Episode 57 - Geshe Gottfried
Gesche Gottfried was a seemingly devoted mother, daughter, and friend living in early 19th-century Germany, admired for her caregiving and piety. But under the surface lurked a serial killer who poisoned at least 15 people over more than a decade—making her one of Germany’s most notorious female murderers. This episode explores her troubled childhood, her series of arsenic-laced crimes, and the public spectacle of her execution—the last public execution in the city of Bremen. Was she a manipulative monster, or a desperate woman molded by trauma and repression?
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Gesche Gottfried was a seemingly devoted mother, daughter, and friend living in early 19th-century Germany, admired for her caregiving and piety. But under the surface lurked a serial killer who poisoned at least 15 people over more than a decade—making her one of Germany’s most notorious female murderers. This episode explores her troubled childhood, her series of arsenic-laced crimes, and the public spectacle of her execution—the last public execution in the city of Bremen. Was she a manipulat...