Executed
1677–1682 · France
Affair of the Poisons
Fortune tellers selling 'inheritance powders' to the Paris elite, a secret court lit by torches, and testimony that reached the king's own mistress.
Kind of crime
Poisoning
Arsenic, strychnine and the birth of forensic toxicology: the poisoners who were caught by chemistry.
12 cases9 solved0 unsolved1677–1922
Executed
Convicted
1839–1840 · France
Marie Lafarge
A Parisian bride, a crumbling former monastery in Corrèze, a husband dead of 'cholera', and the Marsh test that made toxicology a courtroom science.
Executed
1855–1856 · United Kingdom
William Palmer
A Staffordshire doctor deep in racing debts, a friend's winnings at Shrewsbury, and a strychnine trial moved to London by Act of Parliament.
Acquitted
1857 · United Kingdom
Madeleine Smith
A Glasgow architect's daughter, a secret lover, his bundle of letters and three purchases of arsenic. In 1857 the jury said: not proven.
Executed
1864–1865 · United Kingdom
Dr Edward Pritchard
A Glasgow doctor poisoned his wife and her mother while nursing them, and in 1865 became the last man hanged in public in the city.
Executed
1872–1873 · United Kingdom
Mary Ann Cotton
A County Durham nurse buried husbands, children and a lover to 'gastric fever'. A seven-year-old stepson's death finally brought arsenic to light.
Acquitted
1886 · United Kingdom
Adelaide Bartlett
A London grocer died on New Year's Day 1886 with liquid chloroform in his stomach and no burns in his throat. His wife was tried for murder and acquitted.
Disputed verdict
1889–1904 · United Kingdom
Florence Maybrick
An American wife, a Liverpool cotton broker who dosed himself with arsenic, and a verdict so doubtful the Home Office reprieved her within weeks.
Executed
1891–1892 · United Kingdom
Thomas Neill Cream
A McGill-trained doctor gave strychnine to young women in south London in 1891-92, then wrote blackmail letters that led Scotland Yard straight to him.
Executed
1910 · United Kingdom
Dr Crippen
In 1910 a mild American medicine seller fled London with his lover dressed as a boy, and a ship's wireless message brought him back to hang.
Executed
1911–1912 · United Kingdom
Frederick Seddon
An insurance man took over his lodger's savings for an annuity. Weeks after she fell ill and died, the arsenic in her body sent him to the gallows.
Executed
1920–1922 · United Kingdom
Herbert Rowse Armstrong
'Excuse fingers': a Hay-on-Wye solicitor handed his rival a buttered scone, and the arsenic trail led back to his wife's grave.