July 14, 1879 - Marie Alexandrine Becker
Her victims were poisoned over a three-year span in 1930s Belgium, a campaign that went undetected long enough to claim eleven lives before authorities intervened. What distinguished her case was not only the scale but the social context — she moved among her targets with apparent normalcy, and her eventual prosecution brought Belgian capital punishment law into sharp relief after decades of disuse.
From Wikipedia
Marie Alexandrine Becker (née Petitjean; 14 July 1879 – 11 June 1942), nicknamed The Black Widow, was a Belgian serial killer who was sentenced to death for poisoning eleven people between 1933 and 1936, and attempting to poison five others. Since capital punishment in Belgium had not been applied since 1863, her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
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