The Serial Killer - Part XXIII
Maria Swanenburg acted as a serial killer in the Netherlands between 1880 and 1883, poisoning her victims with arsenic in an effort to collect their insurance money. She took care of children and ill people in the poor neighbourhood of Leiden in which she lived.
She poisoned up to one-hundred people of which twenty-seven died between, but failed in her attempt to kill at least another fifty using the same method — the investigation included about ninety deaths. Forty-five of the survivors sustained chronic health problems after ingesting the poison. Swanenburg's motive was the money she would receive either through the victims' insurance or their inheritance. She had secured most of the insurance policies herself. Her first victim was her own mother in 1880; shortly after this, she killed her father too. She was caught when trying to poison the Frankhuizen family in December 1883. Her trial began on April 23, 1885. She was found guilty and sentenced to live in a correctional facility for the rest of her life. She died there in 1915.
Again, I do not think that Maria should be included in the serial killer list of honourable members of this activity. Her motives, as was the case, as we have seen, for most of the female killers we have presented here, was money. And I do not think that that is the true esssence of our trade.
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