Poisoned History
Poisoned History is about poisons and how they have been used for nefarious purposes throughout history. Listen to true crime with commentary from a chemist's perspective. Don't worry, we don't nerd out *all* the time... Cover art was generated using the Imagine.ai app
Episodes
Columbo: Murder Under Glass
Time for another fake crime episode!In this episode of Columbo, a restaurant owner is murdered by a restaurant critic who had been charging him for good reviews. Columbo suspects the writer from the start, but doesn’t have any proof yet. He…
Robert Buchanan, Perfecting the Method
Robert Buchanan was a doctor in New York in the late 1800s who divorced his first wife in order to marry a brothel-owning woman from Newark, New Jersey. When she turned up dead, it seemed like it had been from natural causes, but his friend…
Jane Toppan, Very Jolly
Jane Toppan, aka Jolly Jane, was a nurse in the late 19th century who cared for the elderly and also murdered at least 31 of them. She admitted to taking pleasure in watching them die and her deeds were drooled over by the public. William R…
Georgi Markov and the Umbrella (Pen?) Killing
Georgi Markov was a Bulgarian writer (and chemist!) in the 1960s and 70s whose writings against the Soviet Union and Bulgaria got the attention of that government and led to his targeting for assassination. Sources and resources:Umbrella As…
Graham Young, the Teacup Poisoner
Graham Young was a psychopath chemist who killed or injured many people who he came in contact with. He was fascinated with chemistry, poisons, and the Nazis, and had a habit of poisoning co-workers who annoyed him...as well as co-workers a…
Marie LaFarge, Ruining it for Everyone
Marie Lafarge was a reluctant bride who was accused of murdering her husband in the late 1830s by poisoning him with arsenic. At the time the arsenic tests were often inconclusive, and murderers could get off by sowing doubt in the minds of…
Amy Archer, the Inspiration for "Arsenic and Old Lace" Part Two
Part Two of two: Amy Archer’s reign of terror inside a nursing home in the early 1900s was the basis for the play and later the movie Arsenic and Old Lace. Amy took in boarders in a nursing home and systematically killed them over the cours…
Amy Archer, the Inspiration for "Arsenic and Old Lace" Part One
Amy Archer’s reign of terror inside a nursing home in the early 1900s was the basis for the play and later the movie Arsenic and Old Lace. Amy took in boarders in a nursing home and systematically killed them over the course of about 6 year…
Rasputin, Lover of the Russian Queen?
Rasputin was a prominent figure in the Russian royal family just before the Russian revolution of 1917. The nobility felt that he had too much power over the czar and czarina, and wanted him gone. He was murdered by nobles in the basement o…
Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie, Part Two
Fiction Episode! This episode contains spoilers. In the novel Sparkling Cyanide, a young heiress dies unexpectedly from cyanide poisoning during a birthday dinner. Although the official verdict of an inquest is suicide brought on by depress…
Sparkling Cyanide by Agatha Christie, Part One
Fiction Episode! This episode contains spoilers. In the novel Sparkling Cyanide, a young heiress dies unexpectedly from cyanide poisoning during a birthday dinner. Although the official verdict of an inquest is suicide brought on by depress…
Florence Bravo: Matrimony and Antimony, Part Two
Florence Bravo was a wealthy widow before she married Charles Bravo, a barrister in the 1860s and 70s in Victorian England who was angry that she wouldn’t share her inheritance with him. When Charles died, there were multiple people in his …
Florence Bravo: Matrimony and Antimony, Part One
Florence Bravo was a wealthy widow before she married Charles Bravo, a barrister in the 1860s and 70s in Victorian England who was angry that she wouldn’t share her inheritance with him. When Charles died, there were multiple people in his …
Dr. William Palmer, Insurance Aficionado
Dr. William Palmer was a physician in the mid-1800s in England who was a little too fond of gambling. So fond, in fact, that he was willing to kill multiple relatives for the life insurance payouts he took out on them, sometimes without the…
Belle Gunness, Deadly Catfish
On April 28, 1908, in La Porte, Indiana, Belle Gunness’s house burned to the ground and four bodies were found inside, one of them headless. The victims were allegedly Belle Gunness and her three children. Was this a terrible accident, murd…
Madeleine Smith, Cuckoo for Cocoa
At 2am on March 23, 1857, Emile L'Angelier came back to his boarding house in a terrible state, complaining of stomach pain. His landlady helped him inside and to bed. She was worried about him because he had had these symptoms off and on f…
Frederick Mors, Angel of Death
From September 1914 to January 1915, seventeen residents of a nursing home for the elderly in New York died. During the investigation Frederick Mors confessed to murdering at least eight of them, claiming he had put them out of their misery…
Iron Mike Malloy
Episode 8 – Iron Mike Malloy Iron Mike Malloy was given unlimited access to drinks in a bar in New York City in the 1930s. But the reason behind this generosity was not as friendly and generous as it sounds, and hid a more despicable purp…
Virginia and William Taylor
William Taylor was a farmer who died in excruciating pain from what was thought to be tetanus. Was it actually strychnine poisoning, and was his wife Virginia the culprit? Sources and resources: “The Strychnine Exhumation” by Raychelle Bur…
Mary Ann Cotton
Mary Ann Cotton was one of the most prolific poisoners in British history. Over the course of about 20 years she murdered between 16 and 20 people, all of them close to her, before she was found out and stopped. Show Notes: Sources and …
Christiana Edmunds, the Chocolate Cream Killer
Christiana Edmunds was a woman who poisoned or attempted to poison multiple people using strychnine added to chocolates. Was her behavior due to jealousy of her crush’s wife or just a love of mayhem? This story has some similarities to the …
The Death of Helen Potts: Part 2
In 1891, Helen Potts took some pills for a headache given to her by a medical student, to whom she was secretly married. Within twelve hours she was dead. Was she murdered? Sources and resources: Six Capsules: The Gilded Age Murder of Hele…
The Death of Helen Potts: Part 1
In 1891, Helen Potts took some pills for a headache given to her by a medical student, to whom she was secretly married. Within twelve hours she was dead. Was she murdered? Sources and resources: Six Capsules: The Gilded Age Murder of Hele…
The Poisoning of James Maybrick
James Maybrick died on May 11, 1889 after showing signs of poisoning for weeks. Did his young wife poison him or did he just take too many "medicines?" And was he actually Jack the Ripper? This month I have my first guest (future co-host?) …
Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire Witch
Mary Harker Bateman, aka the Yorkshire Witch was a petty criminal and fortune teller in the late 18th and early 19th century. But eventually she moved into murder as well. Sources: Yorkshire Oddities, Incidents and Strange Events/Mary Batem…