Old Age Poisoners

You wouldn’t want these little old ladies as your grandma…

- Kate Williams

USA: THE GIGGLING GRANNY

When her fifth husband, Sam, died in 1954, many must have pitied Nannie Doss, 48, from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Her first husband was the only one still living. Their marriage had fallen apart after the deaths of their two middle daughters.

She’d met two of her husbands, including Sam, through lonely hearts columns. They’d not been married long when Sam grew sick and was hospitalised.

He recovered, bet fell seriously ill again after returning home and drinking coffee made by Nannie.

The doctor was suspicious. An autopsy revealed Sam had ‘enough arsenic in him to kill a horse’.

Joking

On questioning, Nannie shocked everyone by admitting she’d poisoned Sam’s prunes and coffee because ‘he got on my nerves’.

And she calmly confessed that she’d killed three of her previous husbands using the same method.

Nannie’s fourth husband’s last words were, ‘I shouldn’t have had that second cup of coffee.’

After each death, she’d collected handsome sums in life insurance, as she had after the deaths of her daughters and mother.

In Mary 1955, Nannie Doss pleaded guilty to killing four husbands. She smiled broadly as she was sentenced to life in prison, earning herself the nickname the Giggling Granny. 

Nannie continued to deny killing her girls and mother until she died of leukaemia in 1965.