April 18, 1883 - Martha Wise
Her case stands out not for its scale but for its motive — a calculated act of retaliation against the very family who had constrained her personal life. Over the course of 1924, she poisoned seventeen relatives, killing three, in a campaign that unfolded quietly within a domestic circle that had no reason to expect the danger coming from within it.
From Wikipedia
Martha Wise (née Hasel; April 18, 1883 – June 28, 1971) was an American poisoner and serial killer. After her husband died and her family forced her to end a relationship with a new lover, Wise retaliated by poisoning seventeen family members, of whom three died, in 1924. She was convicted of one of the murders, despite defense claims that she was mentally ill and that her lover had ordered her to poison her family. The case is considered one of the most sensational of the era in Ohio, where it occurred.
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