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Marie BesnardManiac
Date of Birth: 15.08.1896
Country:  France |
Content:
- The Enigma of Marie Besnar
- A Provincial Woman
- The Suspicion
- The Motive
- The Mysterious Deaths
- The Trials
- Source: The Most Dangerous Maniacs
The Enigma of Marie Besnar
The drama surrounding Marie Besnar finally came to an end on December 12, 1961, when a court acquitted her due to lack of evidence in the poisoning of twelve individuals. The definitive answer to whether Marie Besnar was truly the greatest poisoner of the 20th century or if it was all a mystery of nature remains unanswered. The public's interest in Marie Besnar and her case, which lasted over ten years, was so great that journalists from all over the world wrote about it.
A Provincial Woman
In her appearance, Marie Besnar was a typical representation of most women from the French province of Vienne, which consisted of villages and small towns populated by small farmers, tenants, and craftsmen. She was of below average height, with a prematurely aged face covered in provincial cosmetics, with darting eyes hidden behind round glasses and thin lips. Marie Besnar was fifty-three years old when she, a landowner and prominent figure in the town of Loudun, found herself behind bars. The catalyst for Marie Besnar's case, which had dragged on for many years, was a simple rumor that started with the wife of the postmaster, Madame Pintu.
The Suspicion
On October 25, 1947, after a brief illness, Marie's husband, Leon Besnar, passed away. Madame Pintu informed one of her "friends" that before his death, Leon had told her that his wife had poisoned him. According to Madame Pintu, he made this accusation when Marie was seeing off both attending doctors, leaving the postmaster's wife alone with the dying man. She vividly described Leon Besnar's last hours: his stomach pain, vomiting, and a conversation between the dying man and herself.
In his supposed confession, the dying man said, "Oh, what did she give me? We were about to eat soup. I saw something liquid in my plate. Marie poured soup over it. I ate it, and immediately started vomiting." Soon, Madame Pintu's words reached the criminal police in the city of Poitiers. The message ended up in the hands of investigating judge Pierre Roche and the inspectors Surte Noke, Schomie, and Norman, who propelled the Besnar case, which could not be stopped for fourteen years.
The Motive
The motive for poisoning Leon Besnar was quickly found. It turned out that a twenty-year-old German prisoner of war named Dits had been working on the Besnar's estate since May 1947. Everyone believed that Dits was Marie Besnar's lover, despite him being thirty years younger than her. Initially, it was merely a rumor, but later the police came up with the same theory, according to which the lustful woman eliminated her old husband to be able to live freely with the young German. The rumors were reinforced by Marie Besnar's actions. Soon after her husband's death, she embarked on several long trips with her servant, Dits. In May 1948, Dits returned to Germany, but the infatuated woman managed to persuade him to return to Loudun. By the way, when the investigation began, Dits was also subjected to biased questioning. The German remained steadfast and denied any romantic involvement with Marie Besnar. He was released. However, anything Dits did after that, while explicable, did little to dispel the clouds of suspicion hanging over Marie Besnar. He did not wait for his documents, which were in Paris since his return to France, and crossed the Franco-German border, never to return.
The Mysterious Deaths
The investigation continued to uncover a series of suspicious deaths in the Besnar family, as well as among their neighbors and friends. First and foremost, this concerned Marie Besnar's first husband, Auguste Antigny, who died in 1927, supposedly from tuberculosis. However, after exhuming Antigny's remains, it was discovered, despite more than 20 years since the burial, that there were 60 milligrams of arsenic per kilogram of body weight.
Two years after the death of her first husband, Marie remarried Leon Besnar. She proved to be an excellent housewife, loved by her new family, and it was not surprising that her husband's second cousin, Louise Leconte, named her as one of the heirs in her will, alongside Besnar's sister. Louise Leconte passed away shortly after. Although she was already eighty years old, no symptoms of arsenic poisoning were mentioned at the time. However, a toxicological examination of the deceased's remains showed the presence of 35 milligrams of arsenic per kilogram of body weight. Marie Besnar was present at Louise Leconte's deathbed and often sent her wine.
Two years later, Leon's grandmother, widow Guen, also passed away. He was her sole heir. Marie Besnar and her husband visited the elderly woman shortly before her death. Exhumation of her remains was also ordered. However, the examination showed such minimal traces of arsenic that it would have been unjustifiable to accuse Marie of murder.
Marie's father, Pierre Devay, was also exhumed. Marie was not present at her father's death. However, the analysis of the body revealed 30 milligrams of arsenic per kilogram of body weight. Marie Besnar inherited her father's estate. That same year, Marcelin Besnar, Marie's father-in-law, passed away. Marie was not by his side at the time of his death, but the exhumed parts of his body revealed 38 milligrams of arsenic per kilogram of body weight. As a result of his death, the Besnars inherited over two hundred thousand francs. Just a few weeks after her father-in-law's death, it was the turn of her mother-in-law. The illness that led to her death lasted for nine days. Marie Besnar took care of her mother-in-law until the very end. After exhuming the body, 60 milligrams of arsenic per kilogram of body weight were found in it.
There seemed to be no end to the list of suspicious deaths: the Besnar's neighbor, a seventy-five-year-old confectioner named Tussen Riveau, and shortly after, his wife; two elderly cousins of Leon Besnar, Pauline and Virginia Lalleron, who found refuge in the Besnar's home. In each case, exhumations revealed lethal doses of arsenic.
The Trials
During the nearly two-year investigation, every possible means to induce Marie Besnar to confess was tried. Female spies were planted in Marie Besnar's cell, but her vigilant distrust and stubbornness (or perhaps her innocence) protected her from making any rash statements.
A significant part of her resistance was derived from the fact that one of the most famous Parisian lawyers took up her defense. Thanks to the constant interest in this case and the leading Parisian lawyers always seeking sensational cases, Marie Besnar caught the attention of this provincial woman.
Albert Gotra, a knight of the Legion of Honor and one of the most renowned lawyers, came to Poitiers himself to defend Marie Besnar. He had decided long before his visit to Marie Besnar that he could not miss this extraordinary trial. To win the case, all he had to do was cast doubt on the evidence of the toxicology report, using the methods he had already proven successful in the past.
On February 20, 1952, the first trial in the Besnar case began at the Palace of Justice in Poitiers. As Gotra had planned, the court, under pressure from emerging doubts, soon proposed appointing new experts and re-analyzing all the poison tests.
The hearings in Marie Besnar's case resumed only on March 15, 1954, after additional investigations by the best Parisian toxicologists.
The third and final battle took place on November 17, 1961, when Truffer, an expert witness, took the stand. Marie Besnar herself faded into the background. Although this was her trial, it was even more about the main problem of toxicology, the investigation of bodies that had been buried for a long time.
Truffer concluded his report by stating that the previous erroneous assumptions stemmed from underestimating the immense variety of natural processes. According to him, modern microbiology was better equipped to understand this variety, even if it still encountered many seeming deviations from the general rule. He explained that since there were no absolute explanations for the presence of arsenic in a particular case, one could not unconditionally deny the possibility, even the slightest, of Marie Besnar's innocence, regardless of what one may think of her as a person.
Gotra, who listened to every word with intense concentration, stood up and exclaimed, "And so, the Besnar case is over!..."
The prosecuting attorney knew he was fighting a rearguard battle when he bitterly retorted to Gotra, "You have an uncanny ability to interpret everything in your own way! According to the experts, as I hear, there are different possibilities. And you want to conclude in favor of the defendant, as if the only possibility, namely the solubility of arsenic, is the rule. But one can just as well consider that the opposite is the rule, that is, the impossibility of arsenic penetrating the body after the death of the victim."
Gotra, triumphant, responded with, "Yes, but which of the two possibilities is correct, you do not know. You and your experts are incapable of providing the necessary clarity to support your accusation."
And so, this sensational "Black Widow from Loudun" case came to an end, with such monstrous but unproven crimes.
