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: I'm Holly Fry and I'm Maria Trumrqui. And this week
Speaker 1: we are talking about a woman named Marie bay Now
Speaker 1: and she had a knack for getting ahead in life
Speaker 1: by employing poison. Uh. That is how she eventually gained
Speaker 1: her nickname, which was the Black Widow, likening her, of
Speaker 1: course to the spiders that killed their mates for money. Uh,
Speaker 1: at least once they had served their purpose. The most
Speaker 1: amazing thing about Marieo not that she was accused of
Speaker 1: poisoning at least a dozen people, but that she got
Speaker 1: away with it and with each time she got wealthier.
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert. I know. Marie was born Davao to a
Speaker 1: farming family in lou De France, in and she was
Speaker 1: educated at a convent school, not all that unusual for
Speaker 1: the place and time, and she was remembered by her
Speaker 1: classmates though as being quote vicious and immoral and wild
Speaker 1: with boys. Well you know, they also described her as
Speaker 1: a mean so she didn't really curry a lot of
Speaker 1: favor from early child. When she was twenty four, so
Speaker 1: we're fast forwarding a little bit to which she's an adult.
Speaker 1: She married her cousin, August Aunty. The two actually were
Speaker 1: first cousins. Um. The way that that worked out was
Speaker 1: her mother was his father's sister. Now, this was not
Speaker 1: an arranged marriage. This was just your yeah, just the
Speaker 1: just just a friendly cousin marriage. Moving along, So these
Speaker 1: two cousins in love had been married for seven years
Speaker 1: when August became ill and he died and the official
Speaker 1: cause of his death was listed as tuberculosis. But where
Speaker 1: we're going to find out later is that he did
Speaker 1: not die of TV or, as it was commonly called
Speaker 1: at the time, the galloping consumption. Um. But let's not
Speaker 1: gallop ahead of ourselves. So when he died, Marie's husband
Speaker 1: left her seven thousand, two hundred forty francs. And while
Speaker 1: that wasn't like a huge amount, she wasn't set for life.
Speaker 1: It also was not a meager sum to come into right. Um.
Speaker 1: She was still she was living with her parents, and
Speaker 1: say she didn't have to worry about her rent or anything.
Speaker 1: This was her money. Um. When she was thirty one,
Speaker 1: that's when she became a widow. And it didn't take
Speaker 1: very long for her friends to start encouraging her to
Speaker 1: find another husband, as she that's what one did at
Speaker 1: the time. Her parents, too, encouraged her to remarry, although
Speaker 1: they may have been more concerned about gaining an extra
Speaker 1: hand for their farm than about Marie's love life or
Speaker 1: her personal security. Listen, I'm from farm stock. I understand
Speaker 1: this ideology. I'm not saying it anything wrong with that.
Speaker 1: It just, you know, like wishing your daughter to be
Speaker 1: in love is also a good thing, right. There's a
Speaker 1: there's a reason that a lot of farm families have
Speaker 1: late in life babies, and it's because the more hands
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding, right. Grieving for her husband, Marie initially
Speaker 1: turned down every potential suitor that her friends and family suggested,
Speaker 1: but then in Marie met Leon Bernard, and it is
Speaker 1: said that her cousin Pascaline made this match and remarried
Speaker 1: him within a year after her first husband's death. Ley
Speaker 1: All ran a saddle and harness shop which was about
Speaker 1: forty eight miles away from her parents farm, and although
Speaker 1: their marriage remained childless and there were some rumors about infidelity,
Speaker 1: we'll talk a little bit about that, the two of
Speaker 1: them actually appeared to be a pretty contented couple together.
Speaker 1: Neighbors and friends could never recall ever seeing them fight.
Speaker 1: So Leon had a nickname for his new ride, which
Speaker 1: was Moose, which means fly in French. And I'm actually
Speaker 1: really not sure if that should be in the positive
Speaker 1: or the negative category of their relationship, but there it is. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, it's also common for French people to call
Speaker 1: their beloved a cabbage. So great it could be perfectly
Speaker 1: lovely like and and among couples, you know, you never
Speaker 1: you never know what's going on between people, like it
Speaker 1: might have been a very loving, happy, funny nickname. It
Speaker 1: could have just been that she was a past I
Speaker 1: have no idea sweet little fly because it's French. It
Speaker 1: sounds cute, it's right. Over the years, Leon and Marie
Speaker 1: actually became pretty wealthy. They did really well for themselves.
Speaker 1: They ended up owning six houses, They had an inn,
Speaker 1: they had a cafe, and they also owned two farms
Speaker 1: where they bred horses. So not too bad. So that's
Speaker 1: that's money. Yeah. Um. Not very long after they got married,
Speaker 1: Leon began disappearing in the evenings and it was not
Speaker 1: for work. Uh, And the local gossips didn't hesitate to
Speaker 1: point an accusatory finger at two women in particular in town.
Speaker 1: One they told Marie was her cousin Pasquleen Um, the
Speaker 1: very same woman who had introduced the two um. And
Speaker 1: he was also said to be having an affair with
Speaker 1: the postmistress Louise Pinto. And it turns out that Leon
Speaker 1: did have a roving eye, but it always seemed like
Speaker 1: Marie just kind of turned a blind eye to his indiscretions.
Speaker 1: When he died in October of nine, his doctor did
Speaker 1: not list the cause of death as anything suspicious. It
Speaker 1: was listed as euremia. So, knowing what Marie's future would hold,
Speaker 1: as we have this great perspective, his cause of death
Speaker 1: is actually pretty interesting, okay. And this is why. So
Speaker 1: this is a condition that most commonly develops when you've
Speaker 1: already been diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. This isn't something
Speaker 1: that you're just like, oh, like a U T I
Speaker 1: or something, you know. This is something that's long standing
Speaker 1: disease or your kidneys. Um happens when all the toxic
Speaker 1: waste products in your body start to build up because
Speaker 1: your kidneys just can't remove them from you anymore. And
Speaker 1: once they get to a toxic level that can be fatal.
Speaker 1: So here is why we are telling you all of
Speaker 1: this and why it is interesting. This type of kidney
Speaker 1: damage can also be caused by repeated long term exposure
Speaker 1: to arsenic what's happening in this little French town chill domage.
Speaker 1: So though the investigation into the murders surrounding Marie initially
Speaker 1: focused only on the death of Leon Um, we'll get
Speaker 1: to that. It turns out that she wasn't just targeting
Speaker 1: a husband. When we come back, we're gonna expose Marie
Speaker 1: as a serial poisoner. Welcome back to Criminalia, where we're
Speaker 1: about to name Marie's targets. So, nine years before Leon
Speaker 1: Bernard died of uremia, Leon's great aunt, Madame Marie Louise
Speaker 1: le Comte, died, presumably of natural causes due to her
Speaker 1: old age. She was eighty six at the time and
Speaker 1: she had been ill for a considerable period before this.
Speaker 1: It was actually Marie who was sort of her nursemaid
Speaker 1: and cared for her at the end of her life. So,
Speaker 1: because she had never had any children, there was great
Speaker 1: speculation over who would be remembered in her will, and
Speaker 1: the whole family knew that Marie Louise had a considerable
Speaker 1: amount of satings, and Marie and Leon thought that they
Speaker 1: were going to be the recipients of her wealth. After all,
Speaker 1: she had moved in with them at that point and
Speaker 1: Marie had been her caregiver. But it turned out it
Speaker 1: was neither of them that was named in the will.
Speaker 1: Leon's parents, who were still alive, inherited everything, furious they
Speaker 1: received nothing for their good deeds. Neither Marie nor Leon
Speaker 1: attended the funeral and the second death that Marie is
Speaker 1: accused of at this point, because remember we're going back
Speaker 1: in time before her husband is actually her husband's best friend. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: according to some accounts of this story, Toussaint was one
Speaker 1: of the men Marie may or may not have had
Speaker 1: an affair with. Maybe there were some infidelities in this marriage.
Speaker 1: The other affair speculation was that there was a German
Speaker 1: handyman who worked at their home and on their farm.
Speaker 1: Marie's infidelities, though may or may not have been factual.
Speaker 1: Both men denied the affairs over the years, and Marie
Speaker 1: never seems to have even addressed them. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: probably the gossip mill in her small town at its
Speaker 1: finest but you never know, because sometimes rumors have bases
Speaker 1: in fact. So to go back to that first person,
Speaker 1: Maria mentioned to Saint Rivas and his wife Blanche may
Speaker 1: have actually been borders in Marie and Leon's home, or
Speaker 1: they might have actually just been neighbors. The record gets
Speaker 1: a little unclear on this point, but what we do
Speaker 1: know is that Toussaint and Leon were very good friends,
Speaker 1: so to still have been unwell, and Marie had helped
Speaker 1: his wife care for him during this time. He wasn't
Speaker 1: a poor man. I read in one source that he
Speaker 1: was a baker, but I couldn't verify that really anywhere. Um,
Speaker 1: he was a poor when he died, and probably no
Speaker 1: surprise that his wife was named as his soul heir
Speaker 1: in his will. As one does. This was really not
Speaker 1: acceptable for Marie. She felt once again as though she
Speaker 1: had been slighted since she had once again been his
Speaker 1: deathbed caregiver. But as we'll see, she had some other
Speaker 1: projects going on. Was definitely this is definitely a woman
Speaker 1: who knew how to diversify her potential revenue streams. That's
Speaker 1: one way I'm saying it again, through nefarious means, but
Speaker 1: it's still a revenue stream, right, She's she's making herself
Speaker 1: wealthy here. Um. So it was Marie's father who was
Speaker 1: the next pass away. In May of nine, which was
Speaker 1: about ten months after Toussaint's death. Marie and her mother
Speaker 1: shared the assets, which included two farms, and after her
Speaker 1: father's death, Marie's mother moved in with her and Leon
Speaker 1: never move in with Marie. Leon, yes, that they just
Speaker 1: don't board at their house. Good life advice, solid life advice.
Speaker 1: It's like dine with the Borges, right, yes, uh, which
Speaker 1: makes they're in a whole fascinating right, I think. Didn't
Speaker 1: they have a cafe to she were delicious? Just four
Speaker 1: months after the death of Marie's father, Leon's grandmother fell
Speaker 1: ill and Marie stepped into care for her, and when
Speaker 1: dear Colmer died, she left her assets once again, they
Speaker 1: went to Leon's parents. So if it sounds like it's
Speaker 1: a bad time to be Leon's parents, it was. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A short two months later, Leon's father accidentally eight poisonous
Speaker 1: mushrooms and collapsed and died, and he had willed his
Speaker 1: assets to his wife, So now she had all the
Speaker 1: things as also makes sense. So as you might imagine
Speaker 1: as we continue down this list of victims. Leon's mother
Speaker 1: was not a widow for very long um. Four months.
Speaker 1: That's a really short time. Four months after Leon's father's death. Um.
Speaker 1: Where that puts us now in January of one For
Speaker 1: anybody who's keeping score here, Uh, Leon's mother fell ill um.
Speaker 1: So guess who nursed her on her deathbed? Marie. So
Speaker 1: here's the thing. You would think the line of the
Speaker 1: line of deaths for them to finally get this at
Speaker 1: this point accumulated hefty inheritance would go right to them,
Speaker 1: but no, neither Marie nor Leon were named in the will. Instead,
Speaker 1: Leon's mother left all of her assets to her daughter,
Speaker 1: Leon's sister, Lucy. Two months go by after Leon's mother's death,
Speaker 1: and Leon discovers that his sister Lucy had hanged herself
Speaker 1: in her home. So, while we don't know very much
Speaker 1: about Lucy or her story, which is very clearly a
Speaker 1: tragic one. Her death was suicide, not by poison, it
Speaker 1: is still an interesting death in Marie's lineup because Lucy
Speaker 1: didn't have a will when she died, and she had
Speaker 1: at this point just inherited a whole lot of real
Speaker 1: estate and a substantial amount of money from her parents.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it was fairly substantial. It was
Speaker 1: like close to like three thousand francs or something, and
Speaker 1: like at least two houses. It was. It was a
Speaker 1: nice chunk that I'm sure Marie thought should be hers.
Speaker 1: Um So during the time she knew Marie. It said
Speaker 1: that Lucy had remarked at least once um and we
Speaker 1: quote this, I will not leave that Marie woman even
Speaker 1: a teaspoon, so that a woman really kind of says
Speaker 1: it all, doesn't it like, But under French law, her
Speaker 1: assets without a will would go to her next of kin,
Speaker 1: and that was Leon. Uh. Yeah, I think that Lucy
Speaker 1: probably talked to Marie's classmates. Maybe they didn't. She's she's mad,
Speaker 1: She's like none of them liked him. So less than
Speaker 1: a year after Lucy's suicide, Blanche, remember she was to
Speaker 1: Saint Rivet's widow, also died and Marie had stayed by
Speaker 1: her side as she lay dying, and Leon very thoughtfully
Speaker 1: bought her house right out from under her. What happened
Speaker 1: there was under a life annuity contract, which you can
Speaker 1: still do now. It was very popular at the time
Speaker 1: in France. An ownership of Blanche's house would have been
Speaker 1: transferred to Leon and he would pay her monthly until
Speaker 1: she died. But she died so quickly that he actually
Speaker 1: never ended up having to pay her anything. So Blanche a,
Speaker 1: grateful for Marie's comfort, is the one person who did
Speaker 1: name Marie as her soul heir in her will. Finally right,
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm getting the recognition I deserve. She's like,
Speaker 1: I feel all whole now I can just take my money.
Speaker 1: And I don't think she ever felt whole, But that's
Speaker 1: my speculation. I think A probably onto something there. So,
Speaker 1: but for three years it was quiet in her family.
Speaker 1: Three years went by without any deaths among Marie and
Speaker 1: Leon's friends and family, and they spent this time just
Speaker 1: generally buying things and enjoying their wealth. But you know,
Speaker 1: they've had a lot of mourning and death, so people
Speaker 1: probably thought, oh, at last they're getting to have a
Speaker 1: good time. They were black all the time, right, the
Speaker 1: Baynard's are finally enjoying life. Yes, good for them. In
Speaker 1: Marie's elderly cousins, Pauline and Virginie were the next to go.
Speaker 1: The two of them had made that foolish mistake of
Speaker 1: moving in with the Baynard's and Marie was carry for them.
Speaker 1: This gets so strange because under Marie's care, first Pauline
Speaker 1: died after she mistook a bowl of Lie left on
Speaker 1: the counter for her dessert one night. Now, I do
Speaker 1: want to say that lie at the time, it wasn't
Speaker 1: so weird to have it on the counter because you
Speaker 1: could wash your dishes with it, right, But the idea
Speaker 1: that you would mistake it for like a bowl of
Speaker 1: ice cream or something seems really suspicious. Um. And the
Speaker 1: other thing that's really suspicious is that amazing as it
Speaker 1: may sound, Virsionie made the very same mistake not even
Speaker 1: a week later. So this might be a good teachable moment. Uh.
Speaker 1: Just as a rule of thumb, don't eat things you
Speaker 1: find left behind on the counter, but if they look
Speaker 1: like ice cream. Um. And I have a I have
Speaker 1: a family member who accidentally ate a spoonful of butter
Speaker 1: that way and they are horrified it. But when you
Speaker 1: discover it's fly also, I'm like, how much did they
Speaker 1: eat before they realize? Like? Were they just what's going on?
Speaker 1: I would think that it would sort of feel funny
Speaker 1: in the mouth before you would swallow, But I don't
Speaker 1: spit it out right. We know that both Pauline, as
Speaker 1: we said, and Virginie were poisoned. However it may not
Speaker 1: have been with Lie. Right. Um, you know this is
Speaker 1: sometimes it's just a it makes the story a little
Speaker 1: bit better. But when you when you go back and
Speaker 1: you recall what's going on, Lie doesn't necessarily make a
Speaker 1: lot of sense here. But hey, maybe it was like
Speaker 1: and we don't know, like this is the account given
Speaker 1: by Marie Baynard, right, yes, So, I mean sure her
Speaker 1: cousins really really dopey andate Lie. I thought it was dessert.
Speaker 1: I mean it probably won't surprise either that Marie and
Speaker 1: Leon were air to both of their will. However, so
Speaker 1: she made them a lie Sunday. Um not long, not
Speaker 1: long at all after Leon Emrie inherited both Pauline and
Speaker 1: Virginie estates, Leon, who was fifty five at this time,
Speaker 1: started to experience terrible abdominal pain and he also had
Speaker 1: vomiting and symptoms of kidney failure. He had a heart attack,
Speaker 1: and he finally fell into a coma and in October
Speaker 1: of nine he passed away, and there was only one
Speaker 1: heir named on his will. Like they had no children,
Speaker 1: he has lost his family and his sister. Uh so
Speaker 1: Marie inherited everything. But wait, there's there's one more. I
Speaker 1: feel like there there. We could all benefit from a
Speaker 1: flow chart at this point of like how the wealth
Speaker 1: has transferred and who has died and what's been accumulated.
Speaker 1: So right, so there's one more. Less than two years
Speaker 1: after her husband died, Marie's mother, who was elder and
Speaker 1: who was losing her sight, became sick with the flu,
Speaker 1: which was apparently um really quite strong that year, so
Speaker 1: everyone was sort of falling down with it. But at
Speaker 1: this point Marie was her mother's only air and her
Speaker 1: mother died and she inherited a sizeable nest egg from her.
Speaker 1: So this is once again maybe a good time to pause.
Speaker 1: We haven't even gotten to any of the crazy trial
Speaker 1: business yet, and when we returned, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about why all of these deaths were not simply bad
Speaker 1: Bernard family luck. Welcome back to criminal Lea, where we're
Speaker 1: talking about how there was no such thing as the
Speaker 1: Bynard family chinks. Although the Bynards had suffered an extraordinary
Speaker 1: number of deaths in a really short period of time,
Speaker 1: still no one suspected that it was anything more than
Speaker 1: just bad luck. I mean, think about the number of
Speaker 1: funerals they went to, like what five years um The
Speaker 1: locals actually started referring to it as the Bynard family
Speaker 1: jinks until Leon died. And when he died, Marie inherited
Speaker 1: all of their accumulated wealth and she finally emerged as
Speaker 1: a suspect. But not at first, as it turns out
Speaker 1: that when he fell ill, Leon became suspicious of his
Speaker 1: wife and he told his possible lover, Louise, that Marie
Speaker 1: was trying to poison him. In the days after Leon's death,
Speaker 1: his possible mistress, Louise, concerned and very suspicious of Marie,
Speaker 1: sent a letter to the public Prosecutor's office, and initially
Speaker 1: her claim that Leon suspected his wife of poisoning him
Speaker 1: was just outright dismissed. But that, along with the suspicions
Speaker 1: of other citizens that had been brought to the prosecutor's
Speaker 1: office uh caused investigators to finally be swayed to at
Speaker 1: least take a cursory look into this vast swath of deaths.
Speaker 1: The first of the bodies that they exhumed was Marie's
Speaker 1: first husband, So dial it way back here two toxicologists
Speaker 1: found a significant amount of arsenic in his organs um,
Speaker 1: and so you know, maybe he didn't die of tuberculosis
Speaker 1: after all. And recall when we mentioned earlier that euremia
Speaker 1: can be caused by arsenic poisoning. When Marie's second husband
Speaker 1: was exhumed, an autopsy found that he too had ingested
Speaker 1: a large amount of arsenic over a period of time.
Speaker 1: So at this point, these two bodies both come back
Speaker 1: with arsenic, and the judge orders the bodies of every
Speaker 1: member of Marie's family who died within twenty five years
Speaker 1: before this to be exhumed. So by the time this
Speaker 1: investigation was over, fatal levels of arsenic had been found
Speaker 1: in eleven bodies. Each time a body was exhumed and
Speaker 1: then the findings were that it had been poisoned, the
Speaker 1: headlines would announce another one for Marie. So it's interesting
Speaker 1: to note that of all of the bodies that were exhumped,
Speaker 1: no arsenic was found in the remains of Marie's mother
Speaker 1: in law. Her cause of death had been pneumonia. So
Speaker 1: I mean, actually, perhaps this was really one case where
Speaker 1: mother Nature did the work for Marie. Yeah, she was
Speaker 1: probably like, who I can put the Arsenic away. Marie
Speaker 1: was arrested. That took place on July twenty one, nine
Speaker 1: and she was charged with the poisoning of a total
Speaker 1: of eleven people, including her two husbands, parents, two cousins,
Speaker 1: a great aunt, too close friends, and possibly a couple
Speaker 1: of in laws. She may have been accused of more
Speaker 1: than the poisonings, though there's an account of her trial report,
Speaker 1: and it only appears in in one write up of
Speaker 1: her trial that Marie was also accused of fraud. They
Speaker 1: reported that she had cashed pension payments that had been
Speaker 1: meant for one of her aunts, but it never comes
Speaker 1: up again. While awaiting trial, Marie's a turn Ernie A
Speaker 1: dapperman named Henri Ducluzzo explained her defense. He said, quote,
Speaker 1: in this country of good wines and fine living, one
Speaker 1: might possibly conceive of one murder, two murders, even three murders,
Speaker 1: but eleven murders. Reese first trial took a little while
Speaker 1: for it to begin. It begin in February. Remember she
Speaker 1: was arrested in Well, they had to dig up all
Speaker 1: those bodies and do tests. They did, and then that
Speaker 1: does take a while. Exhamations are not you don't rush
Speaker 1: them so in the courtroom, Marie's attorneys questioned the coroner's
Speaker 1: methods and the tests that we're being used for finding
Speaker 1: arsenic in a body. They accused the scientists who conducted
Speaker 1: the tests of mishandling evidence or in some cases altogether
Speaker 1: losing the evidence. They also led with a new theory
Speaker 1: suggesting that arsenic could enter a corpse from the soil
Speaker 1: around it through the actions of anaerobic bacteria, and no
Speaker 1: one tested the soil, so the defense could just go
Speaker 1: with that theory. Unable to come to any sort of verdict,
Speaker 1: the court ruled that it needed more time to review
Speaker 1: the scientific evidence and adjourned. So a new panel of
Speaker 1: experts comes in and it takes them two years to
Speaker 1: review the forensic evidence from the first trial. They were
Speaker 1: forced to eliminate five of the charges at this time
Speaker 1: because there actually was no longer in a physical evidence
Speaker 1: to test anything in the corps whatever they exhumed for arsenic.
Speaker 1: So Marie's second trial was also declared a mistrial. Seven
Speaker 1: years later, Marie went on trial again, but by now
Speaker 1: we are talking about nineteen sixty one, so that means
Speaker 1: that like over the twelve years since this all began,
Speaker 1: in a legal sense, even more of the physical evidence
Speaker 1: had been lost, and that left very little physical evidence
Speaker 1: against her. After all, we are talking about even in
Speaker 1: a best case scenario, like going from the first trial
Speaker 1: nine years at this point having gone, I was twelve
Speaker 1: from the first and maybe nine from the second at least.
Speaker 1: It's like a decade that we're talking about here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So experts admitted in court that the techniques that that
Speaker 1: had been used to detect the arsenic were actually outdated tests,
Speaker 1: and that there were too many factors to put the
Speaker 1: pieces together anyway, which I thought was really who says that,
Speaker 1: Like you're in court, You're like, there's too much to
Speaker 1: do here, just I can't do it. It's such an
Speaker 1: epic case of like I don't know anymore. Marie's attorney,
Speaker 1: in the meantime, had learned that the caretaker of the
Speaker 1: Ludin Cemetery, just where many of these people were buried,
Speaker 1: had grown a garden near the burial sites, and his
Speaker 1: garden included potatoes, which, as is the case with many
Speaker 1: root vegetables, contained naturally occurring arsenic in their skins. The
Speaker 1: caretaker also admitted that he had sprinkled his garden with
Speaker 1: fertilizers that contained arsenic, and so both of these things
Speaker 1: could have contaminated the soy around the bodies. At least
Speaker 1: that was the defense's argument. So in addition to a
Speaker 1: problem with this evidence, there were witnesses now who have
Speaker 1: retracted their earlier testimonies from the first and second trials
Speaker 1: um and one of those witnesses to retract her testimony
Speaker 1: was his potential mistress that we talked about with Leon, Louise,
Speaker 1: who now admitted that Leon had actually never told her
Speaker 1: that he suspected his wife of trying to kill him.
Speaker 1: His fabrication, it kind of seems like she suspected the
Speaker 1: wife and added Leon's name to make it have more gravity.
Speaker 1: I feel that way too. The Queen of Poisoners, which
Speaker 1: is another nickname that Marie came to be known by,
Speaker 1: was acquitted during her third trial in December of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty one. The jury took only three hours and twenty
Speaker 1: five minutes to deliberate, So in the end, Marie's case
Speaker 1: lasted across twelve maybe thirteen years. She was in prison
Speaker 1: for about five of those years, but for most of
Speaker 1: the time she was out on bond um. But when
Speaker 1: she walked straight faced, as they reported from the courthouse
Speaker 1: on December twelfth, nine. She remained a free woman, a
Speaker 1: free woman with a lot of inheritances. She lived almost
Speaker 1: twenty more years. She died in nineteen eighty on Valentine's Day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Maria is one of those interesting cases because you and
Speaker 1: I have talked many times about the fact that in
Speaker 1: researching any of these women that we've talked about on
Speaker 1: the show so far, there's almost always something that you
Speaker 1: admire or identify with them, or you know, Maria is
Speaker 1: a little harder, like there's not a lot that's likable
Speaker 1: about her. Yes, No, I completely agree. Uh in less
Speaker 1: mean thoughts, Mario, It's time for what's your poison? What
Speaker 1: is your poison? This week? Hollie? So uh, this week
Speaker 1: we are going with the suassonquez, which is the French
Speaker 1: seventy to those of us who don't speak well. And
Speaker 1: in case you've ever wondered, also, numbers are always hard
Speaker 1: in any any foreign language. But the it's just a
Speaker 1: little fun quirk that in French sois san cans really
Speaker 1: means sixty. Yeah. Before I even start with this, I
Speaker 1: will say that if you go looking for recipes for
Speaker 1: the French seventy five or sans uh. You will see
Speaker 1: variations because some use gin and some use kognac. Oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't see that. I only saw the ones that
Speaker 1: used gin. This is a fun argument to get into
Speaker 1: with bartenders, um or just to just not an argument,
Speaker 1: even just a discussion. There's there's room on my bar
Speaker 1: tab for all kinds of delightful cocktails. But I went
Speaker 1: with gin because I am not by nature a gin drinker,
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to expand my horizons. So this one
Speaker 1: is one ounce of gin, a half ounce of fresh
Speaker 1: lemon juice, a little dash or two of simple syrup.
Speaker 1: Some recipes call for a specific amount uh, and then
Speaker 1: three ounces of champagne or another sparkling wine is fine
Speaker 1: if you don't have champagne. So this is kind of
Speaker 1: like a ricky It's it's very similar to a lot
Speaker 1: of other drinks. Yeah, I mean, the base ingredients are
Speaker 1: all there, um. So you just put the gin, the
Speaker 1: lemon juice, and the simple syrup into a shaker. You
Speaker 1: can also use a flavored syrup if you want to
Speaker 1: kick it up a notch um. Throw it in your
Speaker 1: shaker and shake it up with some ice. And then
Speaker 1: you strain it into a chilled champagne flute and you
Speaker 1: top it with the champagne and the sparkling wine. I'm
Speaker 1: not really a gin person myself, but it sounds delicious.
Speaker 1: It's amazingly delicious. I used vanilla syrup instead of just
Speaker 1: a plain simple syrup because I like vanilla and everything obviously,
Speaker 1: so uh so remarkably delicious. So you also tried a
Speaker 1: different cocktail this week as well, which which is the
Speaker 1: Henning Way, which I actually was really curious about because
Speaker 1: the Henning Way is absinthe and champagne, right. It's actually
Speaker 1: called Death in the Afternoon. It was invented by Hemingway,
Speaker 1: and I texted Maria death in the Afternoon should be
Speaker 1: renamed Black in the Afternoon, and broke my heart because
Speaker 1: it was I was like, I would have tried the Hemingway,
Speaker 1: and maybe I don't. That was not a delightful. Of
Speaker 1: the two cocktails, one was an absolutely delightful romp and
Speaker 1: one I could not finish, no, ma'am. I like to
Speaker 1: think of of Marie and Leon sitting out those three
Speaker 1: years where they were just enjoying their wealth and buying
Speaker 1: horses and houses and stuff. That they would sit out
Speaker 1: on their porch and have because it would have been
Speaker 1: invented by then. There's some there's some debate about when
Speaker 1: it was invented, but this is twentieth century, you know,
Speaker 1: this is you know, yeah, it would have existed. But
Speaker 1: one of the things that drew me and you too,
Speaker 1: it is the fact that it kind of was a
Speaker 1: nice representation because it contains shamping of like Maurice ascendency financial.
Speaker 1: I liked that it had Champagne, and I liked that
Speaker 1: it had this really like Edi because that you know,
Speaker 1: like lemon juicy kind of like squirt that went into
Speaker 1: it as well, And I was like, I could really
Speaker 1: see that being Marie. Yeah. Yeah. Criminalia is a production
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