She Devils Around the World

by Sylvia Perrini

  She was found with a scarf wrapped loosely around her neck. This time, the doctor refused to sign Suzanne’s death certificate. The police and their official surgeon, who were convinced the deaths were from natural causes, overruled him. The “curious incidents” continued.

  Another niece, Germaine, died after three “fits”, the first two of which were interrupted by visiting friends. Marcel Weber, Jeanne’s own son, at the age of seven, died just four days later, and the telltale marks of strangulation were either ignored or not noticed. Then Maurice Weber, a nephew, was left with Jeanne while his mother went shopping. When his mother returned earlier than expected, she found her one-year-old son blue and having a choking fit. Jeanne was hovering over him with a demented look on her face. He was rushed to the hospital.

  This time, the police were called in. The infant corpses were all exhumed but by now no marks were discernible. Jeanne was charged with eight murders and was defended by a top lawyer, Henri-Robert, who obtained an acquittal helped by the police surgeon who refused to go back on his original opinion.

  Once free, Jeanne vanished only to emerge in April of 1907. Auguste Bavouzet, at the age of nine, died of strangulation in his home in Central France. His sister, who disliked their new housekeeper, Madame Moulinet, checked her belongings. In Madame’s bags, she found press clippings and letters: Madame Moulinet was Jeanne Weber.

  Again, Jeanne was tried and once again hired Henri-Robert and was acquitted.

  In May of 1908, a ‘Madame Bouchery’ took a room in an inn in northern France. Could young Marcel, the innkeeper’s seven-year-old son, stay in her room overnight “for company?” The child’s screams brought his father running, but he was too late. The father had to hit Madame Bouchery hard, three times in the face, to get her to release the lifeless boy. The police appeared, Madame Bouchery was searched, and it was ascertained that she was Jeanne Weber. She had recently been fired as Madame Bouchery from a children’s home where she had been found strangling a sick child.

  In 1908, Jeanne was declared a suitable case for closed confinement in an asylum. She died in 1910, foaming at the mouth, and clutching wildly at her own throat.

  MANETTE BONHOURT

  The French Revolution saw thousands of men and women publicly executed. The majority of those guillotined were supposedly for political reasons.

  Manette Bonhourt, also widely referred to as “La Fille Bonhourt,” committed crimes that were not political; she was a female serial killer. Manette was attractive, young, and blonde. She had been deeply in love with a young man to whom she gave herself freely. When he jilted her, she developed a murderous hatred of men. She began dressing in men’s evening attire, but not for concealing her sex, and frequented the numerous clubs and bars of fashionable Paris. The men of the city were fascinated by her.

  Manette would invite whatever man took her fancy (or maybe hatred) back to a hotel room that had been booked in advance. Here, she would ply him with more alcohol that she had mixed with a sedative. When the man became unconscious, Manette, with one blow from a hammer, would bludgeon his skull. Manette would then slip quietly unnoticed from the hotel.

  The Parisian authorities were mystified, as they seemed to be random killings with no purpose. As an investigation was launched, they began to hear stories of a beautiful, young woman dressed in male attire seen leaving the clubs and bars with men who were later found murdered in various hotel rooms around the city. Undercover police were sent out to the bars and clubs to try to discover who she was. It did not take long for one undercover detective to locate her. Pretending to be thoroughly drunk, he accepted Manette’s invitation to join her in her hotel room. After one glass of her doctored wine, he realized her game and pretended to pass out.

  As she came at him with her hammer, he jumped up and disarmed her. Manette was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death by the guillotine.

  On the 16th of May, 1808, Manette submitted demurely to having her hands strapped together behind her back and her long blonde hair cut off completely. Before vast crowds, she was guillotined - her last words to her executioner Henri Sanson were, “Don't you think it's a pity to cut off a head as beautiful as mine?” Whatever Henri Sanson thought, he completed the execution before holding up her head to the crowd of onlookers.

  HÉLÈNE JEGADO

  Hélène Jégado was born in 1803 on a little farm near the village of Lorient in Brittany, France. When she was just seven years old, her mother died. She then went to live with two aunts who worked in service at the rectory of Bubry. She was an illiterate peasant girl.

  Hélène and an aunt moved from the rectory at Bubry to the town of Séglien. Here, Hélène secured a job as a cook for the local curate. At this job, she was accused of adding hemp from his grain house into his soup.

  It is suspected that her first poisoning happened in the village of Guern, in 1833, where a priest, Friar François Le Drogo employed her. Between June twenty-eighth and October third, seven members of the priest’s household died. This included the priest, his aging parents, and Hélène’s own sister, Anne Jégado, who was visiting her at the time.

  As the deaths happened to follow the 1832 cholera epidemic, it's possible the deaths may have been attributed to this. Hélène was not suspected. Following these events, Hélène Jégado returned to Bubry to replace her dead sister. Shortly after her return to Bubry, three people died over the course of three months and one of these was her aunt. Hélène cared for them all at their bedsides, acting as the dutiful caregiver.

  She then found employment in Locminé. She took lodgings with Jeanne Leboucher, a needle worker. Both Jeanne Leboucher and her daughter died and a son fell ill shortly after Hélène moved into the house. A neighbor, a widow, took pity on Hélène and offered her a room. The widow died shortly after eating a meal her new lodger had prepared. In May of 1835, a Madame Toussaint hired her. In this household, four deaths occurred. Wherever Hélène went, people would either grow ill or die without good reason.

  Hélène was famously quoted as saying,

  “I’m afraid that people will accuse me of all those deaths. Death follows me wherever I go.”

  Hélène, apart from being a poisoner, was also a kleptomaniac. For a while, in late 1835, she found work in a convent in Auray where the nuns started to become mysteriously ill. Her employment here, however, ended rapidly after they suspected her of theft, vandalism, and desecration.

  Pretty town of Auray

  Hélène then had a succession of jobs around the country. Every job she accepted gave her kleptomaniac personality new temptations. She was invariably caught and almost equally invariably, someone would die or become seriously ill.

  In 1849, Hélène moved to the city of Rennes. Here, she enlisted in the household staff of Professor Théophile Bidard. Within a short time of taking the placement, one of the Professor’s servants, Rose Tessier, fell ill and died. Jégado tended to her in her illness. The family doctor also observed. In 1851, another of the maids in the household, Rosalie Sarrazin became ill and died.

  The family doctor recognized that Rosalie Sarrazin’s and Rose Tessier's symptoms closely resembled each other and suspected foul play. He went to the authorities and reported his suspicions. The family doctor and the local prosecutor paid a visit to Professor Théophile Bidard. The door to the house was opened by Hélène Jegado. She ushered them into the Professor’s office and lingered by the door.

  The prosecutor explained to the professor why they were there. One of his servants who had died recently was suspected of having been poisoned.

  From the doorway, Hélène Jegado exclaimed, “I am innocent!”

  “Innocent of what?” asked the Prosecutor. “No one has accused you of anything!”

  The remark led to her arrest on July 1, 1851. An investigation into her past revealed a trail of deaths in the houses in which she had worked. Between 1833 and 1841 when her career could be traced, she had killed twenty-three people. Due to France’s statute of limitations
she could only be charged with three counts of murder, three counts of attempted murder, and eleven thefts.

  RENNES PRISON

  Given that she had been working around the country for the previous eighteen years, such an average might total nearer sixty in all. However, the true number of her victims Hélène Jegado took with her to the grave.

  The trial began on December 6, 1851. Helene's behavior in court was changeable, switching from inaudible muttering to noisy shouting and occasional vicious outbursts against her accusers. She consistently denied knowing what arsenic was, despite evidence clearly showing she did know what it was. The jury, after deliberating for ninety minutes, returned a guilty verdict.

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

  Helene Jegado

  GERMANY

  SOPHIE CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH URSINUS

  Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus, nee Weingarten, entered the world to an aristocrat family in Glatz, Prussia on the 5th of May in 1760. When she was nineteen, she married a much older man, Theodor Ursinus, who was the counselor of the Supreme Court.

  Glatz

  The Privy councilor was old, deaf, and passionless; not the ideal man for a lively, handsome, girl of nineteen. Soon after their marriage, they visited Berlin where amid the wealthy, busy, social circle of the capital, Madame Ursinus soon began a liaison with Rogay, a handsome, young, Dutch officer.

  Reportedly, Theodor Ursinus accepted this affair. Sophie told friends that she and her husband agreed to consider themselves as a legal couple and nothing else. Theodor Ursinus wished his beautiful young wife to make herself happy and enjoy life in her own way. Moreover, he even went so far as to write to Rogay, urging him to visit his wife during one of his long absences.

  During one of his visits to the Ursinus household Rogay became ill. The doctors diagnosed tuberculosis. Sophie nursed and fed Rogay herself but somehow he left the household and moved to another place. Shortly afterward he died. It later emerged that shortly before his death Sophie Ursinus had bought a sizable amount of arsenic.

  Was Rogay perhaps aware that Sophie was poisoning him and made an escape, albeit too late?

  Three years later on the 11th of September in 1800, Privy Counselor Ursinus died suddenly just a day after celebrating his birthday, despite at the time being in fairly decent health. Sophie, for his birthday dinner, had made him some treats. In the night, he sickened and died. Sophie sat with him alone and sent for no help. Although her actions for not seeking help were frowned upon because of Theodor’s age, no suspicions were aroused.

  The following year, Sophie visited her wealthy maiden aunt; Christiane Witte. On the 24th of January in 1801, Christiane’s doctor paid her a visit and left finding her well. During the night, she fell ill and died. No one was with her except Sophie who once again sent for no help but let her aunt die in her arms. Christiane Witte left Sophie a substantial inheritance. It was found out later that Sophie had bought, shortly before her aunt’s death, a sizable amount of arsenic.

  Toward the end of February of 1803 Sophie’s servant, Benjamin Klein, fell ill following a disagreement with his mistress. Sophie kindly gave Benjamin some medicine and a bowl of soup. These items aggravated his illness. Benjamin began to feel uneasy. A few days later, Sophie offered him some boiled rice; Benjamin declined the offer, saying he felt too sick to eat. He suspected there was something in the food which was damaging to his health. He became further suspicious when he noted how carefully Sophie disposed of the uneaten rice. The following day, Sophie brought him stewed prunes; these she proclaimed would make him feel much better. He accepted them with false gratitude. He gave the bowl of prunes to a fellow servant and asked her to take them to her brother who was an apprentice of a celebrated apothecary. The apothecary tested the prunes and found them liberally seasoned with arsenic.

  The apothecary visited the magistrate with his findings. The magistrate, after hearing the testimony of the servant and the lady's maid, ordered the arrest of Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus.

  People, as happens when events like this occur, began to talk. It was remembered that Sophie’s husband and aunt, to whose last days she had paid meticulous attention and whose fortune had fallen to her, had both died rather suddenly.

  The authorities exhumed Theodor Ursinus’s body. The autopsy examiners were unable to confirm poisoning with arsenic. However, from the condition of the bodies’ organs and evidence of contraction of the limbs caused by convulsions, there was a grave suspicion of arsenic poisoning. Christiane Witte’s body was next exhumed and this time the examiners were certain that Sophie’s aunt had died as a result of arsenic poisoning.

  Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus' trial for murder ended on the 12th of September in 1803. In an effort to save her life and honor, Sophie had argued over every detail the prosecution raised. She did confess to the arsenic on the prunes but insisted that she had meant no harm toward Benjamin and had ‘no intention of murdering the man’.

  “What good would that do her?” she had asked. “He had no money to leave.”

  Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus was found guilty of the murder of Christiane Wittes and the attempted murder of Benjamin Klein, her servant. The handsome, wealthy, widow of forty was sentenced to spend the remainder of her days in the prison fortress of Glatz.

  Fortress of Glatz

  Sophie’s days in prison were not like those of her fellow inmates who labored in heavy chains welded to carts. In the prison, she was allowed a female companion and rustled around in silk and satin dresses over the stone, gray, slab floors of the fortress. She gave parties for guests and was frequently visited by distinguished strangers.

  She received a pardon after thirty years and in 1833 rejoined the high society of Glatz. Once again, she played the part of an aristocratic lady and entertained lavishly. An invitation to coffee with the Poisoner, as she had become known in Glatz, was a matter of curiosity and a star attraction of the day.

  A year before her death in 1836 she ordered her own coffin. She left instructions that she should lie in state with white gloves on her hands, a ring on her finger containing the hair of her late husband, and ‘his portrait' on-her-bosom. Five carriages filled with friends and acquaintances followed her to the grave, which was adorned with green moss and an abundance of flowers.

  When the priest had ended his discourse, six poor boys and six poor girls, who Sophie had cared for in her lifetime, stepped forward and sang a hymn in her honor. Female friends and others, who Sophie had acted as a benefactress, filled the grave with their own hands and arched the mound over it. It was a bitter cold morning, but the churchyard could barely contain the crowd.

  Sophie Charlotte Elisabeth Ursinus died in 1836 at the age of seventy six.

  ANNA MARIA ZWANZIGER

  Anna Schonleben was born in 1760 in Buremberg, Germany, into a comfortable background. She was well educated and remarkably talented in needlework. Anna Shoenleben realized that an honest, upstanding husband would be a valuable asset in life, and it was extremely crucial to her that any future husband must hold a respectable job.

  She married a successful lawyer named Zwanziger, who was ten years her senior. Unfortunately, he turned into an alcoholic who drank his way through her inheritance. He died when Anna was 40-years-old.

  Anna had never expected to have to work in her life. However, because of the colossal debts her deceased husband had left to her, she had no option but to find work. The only work she could find was as a domestic servant. The work was low paying and menial. She drifted from one hated job to another, becoming more resentful by the day.

  Eventually, Anna resorted to stealing jewelry and other items from employers who hired her. She would then disappear. Finally, her actions were brought to the notice of the authorities, and she reverted to using her maiden name in order to escape punishment. She decided she only had one opti
on open to her: to find herself a rich husband who would care for her in the manner she felt she deserved.

  The first man she set her sights on was a judge by the name of Glaser. He was married, although separated, which presented an obstacle to Anna’s plans. However, Anna had an idea. Anna arranged a reconciliation with Frau Glaser and the judge. Once Frau Glaser was settled back in the house, Anna started to slip a little arsenic into her drinks every day until she died.

  Anna made sure she was available to console the judge in his grief. However, the judge never proposed. In anger and revenge, Anna poisoned a few of the Glaser’s guests, none of them fatally. She was eventually sacked.

  Anna then moved on to her next intended husband, Judge Grohmann, who was thirty-eight-years-old. Judge Grohmann, a bachelor, was frequently ill in bed suffering from gout. Anna worked hard to try to make herself indispensable to Judge Grohmann. To her horror and acute dismay, she learned that he was engaged to another woman. Anna, in anger, fed him a dish of Bavarian soup. Judge Grohmann died a harrowing, excruciatingly, painful death. Two or three other servants in the household who had annoyed Anna were also poisoned; they became acutely ill but survived.

  The next lucky household to employ Anna was that of Judge Gebhard’s. The Judge’s wife, much to Anna’s delight, was ill. With Anna’s arrival in the house, her illness deteriorated rapidly. Frau Gebhard suspected Anna for her worsening condition as she had noticed, since the new housekeeper’s arrival, that her food had started tasting rather odd. She tried to warn her husband, but he suspected that his wife’s imagination was playing tricks with her. Shortly afterwards, she died suffering from excruciating stomach pains.