FULL TEXT: Vienna, Friday – Two more women out of 34 prisoners who were arrested on the charge of poisoning their relatives at Magyret (Nagyrev) in Hungary were tried to-day at the Skolznok Law Courts. Maria Kardos, aged 53 years, was charged with murder of her husband and her son, and Julia Dari, aged 49 years, was indicted for the murder of her husband, her lover, and her mother; all the murders, it was alleged, were committed through poisoning with arsenic.
These two prisoners differ from the others hitherto tried in that they are the richest among them and also because there are traces of past beauty in their faces, while the other defendants were mostly of a boorish if not almost ugly type. The two women were also better dressed than their companions.
Frau Dari pleaded not guilty. Her husband, she said in her evidence, was a drunkard and suffered from blood-poisoning. She took him to hospital in Budapest, but a week later her returned to Magyret (Nagyrev). As to the lover’s death, she attributed it to digestive troubles; he ought to have undergone an operation which he refused to have. Dari is also accused of having poisoned her mother by giving her a cake containing arsenic. She said in her evidence that she loved her mother and that her neighbor only accused her of this crime because she hated her. later on, when examined by the judge, the prisoner admitted that the husband received a glass of wine from Frau Kardos when he was visiting her at her place, and that this wine apparently contained arsenic as he was taken ill afterwards and died.
~ Midwife Who Coveted a House. ~
Frau Kardos pleaded not guilty, but under examination of the Judge admitted that the midwife in the village, Frau Ollah, who had since escaped earthly justice by committing suicide, induced her to poison her son Alexander Kovacz, who was 23 years of age and very ill. “Why let him suffer?” said Frau Ollah; “poison him.” Frau Ollah desired the house of the young man, said Frau Kardos in her evidence, and for this reason suggested the poisoning. When Frau Kardos left the room of her son for a minute the midwife poured poison over the food, but she pleaded that she had not had any knowledge of Frau Olla’s final plan.
Under the examination of the Judge, Frau Kardos admitted that Ollah poisoned the prisoner’s husband, which she said was a much easier thing, because Frau Ollah hated the late Herr Kardos. “If the midwife did this all on her own, why did you pay her money for it?” asked the judge. The prisoner could not answer this question.
The trial is still going on.
[“Mass Poisoning Trial. - Former Village Beauties Arrested. – A Strange Story.” The Manchester Guardian (England), Jan. 18, 1930, p. 17]
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For more than two dozen similar cases, dating from 1658 to 2011, see the summary list with links see: The Husband-Killing Syndicates
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For more than two dozen similar cases, dating from 1658 to 2011, see the summary list with links see: The Husband-Killing Syndicates
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