Welcome to our deep‑dive into the top 10 remorseless assassins who chose poison over a sword. While the world often glorifies flashy gunfights and gruesome murders, these covert killers slipped through the shadows, delivering slow, agonizing deaths that stretched for days, weeks, or even months. Below, we resurrect ten of the most cold‑hearted poisoners whose names have faded from popular memory.
Why the top 10 remorseless Poisoners Still Matter
10. Louisa CollinsThe ‘Borgia Of Botany’
Louisa Collins earned a grim distinction as the final woman ever hanged in New South Wales, Australia, back in 1889. She wed young Charles Andrews, and together they raised seven children in a modest Botany home – now a Sydney suburb.
The family took in boarders to supplement their income, and rumors soon swirled that Louisa was overly familiar with several male guests. One such liaison involved a Michael Collins, whose relationship with Louisa was uncovered by her husband.
Charles expelled Michael from the household, only to fall gravely ill himself and die within a week. Three months after Charles’s death, Louisa remarried Michael. Their renewed union was short‑lived; Michael soon exhibited the same mysterious illness and died shortly thereafter. An autopsy revealed arsenic poisoning, prompting immediate charges against Louisa. After two years, four juries, and relentless testimony – notably from her daughter who recalled Louisa purchasing an arsenic‑based product called Rough On Rats – she was finally convicted. The press christened her the “Borgia of Botany,” sealing her notorious legacy.
9. Elisabeth WieseThe ‘Angel-Maker Of St. Pauli’
Baby farming – the grim practice of taking in unwanted infants for a fee – produced some of history’s most chilling murderers. While many, like the infamous Amelia Dyer, killed dozens or even hundreds, Elisabeth Wiese remains a darker footnote. Dubbed the “angel‑maker of St. Pauli” after the Hamburg district where she operated, Wiese previously served time for attempting to kill her husband.
Upon release, she launched a lucrative baby‑farming operation, promising affluent families scandal‑free placements for their children. In reality, she administered lethal doses of morphine and discarded the bodies in her kitchen stove. At one point, she coerced her own daughter, Paula, into prostitution and, when Paula became pregnant, murdered the baby as well.
Police eventually caught wind of the macabre business, and Paula’s testimony helped secure Wiese’s conviction. She met her end by beheading in 1905, a stark reminder of the deadly consequences of greed and desperation.
8. Adolf Seefeld‘Onkel Tick Tack’
Pinning down the full scope of Adolf Seefeld’s crimes proves elusive. Active in 1930s Germany, he preyed on young boys, and the Nazi regime exploited his case for anti‑homosexual propaganda. A traveling watchmaker by trade, Seefeld’s itinerant lifestyle left scant records.
Some accounts claim his first murder occurred in 1908, allowing him to evade conviction. He spent much of his adult life incarcerated on various child‑molestation charges. In 1935, he was finally arrested for murder, convicted of poisoning twelve boys with a homemade concoction and burying them in the woods. Estimates suggest his victim count could have been thirty or more.
Seefeld’s trial served the Nazi agenda, branding him “Uncle Tic‑Toc” and portraying homosexuals as “enemies of the state.” The press leveraged his case to argue that such “perverse tendencies” inevitably led to murder, urging pre‑emptive neutralization of perceived threats.
7. Caroline Grills‘Aunt Thally’
At first glance, Caroline Grills – affectionately called “Auntie Carrie” – seemed the epitome of a sweet, elderly lady. Petite, bespectacled, and perpetually offering tea and biscuits, she concealed a lethal secret: her tea was often laced with thallium, a common rat poison.
By the early 1950s, Grills, already in her sixties, faced charges for the attempted murder of her sister‑in‑law Eveline Lundberg and Lundberg’s daughter, both showing classic thallium poisoning symptoms. Another family member, John Downey, alerted authorities, prompting a deeper investigation.
Police uncovered a string of suspicious deaths within Grills’s circle: her stepmother in 1947, her husband’s brother‑in‑law, a cousin, and a friend of her stepmother—all dying within two years. While two victims had been cremated, the remaining two were exhumed, revealing thallium traces. Ultimately, Grills was convicted of a single attempted murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, where she earned the moniker “Aunt Thally” for her preferred toxin.
6. Daisy de MelkerThe Plumber’s Wife
In 1923, Daisy de Melker led an unremarkable life in Johannesburg, South Africa, alongside her husband William Cowle and their sole surviving child, Rhodes Cecil. When Cowle fell ill, Daisy administered what she claimed were Epsom salts.
Instead of recovery, Cowle’s health rapidly declined, culminating in a cerebral hemorrhage. As a plumber, he left a tidy inheritance to Daisy after fourteen years of marriage. Years later, Daisy wed another plumber, Robert Sproat, whose own sudden death in November 1927 mirrored Cowle’s – also a cerebral hemorrhage. Both deaths were initially ruled natural, allowing Daisy to reap the financial rewards each time.
In 1931, Daisy married a third plumber, Sydney Clarence. The following year, her twenty‑year‑old son Rhodes died under mysterious circumstances. Three suspicious deaths within eight years attracted police scrutiny. Toxicology revealed strychnine in all three bodies, and purchases of the poison were traced back to Daisy. Though she was only convicted for her son’s murder, she faced execution by hanging in 1932.
5. Bertha GiffordThe Angel Of Death
Bertha Gifford presented herself as a friendly housewife in Catawissa, Missouri, often caring for sick relatives and neighbors. Yet, an alarming number of her “patients” never recovered. Her murderous spree, spanning up to three decades, led to her arrest in 1928.
The exact tally of her victims remains uncertain. She faced charges for three murders, was named in six additional deaths, and suspected of up to seventeen. Gifford confessed to killing 48‑year‑old Edward Brinley and brothers Elmer and Lloyd Shamel, aged seven and eight. She claimed arsenic eased their severe stomach pains, but the boys’ father testified that they were healthy before visiting Gifford.
Gifford seemed indiscriminate, targeting victims ranging from a 72‑year‑old man to a 15‑month‑old infant. Though many suspect her first victim was her own husband, Henry Graham, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent her remaining days at Farmington State Hospital.
4. Robert BuchananThe Morphine Murderer
Born in Nova Scotia, Dr. Robert Buchanan established a practice in New York in 1886. His first marriage dissolved due to his proclivities for women and alcohol. He later wed Anna Sutherland, a former brothel madam twenty years his senior, who possessed a considerable fortune.
Embarrassed by his wife yet enamored with her wealth, Buchanan plotted her demise after Anna threatened to cut him out of her will. Soon after, Anna fell ill and died, with the coroner attributing her death to a brain hemorrhage, leaving Buchanan with a $50,000 inheritance.
Reporter Ike White, hearing of Anna’s death, contacted her former partner, who convinced White that Buchanan was responsible. White attempted to persuade the coroner that Anna had been poisoned with morphine, but the coroner dismissed the claim, citing a lack of pinpoint pupils.
Further investigation revealed Buchanan had once derided Carlyle Harris, a known morphine poisoner, as a “stupid amateur” for failing to conceal the pupil evidence. White deduced that a few drops of atropine administered before death could mask the signature pinpoint pupils. A newspaper campaign prompted the exhumation of Anna’s body, confirming morphine overdose. Buchanan was convicted and executed in 1895.
3. Lydia Sherman‘The Derby Poisoner’
In 1872, Connecticut resident Lydia Sherman faced charges for poisoning her third husband, Horatio Sherman. She insisted the act was accidental, claiming she never intended to kill him, but rather sought to eliminate his children – and, apparently, anyone else who stood in her way.
Lydia’s mantra was simple: when trouble arose, reach for arsenic. Her first husband, Edward Struck, a former New York police officer, fell into depression after being dismissed from his job. To solve both financial and emotional woes, Lydia secured a life‑insurance policy and slipped rat poison into his meals.
The couple’s five children – three young ones and two teenagers from Edward’s previous marriage – became her initial victims, beginning with the youngest due to the burden they represented. Afterward, Lydia married an elderly farmer, Dennis Hurlburt, in 1868, and repeated the poison‑and‑insurance scheme in 1870. She later wed widower Horatio Sherman in Derby, Connecticut, who had two small children. Lydia poisoned those children as well.
Horatio, driven to heavy drinking after his children’s sudden deaths, claimed he had mistakenly added poison to his cider, believing it to be sodium bicarbonate. Ultimately, Lydia received a life sentence, convicted of the sole murder she denied – the death of Horatio.
2. Valorous P. CoolidgeThe Waterville Poisoner
Dr. Valorous P. Coolidge enjoyed a thriving medical practice in Waterville, Maine, during the mid‑19th century. Yet, chronic overspending left him perpetually in debt. In 1847, he owed $2,500 to a cattle dealer named Edward Mathews. On September 29, Mathews visited Coolidge’s home, unsuspectingly sipping brandy laced with prussic acid – the historic name for hydrogen cyanide.
The following day, Mathews’s body was discovered in an empty cellar, bearing multiple head wounds and a missing wallet. Coolidge, acting as a witness, claimed the wounds were fatal, but his true aim was to discard the poisoned stomach contents, which he removed due to their strong brandy odor.
Despite Coolidge’s attempts to conceal evidence, a professor named Loomis received the stomach samples and identified traces of prussic acid. Further analysis showed the head injuries occurred post‑mortem – a detail Coolidge would have known. As suspicion mounted, Coolidge took his own life in jail before a conviction could be secured.
1. Antoine DesruesThe Ghastly Grocer
Antoine Desrues, a name barely whispered today, achieved notoriety in mid‑18th‑century Paris as the center of a sensational scandal. The de Lamotte family sought to sell their estate at Buisson‑Souef and relocate to Paris, hoping to secure a court position for their son.
Desrues presented himself as an aristocrat, claiming the title “Mr. Desrues de Cyrano de Bury, lord of Candeville,” and boasting a wife from the distinguished Nicolai lineage poised to inherit 250,000 livres. In truth, he was a debt‑laden grocer masquerading as nobility.
Even after missing his initial payment, Desrues blamed delayed inheritance on lawyers, persuading the de Lamottes to press on. He concocted a scheme: borrow money to make a fake payment, then allege that Mrs. de Lamotte had absconded with the funds and a lover, while their son fled to Versailles.
For the ruse to succeed, both Mrs. de Lamotte and her son needed to vanish. Within weeks, they fell ill under Desrues’s care and died. Initially, many believed Mrs. de Lamotte had fled, but the husband remained skeptical. When Desrues arrived at Buisson‑Souef to evict Mr. de Lamotte, the latter discovered the gruesome truth.
Mr. de Lamotte traveled to Paris, leveraging his connections to launch an investigation. Police eventually uncovered Mrs. de Lamotte’s corpse hidden in the cellar of a house Desrues had rented under an alias. The grocer‑turned‑pretended‑aristocrat met a grisly fate: broken on the wheel and burned alive.