Speaker 1: Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shonda Land Audio in
Speaker 1: partnership with I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Criminalia,
Speaker 1: where this season we're exploring the lives and motivations of
Speaker 1: some of the most notorious lady poisoners in history. I'm
Speaker 1: Riachru Marquis and I'm Holly Fry And in today's episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to look at the life of Roberta Elder,
Speaker 1: a woman from Georgia who was accused of poisoning more
Speaker 1: than a dozen people over the course of about fourteen years,
Speaker 1: mainly so she could profit from being the sold beneficiary
Speaker 1: of each victim's insurance payout. What little dang time Yeah,
Speaker 1: time in nineties. The second Roberta is an interesting woman
Speaker 1: to talk about. We don't actually know very much at
Speaker 1: all about her life was like before she was accused
Speaker 1: of poisoning people with everyone's favorite poison, arsenic. I know
Speaker 1: it's mine, it goes in everything. We don't actually even
Speaker 1: know what year she was born, although based on reports
Speaker 1: from her trial, she was probably born between about nineteen
Speaker 1: o seven and nineteen o nine. We do know that
Speaker 1: she lived in Atlanta, but we don't know for sure
Speaker 1: if she was native to the city. We can't even
Speaker 1: be sure what years she died in or if she
Speaker 1: died in prison, but we know or certain that Roberta
Speaker 1: was accused of killing several people, all of whom were
Speaker 1: her relatives, so the killings likely started as early as
Speaker 1: ninety eight. No one suspected anything of Roberta until Reverend
Speaker 1: William Elder, who was the Baptist minister Andrewberta's husband, died
Speaker 1: after eating a snack of bananas and cheese in his
Speaker 1: lunch in nineteen fifty two. I have so many questions
Speaker 1: about that combination of food, and some things made complete sense.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, banana bread with cream cheese on
Speaker 1: it completely makes sense. And then there was some sort
Speaker 1: of deep fried stuffed banana with mascapona cheese in it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, that makes sense too. But
Speaker 1: then there was like banana and Swiss, which I was like,
Speaker 1: that sounds like my breath would never recover from that. Ever. See,
Speaker 1: there's part of me that wants to try these things.
Speaker 1: Of course, of course, because maybe we're missing out on
Speaker 1: a culinary delight. It's possible. I have links. I'll share them.
Speaker 1: Great to go back to William and Roberta. As far
Speaker 1: as we can tell, they did not have a bad marriage.
Speaker 1: They were raising their children and what we would now
Speaker 1: kind of consider a Brady Bunch style, so it was
Speaker 1: a blended home. They each brought children into the marriage
Speaker 1: and they were only married for a little more than
Speaker 1: two years when William died. And just about one year
Speaker 1: into their marriage, tragedies struck when Williams daughter's Annie Pearl
Speaker 1: and Fannie May this was roberta stepdaughters, became unexpectedly ill
Speaker 1: and they both died just a few months apart. When
Speaker 1: William also became unexpectedly ill, Roberta cared for her sick husband,
Speaker 1: really not something that you would consider out of ordinary
Speaker 1: for a spouse to do. She called on the family
Speaker 1: doctor who attended to William and gave him medication, and
Speaker 1: then the doctor was called back to the house when
Speaker 1: William's condition worsened, but he ended up tending to his
Speaker 1: patient on what would become his deathbed. So there was nothing,
Speaker 1: at least superficially that was suspicious about William's death, that is,
Speaker 1: until the attending position had a Eureka moment he noticed
Speaker 1: sores and ruddy spots on William's body, which you know,
Speaker 1: a little bit strange. The cause the death he had
Speaker 1: suspected was pneumonia, but with these thoughts, it was probably
Speaker 1: not what he originally believed it to be. So how
Speaker 1: could anyone confuse the symptoms of arsenic poisoning with something
Speaker 1: like pneumonia, you might be wondering, Well, this actually does
Speaker 1: make some sense once you get to know a little
Speaker 1: bit more about arsenic. We've talked throughout this show about
Speaker 1: some of the strange side effects. But one of the
Speaker 1: reasons that arsenic has been such a popular method of
Speaker 1: poisoning throughout the centuries is that it really is a
Speaker 1: great mimic. So not only can arsenic be delivered in
Speaker 1: such a way that it's pretty much impossible to place
Speaker 1: a perpetrator at the crime scene, it's classic symptoms can
Speaker 1: range from everything like abdominal pain and vomiting to really
Speaker 1: highly unpleasant burning sensation throughout the body, which doesn't to
Speaker 1: me sound like pneumonia. I've had pneumonia, I didn't have that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And depend ending how much you ingest and over how
Speaker 1: long a period of time, it can also cause organ damage,
Speaker 1: which is why it's easily overlooked and instead diagnosed as
Speaker 1: kidney failure or heart failure, or a long infection like
Speaker 1: bronchitis or pneumonia. Exposure to arsenic can affect almost all
Speaker 1: systems of your body, and the longer you're exposed to it,
Speaker 1: the worst things can become for you. Signs of long
Speaker 1: term exposure can also sometimes show up on your skin,
Speaker 1: like we heard from Williams symptoms, and that can look
Speaker 1: like everything from just a you know, a flushing or
Speaker 1: a blushing, to something like a hyperpigmentation, which means your
Speaker 1: skin darkens. Sometimes you might get something called our cynical
Speaker 1: hyper keratosis, which is a condition for your skin on
Speaker 1: the palms and your souls begin to thicken. And because
Speaker 1: of the condition of William's skin and the concern about
Speaker 1: the number of recent deaths in the elder home, remember
Speaker 1: Annie Pearl and Fannie May had died just about a
Speaker 1: year prior, the family doctor notified the coroner and he
Speaker 1: recommended a post mortem examination be performed on William's body,
Speaker 1: and I thought this is really interesting of him. He
Speaker 1: also went on to describe Roberta when he was in
Speaker 1: the house. So he said that Roberta was a careful
Speaker 1: talking quote unquote and also quote unquote emotionless woman. When
Speaker 1: he was there, he suspected arsenic poisoning. He suspected she
Speaker 1: was guilty of doing it, and he suggested that an
Speaker 1: investigation into Roberta be opened. Atlanta police eventually claimed that
Speaker 1: between nineteen thirty eight and nineteen fifty two, numerous individuals
Speaker 1: died under suspicious circumstances while they lived in Roberta's household.
Speaker 1: It fell to Detective J. E. Helms to compile a
Speaker 1: list of individuals who had died while living with Roberta,
Speaker 1: including family in Watkinsville, Georgia, where her brother lived, and
Speaker 1: in her former homes in Atlanta's northeast and northwest neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: So we're going to take a quick break for a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsor. But when we come back, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the very very very long list
Speaker 1: of Roberta's victims. Very very very you drove me out
Speaker 1: of Mama, Welcome back to Criminalia. Now we're gonna start
Speaker 1: talking about how although many of Roberta's relatives died allegedly
Speaker 1: of pneumonia, they probably actually did not in fact I
Speaker 1: of that. So, during their investigation, Roberta was accused of
Speaker 1: poisoning more than a dozen relatives, as we mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: and that included every went from husbands, which were three
Speaker 1: which we're county common law husbands, which was common at
Speaker 1: the time, uh, four of her children, three stepchildren, as
Speaker 1: well as her mother, a grandchild, a cousin, and maybe
Speaker 1: maybe we're not on this one, the former wife of
Speaker 1: her recently deceased husband, William. So pull up a seat,
Speaker 1: because the list of suspected victims compiled by Detective Helms is,
Speaker 1: as Maria suggested before the break, a lengthy one. I
Speaker 1: believe it's that very, very very Yes, in case you
Speaker 1: weren't clear, Yeah, this is gonna take a minute. So
Speaker 1: it's believed Roberta's first victim was John Woodard, who was
Speaker 1: thirty six years old when he died in December of
Speaker 1: and John is believed to have been Roberta's common law
Speaker 1: husband James Thurmond, whose name may have been James, but
Speaker 1: it also may have been Willie. Records are unclear. Was
Speaker 1: roberta son from either her first or second marriage. He
Speaker 1: died in June of nineteen thirty nine, when he was
Speaker 1: just thirteen years old. His cause of death was recorded
Speaker 1: as malnutrition and respiratory trouble. Willie May and Lily Lou
Speaker 1: Thurmond were two of Roberta's daughters from either her first
Speaker 1: or her second marriage, not exactly sure. Willie May died
Speaker 1: when she was just two weeks old. Lily Lou, whose
Speaker 1: name may have actually been Mizzy May, it's a little unclear,
Speaker 1: was just one week old when she died. Jimmy Lee
Speaker 1: Crane Hunter, Roberta's grandson, was just two years old when
Speaker 1: he died in December of nineteen forty one. And then
Speaker 1: there was Gloria Evans, who was Roberta's cousin, and she
Speaker 1: was three years old when she died from suspected food poisoning,
Speaker 1: and that happened the day after Christmas in nineteen James
Speaker 1: Garfield Crane was another of her suspected victims, also from
Speaker 1: food poisoning. Records about who James exactly was, though, are
Speaker 1: a bit of a maze. Some list James as having
Speaker 1: died in December of nineteen forty three, the age of one.
Speaker 1: You could read a different set of historical accounts, however,
Speaker 1: and James Garfield Crane is listed as one of Roberta's
Speaker 1: husbands who was forty five when he died in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty seven. It could also be that these were in
Speaker 1: fact two different individuals, a father and son, so James
Speaker 1: Senior and James Jr. That seems entirely plausible, but because
Speaker 1: the two descriptions have been confused and interchanged in various
Speaker 1: accounts over the years, we just don't really know exactly
Speaker 1: what the reality was there. We just know that someone died.
Speaker 1: Roberta's mother, Kelly sometimes Kelly is spelled c O L
Speaker 1: L I E like Collie, died in nineteen Nora Scott
Speaker 1: Harris is the only person on this list who was
Speaker 1: actually a close family friend instead of a relative, and
Speaker 1: Nora was ninety three when she died in December of
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, and Roberta was the sole beneficiary of
Speaker 1: her insurance plan. That had also been the case with
Speaker 1: each of her relatives who had died, And that takes
Speaker 1: us to Fannie May and Annie Pearl Elder, who were
Speaker 1: William's children from a previous marriage. Both died in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen fifties, likely nineteen fifty or and or ninety one.
Speaker 1: It's a little unclear, but they died close together, and
Speaker 1: the cause their death, both girls was reported to be
Speaker 1: complications of pneumonia. Fannie May was fifteen and Annie Pearl
Speaker 1: was nine. And then, of course there is the Reverend
Speaker 1: William Elder, Roberta's third husband, who died in August of
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two. So the cause of death for almost
Speaker 1: everyone on this list had been recorded as pneumonia, duree mia,
Speaker 1: which is a form of kidney disease, or just generic
Speaker 1: food poisoning. In response to the detective's list, the Fulton
Speaker 1: County coroner, who at the time was a man named
Speaker 1: Ed Almond, stated, and we are quoting him, this is
Speaker 1: an unheard of thing. Why this reads like something out
Speaker 1: of storybook, Keppa, It was not a story book. The coroner,
Speaker 1: who examined the dasth certificates of each victim, concluded that
Speaker 1: all of the listed causes of death in each case,
Speaker 1: including pneumonia and urmia, could actually be presentations of arsenic poisoning,
Speaker 1: probably long term, and he was right on the money.
Speaker 1: Postmortem tests on the Reverence body alone found enough arsenic
Speaker 1: to kill three men, and when Annie Pearl and Fannie
Speaker 1: Maze bodies were exhumed and examined, arsenic was found in
Speaker 1: both their skin and their hair. So, with his testing complete,
Speaker 1: the medical examiner now believed Roberta was poisoning her victims
Speaker 1: by seasoning their food with arsenic powder. Now, if any
Speaker 1: of you are Agatha Christie detective novel fans, you might
Speaker 1: think that she'd probably noticed that your food had been
Speaker 1: tainted because she writes that arsenic has a sweet flavor.
Speaker 1: But that, like her novel, is pure fiction. What we
Speaker 1: know from experts today is that arsenic actually has no
Speaker 1: taste at all, and that's what makes it so perfect
Speaker 1: for anyone or a homemaker like Roberta to sprinkle it
Speaker 1: into the foods and drinks that she serves to her family.
Speaker 1: Enough about it, I guess that, Christie Maria, we're getting
Speaker 1: back to reality and the story of Roberta's history. And
Speaker 1: as suspicions about Roberta continued to grow, other lucky to
Speaker 1: be alive family members who had previously fallen ill with
Speaker 1: what they believed to be food poisoning flu or pneumonia
Speaker 1: after spending time in Roberta's home began to come forward
Speaker 1: to question her innocence. And they probably think they're lucky
Speaker 1: stars a little bit too. Yeah, No, kidding right. So
Speaker 1: during the investigation against her, insurance records revealed that Roberta
Speaker 1: had collected insurance benefits ranging from fifty dollars all the
Speaker 1: way up to three thousand dollars during this period of time.
Speaker 1: Most of the payouts were between fifty dollars to five
Speaker 1: dollars be fifty dollars to three dars depending on which
Speaker 1: source you read on at least a dozen relatives, and
Speaker 1: it dated all the way back to nineteen thirty eight.
Speaker 1: Most of the deaths occurred within a year or just
Speaker 1: slightly over a year after the insurance plan on the
Speaker 1: victim was opened, and Roberta, you can see what's coming here,
Speaker 1: was always the soul beneficiary on each plan. On September
Speaker 1: ninety two, roberto was arrested as a suspect in the
Speaker 1: death of her husband, William Elder. When we come back,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the suspicious powder Roberta was
Speaker 1: seen taking from her brother's farm. Welcome back to Criminalia.
Speaker 1: We are talking about how Roberta Elder may have concealed
Speaker 1: poisoning her relatives with arsenic Since so, one of the
Speaker 1: most interesting pieces of Roberta's case is that Atlanta detectives
Speaker 1: were never able to figure out where she acquired the
Speaker 1: arsenic she was accused of using in these poisonings. Witnesses
Speaker 1: came forward offering stories that day saw her with a
Speaker 1: new stash of powder every time she visited her brother's
Speaker 1: farm near Watkinsville, which is roughly seventy miles outside of Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Her surviving children agreed do they believed she brought powder
Speaker 1: back from that farm. Roberta, defending herself as one naturally would,
Speaker 1: insisted that the powder she kept on hand was just
Speaker 1: used to and we quote her kill plant insects, and
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty straightforward actually, like we've all had to
Speaker 1: deal with things like aphids in our garden, right, died
Speaker 1: tenacious earth works perfectly right, And maybe she was using
Speaker 1: it for this purpose because until the nineteen fifties, most
Speaker 1: pesticides on the market were arsenic base. That was like
Speaker 1: the dominant ingredients and most in most of those and
Speaker 1: rodents as well, as we've talked about many times before,
Speaker 1: so most housewives had it on hand. Roberta's alibi was
Speaker 1: that it was only to kill ants, uh, and that
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't have been suspicious at all. Had her relatives
Speaker 1: not also been dying at an alarming rate. But even
Speaker 1: so this was all circumstantial evidence. There were no eyewitnesses.
Speaker 1: But there's also this interesting matter of Roberta and her
Speaker 1: bottle of milk of magnesia. This is perhaps one of
Speaker 1: the most strange and important pieces of the poisoning puzzle
Speaker 1: if you don't know what it is. Milk of magnesia
Speaker 1: was and actually still is a really commonly used over
Speaker 1: the counter product to treat heartburn and constipation. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been unusual to have a bottle or two in
Speaker 1: a medazine cabinet in homes across the US in the
Speaker 1: nineteen forties and fifties or today, right, and Roberta, who
Speaker 1: cared for her sick husband's children and other relatives, was
Speaker 1: known to dose out milk of magnesia to help with
Speaker 1: her loved ones gastro intestinal issues. She insisted that she
Speaker 1: did not place any of the we quote pink stuff
Speaker 1: she used to kill insects into her bottle of milk
Speaker 1: of magnesia, and she insisted that she definitely did not
Speaker 1: give any such thing to her husband William. But the detectives,
Speaker 1: no matter how hard they tried, could not produce even
Speaker 1: a single witness who actually ever saw Roberta mix arsenic
Speaker 1: powder or pink powder, or any powder for that matter,
Speaker 1: into milk of magnesia or frankly, into anything else. Yet
Speaker 1: still without any direct evidence, everything we've talked about has
Speaker 1: been circumstantial, the case still moved forward. The state tried
Speaker 1: Roberta on one of three murder indictments. Yes, there were
Speaker 1: about a dozen potential victims that we read earlier, but
Speaker 1: the three that they went after her for were her
Speaker 1: husband William and her two stepdaughters, Fannie May and Annie Pearl.
Speaker 1: Throughout the instigation and the trial, Roberta maintained her innocence.
Speaker 1: She never once let down her guard or in any
Speaker 1: way faltered. During the schial, one witness testified Roberta had
Speaker 1: taken out a five insurance policy on her husband William
Speaker 1: shortly before the time of his death, and if we pique,
Speaker 1: this is kind of vicariously peeking into her financial affairs.
Speaker 1: Through this witness, Roberta was also apparently short on her accounts.
Speaker 1: Roberta's trial went on for about two years, so from
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty two to nineteen fifty four, and during that
Speaker 1: time the local newspaper described her as quote cool as
Speaker 1: a cucumber. Throughout the proceedings before, during, and after, Roberta
Speaker 1: never confessed to any of the accusations against her. No
Speaker 1: one will ever describe me as cool as if you
Speaker 1: come me either by a grand jury returned a verdict
Speaker 1: against her, and you'll be shocked, shocked to hear that
Speaker 1: she used sound guilty. And what's interesting to keep in
Speaker 1: mind is this was a verdict that was based on,
Speaker 1: as we said earlier, circumstantial evidence alone. Not only were
Speaker 1: there new witnesses, there wasn't even a clue of Howard
Speaker 1: Berta got her quote unquote pink powder, as she called it.
Speaker 1: And speaking of that pink powder, as far as we
Speaker 1: can tell from the court records and media reports, no
Speaker 1: expert was ever called upon to test that powder to
Speaker 1: figure out if it was or was not arsenic, or
Speaker 1: was any other type of poison. Pink powder is even
Speaker 1: often used in cosmetics as a way to create a
Speaker 1: natural look. So this thing that everyone is calling pink powder,
Speaker 1: we don't really know what it was. It could have
Speaker 1: just been like a little a little you know, like
Speaker 1: loose powder makeup. We have no idea whatever she wanted
Speaker 1: to make the ants look beautiful. Well, who does And
Speaker 1: we like to think that they would have done some testing,
Speaker 1: but we cannot show that as fact because there's no
Speaker 1: evidence that that happened. I mean, I'm amazed that they
Speaker 1: wouldn't have, but there is no evidence that they tested
Speaker 1: it at all. Um So, Roberta was then convicted of
Speaker 1: murdering her husband, William and at the age of forty
Speaker 1: five give her take a year, because you know, we've
Speaker 1: talked about that fuzzy record keeping. She was sentenced to
Speaker 1: life in prison. And this is where the facts about
Speaker 1: Roberta Elder, her trial and her sentencing pretty much dry up.
Speaker 1: But that's not really where her impact dries up. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about Roberta, who was a black woman in Georgia
Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, fared in the local press. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to this season, you know that we
Speaker 1: sometimes talk about the media and how it can impact
Speaker 1: a trial, or at least how it's coverage can get
Speaker 1: a city all riled up. And it doesn't even matter
Speaker 1: what country we've talked about Italy, it's the United States.
Speaker 1: People take sides, people get really interested in the story,
Speaker 1: and often a story of a female accused will saturate
Speaker 1: media reports and reporters follow the story as it infolds,
Speaker 1: detail by detail. The women on trial often becomes sensationalized,
Speaker 1: and it turns them into a bit of a celebrity.
Speaker 1: Often it's not because of anything more than the fact
Speaker 1: that they were women, the fairer sex, which I always
Speaker 1: put in quotes because I actually hate that term. Women
Speaker 1: are supposed to care for the home, not kill the
Speaker 1: people in It is what the media gets. But perhaps surprisingly,
Speaker 1: Roberta's killing spree did not actually draw much attention from
Speaker 1: the mainstream press at all, which at this time in
Speaker 1: the United States meant the mainstream white newspapers across the nation.
Speaker 1: That's a really good point. So let's look at the
Speaker 1: time and place Roberta lived. In The nineteen thirties en
Speaker 1: forties were still the time when terror mentionings claimed the
Speaker 1: lives that black American men, women, and children across the country,
Speaker 1: not just in Georgia. Residential segregation was increasing, and most
Speaker 1: white newspapers didn't have much of an interest in following
Speaker 1: a story of a poor black woman who murdered other
Speaker 1: black people. But it was the woman, not her crimes
Speaker 1: that they ignored. So let's talk about a woman for
Speaker 1: a moment named Nanny Doss. Nanny Dosh was a white
Speaker 1: woman who, at almost the very same time as Roberta,
Speaker 1: was also busy poisoning a dozen of her own relatives.
Speaker 1: Nanny was responsible for as many as eleven poisoning deaths
Speaker 1: and perhaps more during the same time span that Roberta
Speaker 1: was going about her killings. Like Roberta, Nanny was a
Speaker 1: poisoner who killed her husband's She killed four of her
Speaker 1: five husbands and possibly another dozen or so relatives. Very
Speaker 1: similar to Roberta, and also like Roberta, she killed with
Speaker 1: arsenic and she was motivated to collect insurance money. But
Speaker 1: what Nanny also had was media coverage, particularly white media coverage.
Speaker 1: They referred to her with some very cute names. She
Speaker 1: was called the giggling Granny, by the way, Do you
Speaker 1: know why they called her that? Okay, So I looked
Speaker 1: it up and it took me a little bit to
Speaker 1: find it. But every time they would ask her about
Speaker 1: someone that she had murdered, she would giggle. She wouldn't reply,
Speaker 1: she would just laugh. Oh, Nanny, that's not good for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's you haven't had media training. So in addition to
Speaker 1: the Giggling Granny. She was also called the Lonely Hearts Killer,
Speaker 1: the Black Widow, and Lady blue Beard. She was also
Speaker 1: called a self made widow in the white press. Today,
Speaker 1: more than seventy years after Na's crimes, you can still
Speaker 1: find out a ton of information about her if you
Speaker 1: go on YouTube. Her name also appears in the top
Speaker 1: ten most notable female serial killers. Contrast the ready availability
Speaker 1: of information on Nanny Doss with the fact that we
Speaker 1: couldn't find reliable information about Roberta's date of birth or
Speaker 1: her date or manner of death, and if you think
Speaker 1: back to the detective's list, we couldn't reliably identify even
Speaker 1: the names of all of her possible victims. Some experts
Speaker 1: argue that the race and gender of a killer and
Speaker 1: a victim affects not only whether that killer or victim
Speaker 1: receives any attention, but also how much attention the accused
Speaker 1: receives from the press and the public. So unbalanced reporting
Speaker 1: by the news media at this time can and does
Speaker 1: send a message that white killers and white victims, particularly
Speaker 1: if they are white females, hold more currency and are
Speaker 1: given more consideration than those who are she minorities. But
Speaker 1: the black press, especially the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender,
Speaker 1: did report on both Roberta's trial and on her victims.
Speaker 1: They were not necessarily kind, after all, she was on
Speaker 1: trial for murder, but they did follow her story, and
Speaker 1: it was in the black press that she got the
Speaker 1: nickname Mrs blue Beard. Say, you may have heard that
Speaker 1: nickname before blue Beard in regard to killers, and there's
Speaker 1: actually a kind of long standing story behind it. But
Speaker 1: don't confuse blue Beard with black Beard, who was a pirate.
Speaker 1: Blue beards story started as a French folk tale, first
Speaker 1: published as a mother ago as about the sixteen hundreds
Speaker 1: or so, and it goes at a very very very
Speaker 1: high level, like this, a wealthy man Mary's and then
Speaker 1: kills his wife, and then does it again and again
Speaker 1: and again. You can repeat that seven or seventy seven times,
Speaker 1: depending on the telling of the story, and wild a
Speaker 1: moral of this story is debatable depending on the criticism
Speaker 1: you read. The term blue Beard has ever since been
Speaker 1: used in reference to men who kill their wives, and
Speaker 1: if you just add a missus or a lady in
Speaker 1: front of it, it becomes a derogatory term referring to
Speaker 1: a woman who has killed her own husband or husband's
Speaker 1: and perhaps other family members. I also wonder if I
Speaker 1: mean there's there's actually a lot. We've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about black widows so far this season, but we haven't
Speaker 1: really talked a lot about blue beards, and I wonder
Speaker 1: if it was just kind of like, let's shake it
Speaker 1: up a little bit. But we'll never know. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: is interesting because accused women who are known to kill
Speaker 1: and collect insurance payouts with the death of their spouses
Speaker 1: are very, very frequently known as black widows. So Roberta,
Speaker 1: who allegedly killed at least three of her husbands for
Speaker 1: financial gain, certainly would fall into that category. But whether
Speaker 1: you want to call her a MSS blue beard or
Speaker 1: a black widow. Because of the number of deaths she
Speaker 1: was linked to by police, the black press decided to
Speaker 1: simplify things and just started referring to Roberta as a
Speaker 1: serial killer, which is apparently after her trial. Truth. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if you take a look at what the FBI profile
Speaker 1: of a serial killer in the United States today looks like,
Speaker 1: it's actually kind of fascinating, but it has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with Roberta. In fact, it's kind of the opposite
Speaker 1: of Roberta. It's almost always a white male who kills
Speaker 1: people that he does not know, not family members, not
Speaker 1: close friends, maybe somebody he's seen but doesn't know. But Roberta,
Speaker 1: who is believed to have killed more than a dozen
Speaker 1: relatives in about the same number of years, was black
Speaker 1: and female, And among all known serial killers in the
Speaker 1: United States, only about eight percent of them are women.
Speaker 1: So she's like a tiny, tiny percentage of a tiny,
Speaker 1: tiny person, exactly exactly. It's believed that because women are
Speaker 1: more methodical and precise than male serial killers, they often
Speaker 1: are able to continue their killing spreeze for an average
Speaker 1: of eight years before they're caught. Kind of scary, yeah. Roberta,
Speaker 1: if you'll recall from earlier in the episode, killed her
Speaker 1: victims between ninety eight, possibly even earlier, all the way
Speaker 1: to nineteen fifty two. Male serial killers, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: average a streak of just about half that, roughly four
Speaker 1: years before being caught. And also, women, interestingly, are more
Speaker 1: likely to kill people they know. More. On experts on
Speaker 1: serial killers, so in particular female serial killers, they report
Speaker 1: that these are women who often use methods that are
Speaker 1: considered a more low profiles and those that men favor.
Speaker 1: So what that would look like is this. Women's serial
Speaker 1: killers are more likely to murder with say, a slow
Speaker 1: acting arsenical poison, rather than maybe carrying out a violent
Speaker 1: act like shooting their victim with a gun. Female serial
Speaker 1: killers are also often reportedly involved in activities such as
Speaker 1: theft or fraud before they begin murdering. We don't know
Speaker 1: about Roberta's life before she was accused, again in part
Speaker 1: because she was black. There just aren't a lot of
Speaker 1: records about her. There's just nothing. If she happened to
Speaker 1: be a thief, or if she led a fairly straight
Speaker 1: laced life, that's all lost to history. But what we
Speaker 1: do know is that if she did it, she, like
Speaker 1: other female serial killers, does appear to have done it
Speaker 1: for the profit. Indeed, so Holly, it's time for your poison,
Speaker 1: and I have to suggest that, whatever it is, let's
Speaker 1: not serve it with bananas and cheese. I did toy
Speaker 1: with the idea briefly. Well. I was thinking about some
Speaker 1: sort of like banana liqueur dairy thing. Yes, but I
Speaker 1: decided that just felt a little too grizzly for me. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm not in that mood. I went so basic with
Speaker 1: this story that just didn't want me to. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to make it exactly exactly, so I went super
Speaker 1: duper basic, a little on the nose, but as someone
Speaker 1: who lives in Atlanta and loves this city desperately, I
Speaker 1: just thought it would be a nice way to nod
Speaker 1: to the city more than the actual story of Roberta.
Speaker 1: So I made a beautiful iced tea, as you know,
Speaker 1: we love our sweet iced tea in the South, and
Speaker 1: then uh, and then I just poured an ounce and
Speaker 1: a half of peach snaps into it, and it was delightful.
Speaker 1: I don't know who wouldn't want to sit on their
Speaker 1: portion drink that, But as I was drinking it, it is,
Speaker 1: especially if you start with sweet tea, it becomes very
Speaker 1: sweet and can be a little syrupy and heavy since
Speaker 1: the schnaps is a little bit more in that space.
Speaker 1: So it occurred to me that for someone that doesn't
Speaker 1: like that level of heaviness, you could also sub in
Speaker 1: like a flavored a peach infused vodka and it would
Speaker 1: be delightful. Now that's where I'm going. There, you go,
Speaker 1: then we'll make different drinks when you come to business.
Speaker 1: I know the weather everywhere has been bananas this year.
Speaker 1: We're still having days that are warm enough in Atlanta
Speaker 1: that we can enjoy a cold iced tea. So that's
Speaker 1: what I'm going with this week. That sounds delicious. That
Speaker 1: sounds delicious. Yes, you can throw a picture together and
Speaker 1: it's perfect for entertaining. Yes, thank you once again for
Speaker 1: joining us for our ongoing discussion of the Lady Poisoners
Speaker 1: this season. If you would like to subscribe to the show,
Speaker 1: that sounds absolutely delightful to us, We promise not to
Speaker 1: serve you bananas and cheese that are tainting. You can
Speaker 1: do that on the I heart Radio app, at Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Criminalia is
Speaker 1: a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership with I
Speaker 1: heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please
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Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite nose