Gesche Gottfried

Gesina ("Gesche") Margarethe Gottfried (née Timm; 6 March 1785 – 21 April 1831) was a German serial killer who murdered 15 people by arsenic poisoning in Bremen and Hanover, Germany, between 1813 and 1827.

Before being suspected and convicted of the murders, she garnered widespread sympathy among the inhabitants of Bremen because so many of her family and friends fell ill and died.

She used a rat poison called "mouse butter" (in German "Mäusebutter"), very common at the time, which consisted of small flakes of arsenic mixed in animal fat.

She mixed small doses into her victims' food, and when they started to get sick, she "friendly, selflessly and resignedly" offered to take care of them during their convalescence, while continuing to poison them.

During the period of her criminal activity, Gesche Gottfried was considered a model citizen and was well-liked in the community.

Even after the constant loss of relatives who suffered, it seemed that the friendly, candid and kind Gesche chased a "cloud of misfortune".

Her neighbours, moved by her zeal and resignation with caring not only for her family but also her sick friends, called her "the angel of Bremen".

Johann Christoph Rumpff would have been Gesche's twelfth victim if he hadn't become suspicious after finding small white granules on the food she had prepared for him.

Finally, in Murderesses in German Writing, 1720-1860: Heroines of Horror (2009),[4] Susanne Kord discusses Gottfried and other woman murders, as well as how literature has portrayed these women.

Bremer Freiheit (1971) was a play by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, based on Geesche Gottfried's crimes.