The Poisonous Bride
The story of Marie Margarethe Beier—known simply as Grete—could easily have come straight out of a penny dreadful. She was a woman just 5 feet tall and extremely cunning, whose…
Read moreThe story of Marie Margarethe Beier—known simply as Grete—could easily have come straight out of a penny dreadful. She was a woman just 5 feet tall and extremely cunning, whose…
Read moreThe worst female poisoner of all time, who is even listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, was Maria Catharina Swanenberg, better known as “Goeie Mie,” which means “Good…
Read moreFritz Erbe and his 30-year-old mistress, Dorothee Buntrock, were a cunning murderous duo who robbed young women not only of their jewelry and clothing, but also of their lives. She…
Read moreThe last woman to be convicted under a British witchcraft law from 1735, the so-called “Witchcraft Act,” was 46-year-old Scot Helen Duncan, better known as “Hellish Nell.” The Witchcraft Act…
Read moreIn 1772, the child murderer Susanna Margaretha Brandt was the talk of the town in Frankfurt am Main, the birthplace of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, the man with whom I…
Read moreOver 400 years ago, social tensions arose in Frankfurt am Main between the citizens and the city’s rulers, an event that went down in history as the Fettmilch Uprising. The…
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