CRIME | MAY 4, 2021

Top 10 Women Who Poisoned Their Husbands

Women, if you have a husband who upset you, what do you do? Maybe give him the cold shoulder, make him sleep on the couch, deny his love for a week or two—or kill him? Like something out of the “Cell Block Tango,” there are stories of women whose final nerves snapped and well, say goodbye to Dear Old Hubby. But instead of using knives, guns, a hitman, or pushing him down a flight of stairs, these Femme Fatales literally picked their poison.

10Though not all famous stories of women poisoning their husbands wind up in death, in the end, I think the husband got the point. Either he really did “have it coming’” or there was a more sadistic and twisted plan at play. Here are the top 10 women who poisoned their husbands.

Guilia Tofana

The True Story Of The 17th Century Cosmetician Who Helped More Than 600 Women Murder Their Husbands

We start our list with the famous Roman serial killer, Guilia Tofana. For 50 years in the mid-1600s, she helped wives kill their husbands. Her special brew—a mix of arsenic, belladonna, and lead—called “Aqua Tofana” killed about 600 men. Just four drops, and the guy was good as gone. But all it took was one regretful client to bring Tofana’s “career” to a screeching halt.

ou know in movies that one character who freaks out in the middle of a crime and ends up ruining it for everyone involved? Yeah, that was this lady. After dosing her husband’s soup with “Aqua Tofana,” Tofana’s client was immediately filled with regret and begged her husband not to eat the soup. Rightfully so, he was suspicious and finally got the answer out of his wife—awkward. She told her husband that Tofana had given her the poison

Seeking sanctuary did Tofana no good. Roman authorities arrested and tortured her. She finally admitted that she, along with her mother and daughter. had helped wives poison their husbands, killing hundreds of men. She was executed for her crimes in 1659.

9Nannie Doss

Giggling Granny: The Creepy Story of Serial Killer Nancy Doss | Crime Infographics

If Tofana made poisoning your husband fashionable, Nannie Doss made it terrifying. Doss’s story is particularly twisted because she laughed the entire time she was confessing to the police. This earned her the name “The Giggling Granny.” It’s like a horror story.

Doss is responsible for 11 deaths between 1920 and 1954. This number includes two of her children, two sisters, her mother, a mother-in-law, a nephew, and, wait for it—four husbands. Her first husband, Charlie Braggs came home from work one day and found two of their children dead on the kitchen floor. Doss explained it was accidental poisoning, but he didn’t buy it. A year later, Braggs left with another woman.

The Tulsa, Oklahoma native soon grew obsessed with romance novels. And her next four husbands were anything but romantic. With the exception of the fifth, they were alcoholics, sometimes violent, womanizers, and adulterers. Her second husband, whom she killed with rat poison in his whiskey, even raped her. So, they may have had it comin’, but I’m not so sure Doss’s other victims did.