Women Serial Killers of the 20th Century (5 page)

Lydia, back in the penitentiary, charmed the new governor George F. Rudd. He granted her many favors. He allowed Lydia to visit her sick mother outside of the penitentiary unguarded. He took her for drives and all-day outings at a nearby resort and allowed Lydia to attend the cinema in Boise. When news of this was reported in the local papers, Thomas as warden of Idaho State Penitentiary, resigned.

Lydia was finally released from prison on October 3, 1941
at the age of forty-nine. At first, she went to live with her sister in Nyssa, Oregon before returning to Twin Falls. Here, she met and married Hal Shaw. Two years after the marriage, he disappeared and was never seen again. Lydia then went to live in Salt Lake City, Utah. On February 5, 1958 while walking home from the grocery store, at the age of sixty-six, she died from a heart attack.

She was buried at Sunset Memorial Park cemetery
in Twin Falls under the name Anna E. Shaw.

MARIE
ALEXANDRIA BECKER

Fashion-Minded Murderess

Marie Alexandrina Becker was born as Marie Alexandrina Petitjean
. She was born into a working class family in Liege, Belgium on July 14
th
, 1879. She grew up to be an exceptionally beautiful woman who had many admirers. When she was thirty-three, she married Charles Becker, a cabinet-maker. For twenty years, she appeared content with her life as a homely housewife and part time book-keeper for her father-in-law’s sawmill. However, her life changed dramatically at the age of fifty-three when out shopping for vegetables in Liege market.

Lambert Bayer, a forty-six
-year-old known womanizer, swept her off her feet. Marie became besotted with him and could think of no one or anything else. Lambert unlocked dark passions in Marie that she had no idea existed. These desires overcame her common sense and self-control.  She grew to hate her husband and, to rid herself of Charles, poisoned him with a lethal dose of Digitalis: a heart medicine made from the foxglove plant that has several sinister nicknames such as
Dead Man’s Bells
and
Witches’ Gloves
.

With Charles out of the way, she married Lambert
but tired of him within two years. However, with her ease of success at disposing of Charles, she knew how to deal with Lambert. Lambert died, and she inherited all that he had.

With the money from her two dead husbands,
Marie was a moderately wealthy woman. She opened a dress shop in a fashionable town square that offered
couture
and formal women's wear. She catered to wealthy older women who inhabited the social circles in which she aspired to belong.

Place du Marché
Lieges

With a steely determination, she set out to
enjoy her newly found freedom. Suddenly Marie, who had always dressed demurely, began dressing in a gaudy manner and using an extravagant amount of make-up. Marie, since her affair with Lambert, had developed an insatiable sexual appetite. She developed a love of dancing and spent her evenings in nightclubs dancing wildly with men half her age. Her friends and acquaintances were scandalized by her new sexual liberation. Marie loved her new life.

Unfortunately
, as she was to discover, her new lifestyle was expensive to maintain, and her bank account was running low. The dress shop was a success, but the income it generated was not enough to maintain her new extravagances. Marie needed a way to raise more money; she was ruthlessly determined not to give up her new, fun life.

Through her shop,
she had befriended several of Liege’s
Grande Dames
and to a few, she had become their personal dressmaker and fashion adviser. Marie would find herself invited to
soirees
and teas in grand houses. When invited to a house for a private fashion conference with an elderly client, Marie would surreptitiously slip into the woman’s drink a deadly dose of Digitalis, and, while the poor woman was gasping for air and clutching her pounding chest, Marie would coolly help herself to jewelry, money, and any other valuables she could fit into her ample-sized work bag.

Between March 1935 and
September 1936, Marie killed ten wealthy women and somehow managed to avoid suspicion. After each murder, she would attend the funeral dressed in black and put on an impressive show of grief and sorrow, occasionally going so far as to kneel at the graveside and weep hysterically.

Marie’s downfall came one evening in October
of 1936 when out with a girlfriend. Her friend confided in Marie that her husband was irritating her so much she wished that he were dead. Marie, maybe because of alcohol, said that she could give her some powder that would do the job and leave no trace.

Her friend
, realizing that Marie was deadly serious and remembering Marie’s two dead husbands, was appalled and reported her to the police the following day. The police had, in fact, by this time received a couple of anonymous letters accusing Marie of being responsible for poisoning two elderly women.

Investigations began and before long the police, with search
warrant in hand, paid a visit to Marie’s house. In her house, they discovered clothes and large amounts of jewelry that had belonged to the women who had died. In Marie’s handbag, they discovered a small green bottle that contained Digitalis.

Marie was arrested and taken into custody. The investigation continued
, and the bodies of her dead husbands and her wealthy women customers’ bodies were exhumed.

During the post
-mortem, all of the bodies showed death by Digitalis.

During her interrogation, she allegedly boasted about the murders. Of one victim, Madame Lambert,
Marie described her as having "looked like an angel choked with sauerkraut” and of another, Madame Castradot, she described as "dying beautifully, lying flat on her back”.

Marie Alexandrina Becker

Marie Alexandrina Becker was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was to be yet another change of lifestyle but one with no men, jewels, or money. Marie died in prison sometime during World War II.

Although Marie was charged with ten murders, many believe the number may have been twice that amount.

MARTHA  MARE
K

The Devil in Petticoats.

Martha Marek
née Lowenstein was born in Vienna in 1904 to unknown parents. She was adopted and brought up by a poor couple. Martha grew into a dazzlingly beautiful young woman. At the age of sixteen, she found herself a job working in a dress shop. One day in 1919, an owner of a department store, Moritz Fritsch, came into the shop and was immediately captivated by Martha’s charm, style, and beauty.

He invited her to become
his ward, and she soon became his mistress. He dressed her in the finest clothes and sent her to the best London finishing school. They holidayed together in France and England. Unknown to Moritz, Martha had a lover, Emil Marek, a handsome trainee engineer.

In 1920,
Moritz Fritsch died leaving his house and some money to Martha, although not as much as Martha had expected. Moritz’s ex-wife and relatives accused Martha of having poisoned him. The authorities were not convinced and refused permission to have the body exhumed.

Martha married Emil Marek.
By 1924, Martha and Emil were experiencing severe financial problems. Martha took out a $30,000 insurance policy on Emil against him having an accident. The two of them conspired to make a claim. This involved Martha hacking off Emil’s leg, just below the knee, with an axe. This task was harder than she thought, and it took Martha three attempts to sever the leg. They claimed that the accident happened when Emil was chopping down a tree.

Martha and Emil

However, the insurance company’s examining doctor found that the amputation had taken three distinct blows, and Martha and Emil were charged with fraud. The case was eventually dismissed, and they received a small amount of compensation but not the amount they had hoped for. They immigrated for a short while to North Africa before returning to Vienna. Martha and Emil had two children together, a daughter Ingeborg and a son Peter.

Martha Marek

In 1932, Emil died. The cause of death was recorded as being tuberculosis. Martha was left with a market stall and two small children. Three-year-old Ingeborg died a few months after Emil. Martha took a job as a housekeeper for an aunt, Suzanne Lowenstein, and had her son boarded out. Shortly after starting work for her aunt, Suzanne died. Martha inherited her estate.

Martha then began to take in carefully chosen lodgers
. Frau Kittenburger and her son moved into her house. Martha insured Frau Kittenburger’s life for $1,000. Frau Kittenburger died shortly afterwards. Frau Kittenburger’s son was deeply suspicious of his mother’s death and made his feelings known to the police.

The police
, after making some investigations, ordered an exhumation of the bodies of Emil Marek, Ingeborg Marek, Suzanne Lowenstein, and Frau Kittenburger. They were all found to have been poisoned with a rare metallic poison, thallium. Martha’s son Peter, whose life she had recently insured, was also found to be slowly dying from the same poison. It was only speedy hospitalization that saved his life.

Thallium is a similar element to lead, which, when mixed together, is poisonous. Thallium is so toxic that it is easily absorbed through the skin and handling its compounds without protective gloves can easily lead to loss of the fingernails. The symptoms of Thallium poisoning are lethargy, numbness, tingling hands and feet, tremor, slurred speech, debility, and hair loss. The poisoning can lead to cardiovascular collapse, delirium, convulsions, paralysis, and coma resulting in death in as little as one or two days.

Martha was arrested and charged with four counts of murder. The press of the day dubbed Martha as the “Devil in Petticoats”. Martha denied all four charges. The prosecutor at her trial, Otto Wotowa, described Martha as a “human cobra who richly deserves the gallows”. Martha was found guilty of all four charges and sentenced to death by Adolf Hitler’s newly re-introduced guillotine.

The Nazi Guillotine

Martha Marek was executed by State Executioner Johann Reichhart on December 6
th
1938 at the age of thirty-four. She was the first woman executed in Austria since 1900.