This Week in Crime - The Queen of Poison

This Week's Historical Theme: Crime

11 May 1949

A significant event throughout the history of crime that occurred in May is the evidence found against French serial killer, Marie Besnard. On this day, the body of Leon Besnard was exhumed by the French authorities searching for evidence of poison. Marie had married Leon Besnard in 1928 and the couple resented that they lived modest lives compared to their rich relatives. When Leon's great aunts passed away, all their money was left to Leon's parents. The couple hatched a plan, inviting Leon's parents to live with them and shortly after, Leon's father died from eating a bad mushroom, followed by his mother's death 3 months later. The inheritance was split between Leon and his sister, Lucie, who shortly died after having supposedly taken her own life.

The Besnards then began looking outside their immediate family, targeting their cousins as well as boarders they had taken in. For years, the locals were suspicious of the couple as nearly their whole family mysteriously died around them. After Marie fell in love with another man in 1947, Leon was found dead. Early in 1949, law enforcement began to investigate Marie after the death of her mother and on 11 May Leon's body was exhumed by the authorities searching for evidence of poison. Traces of arsenic were found in his body. Arsenic was also found in the rest of her family's corpses but she managed to escape prison as trace evidence was lost. On December 12 1961, she was acquitted and "The Queen of Poison", as the French call her, got away with 13 murders.

Want to find out more information about the history of murder by poison? Click here for more information, or here to find out about 17th century professional poisoner, Giulia Tofana.