Léon’s great aunt’s body (86-years-old) contained 35 mg of arsenic.
Léon’s great aunt’s body (92-years-old) contained traces of arsenic.
Marie-Louise Davaillaud’s body contained 48 mg of arsenic
Marie was charged with thirteen counts of murder. Her trial began in February of 1952. Marie, being an extremely wealthy woman, hired the best legal team of French lawyers money could buy. Marie’s team of lawyers demanded new tests to confirm that all of the victims had been slain with arsenic, which was central to the prosecution’s case. The prosecution had difficulty in defending the results of their exhumation examinations against the battery of highly paid experts the defense team produced. Even though witnesses testified of her attempts to threaten and murder witnesses and female acquaintances testified that Marie had said, “Arsenic was a better alternative to divorce”, the trial ended in a mistrial. The judges ordered new tests to be performed. Marie remained in prison in "preventative detention" until the next trial.
A second trial was held in March of 1954. This time around, Marie was only charged with six murders, as the physical evidence of five of the bodies had deteriorated to such an extent that no reliable tests could be performed on them. This case also led to a mistrial, as none of the forensic experts could agree on their findings. This time, Marie was released on bail.
The third trial took place seven years later on November 20, 1961. At this trial, the prosecution again charged Marie with thirteen murders. In this trial, Marie’s brilliant defense team had learned that the cemetery grounds where the bodies had been buried were fertilized with a product containing arsenic. This evidence meant that the prosecutor and his team would have to prove that the arsenic in the corpses had not been introduced after burial, an impossible task at that time.
Marie Besnard, despite arsenic having been found in thirteen bodies whose deaths enhanced her wealth, her attempts to threaten and murder witnesses, and female acquaintances relating during the trial that Marie had said, “Arsenic was a better alternative to divorce”, was acquitted on December 12, 1961.
Marie Besnard died in 1980 and is unlikely to have uttered the words, “crime doesn’t pay”.
NANNIE DOSS
The Giggling Granny
Nannie Doss was born Nancy Hazle on Nov. 4, 1905, in Blue Mountain, Alabama, to poor farming parents James Hazle and his wife Lou. She soon became known as Nannie after her birth. Nannie was the eldest of five siblings; she had three sisters and one brother. James Hazle, her father, was a farmer and a control freak; the children and their mother lived in fear of him.
Life was hard and by the age of five, Nannie had learned to cut wood, plough the fields, dig the farm free of weeds, scrub pots and pans, and clean the house. School was, despite the two-mile walk, almost a treat from the drudgery of the farm, but her schooling was far from regular because if her father needed her help on the farm that was his first priority. Consequently, Nannie never learned to read or write particularly well, and her education stopped entirely after the sixth grade.
An event, that Nannie later claimed had an enormous impact on her life, happened when she was seven. On her first ever trip away from the farm, and her first train ride to visit family in the south of Alabama, the train suddenly braked. Nannie, propelled out of her seat, smashed her head against a metal bar. In an interview many years later with Life magazine, she claimed that from that point on she suffered from blackouts, severe headaches, and depression.
While her father was an abusive dictator, Nannies’ mother Lou was a gentle, caring woman. To escape the hardship of her life, Lou subscribed to various romantic story magazines and as Nannie slipped into her teenage years she would devour her mother’s magazines. Nannie would sit and daydream of the day when she would be swept off her feet by a tall, dark, handsome stranger and whisked away into the sunset.
Nannie’s and her sister’s teenage years became an extension of their miserable years as children. Their father forbade them from having friends, wearing makeup, or dressing prettily. While the other teenagers in the hamlet were out enjoying barn dances, church organized social events, or sitting in the local coffee bars, the Hazle sisters sat miserably at home.
Nannie, in 1921 at the age of sixteen, began work in a linen factory and spent any spare money on romance stories. This is also when she first began having social interaction with boys. The boys took to her: her hair and eyes were dark, her giggle infectious, and she gave them want they wanted: sex.
A handsome, curly-haired boy, Charley Braggs, in particular liked Nannie and they soon began dating. Charley even met the approval of Dictator James. James approved of Charley because of the way he cared for his mother; to him it showed decent old-fashioned respect for ones elders. Within four months of beginning to date, Nannie and Charley were married. For Nannie, who may have seen the marriage as an escape route from her father, now had to contend with her over-ruling, manipulative mother-in law and a husband who turned out to be an abusive, womanizing drunk.
Nannie’s and Charley’s first child was born in 1923. This birth was quickly followed by three more. Nannies’ dreams of love and romance seemed a long way away. Her life was as full of drudgery as her childhood had been. Nannie began drinking and smoking heavily and when Charley was out, she, too, took to going to the local bars and having her own adulterous affairs.
In 1927, Nannie and Charley’s two middle children died from what doctors said was food poisoning. Charley was suspicious as to who had poisoned the food. He left the house and town with their oldest daughter Melvina. Nannie was left alone with her hated mother-in-law, her youngest child Florine, and the insurance money from the deaths of her two children. Shortly after Charley had left her, the dreaded mother-in-law died. A year later, in late summer 1928, Charley returned home with a new girlfriend and Melvina; he wanted a divorce. Nannie moved back to her parent’s home with her daughters Melvina and Florine.
Yet again Nannie was under the roof of her dictator father. In the evenings, Nannie and her mother would bury their heads in their romance magazines but then Nannie began going through the section entitled lonely hearts and began to answer the advertisements. Maybe here she would find her life of romance.
She heard back from a Frank Harrelson, a factory worker, who lived in nearby Jacksonville. The black and white photo he sent Nannie reminded her of Clark Gable. In return, Nannie baked him a cake and had it delivered to him along with an alluring photo of herself. They agreed to meet and before long, Frank proposed marriage and Nannie happily accepted. In 1929 they married, and Nannie and her two daughters left her parents’ house and moved in with Frank in Jacksonville.
The honeymoon period for Nannie did not last long. Her tall, good-looking husband turned out to be a drunk, whose favorite occupation seemed to be engaging in bar brawls for which he had once been jailed. Despite her disappointment in her husband, she stayed and suffered his drunken abuse of her.
Melvina and Florian grew up in this dysfunctional home and both eventually married. In 1943, Melvina had a son, and Nannie became a grandma. In 1945, Melvina had another child. This time her labor was long and hard, and she sent her husband Mosie Haynes to fetch Nannie to be at her side. Nannie behaved as an exemplary mother; she sat all night by her bedside mopping Melvina’s sweating brow. Finally, Melvina gave birth to a baby girl. An hour later, the baby had died. The doctors were puzzled and could not account for the baby’s death.
For the distraught Melvina, as if losing her baby was not enough, she was troubled by what she wasn’t sure was a nightmare or real. As she had drifted in and out of sleep after giving birth, she thought she saw her mother stick a pin into the baby’s tender head. When she told her younger sister Florian and her husband Moses her ‘dream’, they exclaimed in unison that they had seen Nannie playing with a pin in her hands while she had sat at Melvina’s bedside. However, the idea of Nannie causing the death of the baby was far too shocking for any of them to consider taking it seriously.
On July 7, 1945, Nannie babysat for Melvina’s son Robert. That night, Robert died. The family doctor cited asphyxia from undisclosed causes. Nannie collected $500 on the boy’s life insurance policy that she had recently taken out without her daughter’s knowledge. Nannie acted as the heartbroken granny sobbing and wailing as the tiny coffin was silently lowered into the grave.
In August of 1945, the Second World War ended and on September 15, 1945, Frank went out drinking and celebrating with friends of his who had returned home. That night when he returned home, he abused and raped Nannie. She`d had enough. The following evening after supper and a dessert of prunes, thirty-eight -year-old Frank died in excruciating pain.
For a while after the death of Frank, not much is known of Nannie. It’s thought that she journeyed around the United States for a while before turning up in 1947 in North Carolina. She had answered a lonely-hearts advertisement placed by Arlie Lanning, a laborer. Nannie and Arlie married just two days after the meeting. It was to be another disappointment for the romance-seeking widow. Arlie, like her last husband Frank, was also a drunk, although not an abusive one; he was also a womanizer and had a poor reputation in the town. Whenever Arlie went on a drinking binge Nannie would pack her suitcases and leave, telling neighbors she was off to visit relatives; sometimes she would be gone for months.
Nannie was popular in Lexington. Her friends and neighbors saw her as a perfect wife. From her kitchen there was always a delightful smell of baking, and the house and garden were always spick and span. She still enjoyed reading her romantic stories but now her favorite occupation was watching television and smoking her favorite cigarettes, Camel. Nannie was also a regular churchgoer and helped organize church social events. Many of her acquaintances felt sorry for Nannie for having such a drunk, womanizer for a husband, and the only reason Arlie was tolerated at social events was because of the cheerful, kind-hearted Nannie. In February of 1950, Arlie suddenly became ill with dizziness, sweating, and vomiting. He died two days later in excruciating pain. Given his lifestyle, no one was surprised, and an autopsy was not performed.
At the funeral, Nannie epitomized the heart-broken widow explaining to her neighbors through tears that:
Arlie left his house to his sister, but it burned down before she could claim it. The television, however, was saved as while the house was burning down, Nannie was on her way to the television repair shop. Nannie moved in with Arlie’s mother. The elderly mother passed away in her sleep while in Nannie’s care. When the check from the insurance company arrived for the burnt house, as Arlie’s widow, Nannie was able to claim it. With the check in hand and the television on the backseat of her car, Nannie left Lexington never to return.
She made her way to her sister Dovie. Her sister was bedridden with cancer and with Nannie’s arrival, her condition soon worsened. Dovie died on June 30th in her sleep.
With her sister dead, Nannie settled into her house, set about perusing her ads again, and discovered the Diamond Circle Club. This singles club cost $15 a year in membership. All members received a monthly newsletter with the newest members added monthly. Through this club, she made contact with a recently retired businessman, Richard Morton, from Emporia, Kansas. He fit Nannie’s romantic dream: he was a tall, dark, handsome, half American Indian, with piercing eyes. While he dated her, he bought her presents of jewelry and other trinkets as well as clothes. Nannie and Richard married in October of 1952, and she moved into his house in Emporia. Nannie’s romantic dream was soon shattered.
Richard Morton was not a drunkard like her previous two husbands, but he was a liar. He was swimming in debt and, to make matters worse, he was also a womanizer and had a long-standing girlfriend he wasn`t going to give up. Nannie realized she had made a colossal mistake but not as deadly a mistake as Richard had. Nannie realized he had to go. Then her mother Lou showed up.
Nannie’s father James had died, and her elderly mother invited herself to visit Nannie. Within a short time of arriving at Nannie’s and Richard’s house, Lou complained of severe stomach cramps and died in January of 1953. Three months after her mother died, Richard, also complaining of severe stomach pains, died.
And no one – doctors, family, friends, or neighbors – asked questions.
As soon as Nannie had realized her mistake in marrying Richard, she had begun her perusal of the lonely-hearts ad columns again. Two months before Richard’s death, she began a pen pal correspondence with fifty nine -year-old Samuel Doss from Tulsa, Oklahoma. With Richard in the ground and the insurance check in the bank, Nannie traveled to Tulsa. Samuel Doss, on meeting Nannie, fell deeply in love and immediately proposed to Nannie. To Samuel, Nannie seemed to be homely, cheerful, and an accomplished cook. They married in June of 1953.
Nannie was attracted to Samuel, as he seemed so different from all of her previous husbands. He had a steady job as a state highway inspector. He didn’t drink or womanize. He was a straight, church going conservative man. His flaw, as Nannie discovered, was that he was seriously set in his ways. Bedtime was at 9.30 pm; he did not approve of Nanny’s romance stories, viewing them as a painful waste of money. He disapproved of her television viewing and kept tight control of the household spending. Nannie found him frustratingly tedious and irritating remarkably quickly. She persuaded Samuel to take out two life insurance policies.
In September, after a well-cooked supper by his wife, Samuel complained of stomach pains and called in his doctor. The doctor admitted Samuel to the hospital and diagnosed him with a serious digestive infection. They kept him for twenty-three days before releasing him on October 5th. For his first supper home, Nannie cooked a delicious roast pork dinner followed by her specialty of stewed prune dessert. Before midnight, Samuel was dead.
Samuel’s doctor was aghast and spoke to Dr. Schwelbein, the doctor who had examined Samuel prior to releasing him from the hospital. They concluded his death did not make any sense, and an autopsy was ordered. The pathologist performing the autopsy discovered enough arsenic in Samuel’s body to kill twelve horses.
Nannie was the immediate suspect and promptly arrested. The police were astounded by her reaction to being arrested: she giggled and she continued to giggle throughout her police interrogations. In between her giggles, Nannie admitted to murdering four husbands, her sister, her mother, her grandson, and Arlie’s mother.
It was not long before the media nicknamed her "The Giggling Granny" and "The Jolly Widow”.
Groups of psychiatrists were called in to examine her; their conclusion was that she was mentally sane. Her trial was set for June 2nd, 1955, in the Criminal Court of Tulsa, Oklahoma. On May 17th, she pleaded guilty to the murder of Samuel Doss, the only murder that had taken place in Oklahoma. Judge Elmer Adams, after a brief hearing, sentenced her to life imprisonment.
The case made great media copy as the public were baffled and intrigued as to how this overweight, short sighted, graying, motherly looking figure could have killed so many for so long. Nannie loved the media attention and would pose smiling and giggling for photographs and gave lengthy interviews, when allowed, as if a movie star.
Nannie died in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary of leukemia on June 2, 1965.
MARY ELIZABETH WILSON
The Merry Widow of Windy Nook
Mary Elizabeth Wilson was born in Hebburn, South Tyneside, England in 1893. As a teenager, she got a job in service with the Knowles family. She cultivated a friendship with the son, John Knowles, and married him in 1912.
Mary and John moved to a house in Windy Nook, Gateshead. At some point in the marriage, Mary began an affair with a John Russell who eventually moved in to the house with them as a lodger. In 1955, John Knowles, after forty-three years of marriage, died. Five months after her husband’s death, Mary married her lover John Russell. In early 1957, John died. The local doctor attributed both husbands’ deaths to natural causes. In both cases, Mary inherited everything.
In June of 1957 at the age of sixty-four, Mary
married wealthy Oliver Leonard, an estate agent, in a registry office in Jarrow. Twelve days after the marriage, Oliver became ill and died the following day. The local doctor pronounced heart failure as the cause. Mary again inherited everything.
Mary then married husband number four, Ernest Wilson, another wealthy man. At the wedding reception, Mary joked to her friends that the left over cakes could be saved and used at the funeral. Just a few days after the wedding, Ernest became sick and died. The doctor attributed the death to "Cardiac Failure”. During Ernest’s funeral, Mary joked to the undertaker that with the amount of trade she had given to him she should have a discount. Her morbid humor and general cheerful demeanor gave rise to gossip and the nickname the ‘Merry Widow of Windy Nook’.
The local constabulary became suspicious, as Mary seemed to be chalking up a lot of dead husbands. The police ordered the exhumations of the bodies of Oliver and Ernest. The pathologist concluded that phosphorous poisoning, a toxic condition caused by ingesting white or yellow phosphorus, occasionally found in rat poisons and certain fertilizers, had killed both men.
Mary was arrested and charged with two murders. Her defense was that both Oliver and Ernest took sexual stimulation pills that contained phosphorous. The jury was not convinced and found Mary guilty of murder. The judge sentenced her to death. Because of her age, her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in London’s Holloway women’s prison. She died there four years later at the age of seventy.
The bodies of her earlier two husbands, John Knowles and John Russell, were also exhumed, and the pathologist reached the same conclusion: that of phosphorous poisoning. However, it was considered pointless to have a second trial.
RHONDA BELL MARTIN
A plot full of poison.
Women Serial Killers of the 20th Century Page 6
