Dec. 16, 2025
Netherlands: The Angel of Death's 27 Victims
In the fog-shrouded streets of 1880s Leiden, a woman everyone called "Good Mary" brought food to the sick, consoled the grieving, and prepared the dead for burial. For three years, she was the angel of her neighborhood—the trusted caregiver who helped when no one else would. No one suspected that the porridge she served was laced with arsenic. No one questioned why so many of her patients died. Until a doctor noticed something
Maria Swanenburg's victims included 27 confirmed deaths among the most vulnerable members of Victorian Leiden's working-class community. Among them were her own parents—Johanna Dingjan and Clemens Swanenburg—murdered for whatever meager inheritance they might leave. Two young sisters died while Maria babysat them, followed by attempted poisonings of six mourners at their wake, including their pregnant mother.
The Frankhuizen family lost three members: Maria Frankhuizen, her infant son, and her husband Hendrik, whose agonizing final days would ultimately expose the killer. Elderly neighbors who trusted Maria with their care, relatives who welcomed her help, and community members who saw her as Goeie Mie—"Good Mary"—all fell victim to her arsenic-laced kindness. Another 45 survivors lived with permanent health damage, many walking Leiden's streets on crutches for the rest of their lives.
Between 1880 and 1883, Maria Swanenburg systematically poisoned at least 102 people in Leiden, Netherlands, killing 27 and permanently disabling dozens more. Operating in disease-ridden working-class neighborhoods where cholera deaths were common, she exploited the era's limited medical knowledge and the community's trust in her caregiving reputation.
Maria purchased arsenic from multiple pharmacies across Leiden—ostensibly for pest control—accumulating lethal quantities without raising suspicion. She poisoned her victims through food and drink while nursing them, then collected on small life insurance policies she'd secretly taken out. When victims displayed symptoms of violent gastric distress, doctors assumed cholera or typhoid. When they died, Maria helped prepare their bodies for burial and consoled grieving families.
Her downfall came in December 1883 when Dr. Wijnand Rutgers van der Loeff connected multiple patients with identical symptoms to one common factor: all had been under Maria Swanenburg's care.
The Investigation: Dr. van der Loeff's suspicions led police to arrest Maria on December 15, 1883. When searched, she carried multiple insurance policies in her pockets—policies taken out on people currently under her care. Authorities exhumed thirteen bodies from Leiden cemeteries; all tested positive for arsenic.
The Trial: Proceedings began April 23, 1885, drawing national attention. Medical experts explained how arsenic accumulated in victims' tissues. Family members testified about their loved ones' rapid deterioration under Maria's care. Throughout, she maintained an eerily calm demeanor, claiming she was being framed.
The Verdict: On May 1, 1885, Maria Swanenburg was convicted of three murders from the Frankhuizen family case—though prosecutors had evidence for 27 deaths. She became the first woman in Dutch history to receive a life sentence.
The Sentence: Maria was sent to Gorinchem Correctional Facility, where she died on April 11, 1915, at age 75, having served thirty years.
Victorian Leiden provided the perfect hunting ground for a poisoner. The textile industry had drawn workers into overcrowded slums where families of ten lived in cramped cottages with earthen floors, no sanitation, and no ventilation. Cholera, typhoid, and tuberculosis killed regularly. Child mortality was staggeringly high. Doctors rarely visited poor districts because residents couldn't pay.
In this environment, additional deaths barely registered. Arsenic was legally sold in pharmacies for pest control with minimal regulation—no questions asked, no records kept. The poison was tasteless, odorless, and produced symptoms indistinguishable from endemic diseases without expensive chemical analysis that the poor could never afford.
Maria's role as a community caregiver—taking in elderly boarders, nursing the sick, preparing bodies for burial—gave her unlimited access to vulnerable victims and made suspicion seem impossible. She was Goeie Mie. Good Mary. The angel.
Primary research for this episode draws from Dutch criminal archives and the work of historian Stefan Glasbergen, whose book on Maria Swanenburg provides crucial contemporary documentation including court testimony and neighborhood accounts.
The case fundamentally changed Dutch law. Following Maria's conviction, the Netherlands implemented strict regulations on arsenic sales, requiring pharmacies to maintain detailed purchase records and verify legitimate need. Dutch law enforcement developed standardized protocols for investigating suspicious deaths and recognizing serial murder patterns.
The Swanenburg case became a cornerstone study in criminal investigation training throughout Europe, demonstrating how serial killers exploit community trust and institutional blind spots to operate undetected for years.
For those interested in exploring this case further:
- The Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden maintains records from the Victorian era
- Dutch National Archives hold original court documents from the 1885 trial
- Academic studies on Victorian-era poisoning cases and forensic toxicology development
Maria Swanenburg's victims trusted her completely. She was their neighbor, their caregiver, their friend. In the fog-shrouded slums of Victorian Leiden, the angel of the neighborhood was actually its deadliest predator—and the 45 survivors on crutches walked as permanent reminders of her betrayal.
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WEBVTT
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[SPEAKER_00]: Lydon, December 1883.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The city's canals reflected the grey December sky, fog creeping through narrow streets, lined with textile mills.
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[SPEAKER_00]: cold smoke hung thick in the air, mixing with the damp chill that seeped through every crack in the worker's cottages.
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[SPEAKER_00]: In this ancient university town, birthplace of Rembrandt, the poor lived crowded into slums, where disease was so common that death barely raised on eyebrow.
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[SPEAKER_00]: On a cold morning, and one of Lighten's roughest neighborhoods, a man named Hendrick Frankhausen, woke to pain that wouldn't stop.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His wife Maria had died just days earlier.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Their six-month-old son had followed her to the grave shortly after.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Both had suffered the same, agonizing symptoms, relinquished diarrhea, violent vomiting, pain that twisted their insides until they couldn't endure anymore.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The doctor had called it cholera, and lied in slums cholera killed regularly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No one questioned it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But now, Hendrick was experiencing the same unbearable pain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: His stomach felt like it was being torn apart from the inside.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He couldn't keep food down, he couldn't keep water down, the weakness was overwhelming.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Something was wrong.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't just bad luck.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't just another poor family and laden's disease ridden streets, losing members to the endemic sickness that plagued working-class neighborhoods.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hendrick dragged himself to his local doctor's office, desperate for help.
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[SPEAKER_00]: the doctor examined him, asked about his symptoms to careful notes, then he asked a question that would change everything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Who's been caring for you?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Who's been preparing your meals?
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[SPEAKER_00]: My sister-in-law, Indric said, Maria.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maria's one inburg.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She's been so kind, bringing us food, helping with the baby before he died.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone calls her golemia.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Good Mary.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She's always helping people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The doctor went still.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's in another patient that very weak, with identical symptoms, same street, same neighborhood, and when he'd asked who'd been caring for that patient, he'd heard the same name, Maria Swananberg.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The doctor had been practicing medicine in lighten for years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He knew these symptoms.
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[SPEAKER_00]: He'd seen them before in patients who lived near Maria Swanandberg.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Patients who'd been under her care.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Patients who trusted the woman, everyone called the angel of their neighborhood.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But these weren't symptoms of cholera or typhoid, or any other disease that killed the poor in Victorian Lydon.
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[SPEAKER_00]: These were the symptoms of arsenic poisoning.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And Maria Swan and Berg had been poisoning the people of Lydon for years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hello friend, welcome to foul play.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Born in 1839, to Clemens Swananburg, and Johanna Dingson, a working-class family in laden.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Maria Catherineer, Swananburg, grew up in modest circumstances during a time of significant industrial growth in the Netherlands.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Her early years were marked by the hardships typical of working-class life in the 19th century.
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[SPEAKER_01]: With her father working long hours in Tilburg's booming textile industry, while her mother managed their humble household.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We found a description of our house from a book written by historian Stefan Glassbergon.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Quote, You entered through a tiny front dream, and that was where her parents slept.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In the back of the house there was a small kitchen, but they often cooked outside.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The children slept on the first floor right underneath the roof.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The space was not insulated, when it rained it got wet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When the wind blew, you felt it inside, end quite.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Clemens won and Berg struggled to hold down a job, and when Maria was just 12, the family fell behind on their rent and were evicted.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They moved to Stinglestras, a very rough neighbourhood, full of the poorest workers in the city.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Stefan Glassenberg says, quote, The neighbours who later testified during the criminal trial, said the girls never really went outside.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They'd knit clothes all day long, which were late to be sold, end quote.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It was perfectly normal back then for this to be the case in poorer households.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Despite limited formal education due to barely attending school, Maria proved to be resourceful and intelligent from an early age.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She learned the essential skills of housekeeping and caregiving from her mother.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Abilities that would later become central to both her legitimate work and her sinister activities.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Those who knew her as a child would later recall her as quiet but helpful, always willing to lend a hand to neighbours in need.
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[SPEAKER_01]: After the death of two of her daughters at a young age, Maria Maritio Hannis van D'Alinden, on the 13th of May 1868, signing her marriage certificate with an ex.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Johannes was a labourer.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The couple settled into a small house in the working district of Tilburg, where they would go on to have five sons and two daughters.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Johannes was the father of all of Maria's children, but some were born prior to their marriage.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This created a lot of gossip and speculation.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Maria was deemed sexually promiscuous.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Life was not easy for the family, but Maria's resourcefulness helped the maintain a modest but stable existence.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She supplemented their income by taking in borders and caring for elderly neighbours, gradually building a reputation as a trustworthy caregiver in the community.
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[SPEAKER_01]: As the years passed, Maria became known throughout her neighbourhood as someone who could be relied upon in times of need.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She was particularly sought after for her willingness to care for the sick and elderly, a valuable service in an era before widespread institutional care.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Her house became a makeshift nursing home, where she would take in those who needed attention and care.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Neighbors praised her seemingly endless patience and dedication to her charges, never suspecting the dark intentions that
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[SPEAKER_01]: The community's trust and Maria grew stronger with each passing year.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She was often called upon to prepare bodies for funerals, a common practice in Dutch communities at the time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Her knowledge of death and dying, gained through these experiences, would later prove to be dangerously convenient for criminal activities.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yet in these early years she was simply seen as a hard-working woman who had found her calling in caring for others.
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[SPEAKER_01]: However, Maria was battling demons and her difficult childhood plus losing two of her children, left a lasting impact on her mental health and she turned to alcohol to numb the pain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: the killing began in 1880.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maria's first victims were the two people who brought her into this world.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Her mother, Joanna Dingen, her father, Clemens Wanamberg, both poisoned with arsenic, both dead within months of each other, and these murders happened and lied in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: where everyone knew her as the kind woman who helped the sick and elderly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Not tillberg, as sometimes gets confused in the historical record, but lied in.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The ancient university city on the Rhine, where Rembrandt was born, where textiles brought prosperity to factory owners, while workers died young, overcrowded slums,
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[SPEAKER_00]: In 1880s, Lydon, death was everywhere.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Colorado Epidemic swept through working-class neighborhoods, regularly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: typhoid tuberculosis smallpox, they killed so frequently that additional deaths barely registered.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Families of 10 or 12 people lived in tiny colleges with no sanitation, no ventilation, earthen floors and cellar rooms, where the damp never laughed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Child mortality was staggeringly high.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Doctors rarely visited poor districts because the poor couldn't pay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This was the perfect environment for a poisoner.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When Joanna Dington died after days of violent illness, her symptoms looked like cholera, the same disease that killed working class-lighten residents constantly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When Clements won and Burke followed his wife to the grave shortly after, suffering identical symptoms, it seemed like tragic bad luck, a poor family struck by disease, no one suspected their daughter had murdered them both.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maria had discovered something crucial.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Arsnick was easy to obtain.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Victorian pharmacies sold it for pest control, with minimal regulation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You could walk into any pharmacy and lie down, and by Arsnick.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No questions asked, no records, kept
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maria was smart about it, she never bought enough from one location to a rouse suspicion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, she made small purchases from multiple pharmacies across Lydon, accumulating lethal quantities without any single pharmacist noticing a pattern.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The poison itself was nearly perfect for murder.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When administered correctly, arsenic was tasteless and odorless.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The symptoms it caused, severe gastric distress, relentless diarrhea and vomiting, dehydration, organ failure, looked exactly like cholera, typhoid, or any number of endemic diseases that killed the poor regularly.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Medical knowledge in 1880s Netherlands was limited.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Doctors couldn't distinguish between arsenic poisoning and disease without chemical analysis, and chemical analysis was expensive, rare, and not routinely performed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Even if a doctor suspected poisoning, proving it was nearly impossible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maria developed a method.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She'd offered to care for someone.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Usually, elderly, usually sick, always, or.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She'd bring them food, make them tea or coffee, prepare their meals.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She'd add small amounts of arsenic to their food and drink.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The victim would start showing symptoms that looked like illness.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maria would be the first who suggests calling a doctor.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Would express concern, would stay by their bedside as they deteriorated.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When they died, she'd help prepare the body for burial.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She'd consult a grieving family.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She'd attend the funeral.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then she'd collect on the life insurance policies she'd secretly take an out on them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But here's what makes Maria Swan and Burke's story so chilling.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Despite the insurance fraud, she remained poor.
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[SPEAKER_00]: her family lived modestly throughout her killing spray.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The insurance payouts and there were many, never seemed to improve her circumstances.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Money was part of her motive, but it wasn't the whole story.
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[SPEAKER_00]: After her parents, Maria expanded her victim selection, a nephew, other relatives, elderly
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[SPEAKER_00]: people who trusted her completely, people who saw her as who he me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The good woman who cared for those no one else would help.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She varied the intervals between murders, ensuring no pattern emerged.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She spread her activities across neighborhoods in Leiden.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When questions about the frequent deaths among those in her care, she'd say she took on the most seriously ill patients, the ones others refused to help.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, her patients died more often.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They were the sickest to begin with,
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was a perfect cover, and it worked for years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The people of Lighten had no idea, they were living alongside a serial killer.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Someone who attended church regularly, someone known for charitable works, someone whose reputation for compassion made the idea of her being a murderer seemed impossible to contemplate
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[SPEAKER_00]: But Maria Swanomberg was killing steadily, methodically, for three years.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And she wasn't done yet.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The exact number of swanunberg's victims remains uncertain this day, with 27 confirmed over 102 possibly poisoned, at least 90 resulting in death.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Among these were not only her elderly charges, but also several family members, including her own parents and nephew.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She also murdered two sisters she was babysitting for, and then at their wake poisons some of their relatives too.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Stefan Glassberg and his book says, quote, they survived but she attempted murdering six people, including the pregnant mother of the dead sisters, end quote.
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[SPEAKER_01]: These familiar murders demonstrated a particularly cold-blooded aspect of her character, as she showed no hesitation in poisoning those closest to her when opportunity or necessity arose.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Her method of avoiding detection was remarkably simple, yet effective.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She maintained a caring and concerned demeanor throughout each victim's decline, often being the first to suggest medical attention when symptoms appeared.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She would attend funerals, console grieving families, and even assist with funeral arrangements.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This public display of empathy and support helped deflect any potential suspicion away from her.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Swan and Berg was meticulous in varying the intervals between murders, never allowing a pattern to emerge that might attract attention.
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[SPEAKER_01]: She also spread her activities across different neighborhoods until Berg, ensuring that no single area experience an unusual spike in deaths.
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[SPEAKER_01]: When questioned about the frequent deaths among those in her care, she would attribute it to her willingness to take on the most seriously ill patients, whom others are refused to help.
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[SPEAKER_01]: One of her most effective tactics was to establish herself as a pillar of the community, regularly attending church and maintaining a reputation for charitable works.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This carefully cultivated image of a devout compassionate woman created a cognitive dissonance that made it difficult for anyone to consider her capable of murder, even as the death toll continue to rise.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The very idea that the seemingly kind-hearted care giver could be systematically poisoning her charges, seemed too fantastic to contemplate.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The eventual scale of our climbs was staggering, particularly considering the size of Tilburg at the time.
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[SPEAKER_01]: In a community where everyone knew their neighbours, it's one unburied managed to kill repeatedly over several years without a rousing serious suspicion.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A victim's died in their own homes, often with their families nearby, never knowing that their trusted caregiver was actually their murderer.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The first signs of suspicion arose when local doctors began noticing an unusual pattern of deaths among swan and birds' patients.
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[SPEAKER_01]: While individual cases hadn't raised the alarm, the cumulative number of deaths were becoming difficult to ignore.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But Maria Swan and Berg made a mistake.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, she made two.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Two terrible, brazen crimes that were finally bring her decades of murder into the light.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The first was at a wig.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Maria had been babysitting two young sisters, both died under her care, poisoned with arsenic like so many others.
17:52.353 --> 18:00.324
[SPEAKER_00]: at their wake as grieving relatives gathered in a cramped lighting cottage to mourn the dead children, Maria brought food.
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[SPEAKER_00]: She'd poisoned it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Six people ate what Maria brought.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Six people, including the girl's pregnant mother, became violently ill with a tell-tale symptoms.
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[SPEAKER_00]: severe gastric distress, relentless vomiting, pain that felt like their insides were being torn apart.
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[SPEAKER_00]: By some miracle, all six survived, that this was extraordinary, poisoning six people at once, at a funeral for children she'd already murdered.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was bold to the point of recklessness.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was the kind of escalation that suggested Maria felt completely untouchable.
18:48.903 --> 18:57.395
[SPEAKER_00]: And in Lydens' disease-ridden slums, where death was so normal that people barely blanked, she almost was untouchable.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But that wake poisoning planted seeds of suspicion in the community.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Whisper started, quiet questions about why so many people got sick after eating food Maria had prepared, why so many of Maria's patients died, why the woman everyone called go hear me, seemed to be surrounded by death.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The breaks were in the case finally came in December 1883, when Swan and Burke poise and the Frank Helds and family.
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[SPEAKER_01]: The father of the family Henrik, a man from an extremely poor neighborhood, went to his local doctor after experiencing unbearable pain for a few days.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This poor man had already lost his wife and newborn son to similar symptoms, including relentless diarrhea and vomiting, which had been put down to cholera, a disease prevalent in the area at this time.
19:54.072 --> 20:04.321
[SPEAKER_01]: His doctor recognised the symptoms, in fact he had seen another patient just that week with the exact same complaint, who happened to live on the same street as Henrik.
20:05.344 --> 20:09.415
[SPEAKER_01]: The doctor became suspicious that someone could be poisoning his patients.
20:09.395 --> 20:14.047
[SPEAKER_01]: Sadly, Henrik could not be saved and he died 11 days later in a nearby hospital.
20:14.769 --> 20:25.075
[SPEAKER_01]: However, his death kicked off the police investigation, and the person who was on the police radar, none other than Henrik's sister-in-law, Maria Swan and Berg.
20:28.312 --> 20:33.317
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Rijaland Rouder's Van der Luf was the physician who finally connected the dots.
20:34.518 --> 20:48.891
[SPEAKER_00]: When Hendrick Frankenhausen came to his office in December 1883, barely able to stand, describing symptoms that had already killed his wife and infant son, the doctor's mind went to a dark place.
20:50.012 --> 20:56.057
[SPEAKER_00]: These weren't cholera symptoms, even though cholera was the easy
20:57.387 --> 20:58.970
[SPEAKER_00]: the presentation were wrong.
20:59.992 --> 21:01.294
[SPEAKER_00]: The pattern was wrong.
21:02.397 --> 21:09.931
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Dr. Vanderloof asked who'd been caring for the family, who'd been bringing them food, the answer made everything click into place.
21:10.953 --> 21:12.055
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria Swan and Berg
21:13.283 --> 21:18.395
[SPEAKER_00]: The same name he'd heard just days earlier from another patient with identical symptoms.
21:19.738 --> 21:24.509
[SPEAKER_00]: Another patient from the same street, another patient who'd been under Maria's care.
21:25.833 --> 21:30.263
[SPEAKER_00]: The doctor had been practicing and lied and long enough to know Maria's reputation.
21:30.243 --> 21:46.632
[SPEAKER_00]: Behind me, the angel of the neighborhood, the woman who cared for people no one else would help, the woman who prepared bodies for funerals, who consoled craving families, who seemed to be everywhere death touched the poor.
21:47.978 --> 21:59.602
[SPEAKER_00]: too many of her patients had died, too many people under her care had suffered, these specific symptoms, and now a father, a wife and an infant.
22:00.404 --> 22:08.080
[SPEAKER_00]: An entire family have been struck down with the same presentation, and Maria Swan and Berg have been bringing them food.
22:09.393 --> 22:11.275
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Van der Luf went to the police.
22:12.797 --> 22:16.923
[SPEAKER_00]: Hendrick Frankenhausen died 11 days later in the hospital.
22:18.144 --> 22:21.008
[SPEAKER_00]: Arsnick destroying his organs beyond recovery.
22:22.230 --> 22:23.772
[SPEAKER_00]: But his death wasn't in vain.
22:24.893 --> 22:29.379
[SPEAKER_00]: His death launched the investigation that would finally stop Maria Swanomberg.
22:30.741 --> 22:35.687
[SPEAKER_00]: On December 15, 1883, police arrested Maria Swanomberg.
22:36.983 --> 22:41.068
[SPEAKER_00]: When they searched her, they found insurance policies in her pockets.
22:42.169 --> 22:45.493
[SPEAKER_00]: Policies taken out on multiple people under her care.
22:46.654 --> 22:49.398
[SPEAKER_00]: Policies that would pay out when those people died.
22:50.699 --> 22:55.665
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't proof of murder, not yet, but it was enough to hold her.
22:56.606 --> 22:58.068
[SPEAKER_00]: Enough to start digging deeper.
23:01.212 --> 23:06.518
[SPEAKER_00]: And what the police found when they started digging,
23:09.434 --> 23:17.066
[SPEAKER_01]: The trial of Maria Swan and Berg began on the 23rd of April 1885 during unprecedented attention from across the Netherlands.
23:18.248 --> 23:25.840
[SPEAKER_01]: The prosecution presented a methodically prepared case, focusing on the deaths of 27 individuals where evidence was strongest.
23:26.782 --> 23:30.227
[SPEAKER_01]: Though they acknowledged the true victim count might have exceeded 90.
23:31.287 --> 23:41.038
[SPEAKER_01]: Medical experts testified about the tell-tale science of arsenic poisoning, found in the exhumed bodies, explaining how the poison accumulated in the victim's tissues over time.
23:42.139 --> 23:53.312
[SPEAKER_01]: The court heard how arsenic caused excruciating deaths, with victims suffering from severe gastric distress, dehydration and organ failure, before finally succumbing to the poison.
23:53.292 --> 23:59.743
[SPEAKER_01]: Family members of the deceased victims provided emotional testimony about their loved one's final days.
24:00.744 --> 24:07.295
[SPEAKER_01]: They record how Swan and Burger had insisted on caring for their sick relatives, only to have them deteriorate rapidly under her care.
24:08.336 --> 24:16.650
[SPEAKER_01]: The court also heard evidence about the small insurance policies Swan and Burger taken out on several victims, revealing her financial motivations.
24:17.643 --> 24:27.825
[SPEAKER_01]: Throughout the preceding Swan and Bergmaintain and the early calm demeanor, she showed little emotion as witness after witness took the stand, though she consistently denied any wrongdoing.
24:28.807 --> 24:35.922
[SPEAKER_01]: When finally given the opportunity to speak, she claimed she was being framed, and that the deaths were merely unfortunate coincidences.
24:38.973 --> 24:43.119
[SPEAKER_00]: The trial lasted three weeks, but the verdict came quickly.
24:44.201 --> 24:46.865
[SPEAKER_00]: The prosecution had presented overwhelming evidence.
24:47.787 --> 24:50.671
[SPEAKER_00]: 13 bodies exhumed from light and cemeteries.
24:51.673 --> 24:56.340
[SPEAKER_00]: All 13 tested positive for arsenic in their remains.
24:56.320 --> 25:01.294
[SPEAKER_00]: arsenic that had accumulated in their tissues, in their hair, in their bones.
25:02.417 --> 25:05.305
[SPEAKER_00]: arsenic that had killed them slowly, painfully.
25:06.107 --> 25:10.279
[SPEAKER_00]: While Maria Swan and Berg laid the role of concerned caregiver.
25:11.575 --> 25:15.379
[SPEAKER_00]: The testimony from dozens of witnesses painted a clear picture.
25:16.901 --> 25:23.468
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria had systematically purchased small amounts of arsenic for multiple pharmacies across lighting.
25:24.830 --> 25:27.393
[SPEAKER_00]: She taken out insurance policies on her victims.
25:28.674 --> 25:34.421
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd been present for almost every death, usually the one preparing their final meals.
25:35.682 --> 25:41.008
[SPEAKER_00]: Always the one expressing concern when they fell ill.
25:40.988 --> 26:04.768
[SPEAKER_00]: the judges heard about her own parents, murdered for whatever small inheritance they might have left, about her nephew, about the two young sisters she'd been babysitting, about the six people she tried to poison at those children's wake, about elderly neighbors who trusted her
26:06.082 --> 26:14.032
[SPEAKER_00]: about Maria and Hendrick Frinkhausen and their infant son, the breakthrough case that had finally revealed the scope of her crimes.
26:15.454 --> 26:34.097
[SPEAKER_00]: The evidence was damning, the pattern, undeniable, Maria's Wannemberg had poisoned at least 102 people over three to four years, at least 27 had died, another 45 survived, but lived with chronic health problems,
26:35.090 --> 26:46.652
[SPEAKER_00]: Many would be seen in the years to come, navigating light and streets on crutches, permanent reminders of what Maria's arsenic had done to their bodies.
26:49.484 --> 26:55.632
[SPEAKER_00]: On May 1, 1885, the judges delivered their verdict.
26:55.652 --> 27:01.180
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria Swanomberg was found guilty of murdering three members of the Frankhausen family.
27:02.662 --> 27:10.252
[SPEAKER_00]: Though the prosecution had built cases for 27 deaths, they had focused on the strongest evidence for the verdict.
27:11.914 --> 27:14.057
[SPEAKER_00]: The sentence, life imprisonment
27:15.286 --> 27:20.134
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria Swan and Burke became the first woman in Dutch history to receive a life sentence.
27:21.196 --> 27:29.750
[SPEAKER_00]: The severity of her crimes, the scale of her portrayal of community trust, the number of victims, it was unprecedented.
27:30.973 --> 27:33.677
[SPEAKER_00]: The Netherlands had never seen anything like it before.
27:36.422 --> 27:41.310
[SPEAKER_00]: She was sent to the Gorkham Correctional Facility, where she'd spend the rest of her
27:42.691 --> 27:44.575
[SPEAKER_00]: and she did spend the rest of her life there.
27:45.737 --> 27:53.893
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria Swanomberg lived another 30 years in prison, dying on April 11, 1915 at the age of 75.
27:54.294 --> 28:02.691
[SPEAKER_00]: Her crimes fundamentally changed how the Netherlands approached poison control in criminal investigations.
28:03.920 --> 28:14.235
[SPEAKER_00]: in the years following her conviction, Dutch authorities implemented stringent regulations on the sale and distribution of arsenic and other toxic substances.
28:15.497 --> 28:23.909
[SPEAKER_00]: Pharmacies were required to maintain detailed records, of poison sales, and verify the legitimate needs for such purchases.
28:25.010 --> 28:28.155
[SPEAKER_00]: Reforms that remain largely in place today,
28:28.135 --> 28:39.233
[SPEAKER_00]: Dutch law enforcement began developing more sophisticated forensic methods and standardized protocols for investigating suspicious deaths.
28:40.696 --> 28:50.953
[SPEAKER_00]: This one-in-burt case became a cornerstone study in criminal investigation training, specifically in recognizing patterns of serial killings.
28:51.355 --> 29:00.948
[SPEAKER_00]: But perhaps the most visible legacy of Maria Swanomberg's crimes walked the streets of Lydon for decades after her imprisonment.
29:02.229 --> 29:13.144
[SPEAKER_00]: The 45 survivors, people who'd eaten her poisoned food and somehow lived, but whose bodies had been permanently damaged by the arsenic.
29:14.305 --> 29:27.085
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of them navigated light on crutches for the rest of their lives, their legs weakened by nerve damage, their organs compromised, their health never fully recovering.
29:29.008 --> 29:40.566
[SPEAKER_00]: They were living reminders of how trust had been weaponized against the most vulnerable, of how a respected caregiver had systematically murdered the people who depended on her.
29:42.605 --> 29:49.956
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria's one-emberg operated in an environment where death was so common that additional deaths went unquestioned.
29:51.418 --> 29:55.924
[SPEAKER_00]: Victorian Lydens disease-ridden slums created the perfect hunting round.
29:56.846 --> 30:00.791
[SPEAKER_00]: High mortality rates meant no one looked twice at another funeral.
30:02.093 --> 30:03.675
[SPEAKER_00]: Medical knowledge was limited.
30:04.617 --> 30:06.840
[SPEAKER_00]: Forensic science barely existed
30:08.035 --> 30:22.242
[SPEAKER_00]: The poor couldn't afford doctors who might have recognized poisoning earlier, but perhaps most importantly, Maria cultivated an image of compassion that made suspicion seem impossible.
30:23.826 --> 30:26.070
[SPEAKER_00]: She was going me, good Mary.
30:27.392 --> 30:29.757
[SPEAKER_00]: The woman who helped when no one else would,
30:31.070 --> 30:40.165
[SPEAKER_00]: the woman who prepared your dead for burial, who consoled your grief, who took in your sick parents when you couldn't afford their care.
30:41.788 --> 30:53.027
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why she killed for years without raising alarm, not just because of Victorian medical limitations or because the poor died frequently anyway.
30:53.007 --> 31:06.083
[SPEAKER_00]: But because she'd made herself indispensable, made herself trusted, made herself seem like an angel of mercy, in a place where death was everywhere.
31:07.605 --> 31:11.210
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality was that the angel was the killer.
31:12.351 --> 31:17.277
[SPEAKER_00]: The mercy was murder, and the trust was the weapon.
31:19.366 --> 31:31.643
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, Maria Swan and Burke remains one of the Netherlands's most notorious criminals, not just for the number of victims, though 27 confirmed murders and 102 poisonings is staggering.
31:32.705 --> 31:37.932
[SPEAKER_00]: But for what her case revealed, about how serial killers hide and plain sight.
31:39.127 --> 31:56.511
[SPEAKER_00]: How they weaponize compassion, how they exploit the vulnerable, and how for the 45 survivors who spent the rest of their lives on crutches and liden, visible, permanent reminders that go at me was anything but good.
31:59.795 --> 32:04.662
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, remember, trust can be the deadliest weapon.
32:06.025 --> 32:13.205
[SPEAKER_00]: When survival depends on accepting help from others who seem most compassionate, anyone can become prey.
32:13.245 --> 32:16.474
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening, friend.
00:05.161 --> 00:07.445
[SPEAKER_00]: Lydon, December 1883.
00:07.606 --> 00:19.609
[SPEAKER_00]: The city's canals reflected the grey December sky, fog creeping through narrow streets, lined with textile mills.
00:20.872 --> 00:28.807
[SPEAKER_00]: cold smoke hung thick in the air, mixing with the damp chill that seeped through every crack in the worker's cottages.
00:30.049 --> 00:42.593
[SPEAKER_00]: In this ancient university town, birthplace of Rembrandt, the poor lived crowded into slums, where disease was so common that death barely raised on eyebrow.
00:44.159 --> 00:53.320
[SPEAKER_00]: On a cold morning, and one of Lighten's roughest neighborhoods, a man named Hendrick Frankhausen, woke to pain that wouldn't stop.
00:54.543 --> 00:57.570
[SPEAKER_00]: His wife Maria had died just days earlier.
00:57.610 --> 01:03.062
[SPEAKER_00]: Their six-month-old son had followed her to the grave shortly after.
01:03.042 --> 01:16.361
[SPEAKER_00]: Both had suffered the same, agonizing symptoms, relinquished diarrhea, violent vomiting, pain that twisted their insides until they couldn't endure anymore.
01:17.823 --> 01:24.092
[SPEAKER_00]: The doctor had called it cholera, and lied in slums cholera killed regularly.
01:24.132 --> 01:26.535
[SPEAKER_00]: No one questioned it.
01:27.730 --> 01:31.516
[SPEAKER_00]: But now, Hendrick was experiencing the same unbearable pain.
01:32.537 --> 01:36.383
[SPEAKER_00]: His stomach felt like it was being torn apart from the inside.
01:36.443 --> 01:43.653
[SPEAKER_00]: He couldn't keep food down, he couldn't keep water down, the weakness was overwhelming.
01:45.436 --> 01:46.437
[SPEAKER_00]: Something was wrong.
01:47.419 --> 01:48.861
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't just bad luck.
01:50.275 --> 01:59.075
[SPEAKER_00]: This wasn't just another poor family and laden's disease ridden streets, losing members to the endemic sickness that plagued working-class neighborhoods.
02:00.578 --> 02:06.732
[SPEAKER_00]: Hendrick dragged himself to his local doctor's office, desperate for help.
02:06.712 --> 02:16.058
[SPEAKER_00]: the doctor examined him, asked about his symptoms to careful notes, then he asked a question that would change everything.
02:16.118 --> 02:18.244
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's been caring for you?
02:19.387 --> 02:20.991
[SPEAKER_00]: Who's been preparing your meals?
02:22.118 --> 02:25.163
[SPEAKER_00]: My sister-in-law, Indric said, Maria.
02:26.004 --> 02:27.266
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria's one inburg.
02:28.107 --> 02:32.614
[SPEAKER_00]: She's been so kind, bringing us food, helping with the baby before he died.
02:33.696 --> 02:35.058
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone calls her golemia.
02:35.839 --> 02:36.440
[SPEAKER_00]: Good Mary.
02:37.281 --> 02:38.604
[SPEAKER_00]: She's always helping people.
02:40.246 --> 02:42.169
[SPEAKER_00]: The doctor went still.
02:42.149 --> 02:58.453
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in another patient that very weak, with identical symptoms, same street, same neighborhood, and when he'd asked who'd been caring for that patient, he'd heard the same name, Maria Swananberg.
03:02.416 --> 03:06.143
[SPEAKER_00]: The doctor had been practicing medicine in lighten for years.
03:07.225 --> 03:08.308
[SPEAKER_00]: He knew these symptoms.
03:09.029 --> 03:13.538
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd seen them before in patients who lived near Maria Swanandberg.
03:15.001 --> 03:16.604
[SPEAKER_00]: Patients who'd been under her care.
03:18.087 --> 03:23.918
[SPEAKER_00]: Patients who trusted the woman, everyone called the angel of their neighborhood.
03:25.332 --> 03:32.982
[SPEAKER_00]: But these weren't symptoms of cholera or typhoid, or any other disease that killed the poor in Victorian Lydon.
03:34.263 --> 03:36.907
[SPEAKER_00]: These were the symptoms of arsenic poisoning.
03:37.868 --> 03:43.255
[SPEAKER_00]: And Maria Swan and Berg had been poisoning the people of Lydon for years.
03:45.518 --> 03:48.842
[SPEAKER_00]: Hello friend, welcome to foul play.
03:53.294 --> 04:01.206
[SPEAKER_01]: Born in 1839, to Clemens Swananburg, and Johanna Dingson, a working-class family in laden.
04:02.168 --> 04:09.700
[SPEAKER_01]: Maria Catherineer, Swananburg, grew up in modest circumstances during a time of significant industrial growth in the Netherlands.
04:10.741 --> 04:16.230
[SPEAKER_01]: Her early years were marked by the hardships typical of working-class life in the 19th century.
04:17.392 --> 04:24.022
[SPEAKER_01]: With her father working long hours in Tilburg's booming textile industry, while her mother managed their humble household.
04:24.923 --> 04:29.530
[SPEAKER_01]: We found a description of our house from a book written by historian Stefan Glassbergon.
04:30.712 --> 04:36.160
[SPEAKER_01]: Quote, You entered through a tiny front dream, and that was where her parents slept.
04:36.741 --> 04:40.667
[SPEAKER_01]: In the back of the house there was a small kitchen, but they often cooked outside.
04:41.428 --> 04:44.513
[SPEAKER_01]: The children slept on the first floor right underneath the roof.
04:44.493 --> 04:48.961
[SPEAKER_01]: The space was not insulated, when it rained it got wet.
04:49.703 --> 04:54.652
[SPEAKER_01]: When the wind blew, you felt it inside, end quite.
04:54.672 --> 05:01.725
[SPEAKER_01]: Clemens won and Berg struggled to hold down a job, and when Maria was just 12, the family fell behind on their rent and were evicted.
05:01.705 --> 05:08.154
[SPEAKER_01]: They moved to Stinglestras, a very rough neighbourhood, full of the poorest workers in the city.
05:09.116 --> 05:16.987
[SPEAKER_01]: Stefan Glassenberg says, quote, The neighbours who later testified during the criminal trial, said the girls never really went outside.
05:17.929 --> 05:22.655
[SPEAKER_01]: They'd knit clothes all day long, which were late to be sold, end quote.
05:22.675 --> 05:26.481
[SPEAKER_01]: It was perfectly normal back then for this to be the case in poorer households.
05:27.625 --> 05:35.263
[SPEAKER_01]: Despite limited formal education due to barely attending school, Maria proved to be resourceful and intelligent from an early age.
05:36.145 --> 05:39.694
[SPEAKER_01]: She learned the essential skills of housekeeping and caregiving from her mother.
05:40.355 --> 05:45.668
[SPEAKER_01]: Abilities that would later become central to both her legitimate work and her sinister activities.
05:46.745 --> 05:53.335
[SPEAKER_01]: Those who knew her as a child would later recall her as quiet but helpful, always willing to lend a hand to neighbours in need.
05:54.617 --> 06:06.475
[SPEAKER_01]: After the death of two of her daughters at a young age, Maria Maritio Hannis van D'Alinden, on the 13th of May 1868, signing her marriage certificate with an ex.
06:06.455 --> 06:07.937
[SPEAKER_01]: Johannes was a labourer.
06:08.658 --> 06:15.168
[SPEAKER_01]: The couple settled into a small house in the working district of Tilburg, where they would go on to have five sons and two daughters.
06:16.009 --> 06:21.417
[SPEAKER_01]: Johannes was the father of all of Maria's children, but some were born prior to their marriage.
06:21.437 --> 06:23.741
[SPEAKER_01]: This created a lot of gossip and speculation.
06:24.342 --> 06:26.505
[SPEAKER_01]: Maria was deemed sexually promiscuous.
06:26.485 --> 06:34.319
[SPEAKER_01]: Life was not easy for the family, but Maria's resourcefulness helped the maintain a modest but stable existence.
06:34.339 --> 06:43.054
[SPEAKER_01]: She supplemented their income by taking in borders and caring for elderly neighbours, gradually building a reputation as a trustworthy caregiver in the community.
06:44.116 --> 06:50.788
[SPEAKER_01]: As the years passed, Maria became known throughout her neighbourhood as someone who could be relied upon in times of need.
06:50.768 --> 06:59.322
[SPEAKER_01]: She was particularly sought after for her willingness to care for the sick and elderly, a valuable service in an era before widespread institutional care.
07:00.504 --> 07:05.432
[SPEAKER_01]: Her house became a makeshift nursing home, where she would take in those who needed attention and care.
07:06.614 --> 07:15.949
[SPEAKER_01]: Neighbors praised her seemingly endless patience and dedication to her charges, never suspecting the dark intentions that
07:15.929 --> 07:19.256
[SPEAKER_01]: The community's trust and Maria grew stronger with each passing year.
07:20.058 --> 07:25.269
[SPEAKER_01]: She was often called upon to prepare bodies for funerals, a common practice in Dutch communities at the time.
07:25.329 --> 07:34.528
[SPEAKER_01]: Her knowledge of death and dying, gained through these experiences, would later prove to be dangerously convenient for criminal activities.
07:34.508 --> 07:40.842
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet in these early years she was simply seen as a hard-working woman who had found her calling in caring for others.
07:41.944 --> 07:52.787
[SPEAKER_01]: However, Maria was battling demons and her difficult childhood plus losing two of her children, left a lasting impact on her mental health and she turned to alcohol to numb the pain.
07:55.079 --> 07:56.581
[SPEAKER_00]: the killing began in 1880.
07:57.923 --> 08:02.049
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria's first victims were the two people who brought her into this world.
08:02.990 --> 08:23.618
[SPEAKER_00]: Her mother, Joanna Dingen, her father, Clemens Wanamberg, both poisoned with arsenic, both dead within months of each other, and these murders happened and lied in.
08:24.458 --> 08:28.665
[SPEAKER_00]: where everyone knew her as the kind woman who helped the sick and elderly.
08:30.247 --> 08:35.115
[SPEAKER_00]: Not tillberg, as sometimes gets confused in the historical record, but lied in.
08:36.477 --> 08:48.036
[SPEAKER_00]: The ancient university city on the Rhine, where Rembrandt was born, where textiles brought prosperity to factory owners, while workers died young, overcrowded slums,
08:49.518 --> 08:52.407
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1880s, Lydon, death was everywhere.
08:53.250 --> 08:57.283
[SPEAKER_00]: Colorado Epidemic swept through working-class neighborhoods, regularly.
08:58.512 --> 09:05.760
[SPEAKER_00]: typhoid tuberculosis smallpox, they killed so frequently that additional deaths barely registered.
09:06.782 --> 09:18.796
[SPEAKER_00]: Families of 10 or 12 people lived in tiny colleges with no sanitation, no ventilation, earthen floors and cellar rooms, where the damp never laughed.
09:18.816 --> 09:21.258
[SPEAKER_00]: Child mortality was staggeringly high.
09:22.160 --> 09:26.865
[SPEAKER_00]: Doctors rarely visited poor districts because the poor couldn't pay.
09:26.845 --> 09:30.871
[SPEAKER_00]: This was the perfect environment for a poisoner.
09:32.333 --> 09:43.690
[SPEAKER_00]: When Joanna Dington died after days of violent illness, her symptoms looked like cholera, the same disease that killed working class-lighten residents constantly.
09:45.340 --> 10:02.556
[SPEAKER_00]: When Clements won and Burke followed his wife to the grave shortly after, suffering identical symptoms, it seemed like tragic bad luck, a poor family struck by disease, no one suspected their daughter had murdered them both.
10:03.818 --> 10:05.902
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria had discovered something crucial.
10:07.044 --> 10:09.087
[SPEAKER_00]: Arsnick was easy to obtain.
10:10.149 --> 10:14.857
[SPEAKER_00]: Victorian pharmacies sold it for pest control, with minimal regulation.
10:16.180 --> 10:19.906
[SPEAKER_00]: You could walk into any pharmacy and lie down, and by Arsnick.
10:20.988 --> 10:23.953
[SPEAKER_00]: No questions asked, no records, kept
10:25.013 --> 10:30.424
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria was smart about it, she never bought enough from one location to a rouse suspicion.
10:31.567 --> 10:43.832
[SPEAKER_00]: Instead, she made small purchases from multiple pharmacies across Lydon, accumulating lethal quantities without any single pharmacist noticing a pattern.
10:45.213 --> 10:48.277
[SPEAKER_00]: The poison itself was nearly perfect for murder.
10:49.299 --> 10:53.805
[SPEAKER_00]: When administered correctly, arsenic was tasteless and odorless.
10:54.947 --> 11:11.490
[SPEAKER_00]: The symptoms it caused, severe gastric distress, relentless diarrhea and vomiting, dehydration, organ failure, looked exactly like cholera, typhoid, or any number of endemic diseases that killed the poor regularly.
11:12.837 --> 11:15.900
[SPEAKER_00]: Medical knowledge in 1880s Netherlands was limited.
11:16.821 --> 11:28.795
[SPEAKER_00]: Doctors couldn't distinguish between arsenic poisoning and disease without chemical analysis, and chemical analysis was expensive, rare, and not routinely performed.
11:30.196 --> 11:35.622
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if a doctor suspected poisoning, proving it was nearly impossible.
11:38.420 --> 11:39.967
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria developed a method.
11:40.972 --> 11:42.478
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd offered to care for someone.
11:43.362 --> 11:47.923
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually, elderly, usually sick, always, or.
11:49.304 --> 11:53.552
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd bring them food, make them tea or coffee, prepare their meals.
11:54.514 --> 11:57.540
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd add small amounts of arsenic to their food and drink.
11:58.502 --> 12:01.368
[SPEAKER_00]: The victim would start showing symptoms that looked like illness.
12:02.550 --> 12:05.075
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria would be the first who suggests calling a doctor.
12:06.117 --> 12:11.127
[SPEAKER_00]: Would express concern, would stay by their bedside as they deteriorated.
12:12.457 --> 12:15.601
[SPEAKER_00]: When they died, she'd help prepare the body for burial.
12:17.022 --> 12:18.624
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd consult a grieving family.
12:19.565 --> 12:20.586
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd attend the funeral.
12:21.748 --> 12:26.854
[SPEAKER_00]: And then she'd collect on the life insurance policies she'd secretly take an out on them.
12:28.335 --> 12:31.599
[SPEAKER_00]: But here's what makes Maria Swan and Burke's story so chilling.
12:32.941 --> 12:41.130
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite the insurance fraud, she remained poor.
12:42.578 --> 12:45.882
[SPEAKER_00]: her family lived modestly throughout her killing spray.
12:47.144 --> 12:52.991
[SPEAKER_00]: The insurance payouts and there were many, never seemed to improve her circumstances.
12:54.734 --> 12:58.158
[SPEAKER_00]: Money was part of her motive, but it wasn't the whole story.
12:59.860 --> 13:10.594
[SPEAKER_00]: After her parents, Maria expanded her victim selection, a nephew, other relatives, elderly
13:11.840 --> 13:17.494
[SPEAKER_00]: people who trusted her completely, people who saw her as who he me.
13:18.577 --> 13:21.765
[SPEAKER_00]: The good woman who cared for those no one else would help.
13:22.792 --> 13:27.917
[SPEAKER_00]: She varied the intervals between murders, ensuring no pattern emerged.
13:29.238 --> 13:32.722
[SPEAKER_00]: She spread her activities across neighborhoods in Leiden.
13:33.843 --> 13:44.253
[SPEAKER_00]: When questions about the frequent deaths among those in her care, she'd say she took on the most seriously ill patients, the ones others refused to help.
13:45.815 --> 13:47.977
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, her patients died more often.
13:48.737 --> 13:50.419
[SPEAKER_00]: They were the sickest to begin with,
13:51.952 --> 13:55.858
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a perfect cover, and it worked for years.
13:58.062 --> 14:03.070
[SPEAKER_00]: The people of Lighten had no idea, they were living alongside a serial killer.
14:04.452 --> 14:17.993
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone who attended church regularly, someone known for charitable works, someone whose reputation for compassion made the idea of her being a murderer seemed impossible to contemplate
14:19.154 --> 14:25.053
[SPEAKER_00]: But Maria Swanomberg was killing steadily, methodically, for three years.
14:26.177 --> 14:27.240
[SPEAKER_00]: And she wasn't done yet.
14:29.549 --> 14:40.540
[SPEAKER_01]: The exact number of swanunberg's victims remains uncertain this day, with 27 confirmed over 102 possibly poisoned, at least 90 resulting in death.
14:41.581 --> 14:48.568
[SPEAKER_01]: Among these were not only her elderly charges, but also several family members, including her own parents and nephew.
14:49.669 --> 14:56.856
[SPEAKER_01]: She also murdered two sisters she was babysitting for, and then at their wake poisons some of their relatives too.
14:56.836 --> 15:08.277
[SPEAKER_01]: Stefan Glassberg and his book says, quote, they survived but she attempted murdering six people, including the pregnant mother of the dead sisters, end quote.
15:08.297 --> 15:19.637
[SPEAKER_01]: These familiar murders demonstrated a particularly cold-blooded aspect of her character, as she showed no hesitation in poisoning those closest to her when opportunity or necessity arose.
15:19.617 --> 15:25.103
[SPEAKER_01]: Her method of avoiding detection was remarkably simple, yet effective.
15:25.123 --> 15:33.331
[SPEAKER_01]: She maintained a caring and concerned demeanor throughout each victim's decline, often being the first to suggest medical attention when symptoms appeared.
15:34.352 --> 15:39.738
[SPEAKER_01]: She would attend funerals, console grieving families, and even assist with funeral arrangements.
15:40.439 --> 15:46.485
[SPEAKER_01]: This public display of empathy and support helped deflect any potential suspicion away from her.
15:46.465 --> 15:53.854
[SPEAKER_01]: Swan and Berg was meticulous in varying the intervals between murders, never allowing a pattern to emerge that might attract attention.
15:54.735 --> 16:02.404
[SPEAKER_01]: She also spread her activities across different neighborhoods until Berg, ensuring that no single area experience an unusual spike in deaths.
16:03.545 --> 16:13.317
[SPEAKER_01]: When questioned about the frequent deaths among those in her care, she would attribute it to her willingness to take on the most seriously ill patients, whom others are refused to help.
16:13.297 --> 16:23.069
[SPEAKER_01]: One of her most effective tactics was to establish herself as a pillar of the community, regularly attending church and maintaining a reputation for charitable works.
16:23.990 --> 16:35.845
[SPEAKER_01]: This carefully cultivated image of a devout compassionate woman created a cognitive dissonance that made it difficult for anyone to consider her capable of murder, even as the death toll continue to rise.
16:35.825 --> 16:44.198
[SPEAKER_01]: The very idea that the seemingly kind-hearted care giver could be systematically poisoning her charges, seemed too fantastic to contemplate.
16:45.460 --> 16:50.770
[SPEAKER_01]: The eventual scale of our climbs was staggering, particularly considering the size of Tilburg at the time.
16:51.752 --> 16:59.205
[SPEAKER_01]: In a community where everyone knew their neighbours, it's one unburied managed to kill repeatedly over several years without a rousing serious suspicion.
17:00.187 --> 17:08.903
[SPEAKER_01]: A victim's died in their own homes, often with their families nearby, never knowing that their trusted caregiver was actually their murderer.
17:08.883 --> 17:16.490
[SPEAKER_01]: The first signs of suspicion arose when local doctors began noticing an unusual pattern of deaths among swan and birds' patients.
17:17.631 --> 17:23.216
[SPEAKER_01]: While individual cases hadn't raised the alarm, the cumulative number of deaths were becoming difficult to ignore.
17:25.658 --> 17:27.920
[SPEAKER_00]: But Maria Swan and Berg made a mistake.
17:29.001 --> 17:30.502
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, she made two.
17:31.543 --> 17:37.388
[SPEAKER_00]: Two terrible, brazen crimes that were finally bring her decades of murder into the light.
17:38.937 --> 17:40.543
[SPEAKER_00]: The first was at a wig.
17:42.791 --> 17:51.141
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria had been babysitting two young sisters, both died under her care, poisoned with arsenic like so many others.
17:52.353 --> 18:00.324
[SPEAKER_00]: at their wake as grieving relatives gathered in a cramped lighting cottage to mourn the dead children, Maria brought food.
18:02.007 --> 18:02.868
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd poisoned it.
18:04.250 --> 18:06.493
[SPEAKER_00]: Six people ate what Maria brought.
18:07.615 --> 18:15.306
[SPEAKER_00]: Six people, including the girl's pregnant mother, became violently ill with a tell-tale symptoms.
18:15.286 --> 18:24.100
[SPEAKER_00]: severe gastric distress, relentless vomiting, pain that felt like their insides were being torn apart.
18:25.563 --> 18:37.682
[SPEAKER_00]: By some miracle, all six survived, that this was extraordinary, poisoning six people at once, at a funeral for children she'd already murdered.
18:38.810 --> 18:40.953
[SPEAKER_00]: It was bold to the point of recklessness.
18:41.914 --> 18:47.321
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the kind of escalation that suggested Maria felt completely untouchable.
18:48.903 --> 18:57.395
[SPEAKER_00]: And in Lydens' disease-ridden slums, where death was so normal that people barely blanked, she almost was untouchable.
18:58.716 --> 19:03.062
[SPEAKER_00]: But that wake poisoning planted seeds of suspicion in the community.
19:04.291 --> 19:24.207
[SPEAKER_00]: Whisper started, quiet questions about why so many people got sick after eating food Maria had prepared, why so many of Maria's patients died, why the woman everyone called go hear me, seemed to be surrounded by death.
19:26.549 --> 19:32.699
[SPEAKER_01]: The breaks were in the case finally came in December 1883, when Swan and Burke poise and the Frank Helds and family.
19:33.340 --> 19:41.793
[SPEAKER_01]: The father of the family Henrik, a man from an extremely poor neighborhood, went to his local doctor after experiencing unbearable pain for a few days.
19:42.614 --> 19:54.092
[SPEAKER_01]: This poor man had already lost his wife and newborn son to similar symptoms, including relentless diarrhea and vomiting, which had been put down to cholera, a disease prevalent in the area at this time.
19:54.072 --> 20:04.321
[SPEAKER_01]: His doctor recognised the symptoms, in fact he had seen another patient just that week with the exact same complaint, who happened to live on the same street as Henrik.
20:05.344 --> 20:09.415
[SPEAKER_01]: The doctor became suspicious that someone could be poisoning his patients.
20:09.395 --> 20:14.047
[SPEAKER_01]: Sadly, Henrik could not be saved and he died 11 days later in a nearby hospital.
20:14.769 --> 20:25.075
[SPEAKER_01]: However, his death kicked off the police investigation, and the person who was on the police radar, none other than Henrik's sister-in-law, Maria Swan and Berg.
20:28.312 --> 20:33.317
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Rijaland Rouder's Van der Luf was the physician who finally connected the dots.
20:34.518 --> 20:48.891
[SPEAKER_00]: When Hendrick Frankenhausen came to his office in December 1883, barely able to stand, describing symptoms that had already killed his wife and infant son, the doctor's mind went to a dark place.
20:50.012 --> 20:56.057
[SPEAKER_00]: These weren't cholera symptoms, even though cholera was the easy
20:57.387 --> 20:58.970
[SPEAKER_00]: the presentation were wrong.
20:59.992 --> 21:01.294
[SPEAKER_00]: The pattern was wrong.
21:02.397 --> 21:09.931
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Dr. Vanderloof asked who'd been caring for the family, who'd been bringing them food, the answer made everything click into place.
21:10.953 --> 21:12.055
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria Swan and Berg
21:13.283 --> 21:18.395
[SPEAKER_00]: The same name he'd heard just days earlier from another patient with identical symptoms.
21:19.738 --> 21:24.509
[SPEAKER_00]: Another patient from the same street, another patient who'd been under Maria's care.
21:25.833 --> 21:30.263
[SPEAKER_00]: The doctor had been practicing and lied and long enough to know Maria's reputation.
21:30.243 --> 21:46.632
[SPEAKER_00]: Behind me, the angel of the neighborhood, the woman who cared for people no one else would help, the woman who prepared bodies for funerals, who consoled craving families, who seemed to be everywhere death touched the poor.
21:47.978 --> 21:59.602
[SPEAKER_00]: too many of her patients had died, too many people under her care had suffered, these specific symptoms, and now a father, a wife and an infant.
22:00.404 --> 22:08.080
[SPEAKER_00]: An entire family have been struck down with the same presentation, and Maria Swan and Berg have been bringing them food.
22:09.393 --> 22:11.275
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Van der Luf went to the police.
22:12.797 --> 22:16.923
[SPEAKER_00]: Hendrick Frankenhausen died 11 days later in the hospital.
22:18.144 --> 22:21.008
[SPEAKER_00]: Arsnick destroying his organs beyond recovery.
22:22.230 --> 22:23.772
[SPEAKER_00]: But his death wasn't in vain.
22:24.893 --> 22:29.379
[SPEAKER_00]: His death launched the investigation that would finally stop Maria Swanomberg.
22:30.741 --> 22:35.687
[SPEAKER_00]: On December 15, 1883, police arrested Maria Swanomberg.
22:36.983 --> 22:41.068
[SPEAKER_00]: When they searched her, they found insurance policies in her pockets.
22:42.169 --> 22:45.493
[SPEAKER_00]: Policies taken out on multiple people under her care.
22:46.654 --> 22:49.398
[SPEAKER_00]: Policies that would pay out when those people died.
22:50.699 --> 22:55.665
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't proof of murder, not yet, but it was enough to hold her.
22:56.606 --> 22:58.068
[SPEAKER_00]: Enough to start digging deeper.
23:01.212 --> 23:06.518
[SPEAKER_00]: And what the police found when they started digging,
23:09.434 --> 23:17.066
[SPEAKER_01]: The trial of Maria Swan and Berg began on the 23rd of April 1885 during unprecedented attention from across the Netherlands.
23:18.248 --> 23:25.840
[SPEAKER_01]: The prosecution presented a methodically prepared case, focusing on the deaths of 27 individuals where evidence was strongest.
23:26.782 --> 23:30.227
[SPEAKER_01]: Though they acknowledged the true victim count might have exceeded 90.
23:31.287 --> 23:41.038
[SPEAKER_01]: Medical experts testified about the tell-tale science of arsenic poisoning, found in the exhumed bodies, explaining how the poison accumulated in the victim's tissues over time.
23:42.139 --> 23:53.312
[SPEAKER_01]: The court heard how arsenic caused excruciating deaths, with victims suffering from severe gastric distress, dehydration and organ failure, before finally succumbing to the poison.
23:53.292 --> 23:59.743
[SPEAKER_01]: Family members of the deceased victims provided emotional testimony about their loved one's final days.
24:00.744 --> 24:07.295
[SPEAKER_01]: They record how Swan and Burger had insisted on caring for their sick relatives, only to have them deteriorate rapidly under her care.
24:08.336 --> 24:16.650
[SPEAKER_01]: The court also heard evidence about the small insurance policies Swan and Burger taken out on several victims, revealing her financial motivations.
24:17.643 --> 24:27.825
[SPEAKER_01]: Throughout the preceding Swan and Bergmaintain and the early calm demeanor, she showed little emotion as witness after witness took the stand, though she consistently denied any wrongdoing.
24:28.807 --> 24:35.922
[SPEAKER_01]: When finally given the opportunity to speak, she claimed she was being framed, and that the deaths were merely unfortunate coincidences.
24:38.973 --> 24:43.119
[SPEAKER_00]: The trial lasted three weeks, but the verdict came quickly.
24:44.201 --> 24:46.865
[SPEAKER_00]: The prosecution had presented overwhelming evidence.
24:47.787 --> 24:50.671
[SPEAKER_00]: 13 bodies exhumed from light and cemeteries.
24:51.673 --> 24:56.340
[SPEAKER_00]: All 13 tested positive for arsenic in their remains.
24:56.320 --> 25:01.294
[SPEAKER_00]: arsenic that had accumulated in their tissues, in their hair, in their bones.
25:02.417 --> 25:05.305
[SPEAKER_00]: arsenic that had killed them slowly, painfully.
25:06.107 --> 25:10.279
[SPEAKER_00]: While Maria Swan and Berg laid the role of concerned caregiver.
25:11.575 --> 25:15.379
[SPEAKER_00]: The testimony from dozens of witnesses painted a clear picture.
25:16.901 --> 25:23.468
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria had systematically purchased small amounts of arsenic for multiple pharmacies across lighting.
25:24.830 --> 25:27.393
[SPEAKER_00]: She taken out insurance policies on her victims.
25:28.674 --> 25:34.421
[SPEAKER_00]: She'd been present for almost every death, usually the one preparing their final meals.
25:35.682 --> 25:41.008
[SPEAKER_00]: Always the one expressing concern when they fell ill.
25:40.988 --> 26:04.768
[SPEAKER_00]: the judges heard about her own parents, murdered for whatever small inheritance they might have left, about her nephew, about the two young sisters she'd been babysitting, about the six people she tried to poison at those children's wake, about elderly neighbors who trusted her
26:06.082 --> 26:14.032
[SPEAKER_00]: about Maria and Hendrick Frinkhausen and their infant son, the breakthrough case that had finally revealed the scope of her crimes.
26:15.454 --> 26:34.097
[SPEAKER_00]: The evidence was damning, the pattern, undeniable, Maria's Wannemberg had poisoned at least 102 people over three to four years, at least 27 had died, another 45 survived, but lived with chronic health problems,
26:35.090 --> 26:46.652
[SPEAKER_00]: Many would be seen in the years to come, navigating light and streets on crutches, permanent reminders of what Maria's arsenic had done to their bodies.
26:49.484 --> 26:55.632
[SPEAKER_00]: On May 1, 1885, the judges delivered their verdict.
26:55.652 --> 27:01.180
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria Swanomberg was found guilty of murdering three members of the Frankhausen family.
27:02.662 --> 27:10.252
[SPEAKER_00]: Though the prosecution had built cases for 27 deaths, they had focused on the strongest evidence for the verdict.
27:11.914 --> 27:14.057
[SPEAKER_00]: The sentence, life imprisonment
27:15.286 --> 27:20.134
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria Swan and Burke became the first woman in Dutch history to receive a life sentence.
27:21.196 --> 27:29.750
[SPEAKER_00]: The severity of her crimes, the scale of her portrayal of community trust, the number of victims, it was unprecedented.
27:30.973 --> 27:33.677
[SPEAKER_00]: The Netherlands had never seen anything like it before.
27:36.422 --> 27:41.310
[SPEAKER_00]: She was sent to the Gorkham Correctional Facility, where she'd spend the rest of her
27:42.691 --> 27:44.575
[SPEAKER_00]: and she did spend the rest of her life there.
27:45.737 --> 27:53.893
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria Swanomberg lived another 30 years in prison, dying on April 11, 1915 at the age of 75.
27:54.294 --> 28:02.691
[SPEAKER_00]: Her crimes fundamentally changed how the Netherlands approached poison control in criminal investigations.
28:03.920 --> 28:14.235
[SPEAKER_00]: in the years following her conviction, Dutch authorities implemented stringent regulations on the sale and distribution of arsenic and other toxic substances.
28:15.497 --> 28:23.909
[SPEAKER_00]: Pharmacies were required to maintain detailed records, of poison sales, and verify the legitimate needs for such purchases.
28:25.010 --> 28:28.155
[SPEAKER_00]: Reforms that remain largely in place today,
28:28.135 --> 28:39.233
[SPEAKER_00]: Dutch law enforcement began developing more sophisticated forensic methods and standardized protocols for investigating suspicious deaths.
28:40.696 --> 28:50.953
[SPEAKER_00]: This one-in-burt case became a cornerstone study in criminal investigation training, specifically in recognizing patterns of serial killings.
28:51.355 --> 29:00.948
[SPEAKER_00]: But perhaps the most visible legacy of Maria Swanomberg's crimes walked the streets of Lydon for decades after her imprisonment.
29:02.229 --> 29:13.144
[SPEAKER_00]: The 45 survivors, people who'd eaten her poisoned food and somehow lived, but whose bodies had been permanently damaged by the arsenic.
29:14.305 --> 29:27.085
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of them navigated light on crutches for the rest of their lives, their legs weakened by nerve damage, their organs compromised, their health never fully recovering.
29:29.008 --> 29:40.566
[SPEAKER_00]: They were living reminders of how trust had been weaponized against the most vulnerable, of how a respected caregiver had systematically murdered the people who depended on her.
29:42.605 --> 29:49.956
[SPEAKER_00]: Maria's one-emberg operated in an environment where death was so common that additional deaths went unquestioned.
29:51.418 --> 29:55.924
[SPEAKER_00]: Victorian Lydens disease-ridden slums created the perfect hunting round.
29:56.846 --> 30:00.791
[SPEAKER_00]: High mortality rates meant no one looked twice at another funeral.
30:02.093 --> 30:03.675
[SPEAKER_00]: Medical knowledge was limited.
30:04.617 --> 30:06.840
[SPEAKER_00]: Forensic science barely existed
30:08.035 --> 30:22.242
[SPEAKER_00]: The poor couldn't afford doctors who might have recognized poisoning earlier, but perhaps most importantly, Maria cultivated an image of compassion that made suspicion seem impossible.
30:23.826 --> 30:26.070
[SPEAKER_00]: She was going me, good Mary.
30:27.392 --> 30:29.757
[SPEAKER_00]: The woman who helped when no one else would,
30:31.070 --> 30:40.165
[SPEAKER_00]: the woman who prepared your dead for burial, who consoled your grief, who took in your sick parents when you couldn't afford their care.
30:41.788 --> 30:53.027
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why she killed for years without raising alarm, not just because of Victorian medical limitations or because the poor died frequently anyway.
30:53.007 --> 31:06.083
[SPEAKER_00]: But because she'd made herself indispensable, made herself trusted, made herself seem like an angel of mercy, in a place where death was everywhere.
31:07.605 --> 31:11.210
[SPEAKER_00]: The reality was that the angel was the killer.
31:12.351 --> 31:17.277
[SPEAKER_00]: The mercy was murder, and the trust was the weapon.
31:19.366 --> 31:31.643
[SPEAKER_00]: Today, Maria Swan and Burke remains one of the Netherlands's most notorious criminals, not just for the number of victims, though 27 confirmed murders and 102 poisonings is staggering.
31:32.705 --> 31:37.932
[SPEAKER_00]: But for what her case revealed, about how serial killers hide and plain sight.
31:39.127 --> 31:56.511
[SPEAKER_00]: How they weaponize compassion, how they exploit the vulnerable, and how for the 45 survivors who spent the rest of their lives on crutches and liden, visible, permanent reminders that go at me was anything but good.
31:59.795 --> 32:04.662
[SPEAKER_00]: Until next time, remember, trust can be the deadliest weapon.
32:06.025 --> 32:13.205
[SPEAKER_00]: When survival depends on accepting help from others who seem most compassionate, anyone can become prey.
32:13.245 --> 32:16.474
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening, friend.
