Laura Sellers

In 1929 an anonymous letter was published in a Hungarian newspaper asserting that for the previous two decades crimes had been going unnoticed in the Hungarian town of Nagyrév. These crimes were murders; slow and deliberate poisonings of people. 

The author said “this is my last attempt. If this also fails, there is no justice.” 

They didn’t fail, police descended on the town and neighbours began accusing each other as bodies were dug up in the cemetery. Within weeks they had a host of suspects, all women over 55, which of course set the papers off. 

The town had been suffering; WW1, land restrictions, poor transport links, economic depression and personal stresses all impacted on people. Stereotypical gender roles were enforced, and serval generations of a family often lived in one house. Many men were traumatised by the war and mistrust and alcoholism were rife, but divorce wasn’t socially acceptable. 

It’s unclear when murders started, or by who. One of the women, Julianna Lipka was hired to care for an elderly, and wealthy, couple in the 1910s but seems to have found the work more than she bargained for. When she complained some local women (including the town midwife) told her a secret, buy fly paper and boil it in water, the poison (arsenic) will float away from the paper and can be skimmed off and mixed into food or drink. She used the technique to kill her employer, she stepsister. and her husband, all undetected.  

It seems many local women, including the midwife, killed off people, irritating relatives, violent husbands, unwanted babies all died. A weird collective murder was going on as women shared advice and blame between themselves. It is believed 42 murders were committed by 34 people in the town. Some by fly paper other through arsenic or other poisons which were easily obtained.  

The idea that you could improve your life with poison was a popular and widespread one. But there was a web of guilt, by condemning someone else you condemned yourself. 

When letters started to appear in newspapers (after about 20 years of this) the authorities had to intervene. Women were interviewed repeatedly and threated with floggings and other scare tactics – one of which was that officers would hide under a bed where women were being held and grab their feet to frighten them. Women began to confess, and bodies were exhumed (very publicly) and toxicology studies carried out.  

The trial was a sensation. The court psychologist decided their murderous tendencies were because of their sex; they had warped sexual drives, were frigid or promiscuous and effected by their rural (read slightly witchy) lifestyles. 

Some of the women argued what they’d done wasn’t murder. The deaths weren’t violent or bloody, if anything it was an easy way to die. Some of the women were let off sue to lack of evidence, most received prison sentences or fines and 7 were condemned to death row (although three were quickly removed). The majority of the blame fell on Zsuzsanna Fazekas, the midwife. She was the closest thing the village had to a doctor and it was her cousin who filled in death certificates for the area, the suspicion of female medical professionals ran deep.