A “black widow” is a woman who kills her significant other—or, in some cases, a series of significant others—for any of several indefensible reasons: to get his life insurance, to pursue a new love, or simply for the morbid thrill of the kill. Following are three women who did away with their husbands, proving to be as lethal as the poisonous spider that gave them their name.

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1. In 1908 Clara Carl began her adult life in a way most other young women would have envied: marriage to her childhood sweetheart and the anticipation of a lifetime of domestic bliss. However, in March 1920 the unthinkable happened—her husband, Robert Gibson, died in Missouri of an unknown ailment after 12 years of marriage. Gibson’s $3,000 life insurance policy helped lessen the widow’s grief, and it wasn’t long before Clara cast aside her mourning veil and wed again, this time to a man named Frank Carl. Upon their September 1920 nuptials, the couple settled in Philadelphia, Indiana, where they invited Frank’s father, Alonzo, to live with them. Less than a year later, Alonzo was dead. Two months after that, Frank followed his father to the grave. In the span of a year and a half, Clara had experienced the deaths of three relatives—a spate of misfortune that aroused the community’s suspicions. An investigation ensued and found that both Carl men, as well as Gibson, had died of arsenic poisoning. Clara was arrested, found guilty of second-degree murder, and sentenced to life in prison. She was paroled in 1937.

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2. Ada LeBoeuf suffered from migraines painful enough to require continual medical attention. It was lucky, then, that Dr. Tom Dreher always had time for house calls—though suspicious neighbors noted that Dreher’s visits often occurred when Ada’s husband, Jim, was away from home. Ada and the doctor were having an affair, and though it took two years, Jim LeBoeuf eventually found out about it. The thwarted lovers decided that something had to be done, and that something was murder. In the early morning hours of July 1, 1927, Jim and Ada took a moonlit boat ride across Louisiana’s Lake Palourde. Amidst the darkness of the summer night, someone from a nearby boat raised a gun and fired at Jim, killing him. His body was found in the lake a few days later. Ada and the doctor confessed to the murder plot, but claimed that though Dreher had been in the neighboring boat, it was handyman James Beadle who had pulled the trigger. All three were found guilty of Jim LaBoeuf’s murder; Beadle received a life sentence, while Ada and Dreher were executed.

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3. When Tillie Klimek‘s husband Joseph fell ill in the couple’s modest Chicago home, tests confirmed the cause—arsenic poisoning. The source of the arsenic? The meals that Tillie had prepared for him. Joseph survived his ordeal, but not everyone who consumed Tillie’s concoctions was so lucky. After her arrest for Joseph’s poisoning, authorities discovered that several of Tillie’s relatives and neighbors (including her three known husbands before Joseph) had died or become gravely ill. In fact, Tillie, a Polish immigrant, was said to have the ability to predict when those around her would die—a feat that was initially a source of amazement and fear to her neighbors, but that later became explainable once it was understood that Tillie had, in all likelihood, caused the deaths she predicted. In March 1923, Tillie was found guilty of the murder of her third husband, Frank Kupczyk, and received a life sentence. She didn’t stand trial for any other crimes, and died in prison in 1936.

The bullet that pierced Abraham Lincoln’s skull on the evening of April 14, 1865 put an end to the life of a man whom many believe to be the greatest American president. Lincoln was certainly the best-known victim of the projectile that assassin John Wilkes Booth fired from his Derringer pistol at Ford’s Theatre on that spring night so many years ago. However, nearly two decades after Lincoln’s death, Booth’s bullet would claim another life, this one the victim of the effects the ill-fated piece of metal had on the psyche of a troubled and guilt-stricken man.

Accompanying Lincoln and his wife, Mary, to the theater that night were Henry Rathbone and his fiancée, Clara Harris, both young and respected members of Washington, D.C. society. Harris was a well-known socialite and the daughter of a U.S. Senator. Rathbone was an army major and the son of a former mayor of Albany, New York. He was also a wealthy man, having inherited a large estate upon his father’s death. Though Rathbone and Harris had grown up as stepsiblings (with Rathbone’s widowed mother marrying Harris’s widowed father), they shared a bond beyond friendship and ultimately became engaged, committed to spending the rest of their lives together as husband and wife.

On their way to Ford’s Theatre, as the Lincolns and their guests travelled by carriage through the fog-shrouded streets of D.C., they may have discussed the surrender five days earlier of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s troops to Union General Ulysses S. Grant. This laying down of arms had essentially ended the Civil War, which for four years had torn apart the nation and dotted its landscape with the bodies of more than 600,000 men. Though Lincoln had proven victorious in his efforts to reunite the North and South, years of strain now showed upon his face as he confronted both the ire of the defeated Confederacy and—perhaps more troubling—recent dreams of his own impending death.

Once at the theater, the Lincolns and their guests ascended to the Presidential Box and joined 1,700 other patrons in watching a comedy called “Our American Cousin.” The mood was lively, with the crowd giving Lincoln a standing ovation and the orchestra playing “Hail to the Chief” as he entered the theater. Yet creating a cloud of darkness in the otherwise pleasant atmosphere was a man whose thoughts were far more sinister. This man, a Confederate sympathizer, was at the playhouse not for mirth, but for murder. His plan? To assassinate the president.

Two years earlier, actor John Wilkes Booth, had trod the Ford’s Theatre stage in a play called “The Marble Heart,” a performance that Lincoln had attended. Booth had also appeared in several of Shakespeare’s plays, including as the titular male character in “Romeo and Juliet” and as Marc Antony in “Julius Caesar.” Yet hidden beneath the façade of a distinguished thespian was an embittered man seething with hatred for the president. Booth, an ardent anti-abolitionist, saw Lincoln as a tyrant and hoped to cripple the federal government as it began the precarious work of reuniting the nation. To Booth, the president’s death would accomplish just that.

Through his familiarity with the evening’s play, Booth knew of a scene when the audience would break into laughter loud enough to mask the sound of a gunshot. At that moment, Booth, having entered the Presidential Box, pointed his gun at Lincoln. He took aim, steadied his hand, and shot the president behind the left ear at point-blank range.

For a few moments, confusion paralyzed Lincoln’s companions. Then, as the first lady screamed and the president slumped in his chair, Henry Rathbone leapt to action. He rushed toward Booth in an attempt to prevent the assassin from escaping. Booth slashed at Rathbone with a dagger, then plunged the weapon into the latter man’s arm. Despite his injury, Rathbone again tried to detain Booth. He managed to grab the assailant’s coat before Booth jumped from the box and onto the stage, from there crossing the floorboards and making his escape. (Twelve days later, federal soldiers tracked Booth to a Virginia farm, where he was shot in a barn the troops had set on fire; Booth would die a few hours later.)

Back at Ford’s Theatre, the scene of chaos that reigned in the Presidential Box soon spread throughout the building. Lincoln was still alive, but upon examining him, doctors determined he was mortally wounded. The president was rushed through the rain to a boarding house across the street. It was there where he died the following morning, having never regained consciousness. “Now he belongs to the ages,” Secretary of War Edwin Stanton is reported to have said upon the president’s passing.

As the government officials, family members, and physicians in attendance at Lincoln’s death grappled with their feelings of bewilderment and despair, lost was the fact that Rathbone had received a wound so severe it threatened his own life. Booth’s knife had plunged into Rathbone’s arm almost to the bone, severing an artery in the process. Rathbone lost a significant amount of blood and faded in and out of consciousness. He eventually received care for his injury and recovered. Yet as Rathbone’s body healed and the country, both North and South, settled into a period of extended mourning, the young major’s presence at the assassination—as well as his belief, however misguided, that he could have done more to help the president—started a mental deterioration that, years later, would affect Rathbone and his family in an appalling way.

After the tumult surrounding Lincoln’s death had subsided, Henry Rathbone married Clara Harris in July 1867. The couple settled into a spacious home in Washington, D.C. where they raised their three children—two sons and a daughter. Yet though the Rathbones enjoyed the privileges of wealth and an elevated position in society, all was not well. Henry’s feelings of guilt over the assassination—feelings aggravated every year when, on the anniversary of Lincoln’s death, journalists sought him out for interviews—led him to drink and gamble heavily. Though he had always tended toward depression, Henry became increasingly paranoid, believing that Clara was having an affair, or that she was planning a divorce and would take the children away from him. His mental instability was such that it prevented Henry from holding a steady job, a fact that likely aggravated his feelings of distrust and inadequacy.

To a degree, Clara was sympathetic to her husband’s plight. She had noted to a friend: “I understand his distress…in every hotel we’re in, as soon as people get wind of our presence, we feel ourselves becom[ing] objects of morbid scrutiny.” She added: “Henry…imagines that the whispering is more…malicious than it can possibly be.” Modern-day medical professionals have speculated that Henry Rathbone suffered from schizophrenia or perhaps a severe form of post-traumatic stress disorder induced by his presence at Lincoln’s assassination. However, the state of mental health treatment at his time was such that Henry received no substantive help for the psychological issues that plagued his mind and that seemed to grow worse every year.

In 1882, the Rathbones moved to Germany, as Henry had been appointed U.S. consul to the city of Hanover. Perhaps Clara regarded this as an opportunity for a fresh start, a chance to escape the stares and discreetly pointed fingers that seemed to drive Henry’s paranoia. Yet it was there, on December 23, 1883, that Henry’s madness came to a head. Though accounts differ as to what exactly happened, early that morning, two days before Christmas, Henry either tried to enter his children’s bedroom or actually attacked them. To protect their offspring, Clara distracted Henry; whatever events ensued between husband and wife ended with Henry shooting Clara several times, stabbing her, and then, in an effort to kill himself, plunging the same knife five times into his own chest.

Henry Rathbone survived his suicide attempt; Clara Rathbone succumbed to her injuries. The news that the heroic figure from Lincoln’s assassination had, in a fit of madness, become a murderer himself made banner headlines across the Atlantic. It was quickly determined that Henry wasn’t competent to stand trial, so he was placed in an asylum in Hildesheim, where he spent the remaining 27 years of his life. Henry died in August 1911 at the age of 74 and was buried in a city cemetery in Hanover alongside Clara. In 1952, some of the cemetery’s graves—including the Rathbones’—were cleared for reuse; thus, the disposition of the remains of Henry and Clara Rathbone is unknown.

Such was the degrading end for a couple who, in their younger years, had anticipated a long and loving future together. Clara had been a bright, respected woman, a shining star of Washington, D.C. society. Henry would leave behind a more ambiguous legacy: one of bravery for his heroic attempt to detain the president’s murderer, and heartbreak for the fact that Lincoln’s assassination and Henry’s own mental illness would cause the hero to become a murderer himself.

It was around 3:15 a.m. when Catherine “Kitty” Genovese drove into a parking lot near her apartment in Kew Gardens, a residential neighborhood located in the New York City borough of Queens. Genovese had just finished her shift as manager of a bar called Ev’s Eleventh Hour, and after a full night of pouring drinks and chatting with beer-soaked customers, the 28-year-old probably looked forward to nothing more than putting up her feet and getting some well-deserved rest.

As she stepped out of her car on that early morning of March 13, 1964, Genovese began walking toward her apartment, located at the far end of a two-story structure that also housed a bar, a coffee shop, and other businesses. She had made the same trip many times before. Despite the late hour, Genovese—known for her confident, friendly nature—had little to fear. Kew Gardens was a quiet, middle-class community, and she had less than a city block to cover before she would be out of the late winter chill and into her modest but warm flat, which she would enter via a door at the rear of the building.

That night, however, Kew Gardens wasn’t as quiet as usual. From behind Genovese, a car door slammed. Then came the sound of approaching footsteps. Realizing she was being followed, Genovese ran to the front of the building, hoping to avoid trouble by staying within sight of the road and the Mowbray apartment complex across the street. She hurried by the drug store on the corner, and had just made it past a bookstore when the car’s occupant caught up to her. With no motive and no warning, the pursuer plunged a hunting knife twice into her back.

Genovese’s panicked screams alerted a man in the Mowbray, who opened his window and shouted at the attacker to leave Genovese alone. The assailant ran away, giving a critically injured Genovese the chance to stagger to the rear of the building and the sought-after safety of her apartment.

Her respite was brief. About 10 minutes later, Genovese’s assailant returned, determined to see his crime through to completion. After searching the area, he found Genovese lying in a first-floor vestibule. The man stabbed her several more times, then sexually assaulted her before leaving with $49 he had taken from her wallet. At that point a neighbor who lived in Genovese’s building called the police. A rescue crew arrived, but not soon enough to save Genovese, who died on her way to the hospital.

Only an hour had passed between the time Genovese left her vehicle and the time she died in the back of an ambulance, but it must have been the longest hour of Genovese’s life—and one that would become the focus of intense media and academic scrutiny for decades to come.

The sad story of Kitty Genovese is perhaps best known not for the grisly details of the murder itself, but for what was said to be the reluctance of Kew Gardens residents to come to her aid or notify the police despite the fact that they had allegedly heard Genovese’s screams—and, in some cases, had actually witnessed the crime in progress. A story published in The New York Times two weeks after Genovese’s death claimed that 38 people had seen the attack and essentially done nothing. The idea that more than three dozen people could peer at the street from behind the safety of their curtains and refuse to stop a murder in progress scandalized the city and the nation. So foreign was the concept to popular assumptions regarding human decency and behavior that it inspired a new realm of social psychological research—the “bystander effect,” a phenomenon in which individuals who know that a victim is in peril, but who also know that other people are aware of the same fact, will refrain from offering assistance, assuming that someone else will come forward instead.

In the five decades since Genovese’s murder, psychology students have read her story in their textbooks. Television viewers have watched fictionalized versions of the event portrayed on screen, and pundits have lambasted the residents of Kew Gardens—and, by extension, humanity itself—for the apathy that led to the young woman’s death. However, the passage of time has revealed that the scenario described in The New York Times was not entirely accurate. In fact, in an effort to sensationalize an already heart-wrenching story, the paper may have done a disservice not only to the memory of Genovese, but to the reputations of her neighbors in Kew Gardens, many of whom did more to help Genovese than society has been led to believe.

The Times story, published on March 27, 1964, boldly stated that of the 38 people who allegedly witnessed the attack, “not one…made the slightest effort to save her, to scream at the killer, or even to call the police.” However, contemporary scholars of the case have established that no one person who heard Genovese’s cries had a complete view of the incident from beginning to end. Because the worst of the attack took place behind Genovese’s apartment building, in a vestibule hidden from public view, people who witnessed the assault or heard Genovese’s cries during the initial assault at the front of the building weren’t aware of the second incident. Many people who saw the first stabbing didn’t realize the severity of the crime and assumed they were merely witnessing a spat between lovers or drunks. Some even called the police to report the incident as such, but no authorities responded to those initial calls, deeming them not serious enough to merit attention.

In addition, despite The Times’ statement to the contrary, one of Genovese’s neighbors, as previously mentioned, did call out to the attacker. This neighbor was unaware that Genovese had been stabbed; he assumed, like others, that what he was witnessing was a minor squabble. Further complicating the situation was the fact that several residents had closed their windows against the cold night air, preventing them from identifying Genovese’s screams as coming from a woman in peril or from hearing the screams altogether.

To be fair, at least two Kew Gardens residents were aware of the severity of the attack and either did nothing or offered assistance only after it was too late. A superintendent of the Mowbray witnessed the attack on Genovese and knew she was being stabbed, but instead of soliciting help, he went to sleep. In addition, the neighbor who placed the call that ultimately brought authorities to the scene had opened his apartment door and seen the assailant stabbing Genovese in the vestibule, but had done nothing to intervene and had actually waited 20 minutes to call the police, a period of time during which Genovese’s life slowly bled out of her.

Still, the inability of two residents to respond with courage and compassion to a horrifying crime doesn’t negate the fact that The Times had published a grossly inaccurate account demonizing the entire community. In fact, after Genovese’s murderer died in prison in 2016, the newspaper acknowledged in his obituary that the original article, which it called “flawed,” had “grossly exaggerated the number of witnesses and what they had perceived.”

Ultimately, perhaps, one of the article’s primary effects was to vilify the residents of Kew Gardens at the expense of the true criminal, a 29-year-old machine operator named Winston Moseley. On that fateful night, Moseley left his sleeping family in their Queens home and hit the borough’s streets for the sole purpose of finding a woman to kill. He had murdered two other people before that night—15-year-old Barbara Kralik in July 1963 and 24-year-old Annie Mae Johnson in February 1964. A month after Johnson’s death, Moseley caught a glimpse of Genovese during her drive home from Ev’s Eleventh Hour and followed her to Kew Gardens. After his attack on Genovese, Moseley evaded capture, but police eventually apprehended him during a burglary six days later. Despite pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, Moseley was convicted of Genovese’s murder and sentenced to death. (Due to a technicality, he ended up serving a life sentence instead.) Moseley escaped from custody in March 1968 and took two separate families hostage in upstate New York before ultimately surrendering. He received two additional 15-year sentences for those crimes. He died in March 2016 at the age of 81. Moseley had spent almost 52 years behind bars, making him one of New York State’s longest-serving prisoners.

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Evelyn Nesbit was the toast of Gilded Age America. One couldn’t open a magazine or walk into a store without seeing the model’s peaches-and-cream complexion on everything from print advertisements to promotional calendars. Gentlemen who opened packages of cigarettes saw Evelyn’s face on tobacco cards, while women primped themselves with hand mirrors displaying the teenager’s winsome gaze. From the cover of Vanity Fair to the sheet music for a song called “Sprinkle Me With Kisses,” Nesbit seemed to be in every shop, home, and entertainment venue in America.

Her popularity wasn’t surprising, as Nesbit was a sight to behold. Photos from her teenage years show the girl with dark, wavy hair, often piled into an elegant pompadour. Nesbit’s mouth formed a perfect heart-shaped pout, and a corset cinched her waist to create an impeccable hourglass figure. So flawless were her features, so alluring her aura, that Nesbit served as one of the models for the Gibson Girl, artist Charles Dana Gibson’s illustration of the epitome of American womanhood.

Yet despite the perfection of her outer appearance, Evelyn Nesbit led a personal life few would envy. Her dalliance with renowned architect Stanford White (a womanizer 31 years her senior) and her subsequent marriage to a sociopath named Harry Thaw led to a 1906 murder trial that rocked New York society—and the nation. In the ensuing media frenzy, Nesbit watched as her private life become fodder for every reporter who, despite the era’s genteel manners, dished out the tawdry details—Sex! Secrets! A Red Velvet Swing!—that came to light during the so-called “Trial of the Century.”

The fiery nature of the New York press was a far cry from Tarentum, Pennsylvania, a Pittsburgh suburb where Florence Evelyn Nesbit was born on Christmas Day 1884 (or 1886, depending on the source). Young Florence (as she was then known) had a happy childhood, but came to know pain early in life when her father died when she was 11 years old.

After a few years of financial struggle, Nesbit’s family—consisting of her mother and younger brother—moved to Philadelphia, where each worked in a department store to make ends meet. It was there, at Philadelphia’s famed Wanamaker’s, that 14-year-old Nesbit’s beauty attracted the attention of an artist, who paid her a dollar to pose for a portrait. Soon other local artists commissioned Nesbit to serve as their muse. The teenager enjoyed the attention and, a few years later, became even better known when the family moved to New York City.

It was in the Big Apple where Nesbit really thrived. Respected artists like James Carroll Beckwith painted her portrait, while magazines like Harper’s Bazaar featured her on their covers. Nesbit appeared in calendars for Coca-Cola and Prudential Life Insurance, and in fashion shots taken by photographer Joel Feder. In what surely would have been Nesbit’s most famous endeavor had future events not played out the way they did, artist Charles Dana Gibson snagged her services as a model for his “Gibson Girl.” The era’s Nesbit mania was so all-encompassing that it seemed as though a person couldn’t go a day without seeing her seductive eyes peering out from the printed page.

By 1901, Nesbit had grown tired of modeling. With an eye toward the stage, she secured a spot in the chorus of a popular Broadway play, Floradora. It was at this point that Florence Nesbit became known by her middle name, Evelyn. Nesbit’s role in Floradora was minor, but led to a featured role in a play called The Wild Rose. For any other girl with Evelyn’s ambitions, this would be an auspicious start to a flourishing career, but in Evelyn’s case, the role played a small part in the deadly events to come.

Each of the 40 times Harry Kendall Thaw watched The Wild Rose on Broadway, his eyes lighted on Nesbit, who played the Gypsy girl Vashti. Thaw was a beady-eyed, baby-faced heir to a coal and railroad fortune and, like Nesbit, hailed from Pittsburgh. The 31-year-old playboy was 13 years older than the object of his affection, but despite—or maybe because of—this age difference, he was infatuated. As Nesbit danced across the stage in her layered skirts and shoulder-baring blouse, Thaw knew he had to meet her. At first, Nesbit wasn’t enamored of Thaw, but he was persistent and attentive. He also lavished Nesbit with the finest gifts his multi-million-dollar fortune could buy. Despite Nesbit’s initial misgivings, the two eventually began a tentative courtship.

However, there was a problem. While starring in Floradora in 1901, Evelyn had met Stanford White, one of New York City’s most prominent architects. The burly, mustachioed 47-year-old, a principal in the firm of McKim, Mead, & White, had designed Washington Square Arch, the Bowery Savings Bank, and several other New York landmarks. He had also designed the second version of Madison Square Garden, an indoor arena that hosted a variety of entertainment and sporting events. At the time of their meeting, Nesbit was just 16 (or 14, depending on which of her two stated birthdates is correct), but this wasn’t a problem for White, who was known to seduce teenaged girls. He set his sights on Evelyn and one night, after White plied her with champagne, she lost her virginity to him in the famed “Mirror Room” of his opulent mansion.

Though White served as a de facto benefactor of the Nesbit family, his and Evelyn’s relationship, such as it was, never became serious. Consequently, when Harry Thaw suggested that Nesbit and her mother accompany him to Europe, they accepted. After a whirlwind tour during which Thaw attempted to distance Evelyn from her mother by creating tension between the two of them, Mrs. Nesbit headed back to the States early, leaving her daughter alone with their host. Throughout the remainder of the trip, Thaw repeatedly proposed marriage, but Evelyn turned him down. Ultimately, she told him about her dalliance with White. Thaw, who was a drug addict and mentally ill, became enraged. He was livid at what he saw as White’s exploitation of Evelyn, but because White wasn’t available for a confrontation, Thaw took out his fury on Nesbit, holding her captive and assaulting her in an Austrian castle for two weeks before returning with her to the United States.

Back home, a contrite Thaw promised to reform. Despite Thaw’s abusive treatment of her, Evelyn— realizing that her marriage prospects would be limited if the relationship with White became public—finally accepted Thaw’s proposal. The couple wed in 1905 and lived in Pittsburgh. Yet despite the fact that Thaw had won the object of affection, his obsession with—and hatred for—Stanford White only grew, fueled by Thaw’s belief that White was a “beast” who deserved punishment for his exploitation of the new Mrs. Evelyn Thaw.

That hatred came to a head on June 25, 1906, a steamy day in New York City. Harry Thaw and his young wife were spending time in the Big Apple before a European vacation, so Thaw made plans for himself, Evelyn, and two acquaintances to attend a play, Mam’zelle Champagne, in the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden. It was an event that Stanford White would be attending. Though the evening was warm, Thaw wore an overcoat, which he would not remove. The reason for this became apparent when, toward the end of the show, Thaw approached White’s table, withdrew a pistol from beneath his coat, and fired three shots into the architect, who died instantly. At first, spectators thought they were witnessing part of the show, but the grim reality soon dawned on them and Thaw was arrested.

As news of the crime spread, the same papers that had celebrated Evelyn Nesbit’s beauty and virtue began luxuriating in lurid details about her affair with White. Ultimately, the press portrayed her as a victim of White’s predation, but this fact didn’t mitigate the mortifying effect of having every aspect of her dalliance published for the world to see. Evelyn became known as the “Girl in the Red Velvet Swing” (owing to the fact that White’s mansion contained just such a conveyance, on which he entertained female visitors), and she secluded herself to avoid scrutiny. Surprisingly, her husband fared better in the media glare—many reporters celebrated what they saw as a chivalrous act meant to protect his wife’s honor.

As Thaw headed toward trial six months after the murder, his family secured the finest attorneys and witnesses money could buy. A defense was established—temporary insanity. To avoid embarrassing Thaw’s family by bringing up details of their son’s mental instability and drug use, Thaw’s defense called to the stand a parade of doctors who testified that Thaw’s action was the result of a momentary loss of reason, not a chronic state of insanity. Evelyn also took the stand in support of her husband, relating details of her affair with White (and, some said, getting paid handsomely by the Thaw family for her testimony). The combined effect of this evidence wasn’t enough to sway jurors one way or another, as seven of them voted “guilty” and five voted “not guilty.” In 1908, a second trial was held, during which Thaw was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was sent to Matteawan State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, about sixty miles north of New York City, to serve a life sentence. Thaw was released in 1915 after securing a new trial and being found not guilty of the crime for which he had been incarcerated. Evelyn divorced him that same year, and Thaw died in February 1947 at the age of 76.

Evelyn’s post-trial life included a surprising new occupation: mother. Her son, Russell, had been born in 1910, and though Evelyn said she had conceived the boy during a conjugal visit with her husband, Thaw denied that he was the father. In the ensuing years, Nesbit married and divorced again, dabbled in show business, and ultimately died in January 1967 at the age of 82.

In the late 19^th century, the issue of “Home Rule” – Ireland’s desire for independence from the United Kingdom – was a subject of intense political debate. For decades, Irish nationalists had been seeking autonomy from the UK, to whose rule Ireland had been subject since 1801. Yet while the argument over Irish sovereignty was loudest in London, where Parliament held the Emerald Isle’s future in its hands, it was a small Irish village that made headlines as the scene of a grisly crime that called into question the ability of Ireland’s citizens to govern themselves and achieve the independence so many of them sought.

In March of 1895, 26-year-old Bridget Cleary had been married to her husband, Michael, for almost eight years. The couple had no children, though they did care for Bridget’s widowed father, Patrick Boland, who lived with them in a cottage in the County Tipperary community of Clonmel. Michael worked as a cooper – a barrel maker – while Bridget brought in money by making dresses and hats. Professional endeavors were unusual among married women in 19^th-century Ireland, so her vocation established Bridget as an independent-minded woman whose nonconformity, some believe, may have played a role in the events that ultimately led to her death.

When Bridget fell ill in March 1895, the Clearys’ cottage became the setting of a vigil attended by Bridget’s family members and neighbors. Michael Cleary believed that the ailing woman wasn’t, in fact, his wife, but rather a changeling left behind by fairies who had kidnapped the real Bridget and taken her to a ringfort – an earthen structure said to be inhabited by mythical creatures – on the outskirts of town. According to Michael, once the changeling was cast out, the real Bridget would return. Therefore, the people who filled the Clearys’ home performed various rituals while Bridget’s family members threw urine on her and force-fed her herbs, all in an attempt to get rid of the changeling and bring back their missing loved one.

After several days of what must have been a horrific ordeal, Bridget Cleary disappeared. Michael Cleary claimed that this meant the “changeling Bridget” had returned to the ringfort, but Bridget’s actual fate became apparent when her charred body was found on March 22. Authorities arrested nine men – including Bridget’s husband and father – and in August 1895 they went on trial, some of them for “wounding” Bridget and some for murdering her. The story came out that as part of his continuing efforts to cast out the changeling that had allegedly replaced his wife, Michael Cleary had threatened Bridget with a piece of burning wood. When her undergarment caught fire, Michael threw lamp oil on her and prevented anyone in the house from helping the burning woman, insisting that the fire would bring back the “real Bridget.” When that didn’t happen, her body was buried in a shallow grave.

Ultimately, Cleary was convicted of manslaughter and served 15 years in prison. Upon his release in 1910, he moved first to Liverpool, then to Montreal. Other family members received shorter sentences for the “wounding” charge.

The events that took place in Clonmel in March 1895 raised concerns in the minds of many people in the United Kingdom about what they considered to be the primitive nature of the Irish citizenry. How could people be allowed to rule themselves when their beliefs in mythical fairies had led to a very real and gruesome death? However, it should be noted that doubts have been raised as to whether Michael Cleary believed that fairies had, in fact, kidnapped his wife. Though he insisted that this was the reason for his actions and that he had intended only to ensure the safe return of Bridget, some students of the case believe that Michael actually felt threatened by his wife’s independence (or by rumors that Bridget was having an extramarital affair) and used her sickness as a convenient excuse to end their marriage in the most horrifying way possible. Though some of the villagers who attended Bridget in her hour of need may have truly believed that they were saving her from the clutches of fairies, the man who had pledged fidelity to his wife and who held the greatest responsibility for protecting her may have used a “fairy excuse” to cover up the real reason for his lethal actions – distrust, shame, and hatred.

A steady stream of gentleman callers showed up at Belle Gunness’s farmhouse in LaPorte, Indiana during the first decade of the 20th century. Bearing flowers, shy grins, and—most important to Gunness—their life savings, the suitors came in response to a matrimonial ad that Gunness had placed in several Midwestern newspapers. The two-time widow was seeking a husband, a man of means whose expertise and money would help Gunness turn her thriving farm into an even more lucrative business.

When Gunness opened her door to the hopeful knocks that fell upon it, her suitors might have felt a jolt of surprise, as the woman who met their eyes wasn’t quite as “comely” as her advertisements had promised. Gunness was a tall, stocky woman whose drab clothing and schoolmarm-ish hair were fitting counterparts to her dour expression, Still, it was the early 20th century, a time when marriage was sometimes a practical matter rather than a romantic pursuit. Union with Gunness would mean a financial windfall for the lucky man who wed her, so suitors overlooked Belle’s aesthetic shortcomings and accepted her invitations to dinner. As the men stepped inside their prospective fiancée’s home, they remained blissfully unaware that they would never leave the property again.

Belle Gunness used her skills of persuasion to become one of the most prolific serial killers in American history. It’s suspected that she robbed and murdered as many as 40 men, whom she invited into her home under the guise of seeking a husband. Gunness is also suspected of killing her five children, two husbands, and various other people who stood in the way of her murderous plans. The combined horror of these deaths is chilling enough, but what’s really unsettling is the fact that no one knows exactly what happened to Gunness after her crimes were discovered. Frightening though the thought may be, Gunness might have escaped punishment and lived the rest of her life in anonymity, perhaps free to pursue her homicidal hobby among a new crop of unsuspecting bachelors.

Born Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth in Norway in 1859, Gunness immigrated to the United States in 1881. With a new home came a new name—Belle. In 1884, Belle married Mads Sorenson, with whom she had four children. It was at this point when the specter of suspicious death made its way into Belle’s life. Two of her children, Caroline and Axel, died in infancy from colitis (a disease whose symptoms mirror the effects of poisoning). Not long after that, in 1900, Mads Sorenson perished from what doctors said was a heart ailment. Sorenson’s relatives insisted that Belle had played a role in Mads’ death, but records don’t indicate whether authorities investigated those claims. In any event, the $8,500 in insurance money that Belle received following her husband’s demise was a source of consolation in the face of her in-laws’ suspicions. It was with this money that Belle purchased the farm where, in the coming years, her ill-fated suitors would spend their final moments.

Shortly after moving to LaPorte with her remaining children, Myrtle and Lucy, Belle married her second husband, a widower named Peter Gunness, in April 1902. Within a week of the nuptials, Peter’s infant daughter was dead, having succumbed to a mystery ailment while in the care of her new stepmother. By December 1902, Peter himself had died, the victim of an injury he sustained when, according to Belle, a sausage grinder fell on his head. Once again, Belle received a sizable insurance settlement and, despite whispers from suspicious neighbors, carried on with the business of running her farm as a single mother.

Gunness was a savvy and formidable woman, and eventually decided that a third marriage—or at least the prospect of one—would fill her coffers even fuller. She created her matrimonial advertisement and entertained a parade of eligible bachelors, who saw the ad as their ticket to a stable life with home-cooked meals, comfortable living arrangements, and a thriving agricultural business. As Gunness requested, the men often arrived with their life savings, prepared to merge their fortunes with those of their new sweetheart. Yet despite her many romances, Gunness never made it to the altar. In fact, several of her suitors simply disappeared, though Gunness was able to keep the strange goings-on at her farm a secret from her neighbors in LaPorte.

The first inkling that anything was wrong came in the early morning of April 28, 1908, when Gunness’s handyman, Joe Maxson, woke from a sound sleep in his second-floor bedroom to discover that the Gunness farmhouse was on fire. Maxson rushed into town for help, but by the time rescuers arrived, the house was too far gone to save. After the ashes cooled, investigators discovered the bodies of four people in the charred remains. Three of those bodies belonged to Gunness’s children (Myrtle, Lucy, and son Phillip, whose father was Peter Gunness), while the fourth was that of a headless woman whose identity couldn’t be verified. Despite the questions remaining about the unknown victim, the fire seemed an open-and-shut case of arson, with the prime suspect being Ray Lamphere, Gunness’s former handyman, whom she had recently fired. When a young boy stated that he had seen Lamphere run away from the burning farm, the handyman was arrested and charged with arson and murder.

From there, the situation at Gunness’s farm became even more grotesque. Asle Helgelien, the brother of Andrew Helgelien, one of Gunness’s suitors, showed up in LaPorte shortly after the fire and stated his belief that Andrew had met a grisly end at Gunness’s hand. Andrew Helgelien had told his brother about his plans to visit Gunness, but had never returned home—nor contacted Asle—after his stay at the Gunness farm. This fact, coupled with current handyman Maxson’s revelation that Gunness had instructed him to bring wheelbarrows of dirt into the farm’s hog pen—an area now pocked with strange depressions—prompted the men of LaPorte to grab their shovels and start digging.

What they found was astonishing: the bodies of several men (including Andrew Helgelien), one young woman (believed to be Gunness’s adopted daughter, Jennie Olson), and two children. The bodies were in such disarray that authorities couldn’t determine how many they’d actually found; estimates hovered at around twelve victims whose bones lay buried in the Gunness hog yard. As word of the gruesome discovery spread, family members of other missing men contacted authorities to report that their own loved ones had made plans to visit Gunness and had never been heard from again. The list of potential victims climbed until, according to some estimates, it numbered more than forty.

A few weeks after the fire, Lamphere’s trial began. Though the bodies of Gunness’s children were easily identified, uncertainty remained regarding whether the headless body found in Gunness’s home actually belonged to the murderess. Some LaPorte residents who viewed the remains said that the body was too small to have belonged to Gunness. Likewise, though Gunness’s dentist testified that bridgework found on the property belonged to her, tests indicated that the false teeth could not have survived a fire as intense as the one that consumed the Gunness farmhouse. This led to accusations that the bridgework had been planted, likely by the man who found it. Perhaps the biggest argument for Gunness’s demise in the fire was the fact that she hadn’t been seen since it occurred.

Ultimately, Lamphere was convicted of arson but not of murder, and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He died of tuberculosis after serving only one year of his sentence. A clergyman who spoke to Lamphere before his death claimed that Lamphere had confessed to helping Gunness bury some of her victims, whom she had killed either by poisoning them or by splitting their heads with a meat chopper. According to the clergyman’s version of Lamphere’s testimony, Gunness disposed of the bodies by burying them around the farm or, on occasion, feeding them to her hogs. Lamphere answered the key question—was the headless body that of Gunness?—with a resounding “no.” He claimed, said the clergyman, that the body belonged to a woman whom Gunness had lured into the house and killed for the purpose of staging Gunness’s death. Gunness herself, Lamphere said, had set the fire with Lamphere’s help and had fled LaPorte alive, well, and ready to reestablish herself in a different part of the country.

Gunness’s fate has never been proven. Was she killed in the fire, or had she escaped? The 1931 arrest of a California woman named Esther Carlson, who was accused of poisoning a man, generated support for the latter hypothesis, as some of Gunness’s friends believed that photos of Carlson bore a striking resemblance to Gunness. Students of the case remain divided in their beliefs as to whether Gunness perished in the house fire, or made the greatest escape of her life. Regardless, it can’t be denied that Belle Gunness was an evil, conscience-less woman who, far from evincing a personality evocative of the French meaning of her name, nurtured a nasty side that spelled death for the men who wanted to make her their wife.