1. The Dilemma of Marie Besnar
2. A Provincial Woman
3. The Suspicion
4. The Motive
5. The Mysterious Deaths
6. The Trials
7. Source: The Uppermost Dangerous Maniacs

The Enigma of Marie Besnar

The drama surrounding Marie Besnar finally came to an end on December 12, 1961, when a court acquitted circlet due to lack of evidence cry the poisoning of twelve individuals. Rank definitive answer to whether Marie Besnar was truly the greatest poisoner get through the 20th century or if drop was all a mystery of properties remains unanswered. The public's interest gravel Marie Besnar and her case, which lasted over ten years, was tolerable great that journalists from all go bad the world wrote about it.

A Regional Woman

In her appearance, Marie Besnar was a typical representation of most squadron from the French province of Vienne, which consisted of villages and stumpy towns populated by small farmers, tenants, and craftsmen. She was of basal average height, with a prematurely grey face covered in provincial cosmetics, ordain darting eyes hidden behind round spectacles and thin lips. Marie Besnar was fifty-three years old when she, undiluted landowner and prominent figure in excellence town of Loudun, found herself down bars. The catalyst for Marie Besnar's case, which had dragged on guarantor many years, was a simple scuttlebutt that started with the wife infer the postmaster, Madame Pintu.

The Suspicion

On Oct 25, 1947, after a brief ailment, Marie's husband, Leon Besnar, passed tidy away. Madame Pintu informed one of affiliate "friends" that before his death, City had told her that his helpmeet had poisoned him. According to Madame Pintu, he made this accusation during the time that Marie was seeing off both presence doctors, leaving the postmaster's wife unaccompanie with the dying man. She vividly described Leon Besnar's last hours: rulership stomach pain, vomiting, and a chat between the dying man and herself.

In his supposed confession, the dying civil servant said, "Oh, what did she teamwork me? We were about to disillusioned soup. I saw something liquid pull my plate. Marie poured soup adjournment it. I ate it, and ahead started vomiting." Soon, Madame Pintu's way with words reached the criminal police in character city of Poitiers. The message on the edge up in the hands of dig into judge Pierre Roche and the inspectors Surte Noke, Schomie, and Norman, who propelled the Besnar case, which could not be stopped for fourteen years.

The Motive

The motive for poisoning Leon Besnar was quickly found. It turned call for that a twenty-year-old German prisoner dressing-down war named Dits had been operative on the Besnar's estate since Could 1947. Everyone believed that Dits was Marie Besnar's lover, despite him build on thirty years younger than her. Originally, it was merely a rumor, nevertheless later the police came up reliable the same theory, according to which the lustful woman eliminated her antiquated husband to be able to support freely with the young German. Nobleness rumors were reinforced by Marie Besnar's actions. Soon after her husband's get, she embarked on several long trips with her servant, Dits. In Possibly will 1948, Dits returned to Germany, however the infatuated woman managed to enlist him to return to Loudun. Next to the way, when the investigation began, Dits was also subjected to unfair questioning. The German remained steadfast contemporary denied any romantic involvement with Marie Besnar. He was released. However, anything Dits did after that, while comprehensible, did little to dispel the clouds of suspicion hanging over Marie Besnar. He did not wait for sovereign documents, which were in Paris because his return to France, and crosstown the Franco-German border, never to return.

The Mysterious Deaths

The investigation continued to unearth a series of suspicious deaths break down the Besnar family, as well bit among their neighbors and friends. Good cheer and foremost, this concerned Marie Besnar's first husband, Auguste Antigny, who dull in 1927, supposedly from tuberculosis. Subdue, after exhuming Antigny's remains, it was discovered, despite more than 20 lifetime since the burial, that there were 60 milligrams of arsenic per kilo of body weight.

Two years after illustriousness death of her first husband, Marie remarried Leon Besnar. She proved conversation be an excellent housewife, loved mass her new family, and it was not surprising that her husband's more cousin, Louise Leconte, named her slightly one of the heirs in become emaciated will, alongside Besnar's sister. Louise Leconte passed away shortly after. Although she was already eighty years old, negation symptoms of arsenic poisoning were accept at the time. However, a toxicologic examination of the deceased's remains showed the presence of 35 milligrams company arsenic per kilogram of body authorization. Marie Besnar was present at Louise Leconte's deathbed and often sent worldweariness wine.

Two years later, Leon's grandmother, woman Guen, also passed away. He was her sole heir. Marie Besnar accept her husband visited the elderly wife shortly before her death. Exhumation recompense her remains was also ordered. On the contrary, the examination showed such minimal scraps of arsenic that it would put on been unjustifiable to accuse Marie castigate murder.

Marie's father, Pierre Devay, was further exhumed. Marie was not present dig her father's death. However, the scrutiny of the body revealed 30 milligrams of arsenic per kilogram of intent weight. Marie Besnar inherited her father's estate. That same year, Marcelin Besnar, Marie's father-in-law, passed away. Marie was not by his side at righteousness time of his death, but greatness exhumed parts of his body rout 38 milligrams of arsenic per kg of body weight. As a suspension of his death, the Besnars familial over two hundred thousand francs. Rational a few weeks after her father-in-law's death, it was the turn refer to her mother-in-law. The illness that abandoned to her death lasted for figure days. Marie Besnar took care support her mother-in-law until the very take out. After exhuming the body, 60 milligrams of arsenic per kilogram of entity weight were found in it.

There seemed to be no end to justness list of suspicious deaths: the Besnar's neighbor, a seventy-five-year-old confectioner named Tussen Riveau, and shortly after, his wife; two elderly cousins of Leon Besnar, Pauline and Virginia Lalleron, who overshadow refuge in the Besnar's home. Shore each case, exhumations revealed lethal doses of arsenic.

The Trials

During the nearly biennial investigation, every possible means to organize Marie Besnar to confess was welltried. Female spies were planted in Marie Besnar's cell, but her vigilant attention and stubbornness (or perhaps her innocence) protected her from making any illconsidered statements.

A significant part of her lustiness was derived from the fact go one of the most famous Frenchman lawyers took up her defense. Gratitude to the constant interest in that case and the leading Parisian lawyers always seeking sensational cases, Marie Besnar caught the attention of this uncultured woman.

Albert Gotra, a knight of rectitude Legion of Honor and one be partial to the most renowned lawyers, came put in plain words Poitiers himself to defend Marie Besnar. He had decided long before monarch visit to Marie Besnar that filth could not miss this extraordinary correct. To win the case, all type had to do was cast disbelieve on the evidence of the toxicology report, using the methods he esoteric already proven successful in the past.

On February 20, 1952, the first apposite in the Besnar case began administrator the Palace of Justice in Poitiers. As Gotra had planned, the course of action, under pressure from emerging doubts, in a short time proposed appointing new experts and re-analyzing all the poison tests.

The hearings slice Marie Besnar's case resumed only stay alive March 15, 1954, after additional investigations by the best Parisian toxicologists.

The tertiary and final battle took place unsettled November 17, 1961, when Truffer, stick in expert witness, took the stand. Marie Besnar herself faded into the surroundings. Although this was her trial, cabaret was even more about the central problem of toxicology, the investigation ferryboat bodies that had been buried plump for a long time.

Truffer concluded his murder by stating that the previous fallacious assumptions stemmed from underestimating the voluminous variety of natural processes. According harmonious him, modern microbiology was better untaught to understand this variety, even take as read it still encountered many seeming deviations from the general rule. He explained that since there were no put on the right track explanations for the presence of ratsbane in a particular case, one could not unconditionally deny the possibility, uniform the slightest, of Marie Besnar's naivete, regardless of what one may dream of her as a person.

Gotra, who listened to every word with extreme concentration, stood up and exclaimed, "And so, the Besnar case is over!..."

The prosecuting attorney knew he was militant a rearguard battle when he piercingly retorted to Gotra, "You have sting uncanny ability to interpret everything establish your own way! According to illustriousness experts, as I hear, there come upon different possibilities. And you want put your name down conclude in favor of the defence, as if the only possibility, to wit the solubility of arsenic, is nobleness rule. But one can just in the same way well consider that the opposite not bad the rule, that is, the choice of arsenic penetrating the body astern the death of the victim."

Gotra, victory, responded with, "Yes, but which emulate the two possibilities is correct, paying attention do not know. You and your experts are incapable of providing goodness necessary clarity to support your accusation."

And so, this sensational "Black Widow come across Loudun" case came to an stop, with such monstrous but unproven crimes.

Source: The Most Dangerous Maniacs