[3][4][5][6] Journalist Otto Tolischus published the earliest known article in the United States in May 1925 based on letters from the readers without naming any reference.
[7][8] Renczi's story has surfaced repeatedly, but without traceable details such as specific dates of her birth, marriages, arrest, conviction, incarceration or death.
In 1972, the Guinness Book of World Records found no authoritative sources to support the claim that 35 people were killed by Renczi in early 20th-century Austro-Hungarian Empire.
[13] Shortly before the age of twenty, her first marriage was to a wealthy Austrian banker named Karl Schick, many years her senior.
[16] After approximately a year of "mourning", she then declared that she had heard word of her supposedly estranged husband's death in a car accident.
However, the relationship was a tumultuous one and Renczi was again plagued by the suspicion that her new husband was involved in extramarital affairs[citation needed].
[15] Although Renczi did not remarry, she spent the next several years carrying out a number of affairs, some clandestine with married men, and others openly[citation needed].
[citation needed] She was caught after having poisoned her last lover, a bank officer named Milorad;[17] his wife reported his disappearance to the police, who ignored her.
Early childhood friends described Renczi as having an almost pathological desire for constant male companionship[citation needed] and possessing a highly jealous and suspicious nature.
[citation needed] In 2005, The Discovery Channel's three-part series Deadly Women recounted the history of Renczi, portrayed through reenactments and commentaries from FBI agents, a criminal profiler Candice DeLong, and a forensic pathologist.
"[23] On 17 March 2012, a depiction of Renczi appeared in the Daily Mirror, but it was proved to be a misidentified 2004 photograph, and an apology was printed.