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It’s often said that poison is among the most horrific means of taking someone’s life. The victim endures a slow, agonizing demise that can drag on for hours, days, or even weeks.
Though it may be effective and exceptionally cruel, poison lacks the kind of dramatic flair that typically captivates the public’s eye. Crime enthusiasts prefer a complex murder plot or a gory crime scene. Poison doesn’t offer us such blood-pumping drama; instead, it sends a cold shiver down our spines.
For this reason, the cold-hearted killers we’re about to explore have almost faded into obscurity.
10. Louisa Collins – The ‘Borgia Of Botany’
Louisa Collins holds the dubious distinction of being the final woman hanged in New South Wales, Australia, in 1889. She wed Charles Andrews at a young age, and together with their seven children, they resided in a house in Botany, which is now a part of Sydney.
The family had a bit of extra space and occasionally took in boarders to supplement their income. Soon, rumors began circulating that Louisa was perhaps a bit too friendly with some of the male boarders. Her affair with Michael Collins, in particular, was uncovered by her husband.
Charles quickly expelled Michael from their home. However, not long after, Charles fell ill and passed away within a week. Louisa didn’t waste time; just three months following Charles’s death, she married Michael Collins.
The new marriage didn’t last. Within months, Michael also fell ill and passed away shortly thereafter with symptoms eerily similar to those of her first husband. The unusual nature of the situation prompted an autopsy, which determined that Michael had succumbed to arsenic poisoning.
Louisa was promptly charged with the crime, but it took two years and four separate juries before she was ultimately convicted. Known as the 'Borgia of Botany' by the press, her conviction came after her daughter’s testimony, in which she revealed that Louisa had purchased an arsenic-based poison called Rough On Rats.
9. Elisabeth Wiese – The ‘Angel-Maker Of St. Pauli’
Some of history’s most despicable murderers were involved in the grim practice of baby farming. Women would take in unwanted children, usually infants, for a lump sum or periodic payments. However, especially with one-time payments, there was little motivation for the women to provide proper, long-term care for the children.
Often, the most 'practical' solution was simply to kill the children and find new clients. Since the parents had no interest in their children, they rarely checked in on them. This allowed killers like the Finchley baby farmers and Amelia Dyer to murder dozens, even hundreds, of children before being apprehended.
Elisabeth Wiese, a far more obscure figure, earned the grim title of 'angel-maker of St. Pauli' after the Hamburg district where she carried out her murderous activities. She had already served time for attempting to kill her husband.
After her release, Wiese embarked on a profitable baby farming operation. She took in children from wealthy families seeking to avoid scandal, promising to find new homes for these children.
Instead, she murdered the babies using morphine and disposed of their bodies in the kitchen stove. At one point, she even coerced her daughter, Paula, into prostitution and killed Paula's baby after she became pregnant.
Eventually, police grew suspicious of Wiese’s shady business and gathered enough evidence, including Paula’s testimony, to convict her. Wiese was executed by beheading in 1905.
8. Adolf Seefeld – ‘Onkel Tick Tack’
The full scope of Adolf Seefeld’s crimes remains unclear. Active during 1930s Germany, he targeted young boys, and the Nazi Party utilized his case as anti-homosexual propaganda. Details of his life are sparse, as he worked as a traveling watchmaker, constantly moving from town to town.
Some accounts suggest Seefeld committed his first murder in 1908 but managed to evade conviction. Most of his adult life was spent in prison for various charges, primarily involving child molestation.
When arrested in 1935 for murder, Seefeld was convicted of poisoning 12 boys with a homemade poison and burying their bodies in the woods. Some estimates place his true victim count around 30 or possibly higher.
Seefeld’s trial became a major victory for the Nazi Party in their campaign to label homosexuals as 'enemies of the state.' The media dubbed him 'Uncle Tic Toc' due to his profession. Many reports echoed Nazi rhetoric, claiming that such 'perverse tendencies' often led to murder, and it would be better to neutralize such 'beasts' before they could cause harm.
7. Caroline Grills – 'Aunt Thally'
At first glance, Caroline Grills ('Auntie Carrie' to her family) appeared to be your average sweet old lady. Petite, with a warm smile and thick glasses, her greatest joy in life seemed to be serving tea and biscuits. However, unbeknownst to her guests, that tea was often spiked with thallium, a commonly used rat poison.
By the time she was charged in 1953 for the attempted murder of her sister-in-law, Eveline Lundberg, and Lundberg’s daughter, Auntie Carrie was already a grandmother in her sixties. Both women displayed symptoms of thallium poisoning, as did another family member, John Downey, who alerted the authorities.
Investigators uncovered a string of suspicious deaths in Grills’s family, beginning with her stepmother in 1947. Over the next two years, her husband’s brother-in-law, a cousin, and a family friend all died. While two had been cremated, authorities managed to exhume the other two and discovered traces of thallium.
In the end, Grills was only convicted of one attempted murder and sentenced to life in prison. While incarcerated, she earned the nickname 'Aunt Thally' due to her affinity for the poison that sealed her fate.
6. Daisy de Melker – The Plumber’s Wife
In 1923, Daisy de Melker led a quiet life in Johannesburg, South Africa, alongside her husband, William Cowle, and their only surviving son, Rhodes Cecil. One day, Cowle fell ill, and his wife administered some Epsom salts to him.
However, rather than recovering, Cowle’s health continued to decline until he passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage. Although he was a plumber by trade, Cowle left behind a considerable inheritance, which was passed on to his wife of 14 years, Daisy.
A few years later, Daisy married another plumber, Robert Sproat. This marriage, however, was much shorter. In November 1927, Robert also died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Despite his death being eerily similar to that of William Cowle, both were ruled as natural causes, and Daisy once again inherited his money.
In 1931, Daisy de Melker married her third plumber, Sydney Clarence. A year later, another tragic event occurred in her family, but this time it wasn’t her husband—it was her 20-year-old son, Rhodes.
Three suspicious deaths within eight years were enough to raise suspicions with the police, and it didn’t take long to link Daisy to the crimes. All three victims had traces of strychnine in their bodies, and purchases of the poison led back to her.
Ultimately, Daisy de Melker was convicted only for the murder of her son. She was executed by hanging in 1932.
5. Bertha Gifford – The Angel Of Death
Widely regarded as a kind-hearted housewife, Bertha Gifford was known for visiting her ill relatives and neighbors in Catawissa, Missouri, to tend to them. However, too many of her patients failed to recover. In fact, her frequent failures to help led to her arrest in 1928 after a killing spree that had gone on for as long as three decades.
It’s unclear exactly how many people Bertha Gifford killed. She was formally charged with three murders, named in six additional cases, and suspected of causing the deaths of up to 17 individuals. Gifford admitted to killing 48-year-old Edward Brinley and two young brothers, Elmer and Lloyd Shamel, aged seven and eight.
Gifford claimed she poisoned them with arsenic to relieve their suffering, as all of them had been experiencing severe stomachaches. However, George Shamel, the boys’ father, testified that both children had been perfectly fine before visiting the Giffords.
Bertha seemed to have no particular preference when it came to her victims. Her oldest was 72 years old, while her youngest was just 15 months old. Although it was never conclusively proven, it was strongly suspected that her first victim was her first husband, Henry Graham. Despite her confession, Bertha was declared not guilty by reason of insanity and spent the remainder of her life at Farmington State Hospital.
4. Robert BuchananThe Morphine Murderer
Originally from Nova Scotia, Dr. Robert Buchanan began practicing medicine in New York in 1886. His first marriage ended due to his fondness for women and alcohol. He then married Anna Sutherland, a former brothel madam, who was 20 years his senior. However, Anna had built a substantial fortune.
As Buchanan's social standing increased, he became increasingly ashamed of his wife but was still deeply attached to her wealth. When Anna threatened to disinherit him, Buchanan saw a clear solution—she had to die. Shortly afterward, Anna became ill and passed away just days later. The coroner attributed her death to a brain hemorrhage, and Buchanan inherited $50,000.
By sheer coincidence, a reporter named Ike White learned about Anna Sutherland’s death while at the coroner's office. White reached out to Anna's former partner, who convinced him that Buchanan was indeed the murderer.
White attempted to persuade the coroner handling Sutherland’s case that Anna had been poisoned with morphine. However, the coroner dismissed the claim due to the absence of the typical pinpoint pupils associated with morphine poisoning.
At one point, during the investigation, a witness recalled Buchanan criticizing Carlyle Harris, another known morphine poisoner, calling him a “stupid amateur” for not knowing how to eliminate the telltale pinpoint pupils. This prompted White to explore ways of masking this symptom and he deduced that administering a few drops of atropine prior to death would suffice.
Through a determined newspaper campaign, White succeeded in persuading the New York coroner to exhume Anna Sutherland’s body for a second autopsy. This time, the cause of death was unmistakably determined to be a morphine overdose. Buchanan was subsequently convicted and executed in 1895.
3. Antoine DesruesThe Ghastly Grocer
Although largely forgotten today, the name Antoine Desrues (also spelled Derues) once became notorious in mid-18th century Paris, earning a significant amount of infamy as a highly publicized case.
The de Lamotte couple was seeking to sell their estate at Buisson-Souef and relocate to Paris to secure a position for their son at the king’s court. When they first encountered Desrues, he introduced himself as a potential buyer, Mr. Desrues de Cyrano de Bury, lord of Candeville. He claimed his wife was from the prestigious Nicolai family and was on the verge of receiving a considerable 250,000 livres inheritance.
In reality, Desrues was a broke grocer already drowning in debt. Despite this, he presented himself convincingly as an aristocrat, easily persuading the de Lamottes with his charm. Even after he failed to make his initial payment, he managed to convince them that delays in receiving his wife’s inheritance were to blame, caused by a sluggish lawyer.
Eventually, Mrs. de Lamotte and her son traveled to Paris to collect the funds. Desrues then devised a plan to secure the estate permanently. He planned to use borrowed money to stage a fake payment and claim that Mrs. de Lamotte had run off with the money and a lover, while her son had gone off to Versailles.
For the plan to succeed, both Mrs. de Lamotte and her son needed to disappear. In the following weeks, both mysteriously fell ill and died while under Desrues' care.
At first, Desrues' deception worked, and many believed that Mrs. de Lamotte had simply run away. However, her husband did not share this belief. It wasn't until Desrues attempted to evict Mr. de Lamotte from Buisson-Souef that the grocer's true nature was revealed.
Mr. de Lamotte came to Paris and used his connections to launch an investigation. The case ended when the police discovered the wife’s body buried in the cellar of a property rented by Desrues under a false name. The man who had once posed as an aristocrat was executed by being broken on the wheel and burned alive.
2. Valorous P. CoolidgeThe Waterville Poisoner
Dr. Valorous P. Coolidge had a well-established medical practice in Waterville, Maine, in the mid-1800s. Despite his professional success, he led a life constantly overshadowed by financial instability, often finding himself deeply in debt.
In 1847, Coolidge owed $2,500 to a cattle dealer named Edward Mathews. On September 29, Mathews visited Coolidge and unsuspectingly drank a brandy spiked with prussic acid, now known as hydrogen cyanide. The next day, his body was found in an empty cellar, bearing several head wounds and a missing wallet.
Coolidge was interviewed as a witness since it was known that Mathews had visited his office. However, it seemed that Coolidge's attempt to make the death appear as a robbery gone wrong was successful, as local investigators permitted him to perform the autopsy on the victim's body himself.
During the autopsy, Coolidge determined that the head injuries could have been fatal, though he couldn't say for certain. His main objective, however, was to dispose of the stomach contents. He had them removed from the room due to the overpowering smell of brandy, later claiming that the contents had been exposed too long to provide useful data.
Despite Coolidge's efforts, someone sent the stomach contents to Professor Loomis for further examination. Loomis quickly identified traces of prussic acid. Upon further investigation, he found that the head wounds had been inflicted after death, a detail that Coolidge would have been aware of.
The doctor quickly became the leading suspect in the case. He took his own life in jail before facing conviction.
1. Lydia Sherman ‘The Derby Poisoner’
In 1872, Lydia Sherman, a Connecticut woman, faced charges of poisoning her third husband, Horatio Sherman. Strangely, she claimed his death was an accident, insisting that she never meant to kill him, but rather, her focus was on poisoning his children (as well as all her prior victims).
Lydia Sherman adhered to a straightforward philosophy: whenever a problem arose, arsenic was the solution. Her first husband, Edward Struck, a former New York police officer, lost his job and became deeply depressed. Lydia, fearing the loss of income and her husband's worsening state, solved the issue with a life insurance policy and poisoned his food with rat poison.
Together, Lydia and Edward had five children—three young ones and two teenagers from his previous marriage. The youngest were the first to be eliminated as they were seen as a bigger burden. Still grappling with financial struggles, Lydia then killed the older two children before moving to Connecticut in search of a new husband.
In 1868, she married Dennis Hurlburt, an elderly farmer. Their marriage, however, was unhappy, prompting Lydia to once again use the combination of life insurance and rat poison in 1870. She later married Horatio Sherman in Derby, Connecticut. Recently widowed, Sherman had two young children, and Lydia, not fond of them, poisoned both of them.
After the sudden deaths of his children, Sherman turned to alcohol, drinking heavily. Lydia claimed that it was in this drunken state that he mistakenly poisoned himself by adding poison to his cider, thinking it was sodium bicarbonate. Ultimately, Lydia Sherman was sentenced to life in prison, convicted of the one murder she denied being involved in.
