Episode 10: Poison Garden

In this episode of Through the Forest, we step into a wicked garden – where beauty and danger grow side-by-side. From Yellow Jasmine to Deadly Nightshade, we explore the haunting history of poisonous plants and lethal elements like arsenic and strychnine. Joined by author and illustrator Lisa Perrin (The League of Lady Poisoners: Illustrated True Stories of Dangerous Women), we uncover the stories of women who used poison as a tool of survival, power and sometimes… evil. This episode concludes with the debut of Jennifer’s original song “Poison Garden”, heard here before its official release. “Poison Garden” explores the duality of human nature and the endless tension between good and evil.
 

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:11

Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Through the Forest with Jennifer Silva, haunting tales and ballads. I'm your host, Jennifer Silva, and today we're going to be talking about something very fitting, I think, for a podcast called Through the Forest, which is plants. You can find plants in any given forest on any given day, but we are not going to talk about just any common ubiquitous plants. No, no, no, no, no. Today we are going to be talking about dangerous and wicked poisonous plants. And we're also going to be talking about the people who have used poison plants and other poisonous elements in nefarious ways throughout history. I love it. I am fascinated by poisonous plants, the history of poisoning, and the women in particular who used poison for their own benefit and to help others. There are many offensive plants that cause pain, are destructive, intoxicating, illegal, of course, and yes, deadly. Certain plants could kill you if you aren't careful. So we're going to talk about those specific plants today and what happens if you are poisoned, and some of the best examples of women who took matters into their own hands and used these sorts of plants and elements to get what they needed. And of course, at the end of the podcast today, I'm going to play you my brand new single, Poison Garden. So please stick around for that. I'm so excited to share my new song. Before we begin, though, I need to say that I don't condone poisoning anyone or murder in any way. I need to say that. I hope that you will not take this information as any sort of encouragement to poison yourself or anyone or to become a vigilante using poison. That would be terrible. So now that we are clear on where I stand, let's get into it. I have to begin today's episode with a true story that I heard this past weekend from my best friend's mother, Maria, a 63-year-old Dominican woman living in Woodhaven, Queens for the last 40 years. Maria is a devout Catholic, and she has a long history of seeing ghosts and spirits and even experiences premonitions through her dreams. Maria is a very honest and humble woman, and I was honored to hear some of her stories on Saturday. One thing she told me, though, immediately made me think of the podcast that I would be sharing with you. And so I'm gonna tell you her story right now. One night, a few years ago, Maria had a dream. One of her premonitions. She dreamt that something was buried in the wall facing the front yard of her house. By the way, Maria lives in an old row house that, believe it or not, was built on part of the old Wycloff Snedeker family cemetery in which two hundred people were buried. She regularly sees and feels ghosts in this home. Anyway, after she dreamt that something was buried in her wall, the following day, she asked her neighbor to help her cut a hole in the baseboard beside her bed in that exact spot that she dreamed of. Upon removing the wood of the baseboard, she began to dig into the dirt behind the wall until she found something. What she found was a very old woven fabric pouch filled with a clear water-like liquid. The pouch somehow was able to hold this liquid and it did not drain into the dirt. She says the pouch looked like it had been there for a very, very long time. Maria herself had lived in that house for decades. So who knows how long that pouch had been buried in the wall. Now, Maria put plastic gloves on and carefully took the pouch into the kitchen. She poured some of that liquid onto a plate and then stood back and watched as it evaporated immediately. She was so freaked out that she threw the pouch and its contents away. Maria does not know what was in that pouch. But I, knowing what I know about what we're gonna talk about today, immediately thought of poison. Perhaps someone made aquatofana, which we will learn about a little bit later in the podcast, or some other type of poison and hid it inside the wall for safekeeping. We will never know what that substance was, but I can tell you right now that using poison, especially back in the early 1900s, it led to conviction and execution. And so it wasn't something that you wanted lying around. It was definitely something that somebody might want to hide. Maybe even deep inside of a wall. Now let's continue with what I have learned about poison. I used several books for my research on this fascinating topic. The first being The League of Lady Poisoners: Illustrated True Stories of Dangerous Women, written and illustrated by the incredibly talented and articulate Lisa Perrin, who I am honored to say is my guest today. Lisa is a professor of illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art. And her book was published in 2023. I stumbled upon this gorgeous book at my local library last year, and I loved it so much that I ended up returning it and buying my own copy because I had to have it for my own collection. Its gorgeous black cover with golden-green metallic foil printing is a piece of artwork in itself. Her illustrations within are beautiful and are inspired by her love of the Victorian age and her favorite artist, Edward Gorey. Her book explores the lives of women across centuries and cultures who were accused of killing with toxins, from emperors and nurses to enslaved women and mysterious serial killers. But this book asks a deeper question. Were these women villains or products of the worlds that they lived in? I reached out to Lisa a few months ago on Instagram and was lucky enough to be able to interview her for the podcast today. So we're gonna hear from her throughout the podcast, and she's gonna teach us what she learned in creating this incredibly beautiful and very twisted book. She is so goth and I'm obsessed. Period. I love that she's so down to earth, too.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

I often say I'm just a humble picture maker who kind of fell into this sort of amazing uh genre where I'm doing a lot more research and a lot more writing.

SPEAKER_05 9:54

She is doing exactly what she is meant to be doing because the relationship between the content and her drawings is absolutely perfect.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Chef's kiss.

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Although I will say it is funny, you write one book about poison and suddenly people stop inviting you to uh potlucks and stop like eating what you bring into the break room at work.

SPEAKER_05 10:18

Well, Lisa can come to my house for any potluck I ever have because she's amazing, and I can't wait for you to hear what she has to say today. Now, I also read a book called Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother and Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart. This was another fantastic resource for details about poison plants. I also listened to the captivating true crime podcast, Criminalia. Each episode of the entire first season features a different female poisoner. And I urge you all to listen to that if this podcast piques your interest. It's streaming everywhere. Another podcast you can check out is the Poisoners Cabinet, which was a resource for our guest today when writing her book. Now, in 1939, in the Tacoma News Tribune, it was written that poisoning is ideally suited to women, meaning that women are really good at it. The article goes on to claim that the first poisoner was the biblical Eve, who, with the help of the snake, poisoned the innocence of all humankind. Well, if that's true, then I guess we do have a lot of practice, but that seems a little offensive, and probably written by someone uh who was a member of the patriarchy, if I had to guess. Anyway, poison has been called the weapon of the powerless, silent, invisible, and often deadly. But when women used poison, the stories rarely stayed simple. They became legends, monsters, rebels, and sometimes even folk heroes. Does this mean that women are drawn to poison because they are weaker and more deceitful than men? Some say that men are more direct and they would never resort to killing in such a cowardly, secretive way. But these statements assume harsh stereotypes about women. Poison is actually a gender-neutral weapon. And when you look at the statistics, a greater portion of poisoners are men, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. A report on homicide trends in the United States from 1980 to 2008 states that while 39.5% of murders committed by poison were female, 60.5 of murders by poison were committed by men. In fact, most murderers are men. Men are responsible for 90% of all murders committed worldwide. And their weapon of choice is definitely the gun. I think we knew that. So many more men than women commit murder that men use every weapon, including poison, more than women do. However, in those rare instances when women do commit homicide, they have been more likely to choose poison. Poisoning crimes are actually quite rare these days. But people freak out about the fear of poison because it undermines traditional feminine roles and it challenges society's order. Many poisoners are mothers and grandmothers. Female killers tend to prey on those closest to them, like partners, family members, and friends. Now there are many reasons why women would use poison to kill. Motives include money, escape, work, power, anger, revenge, and love. Women have a long history of being trapped in situations over which they had no control, too. Just because they were women. Perhaps they would not have killed if they were in a better situation and had more autonomy over their lives.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Poison was a means to do that for some. Because we I think a lot of these women lived in times and places where it was assumed they didn't have any agency over their lives or finances or um the marriages. Um and poison was a means to an end to actually and it became terrifying. There were these poison panics where men were very haunted by this idea of like the poisoning wife, the sort of specter uh that kind of loomed over this they called over the Victorian era, which was that poison was so ubiquitous and easy to access because it was available in every grocery store and every drug shop uh in the form of rat poison and fly paper. Uh and then you have women who are responsible for all of the handling all of the meals and beverages, and it just creates this kind of really ideal dangerous situation.

SPEAKER_05 15:44

Death by poisoning is very violent. Signs of poisoning are severe stomach pain, diarrhea, vomiting, hallucinations, delusions, seizures, headaches, cold, clammy skin, paralysis, rapid heartbeat, slowed-down heartbeat, heart failure, and coma, and of course, death. There are several types of poison as well, not just plants. Animal toxins, bites or stings, inorganic or non-living poisons from a chemistry lab, and metals and elements residing in the Earth's crust. Jane Percy, Duchess of Northumberland, England, once famously said, the line between kill and cure is what I'm most interested in, meaning the dose makes the poison. The amount of poison that might be lethal to one individual might not be for someone else. The type of exposure, how quickly they were to vomit or purge the poison, and their health and age are major factors. Poison usually takes hours for its effects to become noticeable. But this is a perfect example of the duality of poison. Many of these toxic plants can be used to heal or harm. It just depends on the dose. Acute poisoning is when a large dose of poison is given to someone all at once, often leading to a sudden and violent death. Chronic poisoning is a process by which small amounts of poison are administered to the victim slowly over a period of time, allowing it to accumulate in the body. This approach closely mimics the progression of common diseases, where the poisoned person might get sick and then possibly recover a little and then become ill and incapacitated again over time. If the death seems natural enough, it was less likely to be investigated. So the key to not getting caught, I guess, is doing it slowly over time. Additionally, if you were to be caught back in the day, women who were conventionally attractive and traditionally feminine in their demeanor got more sympathy from the public and got a better shot at swaying usually male juries to acquit them or find them innocent. To be ugly or unfeminine as a murderer was considered a worse crime. So I guess if you're gonna do it, make sure you're wearing a cute outfit and some lipstick when you get caught. Period.

SPEAKER_01 18:56

Yeah, sexism, misogyny. Uh that I think about that one a lot. The case you're referencing there is uh Tilly Kleimick, who was a woman poisoner uh in the 1920s um in Chicago, which was really notorious at the time for a lot of these cases, where these, and if you know the musical Chicago, and I'm a big Broadway baby, uh, it very much explores these same themes of sort of who gets to get away with murder. And if you are conventionally feminine, conventionally attractive, um, and sympathetic in front of what are typically all male juries, that uh the same woman who did not meet those same sort of visual or aesthetic standards could be held accountable in a much more uh serious way in terms of the actual ramifications. So I which I think is insane because that's not what what kind of justice is that? But it's again, this adds a lot a layer of nuance to crimes that women commit that are not necessarily the same as when a man commits that same crime. I don't think he's judged for his appearance or his masculinity or the way he performs masculinity the same way women are who are on the stand or on trial. Um, and I think there's a quote that says, like, you know, she might not have gone to prison if she'd gone to the beauty parlor or something like that, like if she had just met the standards in a different way, which is really disturbing. And again, she should go to prison. She committed multiple murders, but the fact that there was a chance that she could have gotten off because of her appearance is strange and dark and complicated, and it's worth thinking about and spending more time with it. And why? Well, and it has to do with who do we think commits these crimes and stereotypes about who a murderer is. Um, and a young attractive woman or a woman who is a young mother doesn't fit that sort of visual that we expect. And we sort of try to, for ourselves, and try to resolve that it can't be true and like make them innocent, which is really fascinating.

SPEAKER_05 20:55

Let's talk a little bit about the history of poison. People began studying poison as early as 3000 BCE. The word venom may have originally been derived from the word Venus, otherwise known as the Roman goddess of love, beauty, fertility, and victory, and referred specifically to a love potion. The meaning of venom later evolved to include remedy, potion, and poison. Indigenous tribes in South America and Africa have used toxic plants rubbed onto arrowheads for centuries as a potent tool for both warriors and hunters. Socrates was sentenced to death by poison hemlock in 399 BCE. P.S. His crime was corrupting the youth of Athens. In 1250, the Element arsenic was discovered. In the 1300s, the witch trials began. Many of those accused of witchcraft were women who had skills as herbalists and healers with knowledge of plants and poisons. In 1603, Queen Elizabeth I of England died, perhaps, of a result of blood poisoning from decades of wearing lead-based cosmetics. In the 1760s, life insurance policies were introduced in the United States, and the idea spread to other countries at that time as well. The collection of life insurance policies and payouts would become a major impetus for poisoning crimes. 1818, strychnine was discovered by two French scientists. 1837 to 1901 was the Victorian era and considered to be the golden age of poisoning crimes. In 1868, the Pharmacy Act was passed in the UK to ensure only pharmacists could purchase poisons and dangerous drugs. In 1938, in the US, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act passed, bringing cosmetics and medical devices under FDA control. Now, some poisons are considered illegal drugs. In the 1970s, William Burroughs drank ayahuasca tea, and it was he was in the jungle, he drank the tea, and he reported his findings to Alan Ginsburg. Many celebrities and plenty of other people have sought it out too. This tea is a powerful, psychoactive drug, but in large doses, toxic. There are many wicked and dangerous plants that can be categorized in various ways. Some plants cause pain, are destructive, intoxicating, carnivorous, and some deadly. I'm gonna tell you now about some of the most poisonous plants we have on Earth.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Just because something is natural doesn't mean that it's safe. Like nature can be exquisitely dangerous. I really think the plants are so much more fascinating. I sort of love this history and tradition of women who were sort of wise women and healers in their community, sort of using the power of plants both to potentially heal and to harm, because again, talk about duality. The same plant, uh a small dosage, controlled, very deliberate, can be healing. The same exact plant, though, uh in a large dosage can be really dangerous. Uh, and that often women were the keepers of this information. Um, so I I find the plant poisons uh the most fascinating. They don't feature into as many recent stories, they tend to be the much older ones.

SPEAKER_05 25:11

The first three plants I'll tell you about today are included in the lyrics of my new song, Poison Garden. Yellow jasmine, white oleander, and deadly nightshade. Let's start with yellow Carolina Jasmine. This plant is really lovely with bright blooming yellow flowers, a gorgeous addition to any garden. But yellow jasmine has a very dark side as well. Just touching the plant can cause skin irritation. But if ingested, it is deadly. It has strong, tranquilizing action, so it acts like a sedative. It was once used to heal asthma and whooping cough, but in large doses, it can kill. White oleander is a fast-growing evergreen shrub with showy, pure white flowers. All parts of the plant are highly toxic if ingested, and the sap can cause skin irritation. White oleander poisoning brings on nausea and vomiting, severe weakness, irregular pulse, and a decreased heart rate that leads quickly to death. It is also toxic to animals. Inhaling the smoke from burning oleander wood can be highly irritating, and even honey made from the plant's nectar can be poisonous. In 2000, a woman in Southern California tried to collect on her husband's life insurance by putting white oleander leaves in his food. He went to the hospital with severe gastrointestinal problems, but he survived. As he was recuperating, the wife finished the job by offering him Gatorade laced with antifreeze. She is now one of 15 women on California's death row, and the only one who attempted murder with a plant. Oleander-related suicide attempts turn up regularly in medical literature as well, particularly among nursing homepaties. In Sri Lanka, the yellow oleander has become the most common method of suicide, particularly among women. Deadly Nightshade is a branched perennial that grows two to five feet tall. It features dull purple bell-shaped flowers and a glossy blackberry-like fruit that are sweet-tasting, but highly toxic. The plant is also known as Atropa belladonna. Just rubbing against the plant can raise postules on the skin. But the blackberries are the plant's most tempting feature. They cause rapid heartbeat, hallucinations, delusions, seizures, and headaches and death.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

My personal favorite is uh Belladonna. I think I just love the history of that one. It means beautiful woman or beautiful lady in Italian. And women used to, in the Renaissance, like use it as like eye drops because it dilates your pupils and made their eyes look large and shining. We still use this when we get our eyes dilated at the eye doctor uh today. Um, but it's a one where you have to be really careful because the little berries actually look like uh little blueberries. So it's one where you have to be really mindful of, but it has these beautiful, lovely little purple flowers. Uh it's just a very beautiful, very elegant plant. But uh, and that's I think that's what it is. It's beautiful and it's dangerous. And I like that juxtaposition of both.

SPEAKER_05 29:08

And of course, Stevie Nicks chose the name Belladonna for one of her albums as a metaphor for a beautiful yet dangerous woman. More poisonous plants include poison hemlock, a plant that's in the carrot family. Death by poison hemlock begins with being paralyzed. Eventually, the poison stops your heart and lungs. This was the fate of Socrates. Other plants include thorn apple, foxglove, castor bean, which is of the castor oil plant, opium poppy, which we saw in the Wizard of Oz when they were running through that field of poppies, falling asleep. Another toxic plant. Wolf's Bane, Mandrake, Lily of the Valley, which you can find everywhere. A surprising addition to this list is tobacco. This plant has a leaf so toxic that it has taken the lives of 90 million people worldwide. We forget that. It's so potent that it can kill through skin contact alone, so addictive that it fueled a war against Native Americans, so powerful it led to the establishment of slavery in the American South, and so lucrative that it spawned a global industry worth over $300 billion. But one of the most violent poisons on record is called strychnine. This poison comes from the seeds of a 50-foot-tall tree. After ingesting a small amount, the victim will begin to experience violent muscle spasms that can force the body into an unnatural backward arch, leaving only their head and heels touching the floor. The tightened muscles include those of the face, which are often twisted in a terror-stricken grin. While this is going on, the victim remains conscious and aware of their plight the entire time. They usually succumb to respiratory failure or sheer exhaustion. Symptoms start within half an hour, and death comes a few agonizing hours later. I'm also very intrigued by carnivorous plants. I think they are so cool. These can be quite offensive, but not necessarily poisonous. Perhaps the most familiar carnivorous plant and easy to grow as a houseplant is the Venus fly trap, also mentioned in my song Poison Garden. Their trap leaves stay open and excrete a sweet nectar that attracts insects. Once a fly wanders inside, the trap springs closed, and the inside of the leaves begin to release digestive juices and drown the doomed bug. It can take over a week for a venous flytrap to devour its prey. And it may only eat a few bugs in its life. Now, we aren't going to get into this today, but there are obviously poisonous and venomous animals as well. King cobra, the Spanish fly, the black widow spider, the cane toad, and the Indian red scorpion are just some examples. Now, some of the most notorious female poisoners throughout history have used toxic elements and chemicals as well. Elements like mercury, lead, thallium, cyanide, and of course, arsenic, arguably the king of poisons. Number thirty-three on the periodic table, and the twentieth most common element in the Earth's crust, the organic form of arsenic, is relatively harmless. It's only when arsenic is combined with other elements to form specific compounds that it becomes poisonous. White arsenic is the poison that kills, and it is a byproduct of the smelting ores that possess arsenic as an impurity, such as copper, lead, tin, and gold. When heated, the arsenic turns into a gaseous form of white smoke and combined with oxygen forms arsenic trioxide, which is then collected in a powdered or crystalline form. It is the perfect poison. And in the 19th century, it was available at every drugstore and grocery store in the form of fly paper and rat poison. It was the cheapest of all the poisons. Arsenic has no telltale odor or revealing taste to give it away. If it tastes like anything, it might be a little sweet, making it easy to blend into food and drink. The symptoms of poisoning by arsenic were largely indistinguishable from those caused by numerous common diseases of the time, such as gastroarthritis, cholera, and dysentery. Within an hour, a victim experiences severe stomach pain, as well as violent vomiting and diarrhoea, leading to dehydration. It finds its way into the bloodstream, which can create symptoms of shock, weak or rapid pulse, and cold, clammy skin. Within a short period of time, a person could slip into a coma and experience heart failure and death. Okay, so now that we know all about poison plants and elements and what happens to the body when you're exposed to high doses, let's talk about why women might choose to use poison. There are professional poisoners who offer up their services for payment. There are women who use poison to escape terrible situations and to be defiant. There are some women who use poison because of money and greed and power and politics. And some people use poison because of love and obsession. And of course, some women use poison because of their anger and rage and need for revenge. Sadly, some women also use poison for suicide. I wouldn't eat that if I were you. One of the reasons why women were so good at poisoning people is because of their traditional roles as homemakers and cooks. They could easily hide poisons in soups and desserts and pass them along innocuously to their victims in dishes like stewed prunes spiked with rat poison, classic tea and pastries laced with cyanide, decadent chocolate creams injected with strychnine. Lisa's book features the most notorious lady poisoners in history. And today she and I are going to talk to you about some of the most interesting cases. These women were complicated. And while some of them were just plain evil, some were heroes, in my opinion. There were many different types of poisoners, some professional, some defiant. All cases were nuanced.

SPEAKER_01 37:21

I appreciate the nuance so much because I think so often these women were just pointed, uh painted, excuse me, as like criminals or monsters in the media and in the press, uh, and historically. But I think that for women's crimes, specifically for it's you have to look at the context and the societies in which they lived and the agency or lack of agency that they possessed in their world. And I you can't ignore that aspect of the crime. Um, so in terms of the commonality, I think it's very linked to that idea. Um, so many of them that there were themes of abuse and escaping abuse and poison as a means to kind of regain some authority or agency over their situation. Um, that being said, there are definitely some where it is not the you know thoughtful and nuanced. They're just monsters, they're just evil, and it's okay to accept that too. I've had people comment like, I support women's rights and women's wrongs with this uh book just because of the ups and downs and why they did what they did. So my goal was just to get more of that context, gain a little bit more insight. Again, you can't ever know a motive completely or under we weren't there uh or know the woman to understand, but I think just getting more of the story just paints the crimes in a different light that's worth considering and kind of reading all their stories and with a grain of salt and kind of understanding there was more to this than just this like nefarious scheming woman poisoner with her like vial of poison dripping it into the goblet or from the ring. Like there's there's usually more at play, and that's what I was curious to spend more time in and delve into further.

SPEAKER_05 38:53

One of the things that I love about Lisa's book is how diverse it is. She intentionally included lady poisoners from all over the globe. This is not just a book about Victorian age white ladies. There are Caribbean women, Indian women, Eastern European women, Asian women, and yes, American women who all felt oppressed and who all took matters into their own hands.

SPEAKER_01 39:20

So something that I kind of discovered while I was going through this and I was thinking about these themes of sort of love, revenge, anger, escape, uh power was that they were profoundly sort of universal and that uh it impacts women from all walks of life and all time periods and places. So I knew I wanted to make a book that was more diverse and global. A lot of, I will say it was challenging because so many of the stories that get the most attention uh were traditionally uh white women in the United States and in the UK. And I just knew that that's not the whole story. That there is this has, you know, there has been poison since time immemorial. Like there has always been uh need a need to use it, I think. And often women were the people who had the access and the skill to sort of enact it. So I wanted it to be more global and more diverse. Uh, also just for me personally, as an illustrator, I wanted to draw all different types of people and represent all different types of cultures. I just think it's much more visually interesting. And as a reader, I think it's much more meaningful to sort of see how global uh and universal some of these themes and ideas are. And I love the idea that there's sort of this thread connecting women from different time periods and different places. Um, and I really liked that each chapter, and this was a suggestion from my editor, we didn't go chronologically, we went thematically, and it sort of connected very different people in the same chapter so that you could really isolate and really consider sort of the themes and the motivations, and then see that they were so similar, even if she was a queen or she was someone who was a peasant, or like that they still had a very similar lived experience that led them to this moment. So I just thought that was so much more interesting for me. Uh, I will say it was challenging. I wish there had been more examples specifically of women of color. It was a lot harder to not that it didn't happen. I just believe it wasn't covered uh in the news or researched or regarded with the same attention that uh other cases were, but uh definitely important to me personally and something I wanted to bake in from the beginning.

SPEAKER_05 41:21

Let's talk about professional poisoners first. Some women got into the business of murder for various reasons. Some have used their skills to help others in need, but most of them did it because poison was profitable. These women were trained as healers and herbalists, but also understood how to use plants to harm others. Women, for all their knowledge of botany and healing, were not called doctors or apothecaries or scientists, they had no access to formal instruction. Instead, they were called witches and poisoners. Also, there was no divorce in their patriarchal societies, so the only way out of a bad or abusive marriage was death, natural or otherwise. One of the most famous professional poisoners was Giulia Telfana, a folk hero for helping women in abusive relationships. Let me tell you about her. In the early 17th century, Giulia opened a store in Naples, Italy, where she sold cosmetics and perfumes. It was the perfect front for selling her namesake poison, aquatofana, which she disguised in glass vials with images of saints on them that looked exactly like bottles of perfume or healing oil. A woman could hide the small glass bottle in plain sight. Only she would know which one was poison. Her poison was a combination of belladonna, arsenic, and lead. It was odorless, colorless, tasteless, and virtually undetectable. It acted slowly, mimicking a natural disease, making it the perfect poison. It was administered in wine or tea or some other liquid. The husband would become out of sorts. He would feel weak, but he would be fine. After the second dose, the weakness would become more pronounced. The third drop would prostrate even the most vigorous man. Julia. Relied on word of mouth and referral only. In fact, only a customer who had already successfully poisoned her husband with aquafauna could vouch for a new customer. Ensuring discretion. She stayed in business for over fifty years. Her downfall sadly happened when one of her clients snatched a poison bowl of soup from her husband at the last second, and he forced her to confess. Julia was arrested and questioned under torture. She admitted to killing more than six hundred men and was sentenced to death in the 1650s, along with her daughter and her female assistant. P.S. Julia's mother was executed for murdering her own husband who was abusive. And she may have taught Julia how to make this poison.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

She became a folk hero among the women in her community for helping them escape these abusive marriages, but using poison. So there's this complexity of like, you know, it is both a is it is there any good to this? Is it inherently completely evil? Um obviously I'm never condoning any harm or murder of any person for any reason. I have to say that now that I wrote the poison book. But there's more to this story. I think when you get more of the context of why the women were seeking her out and why they wanted the poison in the first place. And I thought that was so fascinating. And I asked myself, are there more stories like this? Can I help illuminate them? Um and that's how I kind of fell down this whole rabbit hole of and the most epic uh Google Excel sheet of sort of like collecting women poisoners from around the world and trying to organize them thematically and finding out there's sort of this vast sisterhood of this happening throughout time and space and the globe. And often so many of the stories were united by very similar themes.

SPEAKER_05 46:10

Let me tell you about another professional poisoner called Anna Droxen. She was a Serbian-Croatian woman known as Baba Anuska, which means Grandma Annie. She is known as the world's oldest serial killer and was thought to have provided the poison for between 50 and 150 deaths before being caught and sentenced when she was around 90 years old. She had tinctures for everything, love potions, health tonics, and most famously something called magic water. Anna offered magic water as a remedy to women who wished to be rid of their husbands. She would ask, How heavy is this problem? And that would be her way of inquiring how much of a dose they would need. She priced her potions on a sliding scale. And she was arrested in 1928 along with six newly widowed women. Her defense was that it was not her fault if they misused her tinctures or overdosed on them. Anna is the opposite of what we picture when we think of a murderer. She was an elderly woman, the epitome of the Eastern European grandmother, complete with a babushka and deep smile lines. She was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but released after eight because of her advanced years. She lived to the ripe old age of 100 years old. Also worth mentioning are the legends of the Vishakanya, poison maidens originating in ancient India. The girls chosen would ingest small amounts of toxins to build up an immunity over time, and then they were weaponized as assassins for the emperor. The legend evolved that the women themselves were poisonous and could kill with just a touch or a kiss. They were the original femme fatales. For some women trapped in dangerous or dire circumstances, poison has represented an unlikely source of hope and a path to freedom. All over the world and all throughout history, social structures tend to disenfranchise women and grant power to men. This has led to circumstances where women have very little agency and where their abuse and mistreatment is often tolerated and overlooked by the male powers that be. We see that even today. Sally Bassett was an enslaved woman in Bermuda during the 18th century. She allegedly gave her granddaughter poison to use against her enslavers.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

Sally Bassett, who used poison against her granddaughters, uh enslavers as a means to kind of free her granddaughter. I mean, I think if there's one where you can kind of say, like, again, never condoning it, but that one I can I can understand a little bit more of her motivations and and and why she was in such a oppressed place where that seemed like the only solution.

SPEAKER_05 50:03

As we know, slaves were treated horribly and treated as property, and there really was no way for them to escape. After Sally was found guilty of poisoning livestock that belonged to two white men and publicly whipped more than a hundred times as punishment, she then allegedly gave her granddaughter poison to free herself from her enslavers, the fosters. Well, in 1729, the Fosters became very ill. Eventually, Sally confessed to poisoning them, and uh she was arrested and tried, and actually accused of being an agent of the devil, and a jury of 12 white men found her guilty, and she was burned at the stake like a witch. Thankfully, her granddaughter was exonerated. But many people see Sally as a hero or a freedom fighter, and historians believe the news of Sally and the poisoning helped inspire slave rebellion throughout the West Indies. And in 2008, the government of Bermuda erected a 10-foot-tall bronze statue of Sally, the territory's first monument to an enslaved person, and it depicts Sally tied to the stake, feet levitating above the fire with her eyes towards the heavens. Now, another fascinating example of women taking matters into their own hands are the angel makers of Nodrev. In the early 1900s, a small village in rural Hungary became the site of a poisoning epidemic. The women of the village, all middle-aged and elderly peasant women, all dressed in black, sought to escape the abuse of their violent husbands. In this community, marriages were typically arranged, and divorce was considered unacceptable. Alcoholism was rampant among the men, and they would take out their frustrations on their wives and children with physical abuse. Women were expected to accept this, all while still acting as caregivers for their children and elderly parents. But during World War I, many of the men were drafted to fight. And the women got used to living without them. They were loving life with the guys gone. When the men returned from the battlefront, though, they found their wives unwilling to return to the status quo. This was a problem. So a midwife offered the women a solution. Arsenic. The poisoning began as whispers between the women. They discovered that they could take fly paper, boil it in water, and skim the arsenic that would rise to the top of the pot. It could then be put into small vials soon thereafter, after it dried. And the men started dropping like flies. Forty murders were confirmed. But there may have been more. Some people might think that these women are heroines and that they couldn't truly be faulted for these crimes because they were being oppressed, they were being abused. And I don't disagree with that. I'm not gonna lie. I personally love a vigilante, and I just think these women really kind of did what they needed to do. Now, there are many other types of poisoners. There are examples of women who use poison for revenge, like the Marquis of Brainvier, who vowed vengeance when her fathers and brothers had her lover put in prison, and Lucrezia Borgia, the daughter of Pope Alexander VI with his mistress. It was rumored that she wore a hollow ring that contained poison to use against her enemies. But some lady poisoners were cut from a different cloth altogether. And these ladies were callous and cold and were sociopathic serial killers. One of the most dangerous lady poisoners was Mary Ann Cotton.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

For me, the first one that comes to mind for me is Mary Ann Cotton. She uh, and this is the one I think there's a special circle in hell for people who commit crimes against children or anyone in their care. And she uh I think it was 12 or 13 children and husbands that she poisoned over time, and it was purely for life insurance money. If there wasn't that sort of nuance of trying to escape abuse or trying to free herself from a dangerous situation, it was pure malice and greed and uh lack of uh sort of value for human life. And she this pattern is such that she would have continued. There's if she had not eventually been caught and brought to justice. So I think she's one of the ones where there's no redeeming uh her or her story. Um except that she's still a woman who can't uh earn money and can't provide for herself the same way, and not that this was a reasonable solution, but if she had had access to other means of providing for herself that wasn't so dependent uh on husbands and on life insurance. I and again, I don't mean to justify or excuse her behavior.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

I'm just trying to think more deeply about her actions and why she did them. Now there's that nuance.

SPEAKER_05 56:08

Once again, every case was complicated. Marianne Cotton may have been responsible for up to 21 deaths, including multiple husbands and children. She was convicted and sentenced to hang in 1873. Another sociopathic poisoner was Tilly Kleimek, a woman who cruelly killed multiple husbands, neighbors, children, even dogs who she didn't like with rough-on rats rodent poison. She was a villain. A Polish American who told her friends and neighbors that she was a psychic and could tell when people would die. The real trick was that they died because she poisoned them. She got rid of multiple husbands and relatives this way when they dared to challenge her. Tilly was later found guilty of murder in 1923 and sentenced to spend the rest of her life in a Chicago prison. There are so many others featured in Lisa's book as well, including Nanny Doss, a cheerful chatty woman suspected of poisoning 11 people. She was a hopeless romantic who was always on the search for Mr. Wright, and was known to add rat poison to their food or coffee when she realized they were Mr. Wrong. She confessed to several murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1955. Yiya Morano from Argentina was accused of poisoning her friends with classic tea and pastries spiked with cyanide. She conned them into investing money with her that she kept for herself. Yiya later became a popular TV personality and the subject of her own musical. There are so many more examples in Lisa's book that we can't go through every one of them today, but suffice it to say, there were definitely some really, really evil women out there using poison to gain financially. So I'd also like to mention that these poisonous plants and elements have also been used to end one's own life. Being faced with execution and experiencing deep depression can be reasons why someone would ingest poison intentionally. A perfect example, though, of a woman who took matters into her own hands and ended her own life was Cleopatra. Cleopatra was Egypt's final pharaoh. She is an icon. When her enemies were closing in, she chose to take her own life rather than be captured and humiliated by the Romans. The story says that she died by venomous snake bite to the breast, but some scholars and contemporary historians believe that the snake theory doesn't really add up, and it was more likely that she drank poison. Cleopatra lives in our cultural imagination as a striking beauty and cunning seductress. Her life and her story of her death has inspired countless artists, poets, playwrights, and other creatives. I also want to take a moment and say that anyone feeling suicidal should call or text the Suicide Prevention Hotline 988. If you are overwhelmed with negative thoughts, sometimes you just need to talk to somebody. If someone you know has come into contact with a poisonous substance, immediately call 911 or poison control at 1-800-222-1222. And again, for mental health crisis, emotional distress, or suicidal thoughts, please call or text 988 to reach the suicide and crisis lifeline 24-7. Before I play my song Poison Garden, I want to talk to you about toxicity today. And right now, our world is poisoning us slowly. Literally and figuratively. The poisoning may not be acute, but it most definitely is chronic. Remember, the dose makes the poison. And the amount of poison that may be lethal to one individual may not be for someone else. Slow poisons over time accumulate in the body and will have an effect. I asked Lisa what she thought the worst toxins were that we face today.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:25

That's a really insightful question. I don't think anyone's ever asked me that one before. There's sort of a metaphoric, sort of poetic component to that. Like, gosh, uh negative self-talk is so toxic. Um, the things uh we see on social media that we use to kind of put pressure on ourselves and judge ourselves are so toxic. Um, the sort of the news cycle and the impact it has on our psyche. Uh, anytime you're in a relationship or a situation that someone's putting you down or it doesn't serve you, like I think that I love this idea of thinking about toxicity in a broader way and to just noticing, notice in your life when something is not serving you or actively detrimental to you, and to say, do I need this? Can I pause in this? Can I step away? Is there something healthier I could be doing? Um,

Check out My original Song, "Poison Garden"

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

I think that's a really thoughtful question. I love that sort of thing, and for me it's like taking care of mental health and taking care of like personal, uh your sort of personal well-being, whatever that means for you. Um, and paying, just paying more attention. I think so often we're just kind of on autopilot and we just do things and we're not necessarily taking that time to reflect of, oh, this is not healthy for me. Um, but also uh just to get a little bit more literal with it, I'm always really surprised by the products that we use every day that we don't know about uh that have toxic uh qualities or components to them. Um so much of what we use in our cleaning supplies and our homes can be really dangerous. Um I was even just thinking about how like cosmetics are not sort of evaluated by the same standards as like food and drugs by like the FDA. Um just, and again, I don't say any of this to scare anyone, like for the most part, uh, you know, live your life do it's right for you. But this doing this research made me think about poison in a new way. And I'm definitely a lot more thoughtful and I'm trying to read the back of the container or the packaging and just learn more about what I'm putting into my body or putting on my skin or in my hair. Um, just because uh things everything affects your body that you put into your body. So just to be more cognizant about that, but in terms of like I didn't know every part of a daffodil is toxic. Like, I know, and they're like the sunniest, sweetest little flowers, but they're come they're they're dangerous. Uh, you know, apple seeds or pits have little bits of cyanide in them. That's one that folks tend to know. Um gosh, things in uh like I moved into an old house and I was like, oh, there's lead paint everywhere. Just it, just having a mindset to be aware of it. Again, not to be afraid of it, but just having more information and making informed choices. Um, I think are all things that are are valuable in terms of literal physical things, but also in terms of metaphoric things that we encounter uh in our lives too. Just that that idea of toxicity and wanting to just kind of limit the exposure to toxicity.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:15

I love Lisa's take on this concept. Negative self-talk, judgment from social media, and nonstop doom scrolling. The nonstop news cycle, abusive relationships are all toxic things we need to cut out of our lives or at least limit our exposure to. This episode reminds us to make mental health and self-care a priority in our lives. We can take more care of our physical bodies too. Eating quality foods, using safe cosmetics and cleaning supplies, testing for lead paint. And now we know we need to stay away from daffodils and apple seeds as well. Add it to the list. All right. Anyway, I want to say thank you so much to my incredible guest today, Miss Lisa Perrin. I love her book, The League of Lady Poisoners, illustrated true stories of dangerous women. And I urge you all to pick up your own copy. Here it is again. Look at this gorgeous cover. Beautiful, absolutely stunning. You need this book on your shelf and in your personal collection. Trust me. Thank you, Lisa, for your time, your insight, all this incredible information that I was able to extrapolate and share with you guys, my listeners, um, and of course, your art and your gothic interests. You are the coolest, Lisa. Thank you. And please look out for Lisa's new book that's coming out this fall. The Secrets of the Seance Society. Illustrated True Stories of Talking to the Dead. This book will undoubtedly be gorgeous. And it is a spooky compendium of famous and infamous spiritual mediums who communicate with the dead. It celebrates the advent of spiritualism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and considers these haunting questions. What are spirits? Where can we find them? And how can we contact them? All complimented by her trademark, Victorian-inspired portraits, icons, and lettering. This book will delight any reader who enjoys exploring the world beyond the veil. AKA me! I love this stuff. Hopefully we can have Lisa back once again once we get our hands on her new volume. Please follow her on Instagram at made by Perrin. And that's P-E-R-R-I-N. Made by Perrin. I would love to play my new song, Poison Garden, for you now. It was recorded at the Beacon A V lab in Beacon, New York, and produced and engineered by Johnny Taylor. It was mastered by Matthew Agoglia at the ranch mastering also in Beacon, New York. I actually wrote this song during the pandemic. During my darkest moments. When I considered growing my own poison garden. I am very glad that I didn't. The song explores the duality of human nature. The endless tension between good and evil. Darkness and light. It challenges the illusion that we have ourselves all figured out. And asks what truly grows behind our carefully attended garden gate. I am so fortunate to have been able to finally bring it to life with Johnny. And to be able to share it with you all today. I hope you enjoy it. This is the poison garden.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:41

I built a pig picket fence around my fence around my poison garden. Soiless, and the bloomin' is finally. Bloomin' is finally stuck. And my goodness is pretty think oh, but it's hinted green. But don't you go? No, don't you go? The yellow jasmine. The yellow jasmine in the corner. No wooden spirits. I wouldn't split. Fragrill.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:58

Fray green white, all the night under I built a big.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:39

I built a book. But all of these. Should really have an ounce. Should really have an ox and pogot a last. You could be unlucky to find a cactus that makes you go blind. And the Venus lie.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:23

But also inspire you. I hope these stories give you an appreciation for female vigilantes and for the strength and innovation that these women had when faced with oppression. When you feel like losing hope because of the state of your life and the state of this world we're living in right now, remember many women have had it much worse. And they carried on and found ways to survive and thrive. So we can too. I wish you all peace and love today and always and remember that the only way forward is through. The path through the forest is long and winding. There may be wolves. There will be wolves. But there will also be waterfalls. So enjoy the journey. Until next time, y'all. For photos and more information about this episode, please follow us on Instagram at Through the Forest Podcast. And for more music from Jennifer Silva, please follow at She Is Silva and listen on Spotify or anywhere you listen to music.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:01

Soil as double. It's hinges cream.