Around Loudun, in France, she is remembered as the "Queen of Poisoners ," with thirteen victims charged against her name. She is a legend in the district -- for her crimes, and for the way in which she managed, finally, to cheat the executioner.

The only child of frugal parents, born in 1896, Marie Davaillaud was educated at a convent school where classmates would remember her as "vicious and immoral." She was "wild with boys," detractors said, adept at "snitching other people's things and Iying to cover up." In 1920, already a spinster at the age of 23, Marie was married to her cousin, one Auguste Antigny, who was known to suffer from tuberculosis. When he died in 1927, it was blamed on "pleurisy." The undertaker buried him with shoes on, an aesthetic oversight that would rebound against his grieving widow 22 years later. During August 1929, Marie was married to Leon Besnard. The newlyweds were quick to realize that fortune lay beyond their grasp while certain of their relatives were still alive, but clearing out the family tree takes time. There were rewards in store when two of Leon's great-aunts died, in 1938 and 1940, but the bulk of the inheritance was claimed by Leon's parents, leading the Besnards to change their plans. In May, her wealthy father stricken down by a "cerebral hemorrhage," Marie insisted that her mother come to live with Leon and herself. The stage was set for action. In November 1940, Leon's father died from eating "poison mushrooms." Three months later, he was orphaned when his mother fell prey to "pneumonia." Locals had begun to joke about the "Besnard jinx," but Leon and Marie were more concerned with their inheritance, a sum that was, unfortunately, split between themselves and Leon's sister Lucie. Counting on the jinx, they merely had to bide their time and wait. A "suicide" removed the final obstacle a few months later, bringing Lucie's share of the inheritance to Leon and Marie. The family curse was turning out to be a gold mine. Next in line, a childless couple, the Rivets, were taken in by the Besnards, expressing their sincerest gratitude by altering their wills to make Marie their only heir. The ink was barely dry before Messr. Rivet was stricken by "pneumonia," dying in his bed. His widow's death, a short time later, marked by nausea and convulsions, was attributed by her physician to "the chest sickness." Two elderly cousins, Pauline and Virginie Lalleron, were the next to go. Pauline, according to Marie, mistook a bowl of Iye for her dessert one evening. Her excruciating death apparently made no impression on Virginie, who repeated the identical "mistake" a short week later. Careless as they may have been, the cousins had been clear about remembering Marie and Leon in their wills. For all of its adventure, married life was paling for Marie. By 1947, she had fallen for a handsome German P.O.W. living in Loudun. In late October, Leon died at home, but not before confiding in a friend, Madame Pintou, that he was being poisoned by his wife. "She murdered me," he gasped, as he lay dying, and the story swiftly made its way around Loudun. Marie's decrepit mother died in January 1949, her last surviving relative to fall before the "jinx." By now, the local rumor mill was working overtime, but the authorities remained aloof. Marie attempted to intimidate her various accusers, sending garbled death threats through the mails. A burglar invaded Madame Pintou's home by night, selectively destroying every gift she had received from the Besnards. The Massip brothers, having passed the Pintou rumors on, were forced to leave Loudon when arsonists destroyed their home. Enough was finally enough. Police were summoned, and on May 11, Leon was exhumed by order of the court. According to the coroner's report, his body had absorbed approximately twice the arsenic required to kill a man. A dozen other victims were exhumed, including the Rivets, Auguste Antigny, and assorted members of the Davaillaud and Besnard families. Each, it seemed, had managed to ingest a fatal dose of arsenic before succumbing to the family "jinx." (In Auguste's case, the test was run on toenails, accidentally preserved for more than twenty years inside his shoes.) From jail, Marie made last-ditch efforts to arrange her alibi. A friend was asked to spike the family's stock of wine with arsenic, creating reasonable doubt of accidental death, but he refused. In desperation the defendant tried to put a contract out on Madame Pintou and the Massip brothers, but her contacts ran to the police, in search of leniency in other cases. Shaken by her failures, the defendant told a visitor, "I am lost. I am guilty." Brought to trial in February 1952, on thirteen counts of homicide, Marie Besnard displayed a different face in court. She had retained a battery of high-priced Paris lawyers, who demanded new examinations to confirm that all the victims had been slain with arsenic. A mistrial was declared, and bodies were unearthed a second time. As luck would have it, testable remains of seven victims had been totally consumed in previous examinations, and the counts of murder were reduced to six for Besnard's second trial, in March of 1954. This time, the jury failed to reach a verdict, and Marie was freed on bond until a third trial could be scheduled. In the meantime, further exhumations, further tests, reduced the dwindling supply of evidence. The case was finally disposed of in December 1961. Determined to proceed, the state re instituted thirteen counts of homicide against Marie Besnard, but prosecutors failed to sell their case. Despite the evidence of arsenic in thirteen corpses, her confessions and attempts to murder witnesses, Marie Besnard was finally acquitted by a jury on December 12. The "Queen of Poisoners" had managed to commit the perfect crime.