ...

... ... ... 6
aka ... ... location
... : ... ... ... ...
Urteil:

Constance FISHER was twice committed to the Augusta State Hospital after separate incidents in which her husband arrived home from work to find the couple's children dead.
In 1954, Fisher drowned her first three children in the bathtub. After five years at the hospital, Fisher was declared cured and returned home. In 1967, she drowned three more of her children. Found innocent as a result of mental illness, Fisher was recommitted. In October 1973, duck hunters came across Fisher's drowned body about seven miles downriver from the hospital.

 

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Debbie Fornuto ... ...

... ... ... 7
aka GEDZIUS Deborah Anne Booe Narbone 1972 1987 IL
BWi : ... ... ... ...
Urteil:

Nobody in Chicago suspected they were looking at anything more than a tragic medical mystery when Deborah Gedzius' six young children died one after another from 1972 to 1987. Pathologists had concluded that four of the children died from sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS. The deaths of Gedzius' two other children remained unexplained. But the Cook County medical examiner's office decided to take a fresh look at their deaths in 1989, when police identified Deborah Gedzius as a suspect in the slaying of her estranged husband. Delos Gedzius died from a single bullet fired into his left temple as he slpet on a couch in his suburban Chicago apartment. Dr. Mary Jumbelic, an assistant medical examiner, discovered that two of Deborah Gedzius' children had undergone extensive hospital testing that showed they had no medical problems before they died. Jumbelic also learned that there had been no initial police investigation of the children's deaths. Police later determined that Deborah Gedzius was the only person around when each child died. Jumbelic issued new death certificates to show the children were victims of homicide. But when the state's attorney turned to outside experts to confirm Jumbelic's opinion, the murder investigation ran headlong into a 17-year-old SIDS study conducted by Dr. Alfred Steinschneider at Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse. Two outside experts told prosecutors Gedzius' children probably were homicide victims. The third, Dr. J. Bruce Beckwith, a pediatric pathologist who had defined SIDS in 1969, said it was more likely that Gedzius' children had died from a breathing disorder. Beckwith pointed prosecutors to Steinschneider's landmark paper in the October 1972 edition of the medical journal Pediatrics. The paper outlined the cases of five children in a single family who had suddenly stopped breathing and died. And if five children in the same family could die, why not six? Faced with conflicting medical opinions from the experts, prosecutors closed the case of the Gedzius children's deaths in July 1990. Beckwith now says he was wrong. He believes it's more likely Gedzius' children were killed. Beckwith changed his mind last year, after Waneta Hoyt -- the mother of the five children Steinschneider wrote about in his study -- was convicted of murder. Hoyt, who admitted that she smothered her children from 1965 to 1971, is serving 75 years to life in prison. In Chicago, prosecutors have quietly reopened their investigation into the murders of Gedzius' children. Gedzius, 40, has remarried and is living in Las Vegas. She did not respond to repeated requests for an interview. Her lawyer, Rick Halprin, said Gedzius denies killing her estranged husband or harming her children. All the children died of unknown, natural causes, he said. "My very firm belief (is) that she didn't ... kill any of these kids," Halprin said. Beckwith once thought so, too. And the study that Steinschneider performed at Upstate loomed large in his thinking. Beckwith never believed the Hoyt children's deaths fit the criteria for SIDS. Instead, he thought Steinschneider had encountered a case of recurrent apnea, involuntary pauses in breathing, affecting children from the same family. Beckwith had seen similar cases of recurrent apnea when he worked as a pediatric pathologist in Seattle during the 1960s and 1970s. "I, like he, believed the parents. They said, "I'm finding the baby blue and not breathing, and I do mouth-to-mouth, and it starts breathing,'" Beckwith said. "I was saying, these kids with familial recurrent apnea ought to be taken out of the SIDS category, they have a different disease. But I didn't go the next step to say they might be murdered." The turnaround in Beckwith's thinking is only part of the fallout from Hoyt's conviction on April 21, 1995. Hoyt's trial in Tioga County not only undercut Steinschneider's 1972 study, it challenged how a generation of researchers, parents, pediatricians, prosecutors and other law enforcement officials had viewed sudden infant deaths -- particularly multiple deaths in families. Steinschneider's research led to the widespread belief that apnea monitors, machines designed to sound an alarm when an infant stops breathing, could prevent SIDS. As Steinschneider built a career looking for a link between apnea and SIDS, other researchers sometimes found ominous connections between apnea monitors and homicidal smothering. The Post-Standard found that: ìWhile the federal government says there is no scientific proof that apnea monitors prevent SIDS, there is evidence that abusive parents have used the machines as accomplices to murder. A review of federal records on 233 reported deaths nationwide of children being treated with apnea monitors from 1982 to 1995 shows that 18 were suspected homicides. The records do not indicate if prosecutors took action. ìProsecutors in Boston have been asked to look into 14 deaths of babies in the 1970s and 1980s from four families who were part of a SIDS study at Massachusetts General Hospital. No action has been taken. ìBeckwith said he now believes the multiple infant deaths he studied in two Seattle families earlier in his career might have been homicides. The circumstances surrounding the cases were strikingly similar to the Hoyt murders, he said. The babies supposedly had apnea and were put on monitors; the infants never needed resuscitation in the hospital, only at home; the same parent was always with the children when they died. Beckwith said he has not told police about his suspicions because he neither has medical records nor recalls the families' names. ìA half-dozen police agencies from around the country have asked Dr. Linda Norton, a pathologist in Dallas who had first tipped authorities to the possibility that Hoyt killed her children, to review old cases of multiple SIDS deaths that they now suspect may be serial child murders. Steinschneider's 1972 paper has given defense attorneys ammunition and discouraged prosecutors from pursuing serial child deaths in families, Norton said. "As long as you have this bogus thing hanging out there where you've got medical literature showing that SIDS runs in some families, you get these prosecutors who don't even like to attempt to try them," Norton said. "Back in my more Pollyanna days, even though I knew that some homicides were being called SIDS, I thought it was an extraordinarily small number. And now I'm not so sure it's a terribly small percentage anymore." Nobody knows how many cases of serial infanticide were overlooked during the nearly two decades Steinschneider's ideas were widely accepted. As authorities in New York and several other states take a second look at cases involving multiple SIDS deaths in single families, they will likely have to overcome the same obstacles that Tioga County officials encountered in proving Waneta Hoyt's guilt. Finding 'Mrs. H.' First, officials had to learn the identity of "Mrs. H" -- as Steinschneider referred to Waneta Hoyt in his famous paper in Pediatrics. In 1986, Norton pointed out Steinschneider's paper to William Fitzpatrick, who was an assistant prosecutor trying another child killer in Onondaga County. When he read Steinschneider's paper documenting the deaths of five brothers and sisters in the "H" family, Fitzpatrick said he believed right away "Mrs. H" had killed her children. But Fitzpatrick left his prosecutor's job and did nothing more until he became district attorney in 1992. Fitzpatrick learned the identity of the family by unearthing medical documents at the SUNY Health Science Center, previously known as Upstate Medical Center. He found records for the two children Steinschneider had referred to as M.H. and N.H., revealing the names of Molly and Noah Hoyt. The children were from Tioga County, about 70 miles south of Syracuse. Fitzpatrick faxed a synopsis of the five Hoyt children's deaths and a copy of Steinschneider's paper to Tioga County District Attorney Robert Simpson. Simpson was reluctant. "All I had was a fellow district attorney who calls me up and says, 'You have five deaths under bizarre circumstances,'" Simpson said. With prodding from Fitzpatrick, Simpson pursued the case. Simpson gave copies of the children's medical records to two pathologists, who agreed the Hoyt children had been murdered. A tearful confession Police stopped the 47-year-old housewife on March 23, 1994, as she picked up her mail at the post office. Hours later Hoyt broke down at the state police barracks in Owego and tearfully confessed to killing her five children from 1965 to 1971. She told police she killed them because they would not stop crying. She said she smothered 3-month-old Eric with a pillow; pressed the face of 6-week-old Julie into her shoulder until Julie stopped breathing; smothered 2-year-old James with a bath towel; and used pillows to suffocate Molly and Noah.

 

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Ottilie "Tillie" Gburek Klimek

Birth: 1876, Poland
Death: Nov. 30, 1936
Chicago
Cook County
Illinois, USA

Serial Killer. Born Otillie Gburek in Poland. Shortly after her birth, he parents emigrated to the United States, specifically Chicago. Then, as is today; Chicago had the second largest Polish population next to Warsaw, Poland. Her family moved to an area referred to as "Little Poland." Research does not give detail to Tillie's life as a child. All of Little Poland relished young Tillie's cooking as the best they ever had eaten; especially her famous "Stew." This was to become one of the reasons for Tillie's fame. Tillie also proclaimed herself to be a psychic. Tillie's neighbors seemed to be impressed by this "gift." Tillie said her visions and predictions came to her in the dead of night. In her dreams. Tillie began with simple predictions involving neighbors pets. She seemed to be able to tell when old Fido would drop dead. Tillie's first marriage came at the tender age of fourteen. In 1890, she wed John Mitkiewicz. John died in 1919 of what medical science of the day considered to be a heart attack. A prediction Tillie had made stating she would find him dead in a few weeks. By now Tillie was forty-three, which was considered old for the day regarding courting and re-marriage, but that didn't stop Tillie from continuing to look for love. Like all grieving widows, Tillie remarried after she cashed in John's insurance policy. The whole time; Tillie made predictions regarding another husband, and later,a boyfriend. Tillie had married five times. Husband Joseph Guszkowski lasted quite a few years longer than that of previous husbands. Things started to nosedive when one of Tillie's neighbors, Rose Chudzinsky, became increasingly suspicious about Tillie's "Gift" and her tragic luck with the men in her life. Tillie got wind of the talk of Little Poland and Tillie proclaimed Rose's death. The highly superstitious Poles in the community began to avoid Tillie so their own deaths would not be predicted. Ignoring the warnings of friends and family, Anton Klimek, wed Tillie in 1921. Anton would become Tillie's last husband. Once his life insurance policy was in place and the couple had signed a last will and testament making each other sole beneficiaries, Anton's health seemed to decline overnight. Anton's family became increasingly concerned when Tillie did not take Anton to a hospital to seek medical advice; so, Anton's family took him to a local hospital themselves. When the doctors examined him they suspected that he had been poisoned. Anton's stomach was pumped and its contents were sent to a lab for analysis. All suspicions were confirmed. Anton had been poisoned by Arsenic. Tillie's last prediction did not come true. The hospital immediately notified police and Tillie was arrested. Rather than risk the exhumation of her other husbands, she confessed to poisoning Anton. Tillie Gburek went on trial at the Cook County Courthouse. She was convicted of the poisoning and sentenced to life in prison. In March 1923, Tillie was found guilty of the murder of her third husband, Frank Kupzsyk. Tillie was once again sentenced to life in prison, the harshest sentence that had ever been handed down against a woman in Cook County at that time. Tillie was later acquitted after spending a year in prison during her drawn-out trial. Tillie died in prison on November 20, 1936. The total of her dreaded acts: Four husbands and nine others with six people surviving. Tillie remains, to this day, the most prolific female serial killer in Chicago history. Cause of Death: Heart attack. Tillie is laid to rest in an unmarked grave.

Tillie Klimek



Ottilie "Tillie" Klimek (or Tillie Gburek) (1876–1936) was a Polish American serial killer, active in Chicago. According to legend, she pretended to have precognitive dreams, accurately predicting the dates of death of her victims, when in reality she was merely scheduling their deaths. Actually, while contemporary accounts tell her cheerfully telling her husbands (and neighbors) that they were going to die, there is no record of her claiming to be a "psychic."

Born Otillie Gburek in Poland, and coming to the United States as an infant with her parents, Tillie married her original husband John Mitkiewicz, c. 1890. In 1914, he died after a short illness. The death certificate listed the cause of death as heart trouble, and she quickly remarried one Joseph Ruskowski, who lived nearby. He, too, died in short order, as did a boyfriend who had "jilted" her.

The crime for which she was eventually tried was the murder of Frank Kupzsyk, her third husband. He had taken ill in their apartment at 924 N. Winchester, where Tillie had previously lived with a boyfriend under the name of Meyers and she began to tell neighbors that Frank "would not live long.". She would mock Frank himself, greeting him in the morning by saying "It won't be long now," and "You'll be dying soon," and joking with neighbors that he had "two inches to live.". She even knitted her own mourning hat as she sat at his bedside (which she later wore to the trial), and asked for the landlady's permission to store a bargain coffin she'd found for sale in the basement. This may have been what sparked the legends of her claiming to "predict" deaths.

In 1921, after Frank's death, she married a man named Joseph Klimek and lived with him at 1453 Tell Place (now 1453 Thomas Street). When he became ill, doctors suspected arsenic poisoning, and tests confirmed it. Tillie was arrested. It was later said that she told the arresting officer that "The next one I want to cook a dinner for is you.".

Bodies of her other husbands were soon exhumed and found to contain lethal doses of arsenic, though the soil around them was clean...Police also arrested her cousin, Nellie. Tillie had told the police that she had told Nellie she was tired of her husband Frank, Nellie suggested divorce. Tillie said that "I will get rid of him some other way," and claimed that Nellie had given her a "goodly portion" of a poison called "Rough on Rats.".

After her arrest, it came to light that several relatives and neighbors of the two women had died. Two neighbors Tillie had quarreled with became gravely ill after being given candy by her. A dog that annoyed Tillie in her Winchester Street house had died of arsenic poisoning. Several of Tillie and Nellie's cousins and relatives were found to have become gravely ill shortly after eating at Tillie's house. In all, the list stretched to twenty suspected victims, fourteen of whom had died. The papers began to speak of Tillie not as a solo murderer, but as the "high priestess" of a "Bluebeard clique" in Chicago's Little Poland neighborhood. Other wives in the neighborhood were arrested and released. Joseph Klimek would survive, though he was still in the hospital more than three months later. It was found that she had taken out life insurance policies on her husbands from which she profited greatly.

In March 1923, Tillie was found guilty of the murder of Frank Kupzsyk, her third known husband. Reporters noted that unlike most of the husband-killers who had been acquitted in Chicago courts, Tillie was not beautiful or charming, but a "squat" woman who spoke only broken English, despite having lived in the country since infancy. She was sentenced to life in prison, the harshest sentence that had ever been leveled against a woman in Cook County. Nellie was later acquitted after spending a year in prison during her drawn-out trial. Tillie often teased her in prison, once convincing her that she was about to be taken out and hanged. Tillie died in prison on November 20, 1936.

Ottilie “Tillie” Klimek (or Tillie Gburek) (1876–1936) was a Polish American serial killer, active in Chicago. In addition to being a master in the kitchen,Tillie had a reputation in the community as a
psychic. She had an uncanny ability to foresee the future, or so her neighbors thought. She claimed her visions came to her through her dreams. Her first predictions involved stray dogs in the neighborhood. She predicted the day they would die and her neighbors were astounded when right on cue the mongrels died. Tillie married her original husband John Mitkiewicz, c. 1890. In 1919, Tillie told her friends a number of ominous dreams concerning the death of her husband. The dreams pointed to a specific date of death and Mitkiewicz’s health collapsed. He was dead by nighttime. Two months later, Tillie married her second husband, John Ruskowski and again, predicted his death. The prediction came true. She found a third husband, Frank Kupszcyk. The marriage lasted six months before the pattern was repeated. 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. Tillie blithely replied, “ten days from now!” A fact to which Joseph complied. Watch Chicago`s Overnight serial killer

By this time Tillie was a notorious local figure. She bemoaned her accursed dreams and poor luck. Her dreams no longer concerned only her spouses. She dreamed of a plague striking a certain family and all three children of said family fell ill and suffered agonizing deaths. By 1921, people were certain that marrying Tillie was equivalent to a death sentence. This did not prevent Anton Klimek from becoming her fifth and last husband. He fell ill following his marriage but family members insisted on hospitalization. His life was saved and the doctors were able to recognize the cause of his sudden health problems: poisoning. Tillie was arrested. The motivations behind the killings of her spouses were financial. The children were targeted because of a quarrel between Tillie and their family. She confessed to poisoning Klimek but not the other victims. Tillie was convicted of murder in an Illinois court and sentenced to life imprisonment. She died in prison.

 

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Delfina and María Jesús Gonzalez

Delfina and María de Jesús González (known as "Las Poquianchis") were two sisters from the Mexican state of Guanajuato, located 200 miles north of Mexico City. From the 1950s until the mid-1960s the sisters ran Rancho El Ángel, called the "bordello from hell" in San Francisco del Rincón.

Biography

The police picked up a woman named Josefina Gutiérrez, a procuress, on suspicion of kidnapping young girls in the Guanajuato area, and during questioning, she implicated the two sisters. Police officers searched the sisters' property and found the bodies of 11 men, 80 women and several fetuses, a total of over 91. Investigations revealed the scheme was that they would recruit prostitutes through help-wanted ads; though the ads would state the girls would become maids for the two sisters. Many of the girls were force fed heroin or cocaine. The sisters killed the prostitutes when they became too ill, damaged by repeated sexual activity, lost their looks or stopped pleasing the customers.

They would also kill customers who showed up with large amounts of cash. When asked for an explanation for the deaths, one of the sisters reportedly said, "The food didn't agree with them." Tried in 1964, the González sisters were each sentenced to 40 years in prison. In prison, Delfina died due to an accident, and Maria finished her sentence and dropped out of sight after her release. Although they are often cited as the killers, there were two other sisters who helped in their crimes, Carmen and Maria Luisa. Carmen died in jail due to cancer; Maria Luisa went mad because she feared that she would be killed by angry protesters. The sisters were the subject of the 1977 book Las Muertas by Mexican author Jorge Ibargüengoitia.

two sisters from Mexico who owned and operated the surprisingly successful “Bordello from Hell”, though really, that’s quite harsh. Mexico’s not quite hell on earth. Maybe it should have just been called “The Bordello from the Really Shitty Part of Mexico”. In either case, I can’t imagine a name like that attracting many customers.
It’s also a “special edition” because almost no information about the two appear on the internet. Here’s the gist of what you can find out there:

The sisters are from Guanajuato, Mexico.
The whorehouse’s real name was Rancho El Ángel.
The sisters recruited women through help-wanted ads. If the women became too ill, too “damaged” from repeated rapes, lost their appeal, or refused to please customers, the sisters killed them.
They also killed customers who came with a lot of cash on hand.
On the brothel’s grounds, police found the bodies of 80 women, 11 men, and several fetuses.
The sisters were each sentenced to 40 years in prison in 1964.

That’s about it. If anybody finds more information about them on the web, please feel free to leave a link in the comments. Barring that, however, I will proceed to fabricate a story surrounding these two.

It was late 1945. The second World War had just ended, but Mexico was left largely unscarred. In a small, but bustling city some 200 miles north of Mexico City, two sisters were trying hard to make ends meet in a local butcher shop.

(Delfina walks in the butcher shop backroom as María violently hacks away at a side of beef.)
Delfina: María! What are you doing? You have to have surgical precision in order to make the right cuts.
María: Sorry, mi hermana. I’m just so frustrated.
Delfina: Why so?
María: We work so hard for so little at this tiny shop. I know we could do better.
Delfina: Pero, we have no skills other than slaying beasts dead and cutting them to bits.
María: Well, maybe we have some other skills that we just don’t know about yet.
Delfina: That’s stupid. You’re stupid.
María: Whatever, pueta. Oh looky, un cliente!
(Both women rush out of the backroom and into the front of the shop to greet the customer, a homely but well-dressed American man.)
Man: Hey there, ladies, you speaka ingles?
María (wields a butcher’s blade like a deranged maniac): Keep talking to us like that and I’ll cut off your balls, gringo!
Man: Excuse me?
Delfina (sternly, to María): Knock it off or you’ll scare him away, stupid! (Turns to man) You’ll have to excuse mi hermana, she’s diabetic.
Man: Oh, I see.
Delfina: Well, what can we do for you, mister?
Man: Um, I’m looking for sex.
Delfina: Oh, well, uh…
Man: I’ll pay for it if I have to. Are you ladies selling sex here?
Delfina: Well, no, just meat really. Can we interest you in some fine-
María (interrupts Delfina): Hey, uh, yeah; there’s a place down the street. The girls down there will satisfy your needs.
Man: How do I know you’re not just putting me on?
María (seductively): Gringo, I know what you want, and how you want it. (Licks lips) Go get some honey.
Man: SOLD!
(Man walks out.)
Delfina (shouting): And when you’re done, come back for some cold cuts! (To María) You’re something else, mi hermana!
María: Yeah, I guess I can really pimp the ho’s.
Delfina: Wow, you really did have a hidden talent all along!
María: Hey, you’re right! Now you’re stupid!
Delfina: If only there was a way we could make full use of your ability to sell women and my ability to slice open animals with disturbing exactness.
(Both women silently sit for a moment, deep in thought. Suddenly, they simultaneously turn to each other with huge, knowing smiles on their faces. Thus, the deadliest procuresses in the world decided on their most successful and terrifying business endeavor.)

And the rest is history.

 

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Gesche Gottfried

Gesche Gottfried (1785-1831)

Gesche Margarethe Gottfried, born Timm (* 6 March 1785 in Bremen , † April 21 1831 ibid) was a serial killer who by administering arsenic poisoned fifteen people. During the period of suffering of their victims was derived from a humble woman in their neighborhood "angel of Bremen" called. What drove them of the actions, remained a mystery. At Gesche Gottfried was the last public execution in Bremen completed

Life

Gesche Margarethe Timm was on 6 Born in March 1785 in Bremen, the daughter of a master tailor Johann Timm and wool seamstress Gesche Margarethe Timm. She had a twin brother named John. Gesche attended school clip , then the Ansgarii- parish school in 1798 and went to the Lutheran religious education at Cathedral . It was orderly, and industrious, took dance and French lessons and was considered somewhat vain. The family lived in poverty.

1806 married Gottfried wealthy, but frivolous saddler Johann Miltenberg, whose wife had just died. Through this marriage, they rose up in middle-class circumstances. They had five children, three of whom initially remained alive: Adelheid (* 1809, † 1815), Henry (* 1810, † 1815) and Johanna (* 1812, † 1815).

Miltenberg, however, led a "dissolute life in bars and brothels "and did so by their father's property. After her husband's death in 1813 she increasingly impoverished. But she now had the opportunity to maintain their long-term lover, married to the wine merchant Michael Christoph Gottfried, - he promised her marriage in 1817 on his deathbed. Shortly afterwards he died. Their child, with the Gesche was pregnant, came in the same year as the World stillbirth. Gesche Gottfried went to a small inheritance, but lived lavishly. In 1821 she sold due to lack of money her permanent home in Pelzer Road 37 and moved to the upper road . In 1822 she went on a trip to Stade . After she returned to Bremen, she became engaged to the millinery dealer Paul Thomas Zimmermann. But he died in 1823 before the marriage, but gave Gottfried in his Testament .

1824 Gottfried moved away from the upper road and back to their old house in the Pelzer Street. This had become the Rademachermeisterehepaar bought Wilhelmine and Johann Christoph Rumpff. Gesche worked with them for board and lodging as a domestic help. The lady of the house soon after died. 1827 Gesche Gottfried went to Hanover to meet her old friend Frederick Small. He was one of their creditors , and they had to pay him back money - money they did not have. A little later he was dead
The murders

The murders

Around 1812 Gottfried got from her mother a box of "mice butter" (with fat globules arsenic given) in order to destroy insects. This "butter mice" Gesche Gottfried killed eight people and seriously injured many, as they also randomly distributed small, nonlethal servings. After the eighth murder in 1817, the poison was consumed. It took six years for them from her maid and girlfriend beta Schmidt (a later victim) sent for new "mice butter" from the pharmacy. This portion she killed another seven people.

Parts of the population estimated Gottfried Bremer and regretted very many supposed ills of the family. They took part and gave the killer known as the "Angel of Bremen", as they are too pathetic looking after their ailing relatives and friends. Below is a list of the murders:

First October 1813: Johann Miltenberg (first husband)
Second May 1815: Gesche Margarethe Timm (mother)
10th May 1815: Johanna Miltenberg (daughter)
18th May 1815: Adelheid Miltenberg (daughter)
28th June 1815: John Timm (father)
22nd September 1815: Heinrich Miltenberg (son)
First June 1816: John Timm (brother)
5th July 1817: Michael Christoph Gottfried (second husband)
First June 1823: Paul Thomas Zimmermann (fiance)
21st March 1825: Anna Lucia Meyerholz (music teacher, friend)
5th December 1825: Johann Mosees (neighbor, friend, counselor)
22nd December 1826: Wilhelmina Rumpff (Lessor)
13th May 1827: Elise Schmidt (three year old daughter of beta Schmidt)
15th May 1827: Beta Schmidt (friend, maid)
24th July 1827: Frederick Small (friend, creditors; murdered in Hanover)


unmasking, arrest and detention

Gesche Gottfried distributed more small, nonlethal doses of venom. Your landlord, Johann Christoph Rumpff was, however, wary of the time and also in the city, more and more rumors circulated about the many deaths. Rumpff than one day in a small white grains ham discovered he had it from his doctor determine D. Luce (Luce had already studied many of the murder victims). It turned out that the beads were arsenic. So the poisoner Gesche Gottfried was unmasked. On the evening of 6 March 1828 - her birthday - she was arrested and brought to the town house, on 13 May, 1828 in the new leads Detention House on Ostertor. By eyewitnesses Gesche Gottfried was described at the time as very confused and scared.

For nearly three years, which she spent in the detention house, she was regularly interrogated by Senator Franz Friedrich Droste, the investigating judge. Clerk John Eberhart Noltenius recorded the interrogations. She told of her actions, but also of the fears that plagued her here. The magistrates of the city as well as their defender Friedrich Leopold Voget meanwhile tried to understand their actions. While in custody should Gottfried have considered several times to kill himself with mice butter they had smuggled into the prison. She did not, however, as it is from the pain and the suffering was afraid that she had on their victims can experience.

During these three years, have allowed Gottfried and Senator Droste an almost friendly relationship. So said Droste her the day before his execution, that he had seen all those months smiling and happy, but that he must now look seriously on the scaffold, as required by the protocol. But that was not down to them, but necessary. You should keep him in friendly reminder. They would meet again in heaven.


Motives

About the motives of the murder Gesche Gottfried was then discussed today. It however, has not the final result because the defendant himself could give no real reason, and the application of their defender was dismissed on a psychiatric report from Bremen and Lübeck judges. Main sources so the defense counsel of their Friedrich Leopold Voget and a few years later published his biographical book about Gesche Gottfried are. Both works by the same author are contradictory but just to the motives.

The biography states that there had been for selfish motives Gesche Gottfried's because her husband Johann Miltenberg a love relationship and a marriage with Michael Christoph Gottfried stood in the way. Even the parents were killed because they had a relationship or a marriage faced hostile. The children had to die because she had the impression that Gottfried account of which she did not marry. Subsequent murders were carried out for financial reasons.

This contrasts with the presentation Vogets defender who denies this very motives and explaining that the first husband of the love affair had not faced rejection, rather they allowed. The relationship of the parents to her was to love and tight, as that would have stood in the way. The financial benefits of the acts had not been fairly limited and partly present. As part of the defense has been rather stressed that Gesche Gottfried have felt an inner urge to poison killing. He could rely on this Gesche Gottfried's statements during the investigation, after which it was primarily in the later murders feels an urge to kill . The prosecution at the time interpreted this as a need to have control over the lives of their victims .

The issued after the end of the process, however, despite a biography conflicting preface Vogets no psychological representation, but as a moral script of a prone man's deep religious beliefs to understand and has all the features of such a script. In the foreground selfishness and sinfulness of Gesche Gottfried be made. Repute statements to which had been appointed to his defense Voget were attributed to hypocrisy Margaret Godfrey. Relatively small events can be interpreted as a harbinger of the crime.

Today, scholars suspect and police psychologist that Johann Miltenberg, Godfrey's first husband (and first victim), had to die so that he the impending affair his wife and Michael Christopher Godfrey not stood in the way. Here Gesche Gottfried is likely to be made a conceptual error. Presumably they had not in the sense that it was practically penniless after her husband's death. Moreover, they had now alone, without eating and living with only a small inheritance, their children and the poor parents. This task it is probably outgrown, both financially and in terms of cost. That is why they killed them. Her second husband and her fiancé took her to a high probability of lack of money, as they with the fatal dose of poison (after much smaller) so long waited for the men she promised to remember them in your will.

Why Gottfried but also killed their friend and landlord, shall continue as unexplained. In the 18th and 19 Century criminology was generally believed, poisoning is a typical woman crime because women because of physical weakness might otherwise not commit violent crimes. The great jurist and one of the first criminal psychologist, Paul Johann Anselm Feuerbach (1775-1835), represented in his biography of the most famous German by Gesche Gottfried multiple poisoner, Anna Margaretha Zwanziger , born beautiful life (1760-1811) of Nuremberg , the view it was the feeling or even the addiction or the noise of the secret power over people, and about life and death, which leads to the repetition of a successful poisoning.


Process and condemnation

Historically, law was the trial of Gesche Gottfried at the transition between the early modern period, from the Carolina in the 16th Century certain criminal to modern criminal procedure instead. Thus, the defense appealed to the strict rules of evidence of Carolina, during the prosecution, under Johann Carl Friedrich Gildemeister , to the modern principle of free evaluation of evidence cited. On the other side is one of the first cases in the world where the criminal defense on the Insanity of the defendants appealed. The prosecution and the court rejected this argument on the more recently developed by the courts of the Anglo-Saxon area formula that she knew what she was doing and that she was committing injustice.

When the verdict was finally so decided, as is generally assumed: death by the sword . The sentence was the top appellate in Lübeck confirmed.

Execution

On 21 April 1831 at 8 clock, the emaciated and prematurely aged Gesche Gottfried was picked up by horse carriage from prison and Domshof gone where already about 35,000 spectators around the scaffold waited. Gottfried was out on the wooden frame, where you, the presiding judge read the sentence again. Then broke Senator Droste a wooden stick as a symbol that the judgment was final. Subsequently, the defendant has not yet served a glass of red wine, but Gottfried sipped it and then handed each judge's hand and was strapped to a little later in the chair. They began to pray. An assistant grabbed her hair to pull her head up. A few moments later ended the executioner's lives Gesche Margarethe Gottfried.

The severed head was shown off again, then the body was placed in a coffin and buried anonymously. It was the last public execution in Bremen.


Other
Death mask from the Focke-Museum

After decapitation of the head Imprints were taken away and more death masks made ​​that went to England and France. The casts were used to study the physiognomy of criminals, a common practice at the time. The Bremen was cast in the course of World War II lost, just as the real head of Gesche Gottfried, in the formaldehyde was inserted. In 2005, the Bremen Focke-Museum (Museum of Art and Cultural History) a copy of the death mask from the holdings of the prison doctor in the English Winchester . She is in the show magazine under "Z" issued "to carry grave" like. The Focke-Museum, three portraits of the poisoner be seen.
The district Gröpelingen where small garden area to wipe, the Geshe-Gottfried-way was named after her. The rejected stone, a nondescript basalt stone with incised cross, about 20 meters over the bride portal on the north side of the Bremen Cathedral in Domshof eingepflastert is reminiscent of the end of Gesche Gottfried. This should have been the scaffold on which she was beheaded at the last public execution in Bremen. Another version says that at this point of the fallen and rolling head of the poisoner had been left behind. 1931 was the Senate remove the stone and the Focke-Museum bring after Reichsbanner people had changed the cross to a swastika. Later the stone was ground down with a new cross and re-inserted. Even today, some express their disgust Bremer and tourists before the murders with spitting on this stone.

Death mask from the Focke-Museum

"Spitting stones" at Bremen Cathedral

 

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Belle Gunness

Belle Sorenson Gunness (born as Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth; November 11, 1859, Selbu, Norway – April 28, 1908?, La Porte, Indiana) was a Norwegian-American serial killer.

Standing six feet tall (183 cm)tall and weighing over 200 pounds (91 kg), she was a physically strong woman. She killed most of her suitors and boyfriends, and her two daughters, Myrtle and Lucy. She may also have killed both of her husbands and all of her children, on different occasions. Her apparent motives involved collecting life insurance, cash and other valuables, and eliminating witnesses. Reports estimate that she killed between 25 and 40 people over several decades.

Early years

Gunness' origins are a matter of some debate. Most of her biographers state that she was born on November 11, 1859, near the lake of Selbu, Sør-Trøndelag, Norway, and christened Brynhild Paulsdatter Størset. Her parents were Paul Pedersen Størset (a stonemason) and Berit Olsdatter. She was the youngest of their eight children. They lived at Størsetgjerdet, a very small cotter's farm in Innbygda, 60 km southeast of Trondheim, the largest city in central Norway (Trøndelag).

An Irish TV documentary by Anne Berit Vestby aired on September 4, 2006, tells a common, but unverified, story about Gunness' early life. The story holds that, in 1877, Gunness attended a country dance while pregnant. There she was attacked by a man who kicked her in the abdomen, causing her to miscarry the child. The man, who came from a rich family, was never prosecuted by the Norwegian authorities. According to people who knew her, her personality changed markedly. The man who attacked her died shortly afterwards. His cause of death was said to be stomach cancer. Having grown up in poverty, Gunness took service the next year on a large, wealthy farm and served there for three years in order to pay for a trip across the Atlantic.

Following the example of a sister, Nellie Larson, who had emigrated to America earlier, Gunness moved to the United States in 1881 and assumed a more American-style name. Initially, she worked as a servant.

First victim

In 1884, Gunness married Mads Ditlev Anton Sorenson in Chicago, Illinois, where, two years later, they opened a confectionery store. The business was not successful; within a year the shop mysteriously burned down. They collected insurance, which paid for another home.

Though some researchers assert that the Sorenson union produced no offspring, other investigators report that the couple had four children: Caroline, Axel, Myrtle, and Lucy. Caroline and Axel died in infancy, allegedly of acute colitis. The symptoms of acute colitis — nausea, fever, diarrhea, and lower abdominal pain and cramping — are also symptoms of many forms of poisoning. Both Caroline's and Axel's lives were reportedly insured, and the insurance company paid out. A May 7, 1908 article in The New York Times states that two children belonging to Gunness and her husband Mads Sorensen were interred in her plot in Forest Home cemetery. On June 13, 1900, Gunness and her family were counted on the United States Census in Chicago. The census recorded her as the mother of four children, of whom only two were living: Myrtle A., 3, and Lucy B., 1. An adopted 10-year-old girl, identified possibly as Morgan Couch but apparently later known as Jennie Olsen, also was counted in the household.

Sorenson died on July 30, 1900, reportedly the only day on which two life insurance policies on him overlapped. The first doctor to see him thought he was suffering from strychnine poisoning. However, the Sorensons' family doctor had been treating him for an enlarged heart, and he concluded that death had been caused by heart failure. An autopsy was considered unnecessary because the death was not thought suspicious. Gunness told the doctor that she had given her late husband medicinal "powders" to help him feel better.

She applied for the insurance money the day after her husband's funeral. Sorenson's relatives claimed that Gunness had poisoned her husband to collect on the insurance. Surviving records suggest that an inquest was ordered. It is unclear, however, whether that investigation actually occurred or Sorenson's body was ever exhumed to check for arsenic, as his relatives demanded. The insurance companies awarded her $8,500 (about $217,000 in 2008 dollars), with which she bought a farm on the outskirts of La Porte, Indiana.

Suspicions of murder

In 1901, Gunness purchased a house on McClung Road. It has been reported that both the boat and carriage houses burned to the ground shortly after she acquired the property.

As she was preparing to move from Chicago to LaPorte, she became re-acquainted with a recent widower, Peter Gunness, also Norwegian-born. They were married in LaPorte on April 1, 1902; just one week after the ceremony, Peter's infant daughter died (of uncertain causes) while alone in the house with Belle. In December 1902, Peter himself met with a "tragic accident". According to Belle, he was reaching for his slippers next to the kitchen stove when he was scalded with brine. She later declared that, in fact, part of a sausage-grinding machine fell from a high shelf, causing a fatal head injury. A year later, Peter's brother, Gust, took Peter's older daughter, Swanhilde, to Wisconsin. She is the only child to have survived living with Belle.

Her husband's death netted Gunness another $3,000 (some sources say $4,000). Local people refused to believe that her husband could be so clumsy; he had run a hog farm on the property and was known to be an experienced butcher; the district coroner reviewed the case and unequivocally announced that he had been murdered. He convened a coroner's jury to look into the matter. Meanwhile, Jennie Olsen, then 14, was overheard confessing to a classmate: "My mama killed my papa. She hit him with a meat cleaver and he died. Don't tell a soul.

Jennie was brought before the coroner's jury but denied having made the remark. Gunness, meanwhile, convinced the coroner that she was innocent of any wrongdoing. She did not mention that she was pregnant, which would have inspired sympathy, but in May 1903 a baby boy, Phillip, joined the family. In late 1906 Belle told neighbors that her foster daughter, Jennie Olsen, had gone away to a Lutheran College in Los Angeles (some neighbors were informed that it was a finishing school for young ladies). In fact, Jennie's body would later be found buried on her adoptive mother's property.

Between 1903 and 1906 Belle continued to run her farm. In 1907 Gunness employed a single farm hand, Ray Lamphere, to help with chores.

The suitors

Around the same time, Gunness inserted the following advertisement in the matrimonial columns of all the Chicago daily newspapers and those of other large midwestern cities:

Personal — comely widow who owns a large farm in one of the finest districts in La Porte County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided, with view of joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. Triflers need not apply.

Several middle-aged men of means responded to Gunness' ads. One of these was John Moe, who arrived from Elbow Lake, Minnesota. He had brought more than $1,000 with him to pay off her mortgage, or so he told neighbors, whom Gunness introduced him to as her cousin. He disappeared from her farm within a week of his arrival. Next came George Anderson from Tarkio, Missouri who, like Peter Gunness and John Moe, was an immigrant from Norway.

During dinner with Anderson, she raised the issue of her mortgage. Anderson agreed that he would pay this off if they decided to wed. Late that night, Anderson awoke to see her standing over him, holding a guttering candle in her hand and with a strange, sinister expression on her face. Without uttering a word, she ran from the room. Anderson fled from the house, soon taking a train to Missouri.

The suitors kept coming, but none, except for Anderson, ever left the Gunness farm. By this time, she had begun ordering huge trunks to be delivered to her home. Hack driver Clyde Sturgis delivered many such trunks to her from La Porte and later remarked how the heavyset woman would lift these enormous trunks "like boxes of marshmallows", tossing them onto her wide shoulders and carrying them into the house. She kept the shutters of her house closed day and night; farmers traveling past the dwelling at night saw her digging in the hog pen.

Ole B. Budsberg, an elderly widower from Iola, Wisconsin, appeared next. He was last seen alive at the La Porte Savings Bank on April 6, 1907, when he mortgaged his Wisconsin land there, signing over a deed and obtaining several thousand dollars in cash. Ole B. Budsberg's sons, Oscar and Mathew Budsberg, had no idea that their father had gone off to visit Gunness. When they finally discovered his destination, they wrote to her; she promptly responded, saying she had never seen their father.

Several other middle-aged men appeared and disappeared in brief visits to the Gunness farm throughout 1907. Then, in December 1907, Andrew Helgelien, a bachelor farmer from Aberdeen, South Dakota, wrote to her and was warmly received. The pair exchanged many letters, until a letter that overwhelmed Helgelien, written in Gunness' own careful handwriting and dated January 13, 1908. This letter was later found at the Helgelien farm. It read:

To the Dearest Friend in the World: No woman in the world is happier than I am. I know that you are now to come to me and be my own. I can tell from your letters that you are the man I want. It does not take one long to tell when to like a person, and you I like better than anyone in the world, I know. Think how we will enjoy each other's company. You, the sweetest man in the whole world. We will be all alone with each other. Can you conceive of anything nicer? I think of you constantly. When I hear your name mentioned, and this is when one of the dear children speaks of you, or I hear myself humming it with the words of an old love song, it is beautiful music to my ears. My heart beats in wild rapture for you, My Andrew, I love you. Come prepared to stay forever.

In response to her letter, Helgelien flew to her side in January 1908. He had with him a check for $2,900, his savings, which he had drawn from his local bank. A few days after Helgelien arrived, he and Gunness appeared at the Savings Bank in La Porte and deposited the check. Helgelien vanished a few days later, but Gunness appeared at the Savings Bank to make a $500 deposit and another deposit of $700 in the State Bank. At this time, she started to have problems with Ray Lamphere.

In March 1908, Gunness sent several letters to a farmer and horse dealer in Topeka, Kansas named Lon Townsend, inviting him to visit her; he decided to put off the visit until spring, and thus did not see her before a fire at her farm. Gunness was also in correspondence with a man from Arkansas and sent him a letter dated May 4, 1908. He would have visited her, but did not because of the fire at her farm. Gunness allegedly promised marriage to a suitor Bert Albert, which did not go through because of his lack of wealth.

Turning point
Ray Lamphere

The hired hand Ray Lamphere was deeply in love with Gunness; he performed any chore for her, no matter how gruesome. He became jealous of the many men who arrived to court his employer and began making scenes. She fired him on February 3, 1908. Shortly after dispensing with Lamphere, she presented herself at the La Porte courthouse. She declared that her former employee was not in his right mind and was a menace to the public. She somehow convinced local authorities to hold a sanity hearing. Lamphere was pronounced sane and released. Gunness was back a few days later to complain to the sheriff that Lamphere had visited her farm and argued with her. She contended that he posed a threat to her family and had Lamphere arrested for trespassing.

Lamphere returned again and again to see her, but she drove him away. Lamphere made thinly disguised threats; on one occasion, he confided to farmer William Slater, "Helgelien won't bother me no more. We fixed him for keeps." Helgelien had long since disappeared from the precincts of La Porte, or so it was believed. However, his brother, Asle Helgelien, was disturbed when Andrew failed to return home and he wrote to Belle in Indiana, asking her about his sibling's whereabouts. Gunness wrote back, telling Asle Helgelien that his brother was not at her farm and probably went to Norway to visit relatives. Asle Helgelien wrote back saying that he did not believe his brother would do that; moreover, he believed that his brother was still in the La Porte area, the last place he was seen or heard from. Gunness brazened it out; she told him that if he wanted to come and look for his brother, she would help conduct a search, but she cautioned him that searching for missing persons was an expensive proposition. If she were to be involved in such a manhunt, she stated, Asle Helgelien should be prepared to pay her for her efforts. Asle Helgelien did come to La Porte, but not until May.

Lamphere represented an unresolved danger to her; now Asle Helgelien was making inquiries that could very well send her to the gallows. She told a lawyer in La Porte, M.E. Leliter, that she feared for her life and that of her children. Ray Lamphere, she said, had threatened to kill her and burn her house down. She wanted to make out a will, in case Lamphere went through with his threats. Leliter complied and drew up her will. She left her entire estate to her children and then departed Leliter's offices. She went to one of the La Porte banks holding the mortgage for her property and paid this off. She did not go to the police to tell them about Lamphere's allegedly life-threatening conduct. The reason for this, most later concluded, was that there had been no threats; she was merely setting the stage for her own arson.

Lamphere suspected of arson and murder

Joe Maxson, who had been hired to replace Lamphere in February 1908, awoke in the early hours of April 28, 1908, smelling smoke in his room, which was on the second floor of the Gunness house. He opened the hall door to a sheet of flames. Maxson screamed Gunness' name and those of her children but got no response. He slammed the door and then, in his underwear, leapt from the second-story window of his room, barely surviving the fire that was closing in about him. He raced to town to get help, but by the time the old-fashioned hook and ladder arrived at the farm at early dawn the farmhouse was a gutted heap of smoking ruins. Four bodies were found inside the house. One of the bodies was that of a woman who could not immediately be identified as Gunness, since she had no head. The head was never found. The bodies of her children were found still in their beds. County Sheriff Smutzer had somehow heard about Lamphere’s alleged threats; he took one look at the carnage and quickly sought out the ex-handyman. Leliter came forward to recount his tale about Gunness' will and how she feared Lamphere would kill her and her family and burn her house down.

Lamphere did not help his cause much. At the moment Sheriff Smutzer confronted him and before a word was uttered by the lawman, Lamphere exclaimed, "Did Widow Gunness and the kids get out all right?" He was then told about the fire, but he denied having anything to do with it, claiming that he was not near the farm when the blaze occurred. A youth, John Solyem, was brought forward. He said that he had been watching the Gunness place and that he saw Lamphere running down the road from the Gunness house just before the structure erupted in flames. Lamphere snorted to the boy: "You wouldn't look me in the eye and say that!"

"Yes, I will", replied Solyem. "You found me hiding behind the bushes and you told me you'd kill me if I didn't get out of there." Lamphere was arrested and charged with murder and arson. Then scores of investigators, sheriff's deputies, coroner's men and many volunteers began to search the ruins for evidence.

The body of the headless woman was of deep concern to La Porte residents. C. Christofferson, a neighboring farmer, took one look at the charred remains of this body and said that it was not the remains of Belle Gunness. So did another farmer, L. Nicholson, and so did Mrs. Austin Cutler, an old friend of Gunness. More of Gunness' old friends, Mrs. May Olander and Mr. Sigward Olsen, arrived from Chicago. They examined the remains of the headless woman and said it was not Gunness.

Doctors then measured the remains, and, making allowances for the missing neck and head, stated the corpse was that of a woman who stood five feet three inches tall and weighed no more than 150 pounds. Friends and neighbors, as well as the La Porte clothiers who made her dresses and other garments, swore that Gunness was taller than 5'8" and weighed between 180 and 200 pounds. Detailed measurements of the body were compared with those on file with several La Porte stores where she purchased her apparel.

When the two sets of measurements were compared, the authorities concluded that the headless woman could not possibly have been Belle Gunness, even when the ravages of the fire on the body were taken into account. (The flesh was badly burned but intact). Moreover, Dr. J. Meyers examined the internal organs of the dead woman. He sent stomach contents of the victims to a pathologist in Chicago, who reported months later that the organs contained lethal doses of strychnine.

Morbid discovery

Gunness' dentist, Dr. Ira P. Norton, said that if the teeth/dental work of the headless corpse had been located he could definitely ascertain if it was she. Thus Louis "Klondike" Schultz, a former miner, was hired to build a sluice and begin sifting the debris (as more bodies were unearthed, the sluice was used to isolate human remains on a larger scale). On May 19, 1908, a piece of bridgework was found consisting of two human canine teeth, their roots still attached, porcelain teeth and gold crown work in between. Norton identified them as work done for Gunness. As a result, Coroner Charles Mack officially concluded that the adult female body discovered in the ruins was Belle Gunness.

Asle Helgelien arrived in La Porte and told Sheriff Smutzer that he believed his brother had met with foul play at Gunness' hands. Then, Joe Maxson came forward with information that could not be ignored: He told the Sheriff that Gunness had ordered him to bring loads of dirt by wheelbarrow to a large area surrounded by a high wire fence where the hogs were fed. Maxon said that there were many deep depressions in the ground that had been covered by dirt. These filled-in holes, Gunness had told Maxson, contained rubbish. She wanted the ground made level, so he filled in the depressions.

Smutzer took a dozen men back to the farm and began to dig. On May 3, 1908, the diggers unearthed the body of Jennie Olson (vanished December 1906). Then they found the small bodies of two unidentified children. Subsequently the body of Andrew Helgelien was unearthed (his overcoat was found to be worn by Lamphere). As days progressed and the gruesome work continued, one body after another was discovered in Gunness' hog pen:

Ole B. Budsberg of Iola, Wisconsin, (vanished May 1907);
Thomas Lindboe, who had left Chicago and had gone to work as a hired man for Gunness three years earlier;
Henry Gurholdt of Scandinavia, Wisconsin, who had gone to wed her a year earlier, taking $1,500 to her; a watch corresponding to one belonging to Gurholdt was found with a body;
Olaf Svenherud, from Chicago;
John Moe of Elbow Lake, Minnesota; his watch was found in Lamphere's possession;
Olaf Lindbloom, age 35 from Wisconsin.

Reports of other possible victims began to come in
William Mingay, a coachman of New York City, who had left that city on April 1, 1904;
Herman Konitzer of Chicago who disappeared in January 1906;
Charles Edman of New Carlisle, Indiana;
George Berry of Tuscola, Illinois;
Christie Hilkven of Dover, Wisconsin[disambiguation needed], who sold his farm and came to La Porte in 1906;
Chares Neiburg, a 28-year-old Scandinavian immigrant who lived in Philadelphia, told friends that he was going to visit Gunness in June 1906 and never came back — he had been working for a saloon keeper and took $500 with him;
John H. McJunkin of Coraopolis (near Pittsburgh) left his wife in December 1906 after corresponding with a La Porte woman;
Olaf Jensen, a Norwegian immigrant of Carroll, Indiana, wrote his relatives in 1906 he was going to marry a wealthy widow at La Porte;
Henry Bizge of La Porte who disappeared June 1906 and his hired man named Edward Canary of Pink Lake Ill who also vanished 1906;
Bert Chase of Mishawaka, Indiana sold his butcher shop and told friends of a wealthy widow and that he was going to look her up; his brother received a telegram supposedly from Aberdeen, South Dakota claiming Bert had been killed in a train wreck; his brother investigated and found the telegram was fictitious;
Tonnes Peterson Lien of Rushford, Minnesota, is alleged to have disappeared April 2, 1907;
A gold ring marked "S.B. May 28, 1907" was found in the ruins;
A hired man named George Bradley of Tuscola, Illinois, is alleged to have gone to La Porte to meet a widow and three children in October 1907;
T.J. Tiefland of Minneapolis is alleged to have come to see Gunness in 1907;
Frank Riedinger a farmer of Waukesha, Wisconsin, came to Indiana in 1907 to marry and never returned;
Emil Tell, a Swede from Kansas City, Missouri, is alleged to have gone in 1907 to La Porte;
Lee Porter of Bartonville, Oklahoma separated from his wife and told his brother he was going to marry a wealthy widow at La Porte;
John E. Hunter left Duquesne, Pennsylvania, on November 25, 1907 after telling his daughters he was going to marry a wealthy widow in Northern Indiana.
Two other Pennsylvanians — George Williams of Wapawallopen and Ludwig Stoll of Mount Yeager — also left their homes to marry in the West.
Abraham Phillips, a railway man of Burlington, West Virginia, left in the winter of 1907 to go to Northern Indiana and marry a rich widow — a railway watch was found in the debris of the house.
Benjamin Carling of Chicago, Illinois, was last seen by his wife in 1907 after telling her that he was going to La Porte to secure an investment with a rich widow; he had with him $1,000 from an insurance company and borrowed money from several investors as well; in June 1908 his widow was able to identify his remains from La Porte's Pauper's cemetery by the contour of his skull and three missing teeth;
Aug. Gunderson of Green Lake, Wisconsin;
Ole Oleson of Battle Creek, Michigan;
Lindner Nikkelsen of Huron, South Dakota;
Andrew Anderson of Lawrence, Kansas;
Johann Sorensen of St. Joseph, Missouri;
A possible victim was a man named Hinkley;

Reported unnamed victims were:

a daughter of Mrs. H. Whitzer of Toledo, Ohio, who had attended Indiana University near La Porte in 1902;
an unknown man and woman are alleged to have disappeared in September 1906, the same night Jennie Olson went missing. Gunness claimed they were a Los Angeles "professor" and his wife who had taken Jennie to California;
a brother of Miss Jennie Graham of Waukesha, Wisconsin, who had left her to marry a rich widow in La Porte but vanished;
a hired man from Ohio age 50 name unknown is alleged to have disappeared and Gunness became the "heir" to his horse and buggy;
an unnamed man from Montana told people at a resort he was going to sell Gunness his horse and buggy, which were found with several other horses and buggies at the farm.

Most of the remains found on the property could not be identified. Because of the crude recovery methods, the exact number of individuals unearthed on the Gunness farm is unknown, but is believed to be approximately twelve. On May 19, 1908 remains of approximately seven unknown victims were buried in two coffins in unmarked graves in the pauper's section of LaPorte's Pine Lake Cemetery. Andrew Helgelien and Jennie Olson are buried in La Porte's Patton Cemetery, near Peter Gunness.

The trial of Ray Lamphere

Ray Lamphere was arrested on May 22, 1908 and tried for murder and arson. He denied the charges of arson and murder that were filed against him. His defense hinged on the assertion that the body was not Gunness'. Lamphere's lawyer, Wirt Worden, developed evidence that contradicted Norton's identification of the teeth and bridgework. A local jeweler testified that though the gold in the bridgework had emerged from the fire almost undamaged, the fierce heat of the conflagration had melted the gold plating on several watches and items of gold jewelry. Local doctors replicated the conditions of the fire by attaching a similar piece of dental bridgework to a human jawbone and placing it in a blacksmith’s forge. The real teeth crumbled and disintegrated; the porcelain teeth came out pocked and pitted, with the gold parts rather melted (both the artificial elements were damaged to a greater degree than those in the bridgework offered as evidence of Gunness' identity). The hired hand Joe Maxson and another man also testified that they’d seen "Klondike" Schultz take the bridgework out of his pocket and plant it just before it was "discovered". Lamphere was found guilty of arson, but acquitted of murder. On November 26, 1908, he was sentenced to 20 years in the State Prison (in Michigan City). He died of tuberculosis on December 30, 1909.

On January 14, 1910, the Rev. E. A. Schell came forward with a confession that Lamphere was said to have made to him while the clergyman was comforting the dying man. In it, Lamphere revealed Gunness' crimes and swore that she was still alive. Lamphere had stated to the Reverend Schell and to a fellow convict, Harry Meyers, shortly before his death, that he had not murdered anyone, but that he had helped Gunness bury many of her victims. When a victim arrived, she made him comfortable, charming him and cooking a large meal. She then drugged his coffee and when the man was in a stupor, she split his head with a meat chopper. Sometimes she would simply wait for the suitor to go to bed and then enter the bedroom by candlelight and chloroform her sleeping victim. A powerful woman, Gunness would then carry the body to the basement, place it on a table, and dissect it. She then bundled the remains and buried these in the hog pen and the grounds about the house. Belle had become an expert at dissection, thanks to instruction she had received from her second husband, the butcher Peter Gunness. To save time, she sometimes poisoned her victims' coffee with strychnine. She also varied her disposal methods, sometimes dumping the corpse into the hog-scalding vat and covering the remains with quicklime. Lamphere even stated that if Belle was overly tired after murdering one of her victims, she merely chopped up the remains and, in the middle of the night, stepped into her hog pen and fed the remains to the hogs.

The handyman also cleared up the mysterious question of the headless female corpse found in the smoking ruins of Gunness' home. Gunness had lured this woman from Chicago on the pretense of hiring her as a housekeeper only days before she decided to make her permanent escape from La Porte. Gunness, according to Lamphere, had drugged the woman, then bashed in her head and decapitated the body, taking the head, which had weights tied to it, to a swamp where she threw it into deep water. Then she chloroformed her children, smothered them to death, and dragged their small bodies, along with the headless corpse, to the basement.

She dressed the female corpse in her old clothing, and removed her false teeth, placing these beside the headless corpse to assure it being identified as Belle Gunness. She then torched the house and fled. Lamphere had helped her, he admitted, but she had not left by the road where he waited for her after the fire had been set. She had betrayed her one-time partner in crime in the end by cutting across open fields and then disappearing into the woods. Some accounts suggest that Lamphere admitted that he took her to Stillwell (a town about nine miles from La Porte) and saw her off on a train to Chicago.

Lamphere said that Gunness was a rich woman, that she had murdered 42 men by his count, perhaps more, and had taken amounts from them ranging from $1,000 to $32,000. She had allegedly accumulated more than $250,000 through her murder schemes over the years—a huge fortune for those days (about $6.3 million in 2008 dollars). She had a small amount remaining in one of her savings accounts, but local banks later admitted that she had indeed withdrawn most of her funds shortly before the fire. The fact that Gunness withdrew most of her money suggested that she was planning to evade the law.

ftermath and Gunness' fate

Gunness was, for several decades, allegedly seen or sighted in cities and towns throughout the United States. Friends, acquaintances, and amateur detectives apparently spotted her on the streets of Chicago, San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles. As late as 1931, Gunness was reported alive and living in a Mississippi town, where she supposedly owned a great deal of property and lived the life of a doyenne. Smutzer, for more than 20 years, received an average of two reports a month. She became part of American criminal folklore, a female Bluebeard.

The bodies of Gunness' three children were found in the home's wreckage, but the headless adult female corpse found with them was never positively identified. Gunness' true fate is unknown; La Porte residents were divided between believing that she was killed by Lamphere and that she had faked her own death. In 1931, a woman known as "Esther Carlson" was arrested in Los Angeles for poisoning August Lindstrom for money. Two people who had known Gunness claimed to recognize her from photographs, but the identification was never proved. Carlson died while awaiting trial.


Burial, exhumation and DNA analysis

The body believed to be that of Belle Gunness was buried next to her first husband at Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois.

On November 5, 2007, with the permission of descendants of Belle's sister, the headless body was exhumed from Gunness' grave in Forest Home Cemetery by a team of forensic anthropologists and graduate students from the University of Indianapolis in an effort to learn her true identity. It was initially hoped that a sealed envelope flap on a letter found at the victim's farm would contain enough DNA to be compared to that of the body. Unfortunately, there was not enough DNA there, so efforts continue to find a reliable source for comparison purposes, including the disinterment of additional bodies and contact with known living relatives.

Ray Lamphere

HER HOUSE

 

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Dana Sue Gray

Dana Sue Gray (born December 6, 1957) is an American serial killer who murdered three elderly women in 1994. She was caught after her fourth victim survived and identified her. Gray says she committed these murders to support her spending habits. She is now imprisoned in the California Women's Prison in Chowchilla.

Early life

Dana Sue Gray was born December 6, 1957 to Beverly and Russell Armbrust. Russell worked as a hair dresser and had three previous marriages before marrying Beverly, and she was a former beauty queen. They had several miscarriages before she was born. Beverly was an aggressive, vain woman who frequently maxed out her husband's credit cards; they finally divorced when her husband found her grappling with an older woman who had angered her. Dana Sue was two years old at the time and afterwards rarely saw her father; she began acting out to get attention. Whenever Beverly would discipline her, Dana would retaliate by stealing money to buy candy and would occasionally fly into fits of violence. In school, she did not get along well with other students and did poorly in all her classes. She was suspended from school many times for forging notes to get out of class.

When Dana was 14, her mother developed breast cancer; Gray decided to become a nurse after watching hospital nurses treat her mother. After her mother's death, Gray moved in with her father but was forced to leave after her stepmother found drugs in her room. A few years later, she became involved with a skydiving instructor, who got her pregnant twice; he convinced her to abort both pregnancies, something she resented.

Personal life

Dana graduated from Newport Harbor High School in 1976. She lived with her sky-diving instructor, Rob, for the next several years and he helped her with nursing school. She became an expert skydiver. In 1981 she graduated from nursing school, and for the next few years had an on-again, off-again relationship with Chris Dodson, a windsurfer. Dana excelled in windsurfing and golf, and they took trips to Hawaii to participate in these activities. In October 1987, Gray married a man named William (Bill) L Gray at an upscale winery in the Temecula area. He was a fellow sports enthusiast who had known and admired her since high school. Dana was a serious athlete, very fit, and beautiful with pretty blonde hair. The marriage quickly got into trouble, however, when Dana dug them deeply into debt. At this point, she was also estranged from her two half-brothers, having burned many bridges, in a dispute over an aunt's will.

She was a labor and delivery nurse at Inland Valley Regional Medical Center. They lived in the gated community of Canyon Lake where they had several business ventures under the name Graymatter. Gray left her husband in early 1993 and moved in with their friend and her lover, Jim Wilkins, and his young son Jason. In June, 1993, she filed for divorce from Gray, though this was not finalized until after Dana had been in jail for quite some time. In September 1993, she and Gray filed for bankruptcy to stave off foreclosure on their Canyon Lake house. Although the value of the house had greatly increased since they purchased it, they owed much more on the house than it was worth. On November 24, 1993, she was fired from the hospital where she worked for misappropriating Demerol and other opiate painkillers.

On February 14, 1994, Dana sent word through Gray's parents (Gray kept his phone number and address hidden from her) that she wanted to meet with her estranged husband. Gray initially agreed but did not show up. Later that day, Dana murdered Norma Davis, an elderly lady whose home Dana had shared for a time. Gray later found out that Dana had taken out an insurance policy on him. The policy would have paid off the Canyon Lake house in the event of Gray's death.

Victims
Norma Davis

Norma Davis, 86, is thought to be Gray’s first victim; because of the lack of evidence, however, Gray was never convicted of killing her. Norma was the mother-in-law of the woman (Jeri Davis) who married Dana's father in 1988. Jeri's first husband, Bill Davis, was Norma's son. Bill died in the early 1980s, and his widow eventually married Dana's father Russell Armbrust. Jeri continued to care for her elderly mother-in-law, even after she remarried. Dana knew Norma very well. On February 16, 1994, Norma Davis had been dead for two days when she was found by her neighbor, Alice Williams. Davis had a wood handled utility knife sticking out of her neck, and a fillet knife sticking out of her chest. Other than a broken fingernail, she had no other marks. A bloodied afghan lay at her feet. Detectives learned that there was no forced entry into the house. Detectives were informed that she always kept her door locked unless she was expecting a visitor. Williams stated she could not remember Davis mentioning she was expecting company. Detectives found a Nike shoe print pointed toward the kitchen. They also found Davis’ $148 Social Security check. On the first floor of Davis’ condo, a smear of blood was found on an armchair. A ripped out phone cord was also found.

June Roberts

June Roberts, 66, was killed on February 28, 1994. June Roberts, like Norma Davis, lived in the gated community of Canyon Lake. Gray had visited Roberts one day claiming she wanted to borrow a book about controlling a drinking problem. Roberts let Gray into her house. While Roberts searched for the book, Gray unplugged Roberts’ phone, both the straight cord and the curly cord. She then used the curly cord to strangle Roberts. When Roberts was dead, Gray rifled through her credit cards, stealing two. An hour later, Gray went on a massive shopping spree at an upscale shopping center in Temecula.

Dorinda Hawkins

Gray attacked Hawkins, 57, at her job at an antique store. Hawkins had been working alone that day. Gray came in to buy a picture frame for a photo of her deceased mother. Gray strangled her with a telephone cord. Gray took $5 from Hawkins' purse and $20 from the cash register. An hour later, Gray went on another shopping spree, using Roberts’ credit card. Hawkins had survived the assault, however, and was able to give detectives a description of Gray. The next day the story was in the newspaper.

Dora Beebe

On March 16, 1994, Gray killed Dora Beebe, 87. A few minutes after Beebe came home from a doctor’s appointment, Gray pulled up in front of Beebe’s house. Gray knocked on Beebe’s door and asked Beebe for directions. Beebe invited Gray inside to look at a map. Once inside Gray attacked and killed Beebe.Beebe was found later that day by her boyfriend of eight years, Louis Dormand. An hour later, Gray used Beebe’s credit card to go on a shopping spree.

Effects of Killings in Canyon Lake

Many of the residents of Canyon Lake were terrified. Some moved in with loved ones until the murder was solved. A group of elderly widows began sleeping in big groups at designated houses. They believed there was safety in numbers. Many residents theorized the murders were committed by a cult who engaged in ritual sacrifice.

Potential suspects

Detectives had problems finding suspects early on. At one point, it was so hard to find a lead that the supervisor in charge recommended using a psychic. Before Dana Gray was thought to be the serial killer, detectives had few other suspects.

Jeri Armbrust

In the case of Norma Davis, detectives suspected Jeri Armbrust might be the killer. From talking to Armbrust detectives learned that she used to be married to Davis’ son. After Norma Davis' son died, Jeri continued to care for her former mother-in-law. When Jeri remarried, it was to Russell Armbrust, Dana Gray's father. Thus, the connection to Norma Davis. Davis was in very poor health and was still recovering from a triple bypass surgery. Detectives found it strange that Jeri Armbrust would take care of someone who was not a blood relative, and she was wearing Nikes. Detectives also speculated that Jeri Armbrust had been in Davis’ house the Sunday before the murder. Jeri Armbrust claimed she only stopped by Davis’ house to drop off groceries and heard Davis’ TV on upstairs but did not go up to say hi; she just left the groceries and went home. Detectives wondered why she would not say hello.[11] After weeks of talking with Armbrust and building a rapport, Detective Greco realized she was not the person they were looking for. Detective Greco and Jeri Armbrust became friends and began helping each other during the investigation. Ultimately it was this friendship and trust that would be pivotal in solving this case.

Joseph Greco

Detective Joseph Greco, of the Perris Police Department, led the murder investigations of Norma Davis and June Roberts. He graduated from the Riverside County Sheriff's Academy as a pre-service student and ranked among the top ten (#7) of his graduating class. He was immediately hired out of the Academy and began working for the Perris Police Department in 1988. Greco was highly decorated for his tenacity in the field and received numerous awards to include the Medal of Valor for running into a burning plane to save victims of The Perris Air Disaster on April 22, 1992.

Greco was promoted to the rank of Corporal in 1992 and assigned as an investigator working all major crimes against persons. The first victim, 87 year-old Norma Davis case, in 1994, was only Greco’s second homicide investigation. Because of the seriousness of the crimes and his lack of experience, Greco initially questioned his ability to do an adequate investigation, but would eventually solve the case. Additionally, his youthful appearance made people question his ability to do the job.

Greco suspected that the Roberts and Davis case were connected due to evidence collected in the case and ultimately discovered it was the work of one female serial killer. He identified Dana Sue Gray as a potetential suspect and wrote a search warrant for her residence in Lake Elsinore CA; Ironically, on the day she was out killing her last victim, Dora Beebe, Greco arrested Dana Sue Gray at her front porch and took her into custody for the murder of June Roberts. The search of Gray's home revealed vital information belonging not only to Roberts, but also to Beebe and a surprise third victim, Dorinda Hawkins, who would survived her attack and later positively identified Gray through a photo line-up. Faced with a mountain of strong circumstantial evidence in the case against her, along with the threat of the death penalty, Gray would eventual plead to life without the possibility of parole and waived all of her appellate rights. She made one condition, however, and that was that the State would not prosecute her for the murder of Norma Davis The first victim (A distant relative).

Detective Joseph Greco worked for the Riverside County's Sheriff's Department's Lake Elsinore Station specializing in elder abuse, sexual assault and child abuse cases from 1998 to 2010. He was later promoted to the rank of Sergeant in March 2010 and is presently assigned to the Southwest Detention Center in the City of Murrieta, California.

Detective Joseph Greco Graduated from the University of Redlands School of Business, CA. with an MBA (2004). He also is a licensed California Real Estate Broker (2007).

Television documentaries involving Detective Greco include: The "Discovery Channel" for the following shows: "The New Detectives" (New Dominion Pictures 2000), "Deadly Women" (Beyond Productions 2009), "Unusual Suspects" (LMNO Productions 2009) and "Forensic Factor 2" (Exploration Productions 2009)

Chris Antoniadas

Detective Chris Antoniadas was the lead detective on the Dora Beebe case. Antoniadas interviewed Gray after Detective Greco finished interviewing her.

Antoniadas had a knack for getting criminals to confess to their crimes during interrogation. He knew how to relate to people in order to gain their trust and have the person open up to him. Antoniadas also knew how to play someone’s religion or insecurities against them. While interrogating Gray, Antoniadas had no clue how to approach her. Gray seemed very cold and unresponsive to any of Antoniadas’s approaches. Antoniadas finally decided he needed to take some of Dana’s control away from her. He then interrogated Gray roughly yelling at her to confess but was unsuccessful. Seeing that also did not work, Antoniadas charged her with the murder of Dora Bebee based upon the discovery of Beebe's credit cards found in Gray's sock drawer during Detective Greco's search Warrant.

Unfolding of the Case

Gray was finally caught because her description was obtained from various merchants in the Temecula California area where she used June Robert's credit cards to go on a "shopping spree." Dana had been spending so much money that the credit card company called June Roberts family to alert them of the massive spending. The detectives then went to all the stores where Gray used the credit cards and interviewed the cashiers, getting a physical description of Gray. They also learned the killer had dyed her hair recently and had a little boy named Jason. Detective Greco kept in touch with Jeri Armbrust. He began providing the description of the killer to her on a visit to her home. Jeri would reveal to Greco the next day that she believed the suspect to be her stepdaughter. Dana had just dyed her hair and had a boyfriend with a son named Jason. Detective Greco wrote a search warrant for Gray's home and enlisted the help of ARCNET (Allied Riverside County Narcotics Enforcement Team) to stake out Gray's home in Lake Elsinore.

Unbeknownst to the team, Gray was murdering Dora Beebe just hours before they began following her, trying to collect evidence. After seeing Dana go to the bank with Beebe's card and then go shopping, the detectives had enough information for nexus involving Dora Beebe's murder. Later that day, Greco arrested Dana while she was cooking dinner for her family. Detective Greco took Dana into custody while assisting officers took her boyfriend and his son down to the station for questioning.

During questioning, Dana claimed she never took the credit cards. After detectives said they had evidence of her using them, Dana claimed she found both Roberts' and Beebe’s cards. She stuck with this story for hours. She claimed the reason she kept the cards was she had an overwhelming need to shop. She also seemed to have no sympathy for the victims.

Detective Antoniadas attempted to obtain a confession after Detective Greco's interview but was unsuccessful. Detective Greco eventually booked Gray on charges of murder. At a hearing on July 23, Deputy DA Richard Bentley requested the death penalty. Gray pleaded insanity on all counts. After a witness claimed to have seen Gray at Roberts' house the day of her death, Gray changed her plea to guilty to robbing and murdering two women and attempting to murder another. By pleading guilty Gray avoided the death penalty. On October 16, 1998, Dana Sue Gray was sentenced to life without parole and was incarcerated in the California Women's Prison in Chowchilla.

 

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Jummai Hassan

HASSAN Jummai

... ... ... 50+

13-Year-Old Nigerian Girl, Jummai Hassan, Confesses to Series of Ritual Murders - 2001

Kano, Nigeria - A 13-year-old girl has been arrested [on July 17] in northeast Nigeria over the ritual-linked killings of 51 people, including her father, police said on Friday.

Jummai Hassan, a pupil at an army college, was arrested on July 17 in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, over the disappearance of a two-year-old boy, Borno State Police Commissioner Bello Uba Ringim told a radio station monitored here.

The girl, detained in Maiduguri, also spoke to the radio and said she was a member of a cult led by one ‘Emmanuel’.

“He is our initiator. We do what he says,” she said, speaking in the Hausa language used across northern Nigeria.

~ ‘My spirit is away’ ~

She said she travelled by “spirit” means from the northeastern city to the southern city of Lagos to attend the cult meetings.

“My body is here but my spirit is away. We go by our spirits but interact as normal human beings,” she said.

“We attend meetings at a church in Lagos at night where instructions are given to us as to which parts of the human body to take,” the girl went on.

“We always use a powder to kill. Once we apply it on a person, he dies and we take away his heart,” she said.

She said she had killed her father because he was an “obstruction”, stopping her from taking the life of her grandmother.

The police chief, in the course of the same interview, said that in the course of investigations the girl had confessed to killing the boy and 50 other people.

~ Burning down a house ~

“During investigations, she confessed to being a member of a cult based in Lagos and that she has killed 51 people, including her father, since she was initiated seven years ago,” he said on state-run Radio Kaduna.

The police chief said that the girl had been arrested in the past for burning down a woman’s house, quarrelling with her mother and throwing a girl into a ditch, the police chief said.

But each time she was taken to court, she escaped conviction, he said.

The alert about the killings came when the two-year-old boy Ibro Joseph went missing earlier this month, he said.

When police started investigating they were told by local residents that the boy had last been seen with Hassan.

“She confessed that she killed and buried him. She took us to a grave where the body was exhumed,” Ringim said. “Surprisingly, there was no sign of any use of force to murder him.”

[“‘Witch’, 13, up for dozens dead,” South African Press Association (Johannesburg, South Africa), Jul. 17, 2001]

***
FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 2]: Following startling revelations by a 13-year-old female student Jummai Hassan, of her role in the ritual murder of 48 people, the police in Maiduguri, Borno State have exhumed the body of a boy believed to be one of their latest victims. Jummai, a student of Maimalari Government Secondary School, Maiduguri had confessed to participating in the heinous crime for about seven years. The police reported on Wednesday that she had embarked on hunger strike in custody.

[“Nigeria: Ritual Murder: Borno Police Exhume Body of Victim,” The Guardian (Lagos) Jul. 27, 2001]

***

NOTE: Reports of the outcome of this investigation have not yet been located. It is possible that part or all of the confession of murder(s) is fictitious. Yet it must be kept in mind that child criminals who are guilty will frequently embellish the story of their crime with fantastical elements.

 

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Marie Jeanneret

Marie Jeanneret, Swiss Serial Killer Nurse - 1868
There died recently in the prison of St. Antonio, at Geneva, a woman of the name of Marie Jeanneret, one of the most remarkable criminals of the age, and probably the most extensive secret poisoner of her time. Her ease is all the more remarkable in that, it presents some curious psychological problems, and that strangely enough, she was the cause of the abolition of the death penalty in the canton of Geneva.

Marie Jeanneret belonged to one of the most, honorable families in the canton of Neuchatel, where she was born in 1836. She inherited from her parents, both of whom died when she was an infant, a modest competency. Marie remained at school until she readied her nineteenth year, and was carefully and religiously brought up by her uncle, who was also her guardian. Her character, as observed by those about her, was peculiar. She had a defective judgment and a strong will, inconstant taste and iv restless disposition, a tendency to falsehood and a passion for intrigue. She was vain, too, and liked to attract attention and be talked about. On the other hand, she was regular in her attendance at church and assiduous in her religious duties. She did not enjoy very good health, but was suspected of exaggerating her maladies. My dint of reading medical hooks and consulting many doctors, she obtained some knowledge of medicine, of which she was very proud, and often expressed a desire to become a sick-nurse. She complained much of her eyes, pretended at one time to tie blind, and in 1865 consulted Dr. Dor, of Vevey, who ascertained by a decisive experiment that the affection was imaginary. He did not prescribe for her, but it is probable that she took an opportunity, while his back was turned, of appropriating a bottle of atropine. Another doctor whom she consulted prescribed belladonna, and as she kept the prescription by her, she was enabled to procure, a supply of that drug at pleasure. In the spring of 1866 Marie Jeanneret, while staying at. The Pension Beroud, at Vevey. made the acquaintance of a Mlle. Berthet, of Nyon, whose sympathy was won by her sufferings, real or supposed, her insinuating manners and her religious professions.

They became fast friends, were nearly always together, and used each other’s rooms as if they belonged to both. One day, after dinner, Mlle. Berthet asked for a glass of water, but, the day being warm, Jeanneret suggested that a mixture of wine and eau sucreé would be the safer beverage. The mixture was made accordingly and drunk, and shortly afterwards the two friends started for Clarens. On the way thither Mlle. Berthet became very ill. She was sick; the pupils of her eyes seemed to be paralyzed; her heart felt as heavy as lead. Jeanneret showed much sympathy, lifted the lids of her friend’s eyes to examine them more, closely, and suggested remedies. After a short rest at Clarens, Mlle. Berthet, recovered sufficiently to return to Vevey, whither she was accompanied by Jeanneret.

Upon arriving home the latter gave her another drink, and while in the very act of returning her t he glass her friend fell hack on a sofa in a state of litter nervous prostration.. All the night and the whole of the next day she was delirious, and her friends, being informed by telegraph of her illness, fetched her home, and by so doing undoubtedly saved her life. Three days passed before she could sufficiently command herself to explain to her medical attendant. Dr. Lamibassy, of Nyon, how she had been taken ill. After hearing her statement and asking her some questions. Dr. Lambassy said that it looked very much as if she had been poisoned by belladonna. The pupils of her eyes were extremely dilated, her very features were altered, and months elapsed before her sight was fully restored.

Mlle. Berthet also believed she had been poisoned, but by mistake, her idea being that Jeanneret had got her bottles mixed and given her the wrong stuff inadvertently, and this opinion she retained until subsequent revelations showed how terrible had been her danger and how narrow her escape. This was probably Jeanneret’s fist essay at murder, and it wilt he observed, as a curious feature of the case, that she had nothing to gain by her friend’s death. On the face of it the crime was absolutely motiveless.

Prom Vevey, Jeanneret went to Locle, her native place, and in the following October she entered the nursing school at Lausanne, in order to qualify herself for the calling for which she had so often expressed a predilection. After a stay of two months she left the school without completing her course, on the ground that the state of her eyes rendered her unfit for work. Whether she tried any experiments on the patients in the hospital is unknown, but she was occasionally sent out to nurse patients at their own house, and to one of them, Mme. Chabolz, she almost certainly gave belladonna. One night Jeanneret called on Mme. Chabolz’s married daughter, Mme. Eichenberg, and said her mother was very ill. Mme. Euchenberg found the latter with wide open eyes, a face expressive of intense terror, and talking wildly and laughing deliriously. The doctor was sent for and came, but suspected nothing. Another lime she went into the dining room while the Eichenhergs were at supper, and gave the children some bonbons, which she called “princesses.” All who ate of them were very sick and vomited much. Still nobody suspected that Jeanneret was a secret poisoner.

The scene now shifts to Geneva, where, at the time in question, there lived a certain Mme. Juvet, wife of a tradesman, who, together with two friends, had formed the design of establishing a maison de sante, or private hospital for convalescents. The better to fit themselves for this undertaking they spent a few days in the nursing school at Lausanne. While there they made the acquaintance of Marie Jeanneret, who, when informed of their project, applied for the situation of nurse in the new hospital, She asked no salary, only board, lodging and washing. She nursed for the pleasure of nursing, not for money. Her offer was accepted, and after a visit to Locle she went to Geneva, and quickly became absolute mistress of the maison du sante. Mme. Juvet seems to have submitted to her in influence from the first, and before Jeanneret had been in the house many days she contrived to set her and her friends by the cars. They quarrelled, and the latter refused to have anything further to do with the affair, When they were out of the way, Jeanneret took little Julie Juvet, who, she said, was in delicate health, to consult a doctor at Lausanne. Shortly after their return the poor child fell ill, after eating some of the nurse’s bonbons, and took to her bed never to rise from it again. The doctor thought she was suffering from meningetis. One day, as M. Juvet subsequently related, his wife heard her daughter crying in the next room. On going in she found Jeanneret whipping her, and the child begged her mother pitiously not to let the nurse come near her any more. But great was her infatuation, so implicit her confidence, that even this incident does not seem to have shaken Mme. Juvet’s faith in Jeanneret. People remembered afterwards that it was about this time that the nurse told the servants and several others that Mme. Juvet was a doomed woman, and that her son Emile was threatened with a serious illness. A few days later Mme. Juvet did in effect fall ill, and one morning Emile, after drinking a cup of coffee, felt violent pain and vomited profusely. Fortunately for him, he left the maison de sante on the following day, and hencefoward experienced no further unpleasantness, either from drinking cocoa, or anything else.

Meanwhile Mine. Juvet suffered from continual relapses, and whenever Dr. Jeanneret, who attended her, suggested that she was belter, Jeanneret always answered that she did not think that the improvement would last. And it did not. Poor little Julie died on December 27, 1865, and a month later her mother was laid in the same grave. When Julie’s body wife afterwards exhumed, it was too much decomposed to be analyzed, but in Mme. Juvet’s body were found great quantities of morphine, antimony and some copper.

Nor were these two the only victims. Before they died the lives of three other inmates of the hospital, all of whom were nursed by Jeanneret, had been quenched by the same means. One was an old woman of the name of Hahn; another “an aged demoiselle,” who was called day; and the third, also a demoiselle bore the name Junod. She died, after three days illness and delirium, in great agony. This finished the maison de sante. Two servants, M. Juvet and Jeanneret, were the only survivors of the household. Still the doctors suspected nothing, or, if they did they kept their suspicions to themselves. Jeanneret, whose occupation was for the moment gone, went into lodgings, pretended to be ill, and took to her bed; but more fortunate than her patients she got better.

When she recovered she began to look out for another situation, and, accompanied by a friend, paid a visit to the hydropathic establishment known as the Mains de Divonne, a beautiful place at the foot of the Jura, and some eight miles from Geneva. She was received by Mme. Vidart, the wife of the late Dr. Paul Vidart, then the proprietor and physician of the establishment. In the course of conversation the friend mentioned that Mlle. Jeanneret had been grade malade in the Maison de Sante Junet, where five persons had died in three months. “How sad!” exclaimed Mine. Vidart. “Yes, it is very sad when so many die, returned Jeanneret, “mais il ya des beaux moments dans la mort.” (There are some beautiful moments in death.) Then she spoke about a place as a grade malade. One of the patients happened lo be wanting a nurse, and Mme. Vidart told Jeanneret she would communicate with her in the course of a few days. After the two women were gone she wrote to a physician in Geneva, asking him to make some inquiries concerning Jeanneret’s character and qualifications. “Don’t have anything to do with her.” was the answer; “all her patients die.” “I can never think of that woman without a shudder, said Mme. Vidart. to me one day; she would have poisoned us all.”

However Jeanneret was shortly afterwards engaged to nurse a Mme. Lenoir, an old lady who was suffering from inflamation of the lungs. She too died, and then Jeanneret leased a furnished room front. M. Gross, a retired schoolmaster, with whom lived Mme. However, his widowed daughter. Again Marie obtained an engagement, this lime to nurse Mine. Bourcart, a lady who lived at la Boissiere, a country house near Geneva. Four days after she entered on her duties Mme. Boucart had a “crisis,” accompanied by delirium and vomitings, and Jeanneret told the servants that their mistress would die young like her brother. When Mme. Bourcart became a Utile better she showed a strong repugnance to Jeanneret, and would not have the nurse near her, and as Monsieur Bourcart had begun to suspect that she was playing some tricks with the medicines, she was sent away. lie remarked one evening that a certain bottle of medicine, of which he knew his wife had taken several doses during the day, bad not diminished in volume. He put the bottle aside, but took no further steps, for though he distrusted Jeanneret it had not then occurred to him that she was a poisoner. She went back to her lodgings, and M. Gross and Mme. Bouvier, whose confidence she had already gained, invited her to live with them on pension.

Three days later Mme. Mouvier fell ill, Mini so rapidly grew worse that it was deemed necessary to call in two physicians, Drs. Lombard and Goudet. They look it to be a case of congestion of the of the brain, albeit Dr. Lombard several times observed that it presented symptoms the like of which he had never seen before. She died on May 22, 1868. Her father, after nursing her a few days, had also been taken ill; his illness followed precisely the same course as hers, and, like hers, ended fatally. They were killed, as was afterwards abundantly proved, by atropine, morphine and antimony. During their sickness one of their relations, a Mme. Legeret, after drinking a glass of eau sucreé given to her by Jeanneret, became so seriously indisposed that she had to be taken home in a cab. The doctor who was called in recognized symptoms of belladonna poisoning, but thinking that Mme. Legeret had swallowed by mistake some atropine intended for external use, he did not suspect foul play. Proper remedies were administered, and after a severe struggle she recovered.

Jeanneret next took up her abode at the Pension Desarzens, and made the acquaintance of Mile. Fritzges who, one day after drinking a glass of lemonade, given to her by the garde malade, became delirious and terribly ill. The doctor who was called in, recognized symptoms of poisoning by belladonna and suspecting foul play, ordered her immediate removal to the cantonal hospital. Doctor Rapin, of the hospital, made a similar diagnosis. he had heard of Jeanneret before. She never went into a house whether as guest or nurse, that a death did not follow. He communicated his suspicious, together with a sketch of Jeanneret’s career, to the procureur general, who for with had her arrested. A long inquiry followed; the bodies of her supposed victims were exhumed. Marie was examined in secret, and after a prolonged inquiry she was placed on her trial The charge against her was that in 1807, and 1818 she had attempted, in the. Canton of Geneva, the lives (1,) Douise Junod; (2,) Jeanne Gay; (3,) Jenny Julie Juvet; (4,) Louise Henriette; (5,) Mme. Bourcart; (6,) Jacques Gros; (7,) Julie Bonvier; (8,) Mme. Legeret; (9,) Demoiselle Fritzges. There were several other charges that might have been brought against her, but as the relatives of the persons whom she may have poisoned did not suspect foul play the bodies were not exhumed, and the attempts she had made in the canton Vaud did not fall within the jurisdiction of the tribunal of Geneva.

Before the trial began the Judge’s instruction entered the accused to be examined by three exports in mental disease, for it was hardly concieveable that any sane person could be guilty of the series of purposeless and diabolical crimes imputed to Marie Jeanneret. After a long investigation the experts came unanimously to the conclusion that there was discernable in her no sign of feeble-mindedness or mental alienation. She was found guilty of murdering six persons and attempting to murder two others by administering to them poisonous drugs. But as the jury gave for the benefit, of “extenuating circumstances” the court could pronounce no heavier sentence than twenty years imprisonment. At that lime death was the penalty of unqualified murder in the canton of Geneva, and if Marie had been a man she would most assuredly have lost her head. But the jury could not bring their minds to decree the death of a woman, and so the worst and most dangerous prisoner of the age escaped the rightful penalty of her crimes. After letting off Marie Jeanneret with a term of imprisonment, it was clearly impossible, to punish any other murderer more severely, and a law abolishing capital punishment was shortly afterwards adopted by the local legislature.

[“Marie Jeanneret’s Death Grim Facts In The Career Of This Famous Poisoner. - How She Did Her Work, Her Trial, And The Motive For Crime - Causing The Abolition Of The Death Penalty.” (reprinted from The London Daily News), New York Times (N.Y.), May 11, 1884, p. 5]

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Helene Jegado

Hélène Jégado (1803–1852) was a French domestic servant and serial killer. She is believed to have murdered as many as 36 people with arsenic over a period of 18 years. After an initial period of activity, between 1833 and 1841, she seems to have stopped for nearly ten years before a final spree in 1851.

Early life and crimes

Hélène Jégado was born on a small farm in Plouhinec (Morbihan), near Lorient in Brittany. She lost her mother at the age of seven and was sent to work with two aunts who were servants at the rectory of Bubry. After 17 years, she accompanied an aunt to the town of Séglien. She became a cook for the curé where an incident arose where she was accused of adding hemp from his grain house to his soup.

Her first suspected poisoning occurred in 1833 when she was employed by another priest, Fr. François Le Drogo, in the nearby village of Guern. In the three months, between June 28 and October 3, seven members of the household died suddenly, including the priest himself, his aging mother and father, and her own visiting sister, Anne Jégado. Her apparent sorrow and pious behaviour was so convincing she was not suspected. Coming shortly after the cholera epidemic of 1832 the deaths may have been put down to natural causes.

Jégado returned to Bubry to replace her sister where three people died in the course of three months, including her other aunt, all of whom she cared for at their bedside. She continued to Locminé, where she boarded with a needleworker, Marie-Jeanne Leboucher—both Leboucher and her daughter died and a son fell ill. It is possible that the son survived because he did not accept Jégado's ministrations. When in the same town, the widow Lorey offered Jégado a room, she died after eating a soup her new boarder had prepared. In May 1835, she was hired by Madame Toussaint and four more deaths followed. By this point in time, she had already put seventeen people in their graves.

Later in 1835, Jégado was employed as a servant in a convent in Auray, but rapidly dismissed after several incidents of vandalism and sacrilege.

Jégado worked as a cook in other households in Auray, then Pontivy, Lorient, and Port-Louis where she was employed only briefly in each one. Often, someone fell ill or died. Among her most infamous murders is of a child, little Marie Bréger, who died at the Château de Soye (Ploemeur) in May 1841, ten years and one month before her final arrest. Most victims died showing symptoms corresponding to arsenic poisoning, though she was never caught with arsenic in her possession. There is no record of suspected deaths from late 1841 to 1849, but a number of her employers later reported thefts; she was apparently a kleptomaniac and was caught stealing several times.

Her career took a new turn in 1849 when she moved to Rennes, the capital city of the region.

Arrest

In 1850, Jégado joined the household staff of Théophile Bidard, a law professor at the University of Rennes. One of his servants, Rose Tessier, fell ill and died when Jégado tended her. In 1851, one of the other maids, Rosalie Sarrazin, fell ill as well and died. Two doctors had tried to save Sarrazin and because the symptoms were similar to those of Tessier, they convinced the relatives to permit an autopsy. Jégado aroused suspicion when she announced her innocence before she was even asked anything, and she was arrested July 1, 1851.

Later inquiries linked her to 23 suspected deaths by poisoning between 1833–1841, but none of these was thoroughly investigated since they were outside the ten-year limit for prosecution and there was no scientific evidence. Local folklore has attributed to her many unexplained deaths - some of which were almost certainly due to natural causes. The most reliable estimate is that she probably committed about 36 murders

Trial

Jégado's trial began December 6, 1851 but, due to French laws of permissible evidence and statute of limitations, she was accused only of three murders, three attempted murders and 11 thefts. At least one later case appears to have been dropped since it involved a child and police were reluctant to upset the parents by an exhumation. Jégado's behaviour in court was erratic, changing from humble mutterings to loud pious shouting and occasional violent outbursts against her accusers. She consistently denied she even knew what arsenic was, despite evidence to the contrary. Doctors who had examined her victims had not usually noticed anything suspicious, but when the most recent victims were exhumed, they showed overwhelming evidence of arsenic and possibly antimony.

The defence lawyer, Magloire Dorange, made a remarkable closing speech - arguing that she needed more time than most to repent and could be spared the death penalty since she was dying of cancer anyway.

The case attracted little attention at the time, pushed off the front pages by the coup d'état in Paris.

Jégado was sentenced to death by guillotine and executed in front of a large crowd of onlookers on the Champ-de-Mars in Rennes on February 26, 1852.

 

[Geemonster]

 

[b2ux]

Mary Kelliher

NO PICTURES AVAILABLE

Date of crimes - 1905-1908
State-MA


Between 1905 and 1908, six close relatives of Boston resident Mary Kelliher died under mysterious circumstances, all displaying similar symptoms of stomach cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea. The dead included Mary's husband, three of her children, her sister, and a sister-in-law. In July 1908, autopsy surgeons found lethal amounts of arsenic in Mary's daughter, and similar results were obtained when other family members were exhumed. Authorities suspected Mary, but police were short of evidence until they searched her home, discovering a mattress soaked in arsenic. All six victims, it appeared, had slept in the polluted bed before they died, presumably absorbing poison through their skin. At her trial on murder charges, Mary denied any knowledge of the poisoned mattress, and she had no explanation for her own miraculous survival in the midst of so much death. The prosecution's case ran aground on unanswered questions, and Mary was finally acquitted, but no other suspect has ever been named in the killings

 

[b2ux]

Frances Knorr, Australian Child Care Provider & Serial Killer - 1893

“After Knorr was hung [Jan. 15, 1894], authorities assessed that, given the period of time that she was in the child minding business and the amount of women who clandestinely came forward later and told police that they had given her their babies, it is believed that she could have murdered as many as 13 infants.” [Paul B. Kidd, “The Baby Farmers,” trutv.com]

FULL TEXT: At the Supreme Court Criminal Sittings, Melbourne, on Friday last, before Mr. Justice Holroyd, the trial was concluded of Frances Knorr, alias Minnie Thwaites, for the wilful murder of a female child unknown as a house in Moreland Road, Brunswick, on or about the 11th April last. Mr. Walsh, Q.C., in addressing the jury on the whole case, said the account given by the prisoner in the box was the most extraordinary piece of audacious evidence he had ever heard in a court of justice.

Mr. Justice Holroyd, in summing up, said in this case there was no direct proof of killing; but the jury might, as the prosecutor asked them to do, come to a conclusion. The surrounding circumstances brought before them constituted such a charge that it was impossible to escape coming to the conclusion that the prisoner was guilty, Was there motive to impel the prisoner to commit the crime? The highest sum she appeared to have got as premium with any child was £20, and the lowest about £5. Judging from her impecunious circumstances, she seemed to have spent the money almost as soon as she got it. What she did was to hire out those babies, in some instances to pay for them for a time, and then cease to pay, and in other instances to take the children back, while in come cases it was not known what became of them. Of three children the prisoner herself had given an account. That being her habit, and it being necessary for her to live, she bad a strong temptation upon her if she could not pay to get rid of the child by come other means. That was the force of the whole of the evidence as to the prisoner’s dealings with the babies. Whether that temptation overbore her on any occasion was another matter. The jury would have to consider what would be the conduct of a sensible innocent woman under such circumstances as those described by the prisoner. She knew the law relating to the boarding-out of the children, and regarded it as troublesome and inconvenient to comply with its provisions. That being so, she must have known the law would be still more particular in requiring an account; from her of the death of a child under her charge. Would a sensible woman bury a child in the garden, and would she not give information to the police, and at any rate to the neighbours, who could as soon as possible ascertain whether or not the child died from convulsions? If it had died from convulsions it was to her own interest to have made the fact known as promptly as possible. The prosecution put it, that if these precautions were taken to avoid the discovery of death, what conclusion could be drawn but that the child met with foul play? It was difficult to understand the object of substituting one child for another. The prosecution put the question, What was the object of passing one child for another, except to conceal something from persons likely to make inquiries? As to the prisoner’s accusation against Thompson, the jury would have to consider what motive Thompson had to murder the child, seeing he, was under no obligation with regard to it. If the prisoner’s evidence were true, Thompson ought to stand his trial. If false, it was a horrible accusation. There were several coincidences in the mode of burying the three bodies. It was extraordinary, if the prisoner’s story were true, that three persons – Wilson, the prisoner, and Thompson – should each bury a body at precisely the same depth, within an inch or two, and that the prisoner should bury a body in exactly the same spot, or so close as to touch that which she already had, unknown to her, been buried by Thompson. The summing-up occupied three hours. At 25 minutes past 3 the jury retired. Mr Mullen asked His Honor, in the event of a certain verdict, to hear an application by Mr. Smith (the prisoner’s counsel) in Chambers on Monday. Mr. Justice Holroyd assented.

After an absence from the Court of a little over half an hour, the jury returned, and at their own request were supplied with the versions of the prisoner, Edward Thompson, and Mrs. Thompson, in the letter from prisoner to himself respectively, of the words scratched out by Thompson in the letter.

At 5 o’clock the jury once more returned into court, this time with a verdict of “guilty.” On hearing the verdict the prisoner swayed backwards and forwards in the dock, and sank down in tears upon the seat. Mr. Justice Holroyd said the prisoner would be removed until after Monday in order to hear an application from her counsel. The prisoner was then removed from the dock. She sobbed and cried, and had to be supported by a female warder and a police officer. As she descended the steps from the dock, she turned to the gallery where Thompson was sitting, and exclaimed, “God help your sins, Ted,” and, still sobbing and crying, her last words as she disappeared through the doorway were “God help my poor mother,” and “God help my poor baby.” The scene was a most painful one.

The hearing of the further charges of murder against Mrs Knorr and her husband, Rudolph Knorr, has been postponed till the 15th inst.


Francis Knorr

Melbourne: 1893 — Lots of Questions

In September 1893, the new tenant of a house in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, decided to turn his backyard into a vegetable garden. As he was digging, to his horror, just below the surface of the unkempt backyard he unearthed the decomposing remains of a baby girl. Around the infant's neck was a tightened length of rope.

Police were immediately summoned to the house to examine the find. Neighbors also pointed out a nearby house where the same tenants had also lived, and when they dug around the garden there, they found another two decaying infants, both boys, buried just beneath the surface.

Francis Knorr
Francis Knorr

The previous tenants of both addresses, Rudolph and Frances. Knorr, had recently moved to Sydney and weren't hard to find. They had moved to Brisbane Street in the suburb of Surry Hills and were picked up by police within days of the discovery of the three tiny bodies and extradited to Melbourne to face the authorities.

An autopsy would reveal that the little girl had died of strangulation and the two boys had been suffocated. The Knorrs had a lot of questions to answer.

Police learned that Frances Knorr was born Minnie Thwaites in Chelsea, London, of a highly respected, God-fearing family. An unruly child and a lustful teenager of many conquests, she was sent from the family home to do her best in Australia and arrived in Sydney at age 19 in 1887.

She changed her name to Frances and fell in love with and married Rudolph Knorr, a German waiter whom she met while working as a domestic servant. Rudolph was well known to police in both Melbourne and Sydney as a petty criminal.

The Knorrs had a daughter named Gladys and after a series of misadventures, in which Rudolph did 18 months in Pentridge for fraud and Frances had an affair with an Edward Thompson and even lived with him for a time until he cast her aside, they reunited and turned to the new industry of "child minding."

It wasn't hard to do. Any woman with a child or children of her own who could get away with claiming to be a nurse could take babies in on a long-term, full-time basis. The usual deal was that the mother would pay an initial down payment of between five and 20 pounds and then pay a smaller monthly payment. In return her baby would be cared for and the mother would have access to her baby at prearranged visiting times.

The trouble with such loose arrangements was that often the mother would turn up to find that the child minder had taken her down payment and gone missing, presumably having sold the child, and numerous others, to childless couples for an extortionate sum and set up business again in another suburb or state.

 

[b2ux]

Christa Lehmann, “Inspirational” German Serial Killer - 1954

At 10 AM each morning a mousey blonde woman paces the courtyard of the cold, gray Mainz prison. Her drab green dress is covered by a worn gray coat and her pallid face is expressionless.

Occasionally she runs toward the gate. “Is there a crowd?” she asks the guard. “Well, open the door and let them see what a poisoner looks like.”

This is 29-year-old Christa Lehmann’s only emotion. She tells frankly of poisoning her husband, Karl, her father-in-law, Valentin, and her best friend, Annie Hamann, with E-605, an insecticide.

Christa claims she killed Mrs. Hamann by mistake—but her other poisonings were in “self-defense” and her “conscience is clear.”

Christa lacks the romance which surrounded the de Medici women and Lucretia Borgia who, during the Renaissance, poisoned unfaithful lovers and politically useless husbands. Christa had no hemlock cup or jeweled poison rings, nor did she greet her victims in marble halls and vamp them in richly brocaded gowns before she watched them writhe to a painful end.

Until publicity surrounding the discovery of her crimes set off 60 suicides and murders with E-605, Christa Lehmann was a nobody.

She was born in a tar-paper shack in North Worms. Her father was a fertilizer salesman and 25 years ago her mother was committed to an institution for the violently insane in Mainz. Her father’s second wife tried to make a home for Christa, her sister and brother until the father divorced her.

Later, Christa was sent to a vocational institution where she learned laboratory work.

SHE MARRIED Karl Lehmann, a dozen years her senior, shortly after he returned from a Russian POW camp. The couple moved into a shabby attic on Paulus Str. near the church where Martin Luther posted his thesis and the first German Reichstag was founded.

Three children came in quick succession, and after the first died, Christa found life almost unbearable. Her husband refused to work, beat her daily and neighbors liquor, shouting, “I don’t care where or how you get them.”

Neighbors marveled how nicely Christa and her children looked on so little money. They found her kind, gracious and always helpful when they were in trouble.

One day Christa remembered a poison her father sold to vineyard owners along the Rhine. E-605 was developed during the war by I. G. Farben in Bielefeld and is the only insecticide which will kill all types of plant parasites.

Farmers dilute it with water at a ratio of 20,000 to 1. Christa tested it by soaking a piece of bread in the clear, bitter-almond liquid. She put it in her dachshund’s milk and seconds later he died.

SHE TOLD neighbors she killed the dog because she couldn’t afford the taxes. Christa’s laboratory experience taught her that animals have a greater resistance to poison than humans so in September 1952 she slipped a few drops of E-605 in her husband’s milk.

He went to the barbershop, returned violently ill, Christa put him to bed, called a doctor who pronounced Herr Lehmann dead of a “stomach ailment.”

Christa and children moved downstairs into father-in-law Valentin’s tiny 3-room flat. In her new dark, dank home, Christa entertained several gentlemen and when Valentin realized she was pregnant he threatened to “teach her a lesson in morals.”

In December 1953, Valentin dropped dead from his bicycle a few minutes after he drank E-605 spiked yogurt. Christa’s best friend, Annie Hamann, was from an impoverished but respected fisherman’s family in Worms. Her husband was killed in Russia in 1944 five months before her daughter Ursula was born.

She lived in “the smallest house in Worms” with 10-year-old Ursula, her 75- year-old mother and two unmarried brothers. Mrs. Ruh, the mother, didn’t dislike Christa, but objected to the way she “ran around with men.”

Saturday, Feb. 13, Christa and Annie Hamann bought five liquor-filled mushroom candies in Wortmann’s department store in Worms. Christa took them home, sucked the liquor out of one, filled it with E-605, sealed the chocolate with a hot knife and put the poisoned bonbon in the bottom of the bag.

She went to the Hamann house for tea, ate two bonbons herself, offered one each to Annie’s brothers and gave the fifth to Mrs. Ruh, who put the goody in a kitchen cupboard and forgot about it. Monday afternoon, after Annie Hamann had prepared for her daughter’s return from a children’s rest home in Bad Nauheim, she found the fifth bonbon and took a bite.

“How terribly bitter,” she said and spit the candy on the floor.

“Mother, mother, I can’t see, I’m blind . . .” and Annie Hamann collapsed. When the doctor arrived she was dead and so was her white spitz who lapped up the remainder of the bonbon.

It was the dead dog. that aroused suspicion and started the investigations.

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.


AFTER SEVERAL hours of questioning she was released. When Christa read the coroner’s report in the newspaper, she disposed of the E-605 in her apartment.

The Evangelical preacher, Pastor Urhahn, was suspicious because even at the funeral Christa seemed too cold. He talked with her and she finally confessed. Three days later Urhahn talked her into confessing to the police for the sake of her children.

She called for her father.

“Tell me you are not guilty,” he asked.

“Yes, I am,” she said. “I did it in self defense.”

“I condone you.” her father said. “But now you must tell the police.”

Calmly smoking a cigarette and looking out of the police department’s third-story. windows, Christa confessed.

While she was in the Worms jail she considered herself a special guest because her crime was so unusual, and at every meal she demanded a double ration. After Christa was jailed she wrote her father two notes. In one she asked him to confess to the killings so she would be free to take care of the children “who need me.” In the second she asked him to send her “a green dress arid sew E-605 into the hem.” Both notes were intercepted.

THE PERSONS who killed themselves since Feb. 15 found easy access to E-605. Every vineyard grower and big gardener has it. It can be bought for 35 pfennigs in flower stores. The smallest vial contains enough poison to kill three people and a small jarful could be deadly to all the citizens in a city the size of Frankfurt. E-605 is nitrophenolphosphoric acid.

Farmers do not want to take it off the market because it is the only insecticide which kills every bug. Formerly three or four types of poison had to be used.

While Christa was waiting for psychiatric examination, the deaths of a bartender, known to be a friend of hers, of her first child and several others in the Worms area were investigated. It was found that all died of natural causes. If Christa Lehmann is found sane, she will go on trial in a Mainz court. If she was insane she will probably be. Committed to the asylum near Mainz where her mother works in the kitchen.

Several of the court authorities believe she is a sane and clever murderess who calculated every movement she made. Others think she inherited her mother’s mental illness and that, combined with the unhappy and unhealthy circumstances of her youth and marriage in one of West Germany’s poorest cities, this groomed her for murder.

Christa seems to have lost interest in her children and everything else, except she seems determined to show the curious public a real murderess, according to prison officials.

Born in 1922 at Worms, Germany, young Christa Ambros lost her mother to an asylum while still in her teens. Neglected by her father, she grew up wild and undisciplined, serving a term of probation on conviction for petty theft. In 1944, she married an alcoholic named Karl Lehman, responding to his inattention with several affairs that became open secrets in her hometown. On September 17, 1952, Karl Lehman died at his home, in convulsions, a doctor listing the cause of death as a ruptured stomach ulcer. Thirteen months later, on October 14, 1953, Christa's father-in-law collapsed on the street and died in convulsions, twenty minutes after leaving her house. Ignoring the strange coincidence, authorities accepted another verdict of death by natural causes, and the case was closed. On February 15, 1954, Christa handed out chocolate truffles to some of her neighbors, with startling results. One recipient, Annie Hamann, bit into a piece and pronounced it bitter, lapsing into convulsions and death a short time later. A dog that ate the truffles also died, and tests revealed traces of a new phosphorous-based pesticide, known as E-605. Arrested on February 23, Lehman confessed to spiking the truffles with poison in an effort to kill elderly Eva Ruh, a neighbor who lived with Annie Hamann. Ruh had earned Christa's animosity by criticizing her friendship with Hamann, but the murder scheme backfired, landing her in court on multiple homicide charges. Lehman was convicted on September 20 and sentenced to life, reports of her trial ironically prompting dozens of Germans to purchase E-605 and commit suicide.
LEHMANN Christa 1922

... ... ... 3
1952 1954 Worms

 

[b2ux]

Diana Lumbrera

A Texas native, Diana Lumbrera was seventeen years old when she married Lionel Garza in 1974. Their marriage was troubled almost from the start, but the quarreling Garzas made up frequently enough to produce three children in as many years. Daughter Melissa was born in 1975, Joanna in 1976, and their first son, Jose Lionel. in 1977. Unfortunately, while Diana was adept at bearing children, she had no luck at keeping them alive. Joanna was the first to die, barely three months old when Diana brought her lifeless body to the community hospital in Bovina, Texas. According to Diana, the baby had experienced convulsions before she suddenly stopped breathing, and a pathologists report blamed Joannas death on strangulation due to asphyxiation due to convulsive disorder. Under the circumstances, no autopsy was required. Jose was two months old when Diana brought him into the Bovina emergency room, on February 10, 1978. The baby had suddenly gone into convulsions and stopped breathing, she told physicians, but he was still alive when they reached the hospital. Resuscitation was successful, but doctors could find no apparent cause for the convulsions, and they sent Jose off to Lubbocks pediatric intensive care unit for observation. The babys condition was listed as stable by February 13, when a 1:00 A,M, alarm brought a nurse to his room, in time to see Diana retreating from the crib. Jose seemed well enough that afternoon, when Diana phoned her husband to tell him the infant was dying. Her prophecy came true shortly after 6:30 P.M., when a nurse saw Diana run from the babys room in tears; investigating, she found Jose cyanotic, and thirty minutes of CPR failed to revive him. Less than eight months later, on October 2, Diana walked into the Bovina emergency room with daughter Melissa in her arms. The three-year-old was dead on arrival, Diana relating the familiar tale of unexplained convulsions followed by rapid death. An Amarillo pathologist's report ascribed Melissas death to asphyxia due to aspiration of stomach contents, and the case was closed. Diana divorced her husband in 1979, but she was seldom with-out male companionship. Over the next seven years, beginning with daughter Melinda in 1980, she would bear three more children out of wedlock, each with a different father. None would live to see the inside of a kindergarten classroom, and even the children of Dianas relatives were not entirely safe. On October 8, 1980, Diana went for a drive with six-week-old Ericka Aleman, the daughter of a cousin. Thirty minutes after setting out, they wound up at the local emergency room, Ericka already dead when Diana spilled out her now-familiar story of lethal convulsions. Incredibly, despite Lumbreras four-year record of domestic tragedy, physicians saw no reason to suspect her of harming the child. Daughter Melinda never made it as far as the hospital. On August 17, 1982, the two-year-old was pronounced dead at her mothers home, the cause officially listed as acute heart failure due to increased taxation on a case of congenital heart disease. Once again, if physicians suspected foul play, they kept their doubts to themselves. Fifteen months later, Diana bore another son, named Daniel. On March 25, 1984, he was treated by physicians for an ear infection, with no apparent complications. Three days later he was back in the emergency room, dead on arrival, with the cause listed as septicemia--a fatal blood infection. Curiously, blood tests from his prior visit showed no evidence of septicemia, but the anomaly was dismissed as inexplicable. In 1985, Diana pulled up stakes and moved to Garden City, Kansas. Impregnated by yet another boyfriend soon after her arrival, she delivered her third son, Jose Antonio, on February 21, 1986. The hardiest Lumbrera child, he managed to survive four years and three months in his mothers care, but Joses time ran out in the spring of 1990. He was already dead when Diana carried him into a hospital emergency room on May 1, but this time her luck, like Joses, had run out. The day before Joses death, Diana had taken him to a local physician, citing her usual complaint of mysterious convulsions. The doctor could find no logical cause, but he wrote a prescription for antibiotics, which Diana never bothered to fill. In retrospect, authorities would say that this, like many other doctors visits through the years, had been deliberately staged to lay the groundwork for a subsequent fatal attack. This time around, hospital staffers called the police, and Detective James Hawkins questioned Diana at length, compiling a list of her previous children, along with the places and dates of their deaths. In Texas, authorities from Palmer, Lubbock, and Castro Counties launched new investigations, discovering that each of Dianas children had been insured for amounts between $3,000 and $5,000. (In Melissas case a second insurance policy was purchased one day before she died.) Diana was the only person who observed the various convulsive episodes, and--with the exception of Jose Lionel--all were beyond help when Diana sought medical care. Kansas authorities were first off the mark with a murder indictment, in Jose Antonios death. In July 1990, a Palmer County, Texas, grand jury indicted Diana for first-degree murder in the cases of Joanna, Melinda, and Melissa. Lubbock County weighed in with charges stemming from Jose Lionels death, and Castro County indicted Diana for Ericka Alemans slaying on September 10. Dianas murder trial in Garden City opened two weeks later, with any reference to the Texas killings barred. Dianas employer and an officer from her credit union were called to describe how she used false tales of misfortune--including a bout with leukemia for Jose and her own fathers death in a nonexistent car wreck--to secure $850 in sympathy loans from the credit union. Prosecutors also noted that Jose Antonio was insured for $5,000 when he died, and Dr. Eva Vachel blamed the childs death on deliberate suffocation. Dr. William Eckert appeared for the defense, blaming Joses death on a massive viral infection. According to Eckert, Joses heart, lungs, and liver were normal, revealing no evidence of murder. Prosecutors countered by noting that Eckert had never examined said organs, since they were removed during autopsy and never replaced in the corpse. Convicted of murder after less than an hours deliberation. Diana was sentenced to life imprisonment, with a minimum of fifteen years inside before parole. A few weeks later, Texas Rangers flew Diana back to Palmer County, where she faced three counts of murder, with a possible death sentence under a new serial-murder statute. In the interest of self-preservation, Diana pled guilty to Melissas murder, while charges were dropped in the cases of Melinda and Joanna. Lubbock County was next in line, handing down a third life sentence after Diana pled no contest--with no technical admission of guilt --to her first sons death. Castro County, in turn, waived prosecution on outstanding charges to save an estimated $50.000 in court costs. By June 1991, Diana was back in Kansas, officially beginning to serve her time.

 

[b2ux]

Anjette Donovan Lyles, Serial Killer with 2 husbands, a Daughter & a Mother-in-Law to Her Credit - 1958

​

PHOTO CAPTION: Mrs. Anjette Donovan Lyles left the courtroom after her conviction in the poisoning of her daughter.
***
FULL TEXT: Macon, Ga. – Plump, blonde Anjette Donovan Lyles, convicted and sentenced to die for poisoning her daughter, awaited word from her attorneys today on chances for a new trial.
A Bibb County Superior Court jury convicted the 33-year-old widow of murder Monday night. Her attorneys immediately filed notice of appeal, and this automatically stayed the date of execution which had been set for Dec. 5.
Mrs. Lyles is also accused by the state of poisoning two husbands and a mother-in-law with arsenic. She was tried only in the death of her 9-year-old daughter, Marcia Elaine Lyles.
~ Accepts Verdict Calmly ~
The former restaurant owner accepted the death verdict calmly. The only visible reaction was when her alabaster skin reddened and she bit her lip.
Judge Oscar Long set a precedent when he told Mrs. Lyles she might remain seated while sentence was pronounced.
The courtroom was jammed it had been every day of the trial.
Long set a hearing on the motion for a new trial for Dec. 12.
If the buxom widow loses her appeal, she will be the first white woman to die in Georgia’s electric chair. Only one woman, a negro, has been electrocuted in this state.
~ Blanket Denial ~
In an unsworn statement allowed under Georgia law, Anjette made a blanket denial of all the state’s charges and in the specific case under which she was being tried, that of Marcia, maintained there was no motive.
She said she received only $1,750 from insurance while her expenses, including hospital bills, special nurses and burial, amounted to $5,000.
“I did not give my child any poison – I did not kill my child,” Anjette declared.
~ Burned Candles ~
The state charged she murdered for hate and greed.
The young woman acknowledged an abnormal interest in “root doctors, spiritual advisers and fortune tellers.”
She said she burned seven-day candles – green for luck and money, white for peace, and red for love and once burned a black candle in attempting to break up a romance between her boy friend, airline pilot Bob Franks, and another girl.
LYLES Anjette Donovan 1917 1997/12/04

... ... ... 4
1952 1957 GA
Anjette Lyles' restaurant on Mulberry Street in downtown Macon, Georgia was a favorite lunch spot for the town's lawyers, judges and businesspeople in the 1950s. The food was okay, but what attracted the menfolk was the restaurant's owner, Anjette Lyles. What puzzled Anjette's patrons was how she could remain so cheerful and outgoing with all the tragedy going on around her life. Her husband, Ben Lyles the original owner of the restaurant, had died unexpectedly in June of 1952. In 1955 her second husband, Joe Neal developed a "weeping rash" and died in agony in December. Two years later, Mrs. Julia Lyles, Anjette's mother-in-law, died after a mysterious illness. Then on top of all the past Anjette's nine-year-old daughter, Marcia suddenly became very sick and died April 5, 1958. Only one person seems to have suspected foul play in this incredible string of deaths. About three weeks before the death of Marcia, Carrie Jackson, a cook in Anjette's Restaurant, wrote an unsigned note to Mrs. Julia Lyles' sister in Cochran, Georgia. The note warned that Marcia was in danger. The cook was concerned because she felt Anjette was feeding her child poisoned lemonade and other drinks in the hospital. The sister,Mrs. W.K. Bagley, went to Macon, Georgia to see authorities immediately. Nothing was done then and Marcia died. However, Mrs. Bagley's visit had raised suspicions of Bibb County coroner, Lester Chapman, and others. Chapman ask the medical examiner, Dr. Leonard Campbell, to do an autopsy on Marcia, Campbell sent samples of Marcia's organs to the State Crime Lab in Atlanta. The lab reported that Marcia died of multiple doses of arsenic, most likely from Terro ant poison, a common insecticide. Anjette maintained her innocence throughout the trial, but the jury had heard enough. In mid-October, the jury returned a verdict of guilty and sentenced Anjette to the electric chair. A series of appeals and sanity hearings followed and they eventually declared Anjette insane. On December 4, 1977, Anjette Lyles died of natural causes at Central State Hospital in Milledgeville.

 

[b2ux]

Martha Marek

Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Poisoner - To collect insurance money - To inherit
Number of victims: 4
Date of murders: 1932 - 1937
Date of arrest: 1938
Date of birth: 1904
Victims profile: Emil Marek (her husband) / Ingeborg Marek (her daughter) / Suzanne Lowenstein (an elderly relative, whose money and house she inherited) / Felicitas Kittsteiner (a lodger in her house)
Method of murder: Poisoning (thallium)
Location: Vienna, Austria
Status: Executed by guillotine in Vienna on December 6, 1938





Martha Lowenstein Marek was guillotined by the Bavarian State executioner, Johann Reichhart, in Vienna on the 6th of December 1938, for the poisoning of her husband, their baby daughter, an elderly relative, whose money and house she inherited, and finally a lodger in her house.

Emil Marek had conspired with his wife Martha to defraud his insurers by getting Martha to chop off his leg in order that they could collect $30,000 in accident insurance he had taken out. Martha, however, was not very good at wielding the axe and it took 3 blows to sever the leg. The insurer's doctors were not convinced that it was an accident that had occurred while cutting down a tree as the Mareks claimed and therefore rejected their claim.

Emil died, apparently from tuberculosis, in July 1932 and their 9 month old baby daughter died a month later. When her lodger Felicitas Kittsteiner died, his relatives became suspicious because he had told them that when he ate or drank anything that Martha prepared, he immediately felt violently sick. Martha had taken out a life insurance policy on him before he died.

The relatives informed the police who ordered the exhumation of all 4 bodies. They found that they had all been poisoned with a compound of thallium. She was arrested and brought to trial in Vienna in 1938.

Hitler had re-instated capital punishment in Austria when he took control of it and a new guillotine was sent to Vienna by rail, packed as "industrial machinery" on October 3rd, 1938. As you read earlier, it was to see plenty of use. No woman had been executed in Austria for over 30 years and there was some reluctance on the part of the authorities to execute Martha.

Martha was alleged to be paralysed so it was decided to take her from the condemned cell to the execution chamber in a wheelchair. The executioner, Johann Reichhart, and his assistants practised tipping the wheelchair in front of the guillotine so that Martha would fall directly onto the bench in the right place.

On the morning of the execution, however, Martha's paralysis seemed to have disappeared and she struggled violently with her guards and was able to land a heavy kick on Reichhart before being subdued and tied to the bascule by his assistant. Reichhart executed 3,165 people between 1924 and 1947.

Many British accounts of Martha Marek state that she was beheaded with an axe but this is not correct and may well stem from an incorrect translation of the German for guillotine -Fallbeil- literally drop or fall hatchet (axe).

Martha Marek Case File

The motive for the bizarre slayings committed by Martha Lowenstein Marek was rooted in a pathological greed of astounding proportions. She resolved at an early age to live well, no matter the cost, even if the cost included human lives. Her early poverty undoubtedly kindled the dark ambitions that found reality in serial killings.

Born Martha Lowenstein in Vienna, Austria, she was a foundling who was adopted by an impoverished couple. As a teenager, she went to work in a Vienna dress shop in 1919. A few years later, a kindly old man, Moritz Fritsch, took pity on the beautiful girl and made her his ward.

Fritsch was wealthy, a department store owner, and even though he was seventy-four, he had little qualms in taking the youthful Martha to bed. In exchange for her sexual favours, Fritsch dressed the girl well and sent her to two elite finishing schools in France and England.

She was at that time surrounded by upper-crust society girls, who came from wealth and the lifestyles of these classmates soon whetted Martha’s appetite for the finer things in life.

When she returned to Vienna, Martha again went to live with Fritsch, but shortly met a handsome, young engineer, Emil Marek, with whom she carried on a secret affair. When Fritsch died, he left his stately mansion at Modling, along with all of his money, to Martha, as he had promised.

Martha revealed in her new riches, but she and Marek, who married her in 1924, were extravagant and soon exhausted their new-found wealth. They were forced to sell the mansion. Out of funds, they devised a weird insurance fraud. Martha insured her spouse against any and all kinds of accidents, obtaining a £10,000 policy on Marek.

The “accident” arranged by the Mareks was a bloody one, calling for Marek to accidentally chop off one of his legs with an axe while splitting wood. Apparently, he had difficulty in finishing the job, pleading with Martha in his semi-conscious state to take off the rest of his half-severed leg.

Martha managed to amputate the leg below the knee, but the gruesome effort aroused the suspicions of insurance officials. An insurance firm physician examined Marek and reported that Marek’s leg showed three separate cuts and that the accident had clearly been staged. The Mareks were charged with fraud.

Martha then bribed a nurse to state that the examining doctor had falsified his report and had himself, been bribed by the insurance firm. Charges of fraud against the Mareks were dropped.

The nurse, however, demanded more money and when not receiving the payoff, went to the police. The Mareks were then charged and convicted of bribery and sent to prison for four months. Oddly, the insurance firm nevertheless settled with the couple, paying £3,000 for an accident they were convinced had been falsified.

Moving to Algiers, the Mareks tried several businesses, but all failed. A few years later they returned to Vienna with two children and little money. So poor were they that Martha was reduced to selling vegetables in the streets. Emil Marek died in 1932 and Martha received a small insurance payment on his life.

A few weeks later, Martha’s 7-year-old daughter, Ingeborg, died of a mysterious ailment and Martha collected money on the child’s small life insurance policy.

An aging aunt, Suzanne Lowenstein, then asked Martha to look after her. Martha moved in with the aunt, who died within a month. Before the aunt died, she, like Emil and Ingeborg Marek, manifested strange symptoms. She found it difficult to swallow and her limbs were numb. In all of these cases, death was attributed to tuberculosis.

Again, Martha Marek was enriched, her aunt leaving her house and modest fortune to her. Martha spent most of the money quickly and was then compelled to open her aunt’s house to boarders, taking in a man named Neumann and a dowager named Kittenberger. The elderly woman died a short time later, insurance money on her life, which amounted to no more than $300, being left to Martha.

By 1937, however, Martha Marek was again in dire financial straits. She arranged for some expensive paintings in her aunt’s house to be removed to a warehouse in the middle of the night. Next, she reported the paintings stolen and then made a claim for the missing artwork.

The insurance firm asked a detective, Ignatz Peters, to investigate the case. Peters, ironically, had been the investigator involved in the amputated leg claim made by the Mareks years earlier and he suspected another scam.

He canvassed warehouses in Vienna and soon located the hidden artwork. Martha was thrown into prison, charged with fraud.

Reading of this arrest, the son of Mrs Kittenberger went to the police to tell them that he believed Martha Marek had poisoned his mother in order to obtain her insurance money.

Detective Peters had Kittenberger’s body exhumed, along with those of Emil and Ingeborg Marek and Suzanne Lowenstein. Toxicologists soon reported that all had been poisoned with thallium, a rare poisonous chemical compound first discovered in 1861.

Peters then remembered that Martha had another child, a son, and he soon found the boy boarded out in a poor district of Vienna. He was just in time. The boy, who had recently been insured by his mother, was dying from thallium poisoning. He was rushed to a hospital and saved.

Brought to trial, Martha Marek was charged with four murders. She was convicted of murdering Lowenstein, Kittenberger and her husband and daughter, after prosecutors proved that Martha had been regularly buying thallium from a pharmacist in Vienna.

Though she continued to insist upon her innocence, the serial killer was condemned to death, capital punishment having been restored in Austria after Hitler had taken over the government.

Martha Lowenstein Marek was sent to the block on December 6, 1938, where she was beheaded by an executioner wielding an ax far more accurately than the one she had used on her late husband. It took but a single stroke.

MAREK, Martha (Austria)

Marrying Martha Lowenstein cost young Emil Marek an arm and a leg – well, a leg anyway, and later his life and that of his baby daughter. It all started when Emil, a young engineering student, met 20-year-old Martha. She was quite wealthy, having some years earlier met Moritz Fritsch, a rich dress shop owner, who enjoyed her company so much that he made her his ward and in order to give her a good upper-class education, sent her to finishing schools for young ladies in England and France.

When she returned she lived with Moritz, but then, in 1924, she met and fell in love with Emil. Fortune smiled on them, and a fortune came their way, for her elderly benefactor died and left her his estate and all his money. The young lovers promptly married and wasted little time in squandering the assets on the good things in life.

Eventually funds ran low, so low in fact that they concocted a plan which, although it entailed a sacrifice on Emil’s part, would bring them a large amount of cash. The first step was for Martha to take out a £10,000 policy insuring Emil against accidents. This would be followed, some weeks afterwards, by the young man losing a leg while using an axe to cut down a tree; except that it would happen not when Emil was wielding the axe accidentally – but when Martha was wielding it on purpose!

One can only conjecture the mentality of a woman who could deliberately aim a blow with an axe at someone’s leg, not just once, doubtless because it only caused a flesh wound, but then strike twice more until the limb was so badly mutilated that a surgeon had to amputate it below the knee. In his subsequent clinical write-up, the medical man reported his findings: that the injury was caused not by one, but three separate blows, and the angles of the wounds were inconsistent with being struck by the alleged holder of the axe. At that, Martha, seeing the prospects of the £10,000 rapidly slipping away, tried to bribe one of the surgeon’s assistants into testifying that he had seen the surgeon deliberately create the additional wounds at the instigation of the insurance company. This attempt failed, and the couple were sentenced to four months in gaol for bribery, Emil probably being excused hard labour while his drastically shortened leg was healing. As a result of the fraud, the insurance company charitably paid out only £3,000, which was rapidly dissipated by the legal costs the Mareks had incurred.

They were once more in the poverty trap, made worse by the fact that by now they had two young children, but Martha pinned all her hopes on the life insurances she had taken out on her husband and offspring, one hope being realised when Emil suddenly died, the doctors diagnosing tuberculosis. The relatively small amount of insurance money she received was further increased when, only weeks later, their seven-year-old daughter Ingeborg also passed away.

Her faith in the insurance system now fully restored, Martha became a companion to an aunt, Susanne Lowenstein, ingratiating herself in the old lady’s affections so much that when her relative died, as she soon did, Martha inherited all her aunt’s property, which consisted mainly of a well-furnished mansion.

As much a spendthrift as ever, Martha spent what money had been left to her, then had no option but to rent out some of the rooms in the house, one of the lodgers being a Frau Kittenberger.

It is hardly necessary to mention that Martha, as forward-looking as ever, took out a policy on her tenant’s life, nor that the lady died shortly afterwards.

Perhaps Martha could have gone on insuring everyone she met and reaping the rewards without ever being detected, but she changed her tactics and instead insured the many valuable pictures in the house. She then sold many of them to art dealers and subsequently claimed to the insurers that they had been stolen. The insurance firm, by now suspicious, called in the police, whose success after circulating details of the paintings throughout the art world spelt the end for Martha Marek. Even worse was to follow, for further suspicions were now raised concerning the other insurance claims she had made; highly alarmed, the government authorised the exhumation not only of the lodger Frau Kittenberg, but also of Martha’s aunt Susanne Lowenstein, her daughter Ingeborg, and even her husband Emil.

Post-mortems revealed that all had died of thallium poisoning, a soft, white, highly toxic metallic element which brought death, first by slow paralysis of the limbs and eventually of the internal organs. Any defence Martha may have made by accusing others of administering the thallium was nullified when the chemist who had sold her the poison was traced.

On 6 December 1938 mass-murderer Martha Marek mounted the scaffold in Vienna and knelt over the block. She had insured her victims before they died, and the executioner ensured that his victim also died, achieving it much more accurately than she had done – with but one blow of the axe.

Another pact between partners that went wrong involved Ginette Vidal and Gerard Osselin. Although both were married, with families of their own, in 1972 they fell in love and, settling down together in a little French town, they agreed that, to prove their devotion and loyalty towards each other, should either of them double-cross their artner, the betrayed one was entitled to kill the deceiver. Whether Gerard did not really believe in their pact, or thought he could get away with it, is not known, but when Ginette found a note written in Gerard’s wife’s handwriting, she did not hesitate; she shot him through the head.

Ginette made no attempt to report what had happened; on the contrary she stayed in the house with her lover’s corpse, cooking for them both as if nothing had happened. Eventually Gerard’s family raised the alarm and the body was discovered by the gendarmes. When questioned, Ginette was surprised at their accusations; she explained she had acted in accordance with their agreement, and as evidence she produced the document each had signed. Unfortunately the visiting magistrate did not see it that way, and she went to prison for ten years.

Martha Marek

Martha Marek

Martha Marek

 

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Blanche Taylor Moore

Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Poisoner
Number of victims: 1 - 4
Date of murders: 1968 - 1986
Date of arrest: July 18, 1989
Date of birth: February 17, 1933
Victims profile: P. D. Kiser (her father) / Isla Taylor (her mother-in-law) / James N. Taylor (her first husband) / Raymond Reid (her boyfriend)
Method of murder: Poisoning (arsenic)
Location: Alamance County, North Carolina, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on January 18, 1991




Blanche Taylor Moore

Date of Birth - 2/17/1933

Date of Offense - 10/7/1986

Age at Time of Offense - 56

Prior Prison Record - None

Location of Crime - Alamance County, North Carolina

Co-defendants - None

Race and Gender of Victim - White male

Crime Committed:

In 1989, police began investigating Moore after her second husband, Rev. Dwight Moore, became ill with suspicious symptoms. A doctor ordered toxic testing and determined his illness was from arsenic poisoning. He somehow survived the ingestion of large amount of poison over a week’s time.

The police became suspicious of Moore, and asked that the bodies of Moore's former boyfriend, Raymond Reid, and James N. Taylor, her first husband, who died 1973, be exhumed. It was determined that both men died of arsenic poisoning. Moore's father, P.D. Kiser, also died of symptoms similar to those that occur with arsenic poisoning.

Moore was convicted for the murder of her boyfriend, Raymond Reid and received the death penalty.

Speculators say Moore killed the men in her life because of a deep seeded hate of her alcoholic father that forced her into prostitution to help pay the family bills.

Source: North Carolina Department of Corrections

Blanche Kiser Taylor Moore (born February 17, 1933) is an American convicted murderer from Alamance County, North Carolina. She was convicted of killing her boyfriend by slipping arsenic into his food, and is suspected of killing three other people and nearly killing another in the same manner.

Early life

She was born Blanche Kiser to Parker D. Kiser, mill-worker, ordained Baptist minister, and womanizer. He was an alcoholic, who later forced her into prostitution to pay gambling debts. At least in part due to this, she was known to switch from quoting scripture to sexually explicit topics in the same breath. Kiser died in 1966, and the cause was reported to be a "heart attack".

Murders and attempted murder

In 1952, she married James Napoleon Taylor, a veteran and furniture restorer; she bore him two children, one in 1953 and another in 1959.

In 1954, she began working at Kroger as a cashier. By 1959, she'd been promoted to head cashier (roughly the equivalent of a customer service manager today), the highest job available to a female employee at Kroger at the time. In 1962, she began an affair with Raymond Reid, the manager of the store where she worked.

After Moore had begun her relationship with Reid, Taylor died. Again, the cause was reported as "heart attack".

After her husband's death in 1971, the two began dating publicly. By 1985, however, the relationship had soured. There are indications that she began to date Kevin Denton, the regional manager for the Triad area; however, that relationship ended, and Moore filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Denton and Kroger in October 1985. Denton was forced to resign, and Kroger settled the case out of court two years later for $275,000.

Moore had met Rev. Dwight Moore before leaving Kroger. However, she had to hide her relationship with Rev. Moore because her lawsuit against Kroger maintained that she was "completely alienated and antagonistic towards men and has not been able to maintain any meaningful social contacts with the opposite sex." While she was dating Rev. Moore, she asked him to procure some arsenic-based ant killer for her.

In 1985, Moore also accused an unknown "pervert" of starting two fires that damaged her mobile home.

In 1986, Reid developed what was initially diagnosed as a case of shingles. He was hospitalized in April of that year, and died on October 7, 1986. Doctors indicated the cause of death was Guillain-Barré syndrome.

The lawsuit was settled a year after Reid's death. Blanche and Reverend Dwight Moore began seeing each other publicly shortly after Reid's death. They planned to marry, but in 1987, Blanche Moore developed breast cancer. The wedding date was pushed back to November 1988, but Moore developed a mysterious intestinal ailment that required two surgeries to correct. On 19 April 1989 the couple were married and honeymooned over a long weekend in New Jersey. They returned on a Monday, and on Wednesday Rev. Moore collapsed ill after eating a chicken sandwich. Doctors at N. C. Memorial in Chapel Hill determined that the cause was arsenic poisoning. Analysis later determined that Rev. Moore had survived the largest dose of arsenic from which a victim had not died.

The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation was notified, and exhumations occurred on Taylor, Reid, and her father. Subsequent autopsies showed elevated levels of arsenic in all of the bodies. It also emerged that doctors at Baptist Hospital had ordered a toxicology screen for Raymond Reid. The results showed a massive amount of arsenic in his system. However, on the day the test came back, the resident responsible for caring for Reid rotated to another hospital, and the new resident never passed the results up the chain of command. As a result, Reid received the final, fatal doses of arsenic in his hospital bed.

The SBI got suspicious of Blanche Moore when they found out she had tried to get Dwight Moore's pension changed so she would be the principal beneficiary. They also knew she had lied about how much money she had received from Raymond Reid's estate. During interviews, Blanche Moore mentioned that both Dwight Moore and Raymond Reid felt depressed and had probably been taking arsenic—something that was found highly improbable. Additionally, it emerged Moore had still been sleeping with Reid around the same time she began dating Dwight Moore. Blanche also had Dwight's hair cut in an attempt to prevent hair samples from being obtained by the SBI, but pubic hair samples were used instead. On July 18, 1989, Blanche Taylor Moore was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder of Raymond Reid. Prosecutors opted to charge her with killing Reid rather than trying to kill Dwight Moore because they felt they'd be able to show her spooning arsenic-laced pudding to Reid. In Dwight Moore's case, doctors had recognized the signs of arsenic poisoning early on, making it more difficult to find out who was poisoning him.

Trial, conviction and sentence

The trial opened in Winston-Salem on October 21, 1990. Moore adamantly denied ever giving Reid any food. However, the state introduced fifty-three witnesses who testified about her daily trips to the hospital, bearing food. The state had an easier time than expected in making such a complex case because Reid's ex-wife and sons sued Baptist Hospital for malpractice. They were able to get the normal statute of limitations for wrongful death thrown out because they were able to prove that Blanche, as executor of Raymond Reid's estate, should have been the person to find out about the toxicology screen. The Reid family argued that Moore fraudulently prevented them from finding out about the test.

Under the terms of a deal between the Forsyth County district attorney's office and the Reid family's lawyers, most of the evidence against Blanche was gathered by the Reid family's lawyers. Although the courts have interpreted the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination very broadly for criminal cases, such protections usually don't apply in civil cases. Civil law also allows much more latitude for searches and subpoenas.

She was convicted on November 14. On November 17, the jury recommended the death penalty. On January 18, 1991, the presiding judge concurred with the jury and sentenced Moore to die by lethal injection. She currently resides at the North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. She is prisoner # 0288088. She wrote music in the past, and spends her time writing poetry.

Because of the automatic appeals in progress, Moore has been able to stave off execution for over 20 years. She maintains her innocence to this day.

One of her attorneys, David Tamer, misappropriated client funds, including Moore's, and was convicted of embezzlement. He also had a history of mental problems.

In 2010 Moore and the 11 other death-row inmates from Forsyth County filed a motion to convert their sentences to life imprisonment on the basis of the state's Racial Justice Act. Essentially the issue was the racial composition of the juries.

Health issues in prison have required chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Speculated murders

During the investigation that led to Moore's conviction, exhumations were also performed on several other people. Subsequent examinations showed that her father, P. D. Kiser, and her first husband, James N. Taylor, had both died of arsenic poisoning. There are other speculated victims, including several close friends and relatives who died mysteriously showing some signs of arsenic poisoning, but none of them have been exhumed for further evaluation. Other possible victims include her mother-in-law Isla Taylor.

Moore has been charged for the murders of James and Isla Taylor, as well as the attempted murder of Dwight Moore. However, authorities have decided not to try her because they felt it wasn't worth the effort to win more verdicts against someone already sentenced to death. They also opted not to charge her with the death of P. D. Kiser because the manner in which he treated Blanche as a girl might have made her seem like a sympathetic figure. Charges are pending in the deaths of several other speculated victims.

Book and movie

In 1993, author Jim Schutze wrote a book about the murders, entitled Preacher's Girl. Schutze found evidence that seemed to indicate that Moore set up Denton in the sexual harassment suit, and may have intentionally set the two fires. Later that year, Elizabeth Montgomery starred as Moore in the made-for-TV movie based on the book entitled The Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story. The Dwight Moore case was also featured in an episode of the series Diagnosis Unknown which has been recently aired on the Investigation channel.

Victims list

Bold indicates a victim who died.

P. D. Kiser - (1968), exhumations showed arsenic poisoning

Isla Taylor - (1970), exhumations showed arsenic poisoning

James N. Taylor (1971), exhumations showed arsenic poisoning

Raymond Reid - (1986), death by arsenic poisoning

Dwight Moore - (1989), poisoned by arsenic, recovered


Blanche Taylor Moore

Less than five years after the execution of serial poisoner Velma Barfield, residents of North Carolina were shocked to discover a new black widow in their midst.

Like Barfield, the new suspect was a wife and mother, deeply religious by most accounts, a pillar of the community. And like her predecessor, she indulged a taste for easy money that would land her on death row.

A Tarheel native, born February 17, 1933, Blanche Kiser was the daughter of a self-described primitive minister who drank heavily between sermons, sometimes enlisting young Blanche as a prostitute to pay off his gambling debts.

She married young to escape the abuse, tying the knot with James Taylor, five years her senior, in May 1952. Their first daughter, Vanessa, was born in 1953, the same year that Blanche went to work as a checker at the Kroger supermarket in Burlington.

Another child, Cindi, followed in 1959, her birth preceding Blanches elevation to head cashier by a matter of weeks. All was not well in the Taylor household, however. James was cut from the same cloth as P.D. Kiser, a hard-drinking compulsive gambler who sometimes disappeared for whole weekends, returning empty-handed with a lame excuse for where the familys money went. Blanche retaliated with a series of affairs at the supermarket, bedding her male supervisors, sparking violent arguments at home.

In 1962, Blanche focused her romantic attention on 27-year-old Raymond Reid, lately arrived as Krogers new assistant manager in Burlington, but he was married, with two young children. It took three years of determined flirtation for Blanche to land Raymond in bed, but she never lacked for male companionship in terms of one-night stands.

In September 1966, Blanche made a stab at reconciliation with her father, but his health took a turn for the worse soon after she arrived. Forgiving daughter that she was, Blanche lingered at his side to nurse him to the bitter end, his death attributed to a heart attack triggered by chronic emphysema. Doctors managed to overlook symptoms--including violent stomach cramps, diarrhea, projectile vomiting, delirium, and a bright-blue face--which pointed to death by arsenic poisoning.

Two years later, in 1968, a near-fatal heart attack and belated conversion to Christianity persuaded James Taylor to clean up his act. He became, in Blanches words, the perfect husband and father, but the change did nothing to divert her ongoing love affair with Raymond Reid. Blanches mother-in-law, Isla Taylor, was bed-ridden by mid-1970, and Blanche did her best to make the old woman comfortable.

When Isla died, on November 25, 1970, doctors attributed her passing to natural causes. Once again, they missed the eyeballs that had turned a brilliant cobalt blue, along with quantities of undigested arsenic remaining in the womans stomach. Raymond Reid abandoned his wife and children in 1971, renting a small apartment and filing for divorce. Blanche made a daily routine of stopping by to cook Reids breakfast, proclaiming him helpless" without her.

Word of their affair fanned out from Kroger to the town at large, and Reid, at least, assumed that they were moving toward a permanent relationship. His divorce was finalized in 1973, and the rest was up to Blanche.

In September 1970, James Taylor came down with the flu, sporting symptoms that included diarrhea, swollen glands, a sore throat, hair loss, bloody stool and urine, painful blisters on his hands and feet. Hospitalized near the end of the month, he died on October 2, barely an hour after Blanche brought him some ice cream from home.

Taylor left a modest estate, but Blanche soon purchased a new home in Burlington, fostering suspicions that she may have tapped the till at work. It came as no surprise to anyone in Burlington when Blanche and Ray Reid started dating openly.

They spoke of marriage, but the glad event was constantly postponed for one reason or another. Over time, in the words of an assistant D.A. assigned to her case, Blanche decided that Reid wasnt good enough, she wanted to get someone better.

At first, she seemed to set her sights on store manager Kevin Denton, but the flirtatious relationship soured over time, and climaxed when Blanche filed suit against Denton and Kroger in 1985, charging sexual harassment on the job. Denton was forced to resign under fire, and Kroger settled the case out of court two years later, with a lump-sum payment of $275,000. Meanwhile, Blanche was busy elsewhere in her quest for cash.

On January 23, 1985. a mysterious fire broke out at her Burlington home. Blanche blamed a pervert for the blaze, and firemen confirmed arson as the cause, accepting her tale of a nameless man seen loitering around the property. Blanche collected a little fire insurance, investing the cash in a new mobile home. When fire razed the trailer a month later, she blamed that pervert again and collected another insurance check. Someone better finally entered Blanches life on Easter Sunday, 1985. A handsome divorcée at age fifty-one, Rev. Dwight Moore was the pastor of the Carolina United Church of Christ.

Blanche introduced herself at the conclusion of the Easter sunrise service, returning to be counseled as her lawsuit with Kroger dragged on. Soon, they were meeting for meals on a casual basis, Blanche dropping hints to her friends that she just might marry a preacher man in the next year or so. Raymond Reid was still on tap, anticipating marriage, but he had become an obstacle to Blanche in her pursuit of the ideal companion.

In early 1986, he developed shingles, a skin condition similar to the early effects of arsenical peripheral neuritis. By April, he was hospitalized for the first time with symptoms that included diarrhea, vomiting, and loss of feeling in his hands and feet. Ironically, physicians missed the classic warning signs of arsenic poisoning and diagnosed Reid as suffering from Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rarely-fatal disease with identical symptoms. Rays doctor ordered special tests for heavy metals intoxication on June 27, a urine scan revealing six times the normal amount of arsenic in Reids system, but the test results got lost in a snarl of bureaucratic red tape and never reached the physician.

Reids health would ebb and flow for the next three months, but Blanche was taking no chances. She helped him draw up a new will, naming herself as executrix and beneficiary to one-third of Reids estate, the rest to be divided up between his sons.

On daily visits to the hospital, she brought him gifts of food including homemade pudding and milkshakes. Despite her loving care and the doctors best efforts, Reids condition declined to the point that he was shifted to intensive care on October 4, suffering from renal and respiratory failure.

By the time he died, three days later, he had gained sixty pounds in retained body fluids, bloating so severely that his skin began to rip. Guillain-Barre syndrome took the blame for Raymonds death, Blanche dodging requests for an autopsy with reluctant assent from Reids sons. Dwight Moore escorted Blanche to Raymonds funeral, her grief assuaged by some $30,000 from Reids estate, plus untold contents looted from his safe deposit box and a safe in his home. Before she finished with the family, Reids sons kicked in another $45,797 from their fathers life insurance, persuaded that Raymond would have wanted Blanche to have the cash.

After a decent period of mourning, Blanche and Rev. Moore decided it was time to tie the knot. Their wedding date was set for August 23, 1987, but Blanche was sidelined in the meantime, one breast surgically removed to halt the spread of cancer. Recovery took time, and they pushed the ceremony back to November 27, 1988.

This time, three weeks before the wedding, Rev. Moore was stricken down with vomiting and diarrhea, two operations required to correct an intestinal blockage. The aging love birds finally got it right on April 21, 1989. embarking on a honeymoon trek to Montclair, New Jersey, where Dwights first grandchild had lately been born.

Homeward bound on April 26, Dwight collapsed after eating a pastry on the Cape May ferry. Rather than seek medical care in New Jersey, Blanche drove him back to Burlington, for two days of nursing at home. Admitted to Alamance County Hospital on April 28, Moore took a sudden turn for the worse after Blanche delivered some homemade soup. Physicians sent him home without a diagnosis or a cure, and Moores condition worsened after his next meal.

Blanche drove him to North Carolina Memorial Hospital, but that worthy institution refused to admit Moore without a written reference from Alamance County. Home again, Moore was close to death by April 30, retaining forty pounds of body fluids in the twenty-four hours before Blanche took him back to Alamance County Hospital. From there, he was passed on again to North Carolina Memorial, this time with the necessary paperwork.

Blanche told Dwights family he was fine, simply hospitalized to do some tests. In fact, she was correct. A toxic screen was ordered by physicians at North Carolina Memorial, and the results, filed on May 13, were startling: Moores body contained twenty times the lethal dose of arsenic--enough, quite literally, to kill a moose. Police were summoned, perking up their ears when they discovered Blanches run of rotten luck that spanned the best part of a quarter-century.

For his part, Rev. Moore rejected any suggestion that Blanche was to blame for his illness. Rather, Dwight insisted, he must have inhaled the poison while spraying his garden for pests. Despite Moores loyalty, Blanche was running out of time. Questioned by police on June 6, she denied bringing any food to Raymond Reid when he was ill, a statement flatly contradicted by hospital staffers. Reids body was exhumed for tests on June 13, and arsenic was found. Results were the same with James Taylor, and Blanche was arrested for first-degree murder on July 18, held in the Alamance County jail without bond. (Lesser traces of arsenic were also found in the bodies of Blanches father and mother-in-law, but evidence was insufficient to support a murder charge in either case.)

Blanches trial for the murder of Raymond Reid opened in Winston-Salem on October 21, 1990, the accused black widow defending herself with denials of any wrongdoing. The state buried her plea of innocence with fifty-three witnesses who recalled her daily trips to the hospital, bearing food for Reid as he lay dying, racked with pain. Jurors convicted Blanche or Reids murder on November 14, coming back three days later with a recommendation of death.

The judge made it official on January 18, 1991, when he sentenced Blanche to die by lethal injection. With automatic appeals in progress, no date has been set for trial in the death of James Taylor or the attempted murder of Dwight Moore.


On Stand, Woman Denies Poisoning Lover Or Husbands


November 9, 1990

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — On trial for her life, Blanche Taylor Moore, a retired grocery clerk from Burlington, N.C., forcefully denied yesterday that she had ever poisoned her lover or either of her husbands.

"I know arsenic was found in these people, but it's not because I put it there, because I didn't do it," Moore told a standing-room-only crowd of about 260 in Forsyth Superior Court.

Wearing tortoise-shell glasses, a blue suit, white blouse and pearls and clutching a tissue, Moore said that she had "never physically harmed an individual."

During her second and final day of testimony in the month-long trial, Moore, alternately testy and tearful, described herself as "a very giving person" who tried "to be here for others and to help whenever I could."

Moore, 57, is being tried for first-degree murder in connection with the October 1986 death of Raymond C. Reid, her longtime lover and boss at a Kroger supermarket. If convicted, she could receive the death penalty.

OTHER CASES

She also is charged with the arsenic-poisoning death of her first husband, James N. Taylor, who died in 1973, and with poisoning her current husband, the Rev. Dwight W. Moore, in 1988 and 1989. No trial dates on those charges have been set.

Mr. Moore, who survived a normally fatal amount of arsenic but still has little feeling in his hands and feet, listened to the testimony with a mixture of grimness and bemusement.

"There's some truth and a lot of falsehood," he said in an interview. ''She has a very good memory - of the things she likes to remember."

Moore denied yesterday, for example, that she ever possessed arsenic, bought it or instructed others to buy it for her, contradicting testimony by several other witnesses, including her husband.

She also denied that she tried to block an autopsy of Reid and that she fed him home-prepared food at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, where the prosecution contends he received the last lethal amounts of poison.

SUGGESTING A MOTIVE

Seeking to establish a motive for murder, prosecutor Janet Branch tried during cross-examination to suggest that the various men in Moore's life might have reminded her of her father, Parker D. Kiser, who was unfaithful to his wife and eventually abandoned his family.

Kiser died in 1966 of a heart attack, and investigators found high - although not fatal - levels of arsenic in his body after it was exhumed.

Moore said that Dwight Moore did not remind her of Kiser, despite her husband's admitted adultery during a previous marriage.

She also said she did not recall criticizing Reid to her psychiatrist, Jesse McNiel, despite his notes suggesting that she had. If Reid had lived, she said, she eventually would have married him.

She also denied being sexually intimate with Mr. Moore, whom she married last year, until 1988, long after Reid's death. Mr. Moore had testified that their affair began late in 1985 and that the two relationships overlapped.

Branch questioned Moore closely about her financial situation in the months before Reid's death, pointing out that she was unemployed and that her bank balance had steadily diminished.

Steve Reid, 27, one of Raymond Reid's two sons, said that after his father's death Moore received $45,000 in life insurance and an additional $18,000 to $20,000 from Reid's estate.

Contrary to assertions by Moore's attorney, Mitchell M. McEntire, she never repaid any of the money, Steve Reid said in a courtroom interview.

Mr. Moore said during an interview that, if he had died, his wife might have inherited as much as $75,000. But he said that he did not believe her reason for allegedly poisoning him was financial.

"I think her motive was her inability to actually express her dissatisfaction with folks," he said, "and it was easier for her to do this than to say no."

After Blanche Moore's testimony, her daughters, Vanessa Woods and Cindy Chatman, said they believed their mother had done well on the stand, her occasional bursts of irritation notwithstanding.

"I thought it was very good and very truthful," Woods said, "and I was very proud of her."

Neither the prosecution nor defense paid much attention yesterday to a letter supposedly written to Moore in prison by James Garvin Thomas, a Burlington man who died before she received it.

In the letter, addressed to "My Dearest Darling," Thomas takes responsibility for poisoning both of Moore's husbands, as well as Reid, out of jealousy and love for her.

A prosecution handwriting expert said earlier in the trial that the letter was a jailhouse forgery by Moore, while the defense's expert said that she could not have written it and that Thomas could have.

Deadly Dose Of Arsenic: Trial To Start In N.C.

Blanche Moore, 57, Is Accused Of Killing Her Boyfriend. The Defense Calls Her A Pious Woman Known For Kindnesses


October 14, 1990

REIDSVILLE, N.C. — It was not until the Rev. Dwight W. Moore first kissed Blanche Taylor, on their second date in the spring of 1985, that he felt a chemistry between them.

"I guess that's when the bells started to ring a little bit," said Mr. Moore, 56. Four years later, after Mr. Moore recovered from a mysterious illness, wedding bells finally rang for the divorced minister and the attractive widow.

Now, in another example of chemistry at work, Mr. Moore bears a dubious distinction: Doctors say he may have received the highest dosage of arsenic ever recorded in anyone who was not a corpse.

Mr. Moore, who still lacks feeling in his hands and feet, is expected to be a key witness against his wife in a sensational murder trial that begins tomorrow in Winston-Salem.

Blanche Taylor Moore, 57, who has spent the last 14 months in the Alamance County Jail protesting her innocence, will stand trial in Forsyth County Superior Court on a charge of poisoning her longtime boyfriend, Raymond C. Reid, 50, who died in 1986. If convicted, she faces either life imprisonment or the death penalty.

In separate cases, the retired grocery clerk from Burlington, N.C., also is charged with the 1973 arsenic murder of her first husband, James N. Taylor, 45, and with two counts of assault with intent to kill Mr. Moore.

Mitchell M. McEntire, Blanche Moore's attorney, said in an interview that the defense would drive home the unlikelihood that this pious, churchgoing woman known for her kindness could have committed such heinous deeds.

But, quoting from the song "Secret Agent Man," Forsyth County District Attorney W. Warren Sparrow said he would point out to jurors that "a pretty face can hide an evil mind."

"I know she looks nice, and she looks like everybody's grandmother, but I accept that that's the challenge of the prosecution - to overcome that,"

Sparrow said. "This isn't ordinary. This is extraordinary. The mathematics of it are powerful, and I believe in them."

In recent months, the forthcoming trial has been complicated by the eleventh-hour appearance of a purported deathbed confession letter by a Burlington man, James Garvin Thomas, taking responsibility for the poisonings.

In the letter to Blanche Moore, which prosecutors say was forged by Moore, Thomas claims that he poisoned all three men out of love, jealousy and obsession.

"I never meant harm to you, I love you too much but the plan failed me," says the letter, which concludes with a sexually explicit fantasy about Moore - whom Thomas, 58, apparently never met.

The alleged confession makes no mention of Moore's father, Parker D. Kiser, a hellfire-and-brimstone minister who died in 1966 of a heart attack at age 62 and whose exhumed body also contained abnormally high levels of arsenic.

*

The motive in this case has always been its biggest mystery. Blanche Moore's defenders say that there is none - and that Moore is just what she appears to be

"As God is my witness, I do not see a dark side to my sister, nor have I ever seen a dark side," said her brother, Sam Kiser, a hearing instrument specialist, who said he believed Thomas committed the poisonings.

"She was more willing to give to people than to receive from people. She didn't believe in making her good deeds known. She was just a caring person," Kiser said.

But the prosecution is sure to paint a different picture of Moore - one that highlights her alleged hostility toward her father, a philandering husband who eventually abandoned his wife and seven children.

In court documents, prosecutors say that the men in Moore's life who were poisoned by arsenic shared important similarities, including that each was said by Moore to be "just like her father."

In each instance, prosecutors claim, Moore also said that she hated her alleged victims or "that they were cruel or evil" and "expressed (the) desire not to be married to or to no longer see victim."

In Mr. Moore's case, at least, another common thread is adultery. Mr. Moore admits that his first marriage ended because of an affair he had with a church secretary - an affair McEntire suggests might have continued during his relationship with Blanche Moore.

Court records hint that the poisonings may have been a twisted alternative to simply breaking up for another man. Prosecutors say that Blanche Moore was seeing Reid when Taylor died, and Dwight Moore when Reid died.

But what of Mr. Moore, whose poisoning first aroused the suspicion of investigators?

Mr. Moore said in an interview that, since last year, he had learned that his wife, during their relationship, made telephone calls to a recently widowed and wealthy Mebane, N.C., man.

Mr. Moore also said that, in their time together, Blanche Moore demonstrated a pattern of deceit.

The minister's daughter and the minister first met at a breakfast following an Easter sunrise service at his church. After a few dates, he began seeing her as a potential mate.

"She was fairly attractive physically. . . . She was a very good conversationalist, very interested in people. She had all the appearance of being kind," said Mr. Moore, who is recuperating in Reidsville. In short, he said, she "had many of the qualities which would make for a good wife for a pastor."

The development of their relationship was slowed by two factors, Mr. Moore said. The first was her decision to pursue a sexual-harassment case against a manager at a Kroger's supermarket, where she worked - a case she later settled for a reported $275,000.

Because Moore's suit claimed that the manager's advances had rendered her incapable of pursuing relationships with men, she tried to keep her relationship with the minister a secret, he said.

But a second, more telling instance of deceit, according to Mr. Moore, was her romance with another Kroger's manager, Reid, a relationship that she told Mr. Moore was just a friendship.

During that time, she asked the pastor to buy ant poison containing arsenic for her, according to prosecutor Sparrow.

Blanche Taylor and Mr. Moore decided to tie the knot in the fall of 1988. But the wedding was postponed when he was overcome by nausea and vomiting and was diagnosed as having a bowel obstruction. After surgery, he got sick again and, concerned about propriety, insisted on recuperating at the home of his sister, Nola Halbrook.

Before taking a trip to visit his brother in New Jersey in April 1989, Mr. Moore and Blanche finally married in a simple ceremony. A few days later, after mowing the lawn and eating a fast-food chicken sandwich supplied by his wife, Mr. Moore once again got deathly ill.

After arsenic poisoning was discovered, investigators asked Mr. Moore if any men in Blanche Moore's life had died under suspicious circumstances. He named Reid, and the exhumations began.

Until Garvin Thomas' letter surfaced in May, a few days after his death, the defense had no plausible explanation for the peculiar fate that befell Moore's men, said her attorney, McEntire.

But, said McEntire, the alleged confession, however strange, does supply a possible alternative scenario. He said the defense's handwriting expert would testify that Moore could not have written the letter, which is addressed to ''My dearest darling."

In fact, McEntire said, the letter "smacks of a certain authenticity" and almost certainly was written by Thomas, whom McEntire described as an occasional drug abuser who served jail time for breaking and entering.

Both McEntire and Thomas' stepmother, Lois Thomas, said that Garvin Thomas and Blanche Moore never knew each other. But McEntire said evidence existed that Thomas tried to visit Moore in jail and that he talked about the case to others.

"It's not our intention in the trial to walk into court with the letter in hand and say, 'Here's the answer,' " said McEntire. But he said he would suggest that "given all the circumstances of her life and his life, it's not as bizarre for him to have done it as for her to have done it."

Lois Thomas said that the letter was not in her stepson's handwriting and that Thomas did not seem capable of murder. "He wasn't a person like that," she said.

Pastor's Wife: Arsenic and Old Lace?

August 22, 1989

BURLINGTON, N.C. — She seemed a perfect bride for the minister: pretty, friendly, outgoing and at age 56, she had a sweet voice for hymns.

So it came as a shock when police said that she had poisoned the pastor with arsenic as soon as they got back from their honeymoon. The pastor, the Rev. Dwight W. Moore, survived.

Then authorities started digging around in graveyards and soon declared that Blanche Taylor Moore had poisoned to death a boyfriend three years ago and a husband 16 years ago.

And her father, who died 23 years ago, had abnormal levels of arsenic in his body, authorities said, though it was heart disease that did him in.

Now Mrs. Moore, a woman described by those who know her as "a sweet, Christian lady," sits in the Alamance County jail facing two charges of murder and one charge of assault by poison.

Her two devoted daughters come to see her for the 15-minute visits permitted on Sundays. They kiss through the glass partition, and sometimes one of her three grandchildren comes. They all wonder about this bizarre turn of events, the daughters say.

"Nobody wants the truth more than we do," says Cynthia Taylor Chatman, 30.

"One thing is certain," adds her sister, Vanessa Woods, 36. "Behind the headlines is a person who is not capable of doing this."

Also perplexed is Moore, who struggles in a hospital to regain the use of hands and feet that were deadened by what doctors told his family is the highest dose of arsenic anyone has survived. Growing slowly on his fingernails are white streaks that doctors say are a telltale sign of the poison.

And wondering, finally, are the police, who are mulling over a half-dozen other deaths of people who knew Mrs. Moore. They will probably ask to exhume some of those bodies, the chief investigator says.

"I would say it is the most talked-about crime this county has seen," said Lt. Steve Lynch.

Indeed, it is what one resident called "a delectable topic" of conversation in this languid Piedmont stretch of tobacco fields, textile mills and outlet stores that siphon tourists off Interstate 85.

Some are amused. Bad jokes abound, and a Blanche Taylor Moore Cookbook T-shirt with ant poison recipes made a brief appearance. Others are annoyed. "We're tired of you all coming around," a woman barked at a reporter. "This ain't been nothing but aggravation for us."

Blanche Moore spent most of her life in Alamance County. For 32 years, she worked in a supermarket. She was friendly. Customers would pick her checkout line just to chat with Blanche.

"She was always pleasant and outgoing to customers," said Brenda Green, a former co-worker. And attractive--the photograph of a drawn, old woman taken at Blanche Moore's arrest is atypical. "The sadness doesn't let her picture do her justice," said a friend.

Her father, Parker Kiser, was a mill worker, insurance salesman and womanizer who left home "to find himself a younger woman," according to divorce papers filed in 1960 by Flonnie Kiser.

Blanche, one of seven children, was gone by then. At 19, she married James Napoleon Taylor, a furniture restorer just back from the Korean War. Taylor was a burly man, quick to become annoyed. He spent his Sundays editing tape recordings of the sermon from the Glen Hope Baptist Church, so tapes could be sent for overseas missionary work.

In 1966, Blanche's father died. He had remarried, and become a preacher. At age 62, he was declared to have died fom heart disease.

Seven years later, James Taylor died, at age 45. Blanche told a co-worker she awoke hearing an alarm clock ringing incessantly beside her husband's bed, and she knew he was dead. It was declared a heart attack.

A widow at age 40, Blanche Taylor did not lack from attention. She was pretty, bright and always dressed sharply. She began dating Raymond C. Reid, a divorced manager of the Kroger store in Burlington where Blanche was the head cashier.

"Mom never expected to spend the rest of her life by herself. She had too much to offer," said daughter Cynthia Chatman. Reid "was a very good man. He was good to us," said her sister, Vanessa Woods.

But her long employment with Kroger was troubled. Despite her popularity with customers, she was not universally liked by those who worked with her.

Kroger gave her top ratings in her job, called her a "good leader" and used her to train checkers. But "if you got on her bad side, she could be vindictive," said one co-worker, who asked not to be identified.

"Everyone thought she was two-faced," said another colleague. "She could be underhanded."

More troublesome was a top company official, area manager Robert J. Hutton. Blanche Taylor alleged he had long made advances and fondled female clerks.

He had reached up her dress, exposed himself, and finally in October, 1985, grabbed her from behind in a conference room, Mrs. Taylor contended. She said that he was nude from the waist down and said, "Are you ready for this?"

She grabbed his pants and underwear and fled from the store. Hutton had to leave in a meat cutter's smock.

Blanche Taylor never returned to work. Three months later she filed a sexual harassment suit, but the experience was debilitating, she said then.

She began seeing psychiatrists. In an affidavit for her lawsuit, Dr. Jesse N. McNeil said that the long sexual harassment contributed to depression, anxiety and "a serious suicidal condition."

She said that she felt "completely alienated and antagonistic toward men and has not been able to maintain any meaningful social contacts with members of the opposite sex," according to the suit.

Her lawyer now, Mitchell M. McEntire, implies that was so much hyperbole for the lawsuit.

'Not a Man-Hater'

"She is not a man-hater," he said last week. "Her response was very normal . . . and in no way suggestive of some psychological change that could explain a person turning into a murderer."

Easter Sunrise Service

Before she left Kroger, a relative took her to an Easter sunrise service at the Carolina United Church of Christ, which served a neat, quiet community overlooking the textile mills on the Haw River outside Burlington. The minister, Moore, was her age, divorced, with two grown children.

He began to call on her, telephoning and leaving notes on her door when she was not home, according to her daughters. She agreed to meet him for an ice cream cone and soon began to accompany him to church gatherings.

Her daughters believe her relationship with Reid had "cooled" by then. But the minister's sister, Nola Halbrook, said that Blanche Taylor apparently was seeing both men, and Moore did not know it.

In 1986, Raymond Reid became ill and was hospitalized with nausea and numbness in his limbs. He died five months later. Doctors thought that he had Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Blanche Taylor visited him often in the hospital and seemed distraught by his death, said her daughters.

The year after Reid's death, the long-simmering sexual harassment suit against Hutton and Kroger was settled just as a jury was picked to hear the case.

The parties will not disclose the terms, but one lawyer said that Mrs. Taylor received a "good sum of money" in the settlement.

Repeatedly Hospitalized

By 1988, she and the minister Moore were talking of marriage. They planned a nice wedding in his church after Thanksgiving. But just before the affair, Moore became ill, vomiting, and weak.

He was repeatedly hospitalized, and twice in the next two months doctors operated on his intestines. Slowly, he recovered, but it was not until this April 19 that he and Blanche got married--this time a simple affair witnessed by two church members.

"She had on a real pretty dress. Seemed like it was white and had some figures on it," recalled Doris Pender, a witness at the ceremony and friend of both. "They were beaming. It seemed like there was electricity there. It seemed like they were very much in love."

After the wedding, the newlyweds left for a long weekend in New Jersey to see Moore's new grandchild. They returned on a Monday, and that week the minister worked around the modest, white-frame parsonage where he had brought Blanche to live.

On Wednesday he sprayed for dandelions and ate a chicken sandwich that Blanche brought him from a fast-food store, Halbrook said. Within hours, he was deathly ill.

A series of trips to the hospital eventually led him to the intensive-care ward of N.C. Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill. There, doctors gathered the family and told them that Moore had ingested arsenic.

"We thought it was an accident," Halbrook said.

Police Suspicious

But the police did not. Their suspicions quickly centered on Blanche, and they began backtracking through her life. They exhumed Reid's body from the Pine Hill Cemetery in June, and the medical examiner said that he died of arsenic poisoning. They dug up James Taylor's body in July from the same cemetery and found the same results.

The headlines of this clannish town chronicled the saga for six weeks while Mrs. Moore held her head high. She continued to visit her husband until he finally told her the marriage was over. Mrs. Moore left the hospital in tears.

"Dwight defended her and wouldn't believe it until the authorities gave him the evidence on Reid," said Halbrook of her brother. "It was emotionally devastating to him."

Blanche Taylor Moore was arrested at her daughter's home July 18. Her attorney, McEntire, points out what has puzzled townsfolk about the case. "There was no apparent motive for her to have done any of this," he said.

Warren Sparrow, the district attorney of Forsyth County, where Reid died, dismisses that question.

"We don't have to get into why," he said. "When you start looking for a rational motive, you generally start overthinking. I just know that this guy died and the state medical examiner said he had a fatal level of arsenic in him."

Possible Death Penalty

Sparrow said that he will consider bringing death-penalty charges for Reid's death if she is convicted in the other cases. Steven A. Balog, the district attorney of Alamance County, said it will be a year before she is tried in the cases involving Moore and James Taylor.

Attorney McEntire said that his client believes it is some horrible mistake.

"This is incredible to her," he said. "She said it was a nightmare that seemed to be stalking her. How do they know to go first to her husband, then a friend, and then her former husband? There seems to be some figure that seems to be pointing out where to go."

Lynch, the chief investigator, denies that. The case was one of "just applying common sense. No one said Blanche put arsenic in Pop's food."

McEntire declined to allow an interview with his client. But "she said she is not guilty. She wants the public to know that," he reported.

SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA

North Carolina v. Moore

STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
v.
BLANCHE KISER TAYLOR MOORE

Filed: March 4, 1994.

Appeal as of right pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 7A-27(a) from a judgment imposing a sentence of death entered by Freeman, J., at the 15 October 1990 Criminal Session of Superior Court, Forsyth County, upon a jury verdict of guilty of first-degree murder.

Parker

[335 NC Page 576]

PARKER, Justice.

Defendant, Blanche Kiser Taylor Moore, was indicted for the 7 October 1986 first-degree murder of Raymond C. Reid, Sr. (herein "Reid"). She was tried capitally at the 15 October 1990 Criminal Session of Superior Court, Forsyth County, and was found guilty as charged. Following a sentencing proceeding pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000, the jury recommended defendant be sentenced to death. Judgment of death was entered on 16 November 1990. An order staying execution of the death sentence was entered on 26 November 1990 pending the Conclusion of this appeal.

In May of 1989, defendant's then husband, the Reverend Dwight D. Moore (herein "Moore"), while being treated at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, was diagnosed with arsenic poisoning. An investigation was begun which led to the eventual exhumation of the bodies of P.D. Kiser, Sr., defendant's father; James N. Taylor, defendant's first husband; and Reid, a previous boyfriend. All of the bodies tested positively for the presence of arsenic. Defendant was indicted in Alamance County for the murders of Kiser and Taylor and the felonious assault on Moore; she was indicted in Forsyth County for the murder of Reid. The Alamance County cases were subsequently transferred

[335 NC Page 577]

to Forsyth County. This opinion reviews defendant's capital trial for the murder by arsenic poisoning of Reid.

The State's evidence at trial tended to show that defendant met Reid while working at Kroger supermarket in Burlington, North Carolina, in 1962. They did not start going out together, however, until 1979. According to the testimony of a Kroger risk management investigator, Reid had said he and defendant "probably would have been married, except she wanted to be there next to her family." Reid was transferred several times in 1979 and 1980 until he became manager of a store in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Defendant worked the entire time in Burlington except for a brief period in 1979 when she was at a store in Durham. Defendant last worked at Kroger 17 October 1985, when she left her employment on account of sexual harassment.

Reid initially became ill on 1 January 1986. After having spent New Year's Eve with defendant and having eaten some of her homemade potato soup, Reid began experiencing severe symptoms of nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. Reid, who had never been known to miss work, was absent from work more than four weeks over the next few months. His last day at work was 29 May 1986. Reid's condition became progressively worse; and he was admitted to Wesley Long Hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina, on 30 May 1986 by his physician, Dr. Norman H. Garrett, Jr. On admission, Reid reported to Dr. Garrett that while eating supper seven days earlier, he had experienced nausea, vomiting, and dehydration, that he had become violently ill, and that he had been unable to keep down any solid foods since that time. Dr. Garrett's admission diagnosis was acute gastroenteritis based on "his profound dehydration, nausea and vomiting."

While hospitalized, Reid's condition continued to deteriorate; and Dr. Garrett revised his diagnosis to multiple systems failure based on Reid's symptoms including excessive nausea and vomiting, loose stools, skin rash, edema, dehydration, bone marrow damage, blood cell abnormalities, electrolyte abnormality, tachypnea (progressive shortness of breath), respiratory failure, tachycardia (fast heartbeat), low blood pressure, kidney malfunction and shutdown, and numbness and tingling in his hands and feet. Each of these symptoms is characteristic of arsenic poisoning.

By the morning of 5 June 1986, Reid's condition had stabilized. Dr. Garrett informed Reid, in defendant's presence, that he need

[335 NC Page 578]

only remain in the hospital for three to five more days following his circumcision (the procedure was the result of an infection and was not related to Reid's other symptoms). However, Reid's condition worsened so much over the next week that it became "life threatening," and Dr. Garrett transferred him to North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem on 13 June 1986. Dr. Garrett was never able to make a satisfactory diagnosis of the cause of Reid's multi-system failures.

Dr. Robert Hamilton, a specialist in internal medicine and nephrology who treated Reid at Baptist Hospital, testified that Reid was admitted with a number of symptoms, including a raspy voice, severe swelling in his lower extremities, anemia, low white blood cell count, a rash over his lower extremities, white patches in his mouth, very poor bowel sounds, difficulty breathing, and signs of kidney failure. Reid's condition continued to deteriorate, resulting in a "Code Blue" on 21 June 1986. Emergency measures were taken and Reid was intubated so that he could be mechanically ventilated. Over the next few days, Reid became nearly paralyzed.

Dr. Hamilton began with a preliminary diagnosis of Guillain-Barre syndrome. Reid showed some slight improvement following a procedure called "plasmapheresis." In this procedure, the patient's blood is removed from the body, the red blood cells are separated from the plasma, and the red blood cells are returned to the body. The lab report from a urine sample obtained from Reid between 27 June 1986 and 28 June 1986 showed "quite elevated" levels of arsenic in the urine. Dr. Hamilton, however, never saw the results of this test. Reid further improved during July of 1986 but continued to have difficulty breathing and needed to be on a respirator. Reid gradually recovered use of his extremities and was able to breathe on his own. During this time, defendant asked Dr. Hamilton if she could bring food from home for Reid and was given permission to do so. At the end of September, Reid suffered another serious setback.

Lisa Hutchens, the head nurse in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), testified that the last time she saw Reid looking well was on 1 October 1986 when she visited him in the intermediate care unit. Defendant was with Reid and was feeding him banana pudding. Hutchens again visited Reid on 3 October 1986 in his room in the intermediate ward. Reid was in "acute respiratory distress" and was very frightened. He pleaded with her to "please help

[335 NC Page 579]

me or I'm going to die." Reid was returned to the ICU on 4 October 1986. Nurse Hutchens recalled defendant often bringing Reid food items from home such as iced tea, frozen yogurt, milk shakes, and soups during this time.

Steven Reid, one of Reid's sons, testified that he visited his father on 4 October 1986 and found he had eaten a breakfast prepared by defendant. He stayed until late that afternoon and visited again on the fifth before returning to East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. When Steve called on Monday, 6 October 1986, defendant informed him he should return to the hospital as soon as possible. When he arrived on the evening of the sixth, he hardly recognized his father. He looked as if he had gained almost one hundred pounds and "his eyeballs were even starting to swell and his skin was splitting."

Dr. Kyle Jackson testified that Reid became "progressively weaker and unable to continue his breathing on his own well enough to sustain life." By 7 October 1986, Reid was on inotropic drugs and mechanical ventilation. He was able to communicate only with his eyes. In the early afternoon, Reid "coded" and the responding medical personnel began to administer CPR and to perfuse his heart in order to give him emergency drugs. Dr. Jackson pronounced Reid dead from complications which he thought were attributable to Guillain-Barre syndrome. Several witnesses recalled that moments after Reid passed away defendant stated: "We cannot have an autopsy. He has been through too much. He wouldn't want to be cut on like this. We just -- we cannot have one."

Several hospital employees, family members, and visitors testified that they recalled defendant bringing Reid milk shakes from McDonald's while he was hospitalized at Wesley Long Hospital. Gloria Head, a fellow Kroger employee, recalled visiting Reid and observing a red container of Jello in defendant's purse. Dr. Garrett had previously testified that Reid had informed him on 30 May 1986 that he began vomiting after eating Jello the previous night.

Wanda B. Moss, a registered nurse in the ICU at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, described the treatment Reid underwent in the hospital. On some occasions Reid was fed with a Dobhoff feeding tube inserted into him. The tube is very narrow and becomes easily clogged. Nurse Moss stated that Coca-Cola is inserted by syringe into the tube and is effective in unclogging it. Defendant was frequently in the room when Nurse Moss used the syringe and the

[335 NC Page 580]

Coke to clear Reid's Dobhoff tube. The Coke was often left unattended in the patient's room, and the syringes were kept in an unlocked closet in Reid's room. Nurse Moss further recalled defendant bringing peanut butter milk shakes, banana pudding, tomato pudding, corn bread, and milk from home for Reid and feeding him herself. The ICU nursing notes reflect repeated instances where Reid complained later in the day of being nauseated after having been fed by defendant. Nurse Moss never saw anyone other than defendant bring food to Reid or feed him.

Pursuant to a court order, Reid's body was exhumed on 13 June 1989 in Alamance County. The body was taken to the medical examiner's officer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and an autopsy was performed. The autopsy revealed "clearly recognizable" Mees lines across the fingernails of both hands and the toxicology report indicated a concentration of arsenic in Reid's liver tissue "30 times higher than one might see in an average individual who is not having a significant exposure to arsenic." The arsenic in Reid's brain tissue was approximately sixty-seven times higher than that expected in a normal individual. As a result of these findings, Dr. John D. Butts, Chief Medical Examiner for the State of North Carolina, concluded that "Reid died as a result of the complications of arsenic poisoning." Furthermore, based on an analysis of hair samples from the exhumed body of Reid, Dr. Vincent Guinn, a professor of chemistry at the University of California-Irvine and an expert in the field of nuclear chemistry, concluded that the arsenic levels found in Reid's hair correspond "to a long period of ingestion of arsenic, multiple ingestions." Dr. Guinn noted that on 24 June 1986, the arsenic level peaked at 70 parts per million, which is "roughly 70 times the normal level."

The State presented testimony from several witnesses to link defendant with the product Anti-Ant. Brenda Green, a Kroger co-worker, recalled hearing defendant recommend Anti-Ant to a customer as a good ant-killer. Moore testified that, during the summer of 1985, defendant showed him a bottle of Anti-Ant and asked him to purchase some for her from Byrd's Food Center in the Glen Raven section of Burlington. Moore further testified that he purchased the Anti-Ant at Byrd's, gave the bottle of Anti-Ant to defendant, and told defendant that he had purchased it at Byrd's. Leonard Wolfe, a former co-worker, who owned a small, community convenience store called Ken's Quickie Mart recalled defendant

[335 NC Page 581]

coming into the store in early April 1989 and asking if he "had any Anti-Ant in stock."

Peggy Vaughn, owner and operator of Atla Chemical Company in McLeansville [North Carolina], testified that her company had manufactured Anti-Ant for over ten years, including the years 1985-1988. The main active ingredient in the product Anti-Ant is arsenic. She further stated that State's Exhibit #30 was identical in appearance to other bottles of Anti-Ant manufactured by her company. Other testimony showed the availability of Anti-Ant to customers in the Burlington area.

Special Agent Thomas J. Currin of the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation testified concerning the investigation into a letter received by defendant in the Alamance County jail purportedly written by a man named Garvin Thomas. In the letter, Thomas allegedly confessed to the murder of Reid and the attempted murder of Moore. Based on his examinations and comparisons of defendant's handwriting samples and those of Garvin Thomas, Agent Currin, a questioned document examiner, concluded that, in his opinion, defendant was the person who wrote the confession letter attributed to Garvin Thomas.

The State presented extensive evidence concerning the deaths of defendant's father and her first husband and Moore's illness. Recitation of this evidence as necessary will be included in the Court's Discussion of defendant's assignment of error related to the admission of this evidence.

Once the State rested, W.A. Shulenberger, testifying as an expert witness for the defendant, opined that defendant could not have written the confession letter. Shulenberger's examination revealed no evidence of an attempt to disguise or alter the handwriting. He stopped short, however, of stating that Garvin Thomas actually wrote the confession letter.

Carolyn Hinshaw, a jailer with the Alamance County Sheriff's Department, testified that a man, carrying a teddy bear and signing his name as "Garvin Thomas," attempted to visit defendant in jail saying "he had done so much wrong in his life and hurt so many people that he wanted to start doing some good to right the wrongs." Deputy Hinshaw testified this incident occurred two to four months before 19 May 1990--the date on the alleged confession letter. Carol DiLelo, a secretary for defense counsel, Mitchell

[335 NC Page 582]

M. McEntire, testified that, when her employer learned of the "teddy bear" incident, she was told to arrange a meeting with Garvin Thomas. At that meeting, Mr. Thomas stated that "he knew he was going to die and that he knew Blanche Moore had not done the things she was accused of doing and he knew that he had hurt her and he had hurt her family and he was sorry about all that."

Defendant also called as a witness her lawyer in her sexual harassment suit who testified that at defendant's request, he referred her to Mr. Robert Hinshaw, an attorney in Winston-Salem, about preparing a will for Reid. Hinshaw then testified that defendant gave him some notes which defendant said had been prepared by a nurse and asked if he could draft a proposed will. Hinshaw drafted a proposed will and power of attorney and then visited Reid in the hospital. At the time Reid could not speak, but Reid could communicate by nodding his head and squeezing a person's hand. The nurses present assisted Hinshaw in interpreting Reid's communications and Hinshaw was satisfied that Reid understood what was being read and what he was doing. The next day Hinshaw returned to the hospital and in the presence of a notary public and two nurses again went over the will with Reid. Since Reid could not sign his name, Hinshaw signed for him in the presence of Reid, the notary, and the two nurses who witnessed the will. Hinshaw testified that he inquired whether Reid understood that by leaving his property to defendant, his sons would be left out and whether Reid wanted defendant to share in the insurance proceeds. Reid responded affirmatively to both these questions. The same procedure was followed in executing the power of attorney.

Defendant took the stand on her own behalf and testified that while Reid was in the ICU at Baptist Hospital, she recalled him being fed only with a tube. She denied seeing Reid "have any food at all during that time" or having ever taken food to Reid while he was in the hospital. She specifically denied taking banana pudding or peanut butter milk shakes to Reid in the hospital. Defendant did not recall conversing with anyone about Reid's autopsy and told the jury she would not have been opposed to an autopsy to determine the cause of his death.

As to Reid's will, defendant denied having anything whatsoever to do with his will, even though Reid gave her his power of attorney. While acknowledging she had heard of Anti-Ant, defendant

[335 NC Page 583]

denied ever having purchased, attempted to purchase, or directed anyone else to purchase the product. Defendant denied administering arsenic to James N. Taylor, Reid, or Moore.

Additional facts, when necessary, will be set forth with respect to the various issues.

The jury found defendant guilty of the first-degree murder of Reid. During the capital sentencing phase, the jury found as aggravating circumstances that (i) the murder was committed for pecuniary gain and (ii) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. As mitigating circumstances, the jury found that defendant (i) "provided well for the needs of her children while they were growing up"; (ii) "upon being informed of the warrant for her arrest, peacefully submitted herself in accordance with her duty"; and (iii) "demonstrated concern and kindness for others in her community." Based upon findings that the mitigating circumstances were insufficient to outweigh the aggravating circumstances and that the aggravating circumstances were sufficiently substantial to call for the imposition of the death penalty when considered with the mitigating circumstances, the jury recommended that defendant be sentenced to death.

PRETRIAL ISSUES

In her first assignment of error, defendant argues the trial court erred in denying her motions for change of venue. Defendant contends she could not obtain a fair and impartial trial in Forsyth County on account of the extensive pretrial publicity resulting in great prejudice against her in violation of her state and federal constitutional rights. For the reasons discussed herein, we find this assignment of error to be without merit.

To support her initial motion, defendant introduced evidence to show that the local media provided regular coverage of her case, including detailed newspaper articles regarding the deaths of Kiser and Taylor and the illness of Moore; that WKRR-FM, an Asheboro, North Carolina, radio station with a market in Forsyth County, repeatedly played a song which implied defendant was guilty and called her a "black widow spider"; and that the results of a random survey compiled by defendant's investigator showed the community held preconceptions prejudicial to her case. Random survey results showed that forty-nine of the fifty respondents had heard of and/or followed defendant's case with interest. Of those

[335 NC Page 584]

forty-nine, thirty-six indicated they had reached an opinion as to defendant's guilt or innocence. Thirty-one of those individuals believed defendant to be guilty while five believed her to be innocent. At least two people polled said "that they felt she was guilty and that they should fry the woman." However, in her brief, defendant concedes that the media coverage was largely factually based.

In denying defendant's motion for change of venue, the trial court made the following findings of fact: (i) Forsyth County is a large, urban county with approximately 260,000 in population; (ii) defendant was not a resident of Forsyth County and, in fact, lived in Alamance County; (iii) the majority of individuals involved in the case also resided in Alamance County; and (iv) there had been extensive publicity in Forsyth County and the surrounding areas but the publicity was not inflammatory and, in fact, some was exculpatory. The trial court concluded as a matter of law "that defendant has failed to establish a reasonable likelihood that she would not get a fair trial in Forsyth County and the Court in its discretion" denied defendant's motion for change of venue.

Defendant later renewed her motion but presented no additional supporting evidence at the motion hearing. The trial court deferred ruling on this motion pending the filing of any additional affidavits, articles, or recordings for consideration. Prior to trial, the court denied the renewed motion for change of venue as well.

The statute pertaining to change of venue motions provides:

If, upon motion of the defendant, the court determines that there exists in the county in which the prosecution is pending so great a prejudice against the defendant that he cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial, the court must either:

(1) Transfer the proceeding to another county in the prosecutorial district as defined in G.S. 7A-60 or to another county in an adjoining prosecutorial district as defined in G.S. 7A-60, or

(2) Order a special venire under the terms of G.S. 15A-958.

The procedure for change of venue is in accordance with the provisions of Article 3 of this Chapter, Venue.

N.C.G.S. § 15A-957 (1988). In the recent case of State v. Yelverton, 334 N.C. 532, 434 S.E.2d 183 (1993), this Court stated:

[335 NC Page 585]

The test for determining whether venue should be changed is whether "it is reasonably likely that prospective jurors would base their decision in the case upon pre-trial information rather than the evidence presented at trial and would be unable to remove from their minds any preconceived impressions they might have formed." [ State v. Jerrett, 309 N.C. 239, 255, 307 S.E.2d 339, 347 (1983).] The burden of proving the existence of a reasonable likelihood that he cannot receive a fair trial because of prejudice against him in the county in which he is to be tried rests upon the defendant. State v. Madric, 328 N.C. 223, 226, 400 S.E.2d 31, 33 (1991). "In deciding whether a defendant has met his burden of showing prejudice, it is relevant to consider that the chosen jurors stated that they could ignore their prior knowledge or earlier formed opinions and decide the case solely on the evidence presented at trial." Jerrett, 309 N.C. at 255, 307 S.E.2d at 348. The determination of whether a defendant has carried his burden of showing that pre-trial publicity precluded him from receiving a fair trial rests within the trial court's sound discretion. State v. Madric, 328 N.C. at 226, 400 S.E.2d at 33. The trial court has discretion, however, only in exercising its sound judgment as to the weight and credibility of the information before it, including evidence of such publicity and jurors' averments that they were ignorant of it or could be objective in spite of it. When the trial court concludes, based upon its sound assessment of the information before it, that the defendant has made a sufficient showing of prejudice, it must grant defendant's motion as a matter of law. See State v. Abbott, 320 N.C. 475, 478, 358 S.E.2d 365, 368 (1987).

Id. at 539-40, 434 S.E.2d at 187.

From our review of the materials submitted by both defendant and the State, we are satisfied the trial court did not err in concluding that defendant failed to meet her burden of proving that pretrial publicity tainted her chances of receiving a fair and impartial trial. Of the thirty-three articles submitted, at least three contain potentially exculpatory information. Only one of the thirty-three is potentially inflammatory--an article entitled, "The Men In Her Life Keep Dropping Like Flies," published in True Police Cases, and as to this one defendant made no showing concerning the extent of its circulation. The remaining twenty-nine articles which defendant contends caused undue pretrial publicity are primarily

[335 NC Page 586]

factually based. The articles submitted begin in September of 1989 and continue through August of 1990 and address the sequence of events including the initial investigation, the indictments, all pretrial motions, the psychiatric testing of defendant, the behavior of defendant while in prison awaiting trial, and the later investigation focusing on the alleged confession letter and handwriting analyses related thereto. "This Court has consistently held that factual news accounts regarding the commission of a crime and the pretrial proceedings do not of themselves warrant a change of venue." State v. Gardner, 311 N.C. 489, 498, 319 S.E.2d 591, 598 (1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1230, 84 L. Ed. 2d 369, 105 S. Ct. 1232 (1985).

This Court has also noted that the potential jurors' responses to questions on voir dire conducted to select the jury are the best evidence of whether pretrial publicity was prejudicial or inflammatory. State v. Richardson, 308 N.C. 470, 480, 302 S.E.2d 799, 805 (1983). "Where, as here, a jury has been selected to try the defendant and the defendant has been tried, the defendant must prove the existence of an opinion in the mind of a juror who heard his case that will raise a presumption of partiality." State v. Madric, 328 N.C. 223, 228, 400 S.E.2d 31, 35 (1991). If each juror states unequivocally that he can set aside what he has heard previously about a defendant's guilt and arrive at a determination based solely on the evidence presented at trial, the trial court does not err in refusing to grant a change of venue. State v. Soyars, 332 N.C. 47, 54, 418 S.E.2d 480, 484-85 (1992).

In the present case, to assure a fair and impartial venire, the trial court conducted an initial screening to eliminate potential jurors who had already formed biases about defendant. Of the 110 potential jurors initially screened on an individual basis by the court concerning pretrial publicity, forty-six were excused for cause on account of preconceived opinions of defendant's guilt or innocence determined from media coverage. The remaining sixty-four potential jurors stated that, notwithstanding the publicity, they could be fair and impartial and decide the case solely on the evidence presented in court. These sixty-four prospective jurors, having passed the initial screening process, were subsequently questioned by the State and defendant in a standard voir dire. Each of the twelve jurors who ultimately served on the jury during defendant's trial stated unequivocally during the initial screening process and again during voir dire that they had formed no opinions about the case, that they could be fair and impartial, and that

[335 NC Page 587]

they would base their decisions solely on the evidence presented at trial.

Considering the entire record before us, we conclude that defendant has not established a reasonable likelihood that pretrial publicity prevented her from receiving a fair and impartial trial in Forsyth County. We hold, therefore, that the trial court did not err in denying defendant's motions for a change of venue.

In her next assignment of error, defendant contends the trial court erred in denying her motions for a bill of particulars with regard to the circumstances surrounding the death of Reid. The record discloses that on 9 October 1989, defendant filed a motion for a bill of particulars requesting the State provide various information, including the alleged motive for Reid's murder, the date or dates of Reid's poisoning and the means thereof, the State's version of the facts concerning any poisonings and any and all other information within the possession of the District Attorney, his agents and investigators. Subsequently, on 31 October 1989, defendant filed a supplemental motion for a bill of particulars seeking information as to (i) the exact cause of death, (ii) the exact date or dates as well as the time on said dates when Reid was poisoned, (iii) the exact geographic locations where the poison was introduced into Reid's body, (iv) the type poison introduced into Reid's body, (v) the identity of any persons present during the poisonings, (vi) the identity of any persons who supplied the poison used, (vii) the specifics as to dates, times, locations of each instance where defendant acquired any poison, including substances containing arsenic, (viii) the identity of any persons present when defendant acquired the poison, and (ix) a list of aggravating circumstances on which the State would rely in seeking the death penalty.

At the hearing on defendant's motions the State noted that it had turned over to defendant all Reid's medical records including the autopsy report and was in no better position to state the cause of death other than "complications from arsenic poisoning." The State further responded that "the victim, Raymond Carlton Reid, received numerous doses of arsenic poisoning during the period of time from December 31, 1985 through October 7, 1986." The State further asserted that the specific time of the poisoning was not essential since the case involved "chronic poisoning" and not "one particular act against Raymond Reid on a particular day at a certain time." The trial court denied the motion except as to

[335 NC Page 588]

items four and nine, namely, the type poison and the aggravating circumstances to be submitted.

The purpose of a bill of particulars pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-925 "is to inform defendant of specific occurrences intended to be investigated at trial and to limit the course of the evidence to a particular scope of inquiry." State v. Young, 312 N.C. 669, 676, 325 S.E.2d 181, 186 (1985).

Whether to allow or deny a motion for a bill of particulars

is generally within the discretion of the trial court and is not subject to review "except for palpable and gross abuse thereof." State v. McLaughlin, 286 N.C. 597, 603, 213 S.E.2d 238, 242 (1975), death sentence vacated, 428 U.S. 903 (1976). The court must order the State to respond to a request for a bill of particulars only when the defendant shows that the information requested is necessary to enable him to prepare an adequate defense. G.S. 15A-925(c). Stated otherwise, a denial of a defendant's motion for a bill of particulars will be held error only when it clearly appears to the appellate court that the lack of timely access to the requested information significantly impaired defendant's preparation and conduct of his case.

State v. Easterling, 300 N.C. 594, 601, 268 S.E.2d 800, 805 (1980).

During discovery, the State provided defense counsel with copies of Reid's entire medical record along with the autopsy report and reports detailing the results of the hair analyses. This information enabled defendant to determine the time frame when Reid's body contained elevated levels of arsenic and to analyze the victim's medical condition at these times. At trial, the State did not attempt to adduce any evidence indicating the timing of the poisonings with any greater particularity than reflected in the documentation furnished to defendant covering the period from "December 31, 1985 through October 7, 1986." The State confirmed that arsenic was the poison used, and defendant had obtained through discovery statements allegedly made by defendant linking her to the purchase of Anti-Ant, an arsenic-based ant killer.

Defendant does not suggest surprise or specify in what manner the denial of her motions for a bill of particulars affected her trial strategy. The State introduced nothing at trial which could have come as a surprise to the defendant pertaining to the dates of the poisonings. She had full knowledge of the specific occurrences

[335 NC Page 589]

to be investigated at trial, State v. Detter, 298 N.C. 604, 612, 260 S.E.2d 567, 575 (1979). On the record before this Court, defendant has failed to show that lack of access to information "significantly impaired [her] preparation and conduct of the case." Easterling, 300 N.C. at 601, 268 S.E.2d at 805. We hold, therefore, that the trial court did not err in denying defendant's motions for a bill of particulars.

Defendant next contends the trial court erred in failing to compel the Forsyth County District Attorney to comply with a prior agreement between defense counsel and the Alamance County District Attorney establishing an open file policy. While the trial for the murder of Reid was pending in Forsyth County, charges were also pending against defendant in Alamance County for the murder of James N. Taylor and for the assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury on Moore. For judicial economy and to avoid possible prejudice created by extensive pretrial publicity in Alamance County, Judge J.B. Allen, Jr. entered an order transferring venue in the Alamance County cases to Forsyth County.

Prior to the order, the Alamance County District Attorney's office agreed to an open file policy to afford "the defense the benefit of every document and every matter and thing in the file." However, when defendant's motion for a change of venue was granted, the District Attorney in Forsyth County refused to comply with the previous arrangement. Defendant argues in her brief that access to the Alamance County District Attorney's files was

of material importance to the Defendant, particularly in light of the expressed intention on the part of the Forsyth County District Attorney to rely . . . upon evidence pertaining to the facts and circumstances surrounding the deaths of the Defendant's father and first husband, as well as the illnesses suffered by Rev. Moore.

The statute governing disclosure of evidence by the State provides:

(a) Except as provided in G.S. 15A-903(a), (b), (c) and (e), this Article does not require the production of reports, memoranda, or other internal documents made by the prosecutor, law-enforcement officers, or other persons acting on behalf of the State in connection with the investigation or prosecution of

[335 NC Page 590]

the case, or of statements made by witnesses or prospective witnesses of the State to anyone acting on behalf of the State.

(b) Nothing in this section prohibits a prosecutor from making voluntary disclosures in the interest of Justice.

N.C.G.S. § 15A-904 (1988). Defendant has made no allegations that the State failed to provide appropriate discovery pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-903. Defendant also has failed to provide any authority for her Conclusion that the prosecutor of one district should be bound by the open file discovery policy of a prosecutor in another district.

The general rule is that "the work product or investigative files of the district attorney, law enforcement agencies, and others assisting in preparation of the case are not open to discovery." State v. Brewer, 325 N.C. 550, 574, 386 S.E.2d 569, 582 (1989), cert. denied, 495 U.S. 951, 109 L. Ed. 2d 541, 110 S. Ct. 2215 (1990). While the prosecutor may, in his or her discretion, proceed under an open file policy, he or she may not be forced to do so. Similarly, the District Attorney in one district may not be compelled to comply with an agreement pertaining to discovery entered into by the District Attorney in another district once venue has been changed in the case. Furthermore, defendant has not shown any prejudice resulting from the Forsyth District Attorney's refusal to follow an open file policy. We conclude, therefore, that the trial court did not err in denying defendant's motion to compel the State to abide by the prior agreement between defendant and the Alamance County District Attorney. This assignment of error is without merit.

Defendant next contends the trial court erred in denying her motion for individual sequestered voir dire of prospective jurors. In denying the motion for individual voir dire throughout the entire selection process, the trial court ruled it would

allow the motion to conduct an individual voir dire on the preliminary matters of pretrial publicity and whether or not a juror has formed an opinion about the case. . . . We'll screen a pool of jurors for publicity; and then once we get an acceptable number, we'll bring them in twelve at a time and go through the regular voir dire process.

Following the initial screening process, twelve prospective jurors were seated in the jury box while the remaining members of the venire were sequestered outside the courtroom until they were called to replace an excused venireperson.

[335 NC Page 591]

A motion for individual voir dire is addressed to the sound discretion of the trial court whose ruling will not be disturbed except for an abuse of discretion. State v. Oliver, 302 N.C. 28, 274 S.E.2d 183 (1981), appeal after remand, 309 N.C. 326, 307 S.E.2d 304 (1983); State v. Barfield, 298 N.C. 306, 259 S.E.2d 510 (1979), cert. denied, 448 U.S. 907, 65 L. Ed. 2d 1137, 100 S. Ct. 3050, reh'g denied, 448 U.S. 918, 65 L. Ed. 2d 1181, 101 S. Ct. 41 (1980). Defendant argues that collective voir dire on the issues other than pretrial publicity inhibited the candor of the jurors and permitted the prospective jurors to become educated concerning responses which would enable them to be excused from the panel. Thus, a "domino effect" is produced as each juror expresses his or her aversion to the death penalty in order to be relieved of jury duty.

As we have previously held in Oliver and Barfield, this argument is speculative and without merit. The record does not support defendant's contentions. The assignment of error is overruled.

Defendant next argues that the trial court erred in denying her pretrial motion that prospective jurors be examined on their opinions concerning defendant's eligibility for parole upon conviction. This issue has previously been decided against defendant. State v. Syriani, 333 N.C. 350, 428 S.E.2d 118 (1993), cert. denied, U.S. 126 L. Ed. 2d 341, 114 S. Ct. 392 (1993), reh'g denied, U.S. , 126 L. Ed. 2d 707, 114 S. Ct. 745 (1994); State v. Roper, 328 N.C. 337, 402 S.E.2d 600, cert. denied, U.S. , 116 L. Ed. 2d 232 (1991); State v. McNeil, 324 N.C. 33, 375 S.E.2d 909 (1989), sentence vacated on other grounds in light of McKoy, 494 U.S. 1050, 108 L. Ed. 2d 756 (1990); State v. Robbins, 319 N.C. 465, 356 S.E.2d 279, cert. denied, 484 U.S. 918, 98 L. Ed. 2d 226, 108 S. Ct. 269 (1987).

In her next assignment of error, defendant argues the trial court erred in conducting the voir dire during the initial screening process, thus denying counsel the opportunity to make a full and complete inquiry into the fitness of the prospective jurors for service. The trial court initially allowed the State and the defendant to screen the first thirteen prospective jurors concerning pretrial publicity but then took over and conducted the remainder of the screening process after several admonitions to counsel to speed up the questioning.

In an effort to expedite this initial screening process, the trial court directed the following questions to each prospective juror:

[335 NC Page 592]

THE COURT: Could you as best you can put out of your mind what you might have read or heard and base your decision solely on the evidence that you hear in the courtroom?

THE COURT: Could you be fair and impartial to this defendant and not let anything you might have read or heard affect your decision in this case?

THE COURT: The law requires that a juror presume a defendant to be innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Could you do that regardless of what you've already read or heard?

THE COURT: And as a result of what you've read or heard, you haven't already made up your mind or formed or expressed an opinion about the guilt or innocence of this defendant, have you?

Based on the responses to these questions, the prospective juror was either excused for cause upon motion by defendant or asked to return the following day for the continuation of the standard voir dire. A review of the entire voir dire reveals that, even after the trial court took over the screening process, defense counsel was permitted on several occasions to follow up on the questions previously asked by the court. During the standard voir dire, defense counsel was allowed to question prospective jurors further concerning any preconceived opinions attributable to the pretrial publicity surrounding this case. Two prospective jurors who had passed the initial screening process were excused for cause when additional questioning disclosed they each had formed an opinion concerning defendant's guilt.

N.C.G.S. § 15A-1214 provides, in pertinent part:

(c) The prosecutor and the defense counsel, or the defendant if not represented by counsel, may personally question prospective jurors individually concerning their fitness and competency to serve as jurors in the case to determine whether there is a basis for a challenge for cause or whether to exercise a peremptory challenge. The prosecution or defense is not

[335 NC Page 593]

foreclosed from asking a question merely because the court has previously asked the same or similar question.

Defendant has failed to show a violation of N.C.G.S. § 15A-1214(c). The record discloses that the trial court acted merely to expedite the initial screening process by asking questions designed to eliminate prospective jurors with obvious opinions regarding defendant's guilt. Once the standard voir dire was commenced, defense counsel was given latitude to examine the prospective jurors for any latent ideas or beliefs formed as a result of the pretrial publicity pertaining to defendant's case. While both the State and the defendant indisputably have the right to question prospective jurors to determine their fitness and competency to serve, "the extent and manner of counsel's inquiry rests within the trial court's discretion." State v. Soyars, 332 N.C. at 56, 418 S.E.2d at 486. This assignment of error is without merit.

GUILT-INNOCENCE PHASE

Defendant next contends the trial court erred in denying defendant's motion in limine to restrict introduction by the State of evidence concerning Kiser and Taylor's deaths and Moore's illness. Defendant also contends admission of this evidence was error and that the prosecutor's closing argument based thereon should have been disallowed and the State's requested jury instruction on similar acts or crimes denied. On 14 September 1990, the District Attorney filed a motion for an order allowing the admission into evidence of other similar crimes and offenses, charged and uncharged, against the defendant which tend to prove one or more of the purposes set forth in Rule 404(b) of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence. Following an extensive pretrial hearing on 5 October 1990, the trial court ruled that the State would be allowed to present evidence of similar crimes. The court noted it would rule at a later time on what preliminary showing the State would be required to make for the evidence to be admitted.

Prior to the impanelment of the jury, the trial court heard arguments on defendant's related motion in limine to restrict the State from commenting during its opening statement upon the evidence of similar crimes committed by defendant against Kiser, Taylor, and Moore. The trial court allowed defendant's motion as to arguments concerning the arsenic poisoning of Kiser but denied the motion, and over defendant's continuing objection, allowed opening statements and evidence concerning the arsenic poisoning death

[335 NC Page 594]

of Taylor and the near death of Moore. The court did not allow evidence of the levels of arsenic found in Kiser's body.

N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 404(b) provides:

(b) Other crimes, wrongs, or acts. --Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts is not admissible to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith. It may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of mistake, entrapment or accident.

Relying on State v. Johnson, 317 N.C. 417, 347 S.E.2d 7 (1986) and State v. Breeden, 306 N.C. 533, 293 S.E.2d 788 (1982), defendant contends that evidence of the prior death of Taylor and the arsenic-related illness of Moore was not admissible under Rule 404(b) because the State did not present direct evidence linking defendant as a participant in the prior crimes. This Court, however, rejected the requirement of a "direct evidence link" for purposes of Rule 404(b) in State v. Jeter, 326 N.C. 457, 389 S.E.2d 805 (1990). Distinguishing Breeden the Court noted:

Breeden, however, preceded the codification of N.C.R. Evid. 404(b). That rule includes no requisite that the evidence tending to prove defendant's identity as the perpetrator of another crime be direct evidence, exclusively. Neither the rule nor its application indicates that examples of other provisions--such as admissibility of evidence of other offenses to prove motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, or plan--rest solely upon direct evidence. E.g., State v. Price, 326 N.C. 56, 388 S.E.2d 84 (1990) (circumstantial evidence of defendant's perpetration of "virtually identical" strangulation, proximate in time, showing preparation, plan, knowledge or identity). Under the statutory scheme of Rules 403 and 404, the concern that anything other than direct evidence of a defendant's identity in a similar offense might "mislead [the jury] and raise a legally spurious presumption of guilt" is met instead by the balancing test required by Rule 403: the critical inquiry regarding evidence of other offenses introduced for purposes of showing defendant's identity as the perpetrator of the offense for which he is being tried is not whether it is direct or circumstantial, but whether its tendency to prove identity in the charged

[335 NC Page 595]

offense substantially outweighs any tendency unfairly to prejudice the defendant.

Id. at 459, 389 S.E.2d at 807.

Rule 404(b) is a rule of inclusion of relevant evidence with but one exception, that is, the evidence must be excluded if its only probative value is to show that defendant has the propensity or Disposition to commit an offense of the nature of the crime charged. State v. Stager, 329 N.C. 278, 302, 406 S.E.2d 876, 890 (1991). In Stager, this Court held that the proper test under Rule 404(b) is whether there was "substantial evidence tending to support a reasonable finding by the jury that the defendant committed a similar act or crime and its probative value is not limited solely to tending to establish the defendant's propensity to commit a crime such as the crime charged." 329 N.C. at 303-304, 406 S.E.2d at 890 (adopting the rationale of Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681, 99 L. Ed. 2d 771, 108 S. Ct. 1496 (1988) (construing Fed. R. Evid. 404(b))). "Evidence of other offenses is admissible so long as it is relevant to any fact or issue other than the character of the accused." State v. Weaver, 318 N.C. 400, 403, 348 S.E.2d 791, 793 (1986).

Murder by poisoning is inherently a surreptitious crime. Rarely are there eyewitnesses, thus, circumstantial evidence is often the only evidence to prove the State's case against an accused. In the present case, the State presented extensive circumstantial evidence marking the similarities between Reid's death and the arsenic poisoning death of Taylor and the arsenic poisoning of Moore. Three different men either married to or intimately involved with defendant died, or barely escaped death, from arsenic poisoning, an unusual cause of death. In each case defendant had motive (financial), opportunity (close relationship), and means (knowledge of and access to Anti-Ant). In each case medical evidence suggests that multiple doses of arsenic were administered to the victim over a long period of time, as opposed to one large fatal dose. In each case defendant was frequently alone with the victim in the hospital, and medical testimony suggests that certain of defendant's visits in which she fed the victim corresponded with an onset of symptoms characteristic of arsenic poisoning. In each case defendant was heard to say that she hated the victim or that the victim was cruel or evil. In the cases of Reid and Taylor, defendant was already seeing her next victim at the time of the arsenic assaults.

[335 NC Page 596]

Under Rule 404(b) a prior crime is similar to the one charged if some unusual facts or particularly similar acts are present in both which would indicate that both crimes were committed by the same person. Stager, 329 N.C. at 304, 406 S.E.2d at 890-91. While these similarities need not be unique or bizarre, they must "tend to support a reasonable inference that the same person committed both the earlier and later acts." Id. at 304, 406 S.E.2d at 891. Given the similarities between the crime charged and the other crimes presented by the State, we conclude that the evidence of the other offenses was relevant under Rule 404(b) as evidence tending to prove modus operandi, motive, opportunity, intent and identity of defendant as the perpetrator. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in admitting the evidence and in denying defendant's motion. This assignment of error is, also, overruled.

Defendant next contends the trial court erred in allowing the State to introduce testimony for the sole purpose of generating sympathy for Reid's family. The trial court overruled defendant's objections to the testimony of Wanda B. Moss, a registered nurse in the ICU at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, who had cared for Reid during his final illness. Defendant argues that Nurse Moss' testimony concerning medical techniques and medical equipment used to treat Reid served merely to inflame the passions of the jury and elicit feelings of sympathy for the Reid family. Defendant also argues the testimony of Reid's son concerning his father's appearance and mental state reinforced the inflammatory affect of Nurse Moss' testimony. These contentions are meritless.

Relevant evidence is "evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence." N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 401 (1992). "All relevant evidence is admissible" unless it is excluded by some other constitutional or statutory exclusionary rule. N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 402 (1992). Relevant evidence may, however, be excluded "if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time or needless presentation of cumulative evidence." N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 403 (1992).

The testimony of Nurse Moss was probative to show (i) that defendant had access to Reid in the hospital, (ii) that a correlation existed between defendant's feeding Reid and the onset of Reid's

[335 NC Page 597]

symptoms, (iii) that Reid manifested symptoms associated with multiple system failure incident to arsenic poisoning, namely, swelling, rashes, skin splitting and acute paralysis, (iv) that Reid could swallow food notwithstanding the tubes, (v) that arsenic could have been introduced into Reid's body via the feeding tubes and (vi) finally, that Reid suffered inordinate pain over an extended period of time. The probative value of Nurse Moss' testimony outweighed any unfair prejudice to defendant. "Relevant evidence will not be excluded simply because it may tend to prejudice the opponent or excite sympathy for the cause of the party who offers it as evidence." State v. Eason, 328 N.C. 409, 421, 402 S.E.2d 809, 814 (1991). Furthermore, the record discloses that similar evidence from other witnesses was admitted without objection. "Where evidence is admitted over objection, but the same evidence has theretofore or thereafter been admitted without objection, the benefit of the objection is ordinarily lost." State v. Murray, 310 N.C. 541, 551, 313 S.E.2d 523, 530 (1984). This assignment of error is without merit.

Defendant next argues that the trial court erred in denying her motion for mistrial following an emotional display by Assistant District Attorney Janet Branch during questioning of Moore as a State's witness. Defendant asserts that Branch, after the first several questions, "burst into tears and after some 30 seconds fled the courtroom" and that such an emotional outburst by one of the prosecuting attorneys made it virtually impossible for defendant to receive a fair and impartial trial.

N.C.G.S. § 15A-1061 provides, in relevant part:

Upon motion of a defendant or with his concurrence the Judge may declare a mistrial at any time during the trial. The Judge must declare a mistrial upon the defendant's motion if there occurs during the trial an error or legal defect in the proceedings, or conduct inside or outside the courtroom, resulting in substantial and irreparable prejudice to the defendant's case.

The resolution of this issue lies within the sound discretion of the trial court. State v. Blackstock, 314 N.C. 232, 333 S.E.2d 245 (1985); State v. Calloway, 305 N.C. 747, 291 S.E.2d 622 (1982); State v. Swift, 290 N.C. 383, 226 S.E.2d 652 (1976).

When such an incident involving an unexpected emotional outburst occurs, the Judge must act promptly and decisively

[335 NC Page 598]

to restore order and to erase any bias or prejudice which may have been aroused. Whether it is possible to accomplish this in a particular case is a question necessarily first addressed to the sound discretion of the trial Judge. "Not every disruptive event occurring during the course of trial requires the court automatically to declare a mistrial," and if in the sound discretion of the trial Judge it is possible despite the untoward event, to preserve defendant's basic right to receive a fair trial before an unbiased jury, then the motion for mistrial should be denied. On appeal, the decision of the trial Judge in this regard is entitled to the greatest respect. He is present while the events unfold and is in a position to know far better than the printed record can ever reflect just how far the jury may have been influenced by the events occurring during the trial and whether it has been possible to erase the prejudicial effect of some emotional outburst. Therefore, unless his ruling is clearly erroneous so as to amount to a manifest abuse of discretion, it will not be disturbed on appeal.

Blackstock, 314 N.C. at 244, 333 S.E.2d at 253 (quoting State v. McGuire, 297 N.C. 69, 75, 254 S.E.2d 165, 169-70, cert. denied, 444 U.S. 943, 62 L. Ed. 2d 310, 100 S. Ct. 300 (1979) (quoting State v. Sorrells, 33 N.C. App. 374, 376-77, 235 S.E.2d 70, 72, cert. denied, 293 N.C. 257, 237 S.E.2d 539 (1977))).

Although the transcript is silent as to what actually transpired, it appears from arguments of counsel that once Ms. Branch became unable to continue questioning the witness and before her tears became apparent to the court, she immediately excused herself from the courtroom. The trial court, upon request by the State, promptly called for a short recess and removed the jury from the courtroom. No further proceedings took place until the next morning when defense counsel moved for mistrial. Following arguments from both parties, the trial court denied defendant's motion for mistrial pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-1061. In so ruling, the trial Judge noted that

while Ms. Branch was questioning the juror -- excuse me -- the witness that she did apparently become somewhat emotional and unable to ask further questions. There was no audible outburst. It was not clearly apparent to me whether she was crying or sick or what the problem was, but she did become unable to continue her questioning and did get up and leave

[335 NC Page 599]

the courtroom. A recess was immediately called and the jury sent out.

When the jurors returned to the courtroom, the trial Judge inquired whether Ms. Branch's inability to continue her questions for a brief period of time would in any way affect their decision in the case or their ability to be fair and impartial. No juror responded to these questions. Then by a show of hands, the jurors each affirmatively acknowledged that they could still base their "decision solely on the evidence that [they heard] from the witness stand and that nothing that happened or transpired would in any way prevent [them] from giving this defendant a completely fair and impartial verdict based solely on the evidence."

From our review of the transcript, the findings by the trial court and the responses of the jury members, we are satisfied the Assistant District Attorney's brief emotional display was not prejudicial to defendant. Ms. Branch removed herself from the courtroom quickly and quietly. The jury was immediately removed from the courtroom. In response to questions by the court, not one juror answered that the incident would prevent him or her from being able to give defendant a completely fair and impartial verdict based solely on the evidence. We conclude, therefore, that the trial court did not err in denying defendant's motion for mistrial. This assignment of error is overruled.

Defendant next contends the trial court erred in failing to conduct a "voir dire" examination of the District Attorney's files to determine whether the State had provided defendant with required discovery pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-903. During cross-examination of defendant's witness, Jean Leath, a jailer with the Alamance County Sheriff's Department, the prosecutor questioned her recollection of an interview between a former inmate, Terri Michelle Edwards, and Detective Benny Bradley, an investigator with the Burlington police department who was assigned to the case. In an effort to refresh her recollection, the prosecutor handed Ms. Leath a written report of the interview compiled by Detective Bradley. Defendant objected, arguing she had not been supplied a copy of the "statement" pursuant to N.C.G.S. § 15A-903(f)(5)(b) and Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 10 L. Ed. 2d 215, 83 S. Ct. 1194 (1963). Defendant argued the report was Brady material because it tended to show that the State's witness, Terri Michelle Edwards, had committed perjury during her testimony the previous week. The court,

[335 NC Page 600]

believing the document to be a "statement," ruled that the prosecutor should provide defendant with a copy of the report. Court was recessed until the following day.

When court convened the next morning, the prosecutor, relying on State v. Vandiver, 321 N.C. 570, 364 S.E.2d 373 (1988), declined to produce the report because it was not a "statement" of Terri Michelle Edwards. The term "statement" found in N.C.G.S. § 15A-903 includes "statements signed or otherwise adopted by the witness and 'substantially verbatim' recitals or oral statements which are contemporaneously recorded." Vandiver, 321 N.C. at 573, 364 S.E.2d at 375. The State argued that this document contains merely "a narrative [written by Detective Bradley at a later time] of what the witness had said. . . . It is not a transcription. It is not -- has never been adopted, has never been subscribed to." Defendant then moved for the court to examine the document in camera to make the "determination of whether [the document] is a transcription or a field report" pursuant to Vandiver. The trial court sustained defendant's objection to the State's line of questioning about Detective Bradley's notes. At this point, the prosecutor agreed to produce the document but the trial court stated: "Well, I think it's probably too late now. We're ready for the jury and we're ready to get on with this trial." Defendant then renewed her earlier motion to strike Terri Edwards' testimony and instruct the jury to disregard it. The court denied the motion to strike.

Contrary to defendant's assertion on appeal, defendant did not request the court to conduct an in camera examination of the prosecutor's file to determine if the District Attorney had provided discovery as required. Rather defendant asked for an in camera inspection of Detective Bradley's report to determine if it was a statement or field report. The discovery statutes do not alter the general rule that the work product or investigative files of the District Attorney, law enforcement agencies, and others assisting in the preparation of the case are not subject to discovery. State v. Brewer, 325 N.C. 550, 574, 386 S.E.2d 569, 582 (1989), cert. denied, 495 U.S. 951, 109 L. Ed. 2d 541, 110 S. Ct. 2215 (1990). The trial court is under no obligation to ex mero motu examine the prosecutor's investigative files for discovery compliance. This assignment of error is without merit.

In her next assignment of error, defendant argues that the trial court erred in allowing the State to introduce items of physical

[335 NC Page 601]

evidence which had no conceivable bearing upon the question of defendant's guilt and served merely to inflame the passions of the jury. The objectionable items were a bottle of Anti-Ant introduced during the testimony of Peggy Vaughn and several medical appliances introduced during Nurse Wanda Moss' testimony.

The State called Ms. Peggy Vaughn to testify that she owned and operated the Atla Chemical Company in McLeansville which had manufactured the product Anti-Ant for over ten years. The active ingredient in Anti-Ant is arsenic. When the State asked her to identify State's Exhibit 30 as a bottle of Anti-Ant produced by her company, defense counsel objected and argued the lack of relevance of the bottle of Anti-Ant to this case. The trial court overruled the objection.

Evidence is relevant if it has any logical tendency, however slight, to prove a fact in issue. State v. Prevette, 317 N.C. 148, 345 S.E.2d 159 (1986). The evidence may be excluded if the trial court determines that an unfair prejudicial effect of the evidence substantially outweighs its probative value. N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 403 (1992). The identification of the bottle of Anti-Ant was not irrelevant in this case. The State's evidence tended to prove that defendant was familiar with the product as early as the 1970s; that the product was available in the Burlington area at all relevant times; and that defendant actually had a bottle of Anti-Ant in her possession during the summer of 1985, which she showed to Moore with the request that he purchase another bottle. The fact that the bottle of Anti-Ant was not the exact bottle used by defendant to poison Reid is immaterial. See State v. Hunt, 297 N.C. 258, 261-62, 254 S.E.2d 591, 594-95 (1979) (holding that trial court properly admitted bottles of rat poison purchased by the Sheriff of Anson County from the same drugstore where nine months before defendant had purchased the same product to show availability of the poison at all times relevant to the murder investigation). The trial court did not err in admitting the bottle of Anti-Ant into evidence.

During her testimony, Nurse Wanda Moss*fn1 identified the following medical devices:

[335 NC Page 602]

Exhibit 58 -- Nasogastric tube

Exhibit 59 -- Endotracheal tube

Exhibit 60 -- Dobhoff tube

Exhibit 63 -- Swan-Ganz catheter

Exhibit 64 -- IV fluid bag

Exhibit 65 -- Syringe

Exhibit 67 -- Suction catheter

The court allowed each of the exhibits to be introduced into evidence for illustrative purposes only. Defendant now argues that the admission of these medical devices, together with detailed explanations concerning their use and purpose, served merely to inflame the passions of the jury and had no reasonable bearing on proving any issue in controversy. Relying on State v. Hennis, 323 N.C. 279, 372 S.E.2d 523 (1988), defendant argues that the inflammatory nature of the devices prejudiced the jury and eclipsed any probative value the items may have had.

Defendant's reliance on Hennis is misplaced. In Hennis after defendant stipulated the cause of the victim's death, the forensic pathologist projected on the wall directly above defendant's head twenty-six slides of the bodies taken during the autopsies and nine taken at the scene of the crime. Thereafter, eight- by ten-inch color photographs of the crime scene and the autopsy were presented one by one to the members of the jury. In ruling that the "thirty-five duplicative photographs published to the jury . . . were excessive in both their redundancy and in the slow, silent manner of their presentation," Hennis, 323 N.C. at 286, 372 S.E.2d at 528, the Court found the photographic evidence more prejudicial than probative and granted the defendant a new trial. However, we have not extended the rationale of Hennis to include other forms of physical evidence.*fn2

[335 NC Page 603]

In the present case the medical devices were identified and introduced solely to illustrate the testimony of a registered nurse involved in Reid's primary care and treatment. The pieces of equipment were not excessively displayed and were not presented separately to the jury for a closer inspection. Defendant has failed to show how the single presentation of medical devices used in the daily attempts to save Reid's life rises to the level of excessive and repetitious use of the highly disturbing photographs found in Hennis. The medical equipment was introduced merely to illustrate the types of treatment received and the physical condition of Reid while at North Carolina Baptist Hospital. As discussed earlier, the probative value of this evidence substantially outweighs the possibility of any unfair prejudice to defendant. N.C.G.S. § 8C-1, Rule 403 (1992). This assignment of error is without merit.

Defendant next contends the trial court erred in denying her motion to dismiss all the charges on the ground that the evidence was insufficient to warrant submission of the case to the jury. Defendant argues that since no poison was ever positively placed in her hands, it is mere speculation and conjecture that she was responsible for Reid's death; and a rational trier of fact could not justifiably find defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We disagree.

We have previously stated the standard for determining a motion to dismiss thusly:

When a defendant moves for dismissal, the trial court is to determine only whether there is substantial evidence of each essential element of the offense charged and of the defendant being the perpetrator of the offense. State v. Earnhardt, 307 N.C. 62, 65-66, 296 S.E.2d 649, 651 (1982). Whether evidence presented constitutes substantial evidence is a question of law for the court. Id. at 66, 296 S.E.2d at 652. Substantial evidence is "such relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a Conclusion." State v. {PA}

Page 604} Smith, 300 N.C. 71, 78-79, 265 S.E.2d 164, 169 (1980). The term "substantial evidence" simply means "that the evidence must be existing and real, not just seeming or imaginary." State v. Powell, 299 N.C. 95, 99, 261 S.E.2d 114, 117 (1980).

State v. Vause, 328 N.C. 231, 236, 400 S.E.2d 57, 61 (1991). In passing upon a defendant's motion to dismiss, the court must consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, giving the State the benefit of every reasonable inference. Id. at 237, 400 S.E.2d at 61. "The test of the sufficiency of the evidence to withstand the defendant's motion to dismiss is the same whether the evidence is direct, circumstantial, or both." Id. When the sufficiency of circumstantial evidence is questioned by a motion to dismiss, the issue for the trial court is "whether a reasonable inference of the defendant's guilt may be drawn from the circumstances." Id.

When a murder is committed by means of poison, premeditation and deliberation are not elements of the crime of first-degree murder and premeditation and deliberation are hence irrelevant. Similarly, a specific intent to kill is not relevant to the crime of first-degree murder perpetrated by means of poison. State v. Johnson, 317 N.C. 193, 203, 344 S.E.2d 775, 781 (1986).

A murder which is perpetrated by means of poison is deemed to be murder in the first degree. G.S. 14-17. And when the State undertakes to prosecute for such a murder, it has the burden of producing sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt (1) that the deceased died by virtue of a criminal act, and (2) that such criminal act was committed by the accused. S. v. Palmer, 230 N.C. 205, 52 S.E.2d 908, and cases cited. In other words, the State, in such case, and in this case, has the burden of producing sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the deceased died from poison, administered with criminal intent by the person charged.

State v. Hendrick, 232 N.C. 447, 453, 61 S.E.2d 349, 354 (1950).

Applying these principles to the evidence before us, we find that there is sufficient, competent evidence to show, and from which a reasonable juror could find beyond a reasonable doubt, that Reid died from arsenic poisoning administered by defendant through a series of repeated doses. The evidence showed that defendant had on at least three occasions possessed, attempted to

[335 NC Page 605]

purchase or asked someone else to purchase an arsenic-based ant killer. All three of the men who were either married to or romantically involved with defendant died or nearly died as a result of arsenic poisoning. Defendant expressed negative feelings about Reid to her psychiatrist and in November 1985 stated that her feelings toward him "had turned to hate." Defendant denied taking food to Reid in the hospital, but the State presented evidence that she did. Further the medical evidence demonstrated a correlation between defendant's visits and the renewed onset of Reid's symptoms. Given this evidence and the infrequency of death by arsenic poisoning, we are satisfied "any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560, 573, 99 S. Ct. 2781 (1979), quoted in State v. Earnhardt, 307 N.C. 62, 66-67 n.1, 296 S.E.2d 649, 652 n.1 (1982). This assignment of error is overruled.

Defendant next assigns error to the trial court's refusal to give particular jury instructions which she contends were supported by the evidence and in conformity with the law. We find no error in the court's failure to give the requested instructions on reasonable doubt, identity of the perpetrator, dying declarations, and uncontroverted evidence.

Reasonable doubt. Defendant requested the following instruction on reasonable doubt:

When it is said that the jury must be satisfied of the Defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, it is meant that they must be fully satisfied, or entirely convinced, or satisfied to a moral certainty. If, after considering, comparing and weighing all the evidence, the minds of the jurors are left in such condition that they cannot say they have an abiding faith, to a moral certainty, in the Defendant's guilt, then they have a reasonable doubt.

The trial court declined to give the requested instruction, but advised it would use the reasonable doubt instruction in the Pattern Jury Instruction, which in substance covered everything defendant requested. The Judge gave the following instruction from the Pattern Jury Instruction:

Now, a reasonable doubt is a doubt based on reason and common sense arising out of some or all of the evidence that has been presented or the lack or insufficiency of the evidence,

[335 NC Page 606]

as the case may be. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is proof that fully satisfies or entirely convinces you of the defendant's guilt.

As defendant correctly notes, trial courts are not required to use the exact language of a requested instruction; but if the request is a correct statement of the law, and supported by the evidence, the court must give the instruction in substance. State v. Monk, 291 N.C. 37, 54, 229 S.E.2d 163, 174 (1976). The court is not required to define reasonable doubt absent a request, but if the court does so, the instruction must be a correct statement of the law. State v. Wells, 290 N.C. 485, 226 S.E.2d 325 (1976).

In light of this Court's recent decision in State v. Bryant, 334 N.C. 333, 432 S.E.2d 291 (1993), finding error under Cage v. Louisiana, 498 U.S. 39, 112 L. Ed. 2d 339, 111 S. Ct. 328 (1991), defendant's requested instruction arguably was not an accurate statement of the law. In Bryant we said, "When a jury is instructed that it may convict if it finds the defendant guilty to a moral certainty it increases the possibility that a jury may convict a person because the jury believes he is morally guilty without regard to the sufficiency of the evidence presented at trial to prove his guilt." 334 N.C. at 343, 432 S.E.2d at 297. The instruction in Bryant also contained the term, "honest substantial misgiving," which was not contained in defendant's requested instruction. However, recognizing that this Court recently declined to find error under Cage in State v. Patterson, N.C. , S.E.2d (No. 29A93, filed 28 January 1994), where the trial court instructed in part that "proof beyond a reasonable doubt means that you must be fully satisfied, entirely convinced or satisfied to a moral certainty of the Defendant's guilt," id. at , S.E.2d at , slip op. at 7, we cannot say that the trial court erred in the present case.

The pattern instruction given by the trial court contained none of the offending Cage phrases, namely, "grave uncertainty," "actual substantial doubt," and "moral certainty," Cage, 498 U.S. at 40, 112 L. Ed. 2d at 341-42, or terms of similar import. Furthermore, this instruction correctly informed the jury that the standard for conviction beyond a reasonable doubt was certainty based upon the sufficiency of the evidence. Accordingly, the trial court did not err in refusing to give defendant's requested instruction on reasonable doubt.

{PA}

Page 607} Identity of Perpetrator. Arguing that the State's evidence raised only a suspicion of defendant's guilt which was insufficient to convict, defendant requested the following instruction:

Where all of the evidence in a case only engenders or raises the question, if Defendant did not commit the killing, then who did?, it is not sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction. Evidence which merely shows that Defendant had the opportunity to commit a criminal offense and which raises a suspicion that she did so is not sufficient evidence on which the jury may convict.

The court denied the motion, noting that it would give an instruction on circumstantial evidence which would be in substance what defendant requested. The trial court then instructed on direct and circumstantial evidence as follows:

Now, there are two types of evidence from which you may find the truth as to the facts of a case, direct and circumstantial evidence. Direct evidence is the testimony of one who asserts actual knowledge of a fact, such as an eyewitness. Circumstantial evidence is proof of a chain or group of facts and circumstances indicating the guilt or the innocence of a defendant. The law makes no distinction between the weight to be given to either direct or circumstantial evidence. Nor is a greater degree of certainty required of circumstantial evidence than of direct evidence. You should weigh all the evidence in the case. After weighing all the evidence, if you are not convinced of the guilt of the defendant beyond a reasonable doubt, you must find her not guilty.

Defendant contends on appeal that her requested instruction taken in conjunction with her requested instruction on reasonable doubt would have focused the issue to be answered by the jury, namely, the identity of the individual responsible for Reid's death.

"If a party requests an instruction which is a correct statement of the law and is supported by the evidence, the court must give the instruction at least in substance." State v. Warren, 327 N.C. 364, 371, 395 S.E.2d 116, 121 (1990). In this case the instruction as given, when read in conjunction with the entire charge to the jury, adequately links the State's burden to prove defendant's identity as the perpetrator of the crime with the quantum of proof

[335 NC Page 608]

beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial court did not err in refusing to instruct the jury as requested by defendant.

Dying Declarations. Defendant also requested the trial court to instruct the jury that "the law recognizes that persons who believe themselves to be in danger of imminent death are highly unlikely to lie." During the charge conference, defense counsel argued this instruction was appropriate since there was conflicting evidence that Garvin Thomas had written a letter shortly before he died in which he confessed to the poisonings of Reid and Moore. The State responded there was no evidence showing that the letter was even written by Garvin Thomas. Defendant's own expert refused to opine that Thomas authored the letter while the State's expert, SBI Agent Currin, a questioned documents examiner and forensic chemist, ruled out Thomas as the author to a ninety-nine percent degree of certainty. Furthermore, the letter was offered into evidence by the State not as the dying declaration of Garvin Thomas but as evidence of defendant's "deceptive plan to throw suspicion away from herself."

Following this exchange, the trial court denied the request to instruct the jury on the inherent reliability of dying declarations but noted it would "certainly let both sides argue those positions." The court then instructed the jurors that they were the "sole Judges of the weight to be given any evidence. By this I mean if you decide that certain evidence is believable, you must then determine the importance of that evidence in light of all the other believable evidence in the case." Therefore, we find that the jury was properly instructed on the issue of credibility of the evidence and it was not error for the trial court to refuse to instruct on dying declarations.

Uncontroverted Evidence. Lastly, defendant contends the trial court erred in failing to give the following instruction pertaining to uncontradicted evidence:

You are not required to accept testimony, even when uncontradicted, and even if the witness is not impeached. You may decide, because of the witness' bearing and demeanor, or because of the inherent improbability of the testimony, or for other reasons sufficient to you, that such testimony is not worthy of belief.

[335 NC Page 609]

Although the court denied defendant's request, our review of the jury charge reveals that the court gave the requested charge essentially verbatim. This assignment of error is without merit.

In her next assignment of error, defendant contends the trial court erred in refusing to submit the lesser included offense of second-degree murder to the jury. Defendant argues that in not submitting second-degree murder, the court, in effect, allowed the jury to presume premeditation and deliberation. As a result, the trial court relieved the State of its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. We disagree.

"An intent to kill is not necessary to constitute the crime of first-degree murder when the murder was allegedly committed by means of poison. Any murder committed by means of poison is automatically first-degree murder." State v. Johnson, 317 N.C. 193, 204, 344 S.E.2d 775, 782 (1986). As noted earlier premeditation and deliberation are not elements of the crime and are, hence, irrelevant. Id. The evidence in this case supported each and every element of first-degree murder by poisoning. As in Johnson, the only evidence to the contrary was defendant's denial that she had committed the offense.

If the State's evidence is sufficient to fully satisfy its burden of proving each element of the greater offense and there is no evidence to negate these elements other than the defendant's denial that he [or she] committed the offense, the defendant is not entitled to an instruction on a lesser offense.

317 N.C. at 205, 344 S.E.2d at 782. This assignment of error is overruled.

SENTENCING PROCEEDING

In her next assignment of error, defendant contends the trial court erred in denying her motion to strike the death penalty from consideration by the jury and to impose a life sentence. At the hearing on the motion, defense counsel argued that the death penalty in our state is unconstitutional for a number of reasons--none of which included the reasonable doubt instruction requested by defendant during the guilt-innocence phase. The trial court denied the motion.

Now, for the first time, defendant focuses her argument on the court's failure to give her requested instruction on reasonable

[335 NC Page 610]

doubt during the guilt-innocence phase of the trial as the basis of her contention that the court should strike the death penalty from the jury's consideration. Without citing any authority, defendant asserts the trial court's failure to give her requested reasonable doubt instruction contributed substantially to the action of the jury in returning a death recommendation and exposed defendant to an arbitrary and capricious sentencing proceeding. Even had defendant properly preserved this issue for appellate review, this assignment of error is without merit. As we have discussed above, the trial court did not err in failing to give defendant's requested instruction on reasonable doubt.

Defendant further contends under this same assignment of error that the trial court erred in failing to explain to the jury that the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt applies to mitigating circumstances as well as to aggravating circumstances. This contention is an incorrect statement of law. "The burden of proof on the existence of any mitigating circumstance is on the defendant, and the standard of proof is by a preponderance of the evidence." State v. Holden, 321 N.C. 125, 158, 362 S.E.2d 513, 534 (1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1061, 100 L. Ed. 2d 935, 108 S. Ct. 2835 (1988). For the foregoing reasons, we overrule this assignment of error.

Defendant next contends the trial court erred in submitting to the jury the aggravating circumstance that Reid's murder was committed for pecuniary gain. In support of her motion to dismiss pecuniary gain as an aggravating circumstance, defendant argued this circumstance should be submitted only when the primary motivation of defendant is financial gain. This assertion is not supported by the law. Our research reveals no authority and the cases cited by defendant fail to support such an argument.

Rather, "the gravamen of the pecuniary gain aggravating circumstance is that 'the killing was for the purpose of getting money or something of value.'" State v. Jennings, 333 N.C. 579, 621, 430 S.E.2d 188, 210 (1993) (quoting State v. Gardner, 311 N.C. 489, 513, 319 S.E.2d 591, 606 (1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1230, 84 L. Ed. 2d 369, 105 S. Ct. 1232 (1985)). This aggravating circumstance considers defendant's motive and is appropriate where the impetus for the murder was the expectation of pecuniary gain. State v. Taylor, 304 N.C. 249, 288-89, 283 S.E.2d 761, 785 (1981), cert. denied, 463 U.S. 1213, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1398, 103 S. Ct. 3552, reh'g denied, 463 U.S. 1249, 77 L. Ed. 2d 1456 (1983). For purposes of determining the sufficiency

[335 NC Page 611]

of the evidence, the evidence must be considered in the light most favorable to the State, and the State is entitled to every reasonable inference to be drawn therefrom. State v. Bonney, 329 N.C. 61, 80, 405 S.E.2d 145, 156 (1991).

The evidence presented at trial tending to show that defendant killed for financial gain includes, but is not limited to, the following: (i) in April of 1986, Reid visited his oldest son, Ray, and stated he had given defendant $10,000 because she was unemployed; (ii) Reid also informed Ray he wanted defendant to receive one-third of his estate should he die; (iii) defendant began telling others she was Reid's fiancee and displayed a family heirloom as an engagement ring; (iv) defendant, during a brief period of improvement in Reid's condition, commented to a nurse that she wanted to take care of Reid's interests and felt his will should be changed naming her as the executrix; (v) defendant contacted an attorney about coming to the hospital to have Reid execute a will; (vi) defendant asked a nurse to recopy a scrap of paper containing notes for the will; (vii) on 2 September 1986, an attorney came to the hospital, reviewed the new will, and executed the will for Reid since, due to his continuing state of paralysis, he was unable to sign his name; (viii) the new will named defendant as the executrix, gave her power of attorney and left her a one-third share of the estate; (ix) after Reid's death, defendant took Reid's sons to the bank to close out his account and told bank personnel that Reid was "doing fine"; (x) defendant told Reid's sons that since she was the executrix of their father's estate, she was entitled to one-third of the insurance proceeds; (xi) each of Reid's sons paid her a portion of their proceeds from the life insurance, representing her alleged one-third share, even though Reid had never changed the beneficiary designation to include her; (xii) Reid's sons later contacted the attorney for the estate and learned they were not obligated to share the insurance proceeds with defendant; (xiii) defendant refused to return the money the boys had shared with her; and (xiv) defendant received $45,384 from the insurance policy plus her distribution from the estate, all as a direct result of Reid's death. In our view, this evidence would permit a rational juror to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Reid's murder was committed for the purpose of pecuniary gain. Cf., e.g., State v. Barfield, 298 N.C. 306, 311-12, 259 S.E.2d 510, 519-20 (1979) (holding that evidence that defendant feared her boyfriend would learn she had forged his name on checks and turn her in to the law was sufficient

[335 NC Page 612]

to support the jury's finding that defendant poisoned her boyfriend for pecuniary gain), cert. denied, 448 U.S. 907, 65 L. Ed. 2d 1137, 100 S. Ct. 3050, reh'g denied, 448 U.S. 918, 65 L. Ed. 2d 1181, 101 S. Ct. 41 (1980). This assignment of error is without merit.

Defendant next contends the trial court erred in submitting to the jury the aggravating circumstance that the murder of Reid was "especially heinous, atrocious or cruel." Defendant asserts that the rationale underlying this Court's decision in State v. Cherry, 298 N.C. 86, 257 S.E.2d 551 (1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 941, 64 L. Ed. 2d 796, 100 S. Ct. 2165 (1980), should be applied. In Cherry we held that in felony-murder cases, the underlying felony could not be submitted as an aggravating circumstance to aggravate a defendant's sentence for first-degree murder. The reasoning of the decision is that the underlying felony becomes an element of the capital murder; and since a defendant convicted of felony murder would always have an aggravating circumstance pending under N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(5), the possibility exists that a defendant convicted of felony murder would be more likely to be sentenced to death than a defendant convicted on the basis of premeditation and deliberation.

In the present case defendant argues that since arsenic has an inherent propensity to inflict a prolonged and painful period of suffering prior to death, the jury should not be allowed to consider the especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance when poison was the method used to murder. At trial defendant did not argue this basis for not submitting the especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel aggravating circumstance and has, therefore, failed to preserve this issue for appeal. See State v. Robbins, 319 N.C. 465, 495-96, 356 S.E.2d 279, 297-98 (holding that where the theory had not been presented to the trial court and was being raised for the first time on appeal, it was not properly before the appellate court), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 918, 98 L. Ed. 2d 226, 108 S. Ct. 269 (1987). Nevertheless, in light of our inherent authority to suspend the rules in order "to prevent manifest inJustice to a party," N.C. R. App. P. 2, we have elected to review defendant's argument.

The holding in Cherry is specifically confined to felony-murder cases and the rationale of the case is not applicable to poisoning deaths. Poisoning is the element of the offense of first-degree murder perpetrated by means of poisoning. N.C.G.S. § 14-17 (1993). The act of poisoning itself makes the killing first-degree murder. Id.

[335 NC Page 613]

The fact that the poison is administered in small doses over an extended period of time thereby causing excruciating and prolonged pain and suffering is not essential to prove the offense. Nor is the type poison chosen, be it a slow acting or fast acting agent, an element of the offense. Accordingly, we decline to extend the holding in Cherry to murder by poisoning.

Having so held, we conclude that this aggravating circumstance was properly submitted.

"While we recognize that every murder is, at least arguably, heinous, atrocious, and cruel, we do not believe that this subsection is intended to apply to every homicide. By using the word 'especially' the legislature indicated that there must be evidence that the brutality involved in the murder in question must exceed that normally present in any killing before the jury would be instructed upon this subsection."

State v. Oliver, 302 N.C. 28, 59, 274 S.E.2d 183, 203 (1981) (quoting State v. Goodman, 298 N.C. 1, 24-26, 257 S.E.2d 569, 585 (1979)). The evidence heretofore summarized depicts a pitiless murder perpetrated over a period of ten months during which the deceased suffered prolonged physical agony including swelling, paralysis, skin splitting, loss of speech, and multiple systems failure necessitating intrusion into his body with tubes and paraphernalia. As defendant stated in her brief, "Reid was subjected to a debilitating, lingering and painful illness before he finally died in North Carolina Baptist Hospital." Based on the evidence in the record before this Court, we are satisfied this aggravating circumstance was properly submitted to the jury. This assignment of error is overruled.

Next, defendant contends the trial court erred by imposing a sentence of death not supported by the evidence. Defendant's argument is based on a contention that one or both of the aggravating circumstances were improperly submitted to the jury. However, as we have noted, the trial court properly submitted the aggravating circumstances that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain and was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. This assignment of error is overruled.

PROPORTIONALITY

Having found no error in defendant's trial and capital sentencing proceeding, we are next required by statute to review the entire record and determine (i) whether the record supports the

[335 NC Page 614]

jury's finding the aggravating circumstances on which the court based its sentence of death; (ii) whether the sentence was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor; and (iii) whether the death sentence is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering both the crime and defendant. N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(d)(2) (1988); State v. McCollum, 334 N.C. 208, 239, 433 S.E.2d 144, 161 (1993); State v. Robbins, 319 N.C. 465, 526, 356 S.E.2d 279, 315, cert. denied, 484 U.S. 918, 98 L. Ed. 2d 226, 108 S. Ct. 269 (1987).

The jury found in aggravation (i) that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain, N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(6), and (ii) that the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel, N.C.G.S. § 15A-2000(e)(9). We have held the evidence supports the jury's finding both of these aggravating circumstances. Having thoroughly reviewed the record, transcripts, and briefs submitted by the parties, we also find nothing to suggest that the sentence of death was imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor.

Finally we must determine "whether the death sentence in this case is excessive or disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases, considering the crime and the defendant." State v. Williams, 308 N.C. 47, 79, 301 S.E.2d 335, 355, cert. denied, 464 U.S. 865, 78 L. Ed. 2d 177, 104 S. Ct. 202, reh'g denied, 464 U.S. 1004, 78 L. Ed. 2d 704, 104 S. Ct. 518 (1983). In conducting this proportionality review, we compare similar cases in a pool consisting of

all cases arising since the effective date of our capital punishment statute, 1 June 1977, which have been tried as capital cases and reviewed on direct appeal by this Court and in which the jury recommended death or life imprisonment or in which the trial court imposed life imprisonment after the jury's failure to agree upon a sentencing recommendation within a reasonable period of time.

Id. Only cases found to be free of error in both the guilt-innocence and penalty phases are included in the pool, but the Court is not bound to give a citation to every case in the pool of similar cases. State v. Syriani, 333 N.C. 350, 400, 428 S.E.2d 118, 146 (1993), cert. denied, U.S. , 126 L. Ed. 2d 341, 114 S. Ct. 392 (1993), reh'g denied, U.S. , 126 L. Ed. 2d 707, 114 S. Ct. 745 (1994).

[335 NC Page 615]

In essence, our task on proportionality review is to compare the case at bar with other cases in the pool which are roughly similar with regard to the crime and the defendant, such as, for example, the manner in which the crime was committed and the defendant's character, background, and physical and mental condition.

State v. McCollum, 334 N.C. 208, 239, 433 S.E.2d 144, 161 (1993) (quoting State v. Lawson, 310 N.C. 632, 648, 314 S.E.2d 493, 503 (1984), cert. denied, 471 U.S. 1120, 86 L. Ed. 2d 267, 105 S. Ct. 2368 (1985)).

When our review reveals that juries have consistently returned death sentences in those similar cases, a strong basis exists for concluding that the death sentence under consideration is not excessive or disproportionate. However, when juries have consistently returned life sentences in the similar cases, a strong basis exists for concluding that the sentence under consideration is excessive or disproportionate. State v. Syriani, 333 N.C. 350, 401, 428 S.E.2d 118, 146.

Significant characteristics of defendant's case include (i) the murder of her fiance which the jury found to be for pecuniary gain; (ii) skillful execution of a systematic plan, requiring advance preparation, to poison the victim repeatedly; (iii) substantial evidence that defendant used the same means and method to murder her first husband and to attempt to murder her second husband; (iv) the conscienceless and pitiless vigil of Reid's indescribable physical agony for the ten months leading to his death which the jury found to be especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel; and (v) knowledge that she, and she alone, could prevent her victim's death.

No statutory mitigating circumstances were submitted to the jury. In mitigation, the jury considered fifteen nonstatutory mitigating circumstances but deemed only three to exist and have mitigating value. These three included (i) upon being informed of the warrant for her arrest, defendant peacefully submitted herself in conformance with her duty; (ii) defendant demonstrated concern and kindness for others in her community; and (iii) defendant provided well for the needs of her children while they were growing up. The value of these mitigating circumstances in assessing defendant's culpability for the crime is minimal.

[335 NC Page 616]

This Court has found the death penalty to be disproportionate on seven occasions.*fn3 Only two of these seven cases involved the "especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel" aggravating circumstance. State v. Stokes, 319 N.C. 1, 352 S.E.2d 653 (1987); State v. Bondurant, 309 N.C. 674, 309 S.E.2d 170 (1983). These two cases are not similar to the instant case. Of the remaining five cases, in only one, State v. Young, 312 N.C. 669, 325 S.E.2d 181 (1985), did the jury find multiple aggravating circumstances. In finding the death sentence in Young to be disproportionate, this Court focused on the jury's failure to find either that the murder was committed as part of a course of conduct which included the commission of violence against another person or persons or that the crime was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. McCollum, 334 N.C. at 241, 433 S.E.2d at 162.

Significant dissimilarities between this case and Stokes include that (i) defendant Stokes was convicted on a felony-murder theory; defendant Moore was convicted of murder by poisoning; (ii) defendant Stokes was seventeen years old; defendant Moore was fifty-three years old; and (iii) in Stokes there was substantial mitigating evidence that defendant suffered from impaired capacity to appreciate the criminality of his conduct and that he was under the influence of a mental or emotional disturbance at the time of the murder; in the present case the jury found no statutory mitigating circumstances and only three nonstatutory mitigating circumstances.

Significant dissimilarities between this case and Bondurant include that (i) the jury in Bondurant found in aggravation of the murder only that the crime was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel; in this case the jury also found that the murder was committed for pecuniary gain; and (ii) defendant Bondurant immediately exhibited remorse and concern for the victim's life by helping him get medical treatment; whereas, defendant Moore showed no sign of remorse or regret as she watched and anticipated the effects of the deadly poison she had administered to the man whom she was engaged to marry. Moreover, the facts in Bondurant

[335 NC Page 617]

"demonstrate that defendant did not coldly calculate the commission of this crime for a long period of time as did the defendant in State v. Barfield, 298 N.C. 306, 259 S.E.2d 510 (1979), cert. denied, 448 U.S. 907, 65 L. Ed. 2d 1137, 100 S. Ct. 3050, reh'g denied, 448 U.S. 918, 65 L. Ed. 2d 1181, 101 S. Ct. 41 (1980)." State v. Bondurant, 309 N.C. at 693, 309 S.E.2d at 182.

The most analogous case for comparison to this case in terms of the crime committed is State v. Barfield, 298 N.C. 306, 259 S.E.2d 510 (1979), cert. denied, 448 U.S. 907, 65 L. Ed. 2d 1137, 100 S. Ct. 3050, reh'g denied, 448 U.S. 918, 65 L. Ed. 2d 1181, 101 S. Ct. 41 (1980).*fn4 In Barfield, the defendant, a middle-aged woman, poisoned her boyfriend, Stewart Taylor, by placing arsenic in his tea and beer out of fear he would "turn her in" to law enforcement officials for forging checks to herself on his checking account. Evidence was introduced showing that Barfield also poisoned others to death. In aggravation, the jury found that (i) the murder of Stewart Taylor was committed for pecuniary gain; (ii) the murder of Stewart Taylor was committed to hinder the enforcement of the law; and (iii) the murder was especially heinous, atrocious, or cruel. During defendant Moore's sentencing hearing, the jury found two of these same aggravating circumstances to exist. In Barfield, the jury rejected the two statutory mitigating circumstances that (i) the murder was committed while Barfield was under the influence of mental or emotional disturbance; and (ii) Barfield's capacity to appreciate the criminality of her conduct or to conform her conduct to the requirements of the law was impaired. In defendant Moore's sentencing hearing, no statutory mitigating circumstances were even submitted to the jury. The jury found only three nonstatutory mitigating circumstances with minimal mitigating effect.

In reviewing Barfield, this Court stated:

The manner in which death was inflicted and the way in which defendant conducted herself after she administered the poison to Taylor leads us to conclude that the sentence of death is not excessive or disproportionate considering both the crime and the defendant.

{PA}

Page 618} State v. Barfield, 298 N.C. at 355, 259 S.E.2d at 544. From our comparison of this holding with the instant case, we, likewise, cannot say that the death sentence given defendant Moore was excessive or disproportionate, considering both the crimes and the defendant.

V. CONCLUSION

We hold that defendant received a fair trial and sentencing proceeding, free from prejudicial error. The death sentence was not imposed under the influence of passion, prejudice, or any other arbitrary factor. The death sentence imposed is not disproportionate to the penalty imposed in similar cases.

Blanche and James Taylor with their daughter Vanessa, 1954.

Blanche Taylor Moore

Blanche Taylor Moore

Blanche Taylor Moore

Blanche Taylor Moore

Blanche Taylor Moore

Blanche Taylor Moore

 

[b2ux]

Vitaline Morandini Monster of Rillington Place


MORANDINI Vitaline

... ... ... 10
Monster of Portoglio 1955 1956 Portoglio

NO OTHER INFORMATION GIVEN ////

 

[b2ux]

Sarah Jane Robinson



Sarah Jane Robinson, Massachusetts Serial Killer - 1886
Summerville, Mass., Aug. 12.—Mrs. Sarah Jane Robinson is held to bail here on the charge of poisoning her husband and son, and nine other deaths from similar causes are laid at her door. All the parties referred to, it is said, were insured in such a way that Mrs. Robinson was benefitted directly or indirectly by their death. Mrs. Robinson’s son William, who died this morning, suffered terribly from convulsions in his last hours. The symptoms seemed to be those of poisoning, but the analysis of the boy’s stomach has not yet been completed. Mrs. Robinson seemed completely broken down mentally and physically when she was brought before the police court to-day with her alleged accomplice, Thomas R. Smith. Both the prisoners pleaded not guilty to the charge of administering poison in medicine to William J. Robinson with intent to kill. They were held for trial on the 18th inst. Mrs. Robinson’s bail is fixed at $25,000, and Smith’s at $3,000. Neither has obtained the required security, and they remain in jail.

The developments connected with the arrest of Mrs. Sarah Jane Robinson, for poisoning, have created a feeling of horror aiming those conversant with the facts, and the deeper the investigation by the police and the press, the more terrible the affair appears.

The actions of Mrs. Robinson are considered suspicious. Yesterday noon before her arrest she fainted apparently and straightened out rigidly, as though dead. It is thought she will plead insanity. The eleven persons supposed to have been victims of Mrs. Robinson include her children and the children of parents who left them in her care, and some of those parents. In one case, that of James Freeman, it is alleged that she poisoned Freeman, who had his life insured for $2,000. Mr. Robinson died suddenly four years ago. It was said that he was killed by drinking ice water while overheated. The insurance company contested the case, and it is still in the courts.

Mrs. Robinson is also said to have moved frequently from place to place to avoid paying rent. The body of her daughter who died two years ago, will be exhumed. The police are making a thorough investigation.

[“The Awful Crime Of One Woman. - Eleven Victims, Her Husband And Children Among The Number, Put To Death—The Infatuation Of Insurance Money The Origin Of Her Peculiar Mania.” Chariton Herald (Io.), Aug. 19, 1886

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