Vera Renczi

{{Infobox criminal

| name = Vera Renczi

| image =

| image_size = 10px

| caption =

| birth_date = 1903

| death_date = {{death year and age|1960|1903}}{{Anachronism inline|date=April 2020|reason=Dubious. First mention of her is in 1925, but SOMEHOW she lived up to 1960?}}

| death_place = Zrenjanin, Yugoslavia
{{small|(now Serbia)}}

| alias = The Black Widow

| nationality = Romanian

| citizenship = Romanian

| occupation = Housewife

| criminal_charge = Murder

| criminal_penalty = Life imprisonment

| spouse = Karl Schick

| victims = Lovers/husbands

| beginyear = 1920

| country = Romania
Yugoslavia
Hungary (alleged)

| fatalities = 35

| weapon = Arsenic

| endyear = 1930

}}

Vera Renczi (dubbed the Black Widow, Mrs. Poison or Chatelaine of Berkerekul),{{cite web |url=http://adevarul.ro/locale/calarasi/sfarsitul-cumplit-celei-mai-sadice-criminale-vaduva-neagra-femeia-misterioasa-ucis-35-barbati-1_57372ef05ab6550cb8eef23c/index.html |title=Sfârşitul cumplit al celei mai sadice criminale. Văduva Neagră, femeia misterioasă care a ucis 35 de bărbaţi |work=Adevărul |author=Ionela Stănilă |date=1 June 2016}}{{cite web |url=http://www.descopera.ro/cultura/3470508-vaduva-neagra-sau-castelana-din-berkerekul |title=Vaduva Neagra sau Castelana din Berkerekul |work=Descopera.ro |author=Adrian Nicolae |date=11 October 2008}} was a claimed Romanian serial killer who was charged with poisoning 35 individuals including her two husbands, multiple lovers, and her son with arsenic during the 1920s.{{cite book|author=William R. Cullen|title=Is Arsenic an Aphrodisiac?: The Sociochemistry of an Element|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yyaTdY4UGLMC&pg=PA194|year=2008|publisher=Royal Society of Chemistry|isbn=978-0-85404-363-7|page=194}}{{cite book|author1=Michael D. Kelleher|author2=C. L. Kelleher|title=Murder Most Rare|year=1999|publisher=Random House Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-440-23473-9|page=67}}Mary Ellen Snodgrass: Encyclopedia of kitchen history. 549. {{ISBN|978-1-57958-380-4}}{{cite magazine|magazine=The New Yorker|volume=74|issue=1–10|pages=88–91 (89)|title=FEMMES FATALES. Women who kill: The new postfeminist icons. |author=Larissa MacFarquhar| date=March 9, 1998| url = https://www.newyorker.com/archive/1998/03/09/1998_03_09_088_TNY_LIBRY_000015102}}

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.Tolischus, O. [Otto] B. Woman Held For Killing 35 Persons Slew Lovers and Preserved Bodies In Cans In Her Cellar, syndicated (Universal Service), The Bee (Danville, Va.), May 22, 1925, p. 6[http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6Bp266mo_Rw/USQse76HW0I/AAAAAAAASOI/Qpd1uv0zuyI/s1600/renczi-kingston-color.bbmp "Another Lucretia Borgia Found", Kingston Daily Freeman] Renczi's story has surfaced repeatedly, but without traceable details such as specific dates of her birth, marriages, arrest, conviction, incarceration or death.{{cite book |author=Hannah Scott |title=The female serial murderer a sociological study of homicide and the gentler sex |publisher=Edwin Mellen Press |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-7734-6000-3 |page=44}}

Most sources place the murders at Berkerekul, Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia), or Bečkerek, which was renamed Zrenjanin in 1946; however, the spelling "Berkerekul" is unknown for this city. 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.{{cite book |author1=Ross McWhirter |title=Guinness Book of World Records |author2=Norris McWhirter |publisher=Sterling Publishing Company |year=1972 |page=288 |quote=A claim that Vera Renczi murdered 35 persons in Rumania this century lacks authority.}}

Early life

According to some accounts{{By whom|date=April 2020}}, Renczi was born in Bucharest in 1903, but in view of the dates of her alleged crimes, a date in the late 19th century would be more appropriate. The accounts of her life are lacking in verifiable documentary supporting evidence. Her mother died when she was 13 and she moved with her father to Nagybecskerek (today Zrenjanin, Serbia) where she attended a boarding school.[http://www.crimetime.ro/dosare/criminali-in-serie-celebri-romanca-vera-renczi-ultima-femeie-din-viata-a-35-de-barbati.html Crime Time] {{in lang|ro}} Her father began to neglect her.{{Sfn|Glinkowska|Paprzycka|5=2020|p=66}} By the age of fifteen, she had become increasingly unmanageable and had frequently run away from home with numerous boyfriends, many of whom were significantly older than she was.Newton, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. page 198. Checkmark Books. 2000. {{ISBN|0-8160-3979-8}}

Shortly before the age of twenty, her first marriage was to a wealthy Austrian banker named Karl Schick, many years her senior.{{cite web|url=https://stiri.md/article/ledi/vaduva-neagra-a-romaniei-povestea-femeii-care-si-a-ucis-toti-amantii-dar-si-fiul |title=Văduva Neagră a României. Povestea femeii care și-a ucis toți amanții, dar și fiul|work=Știri.md|date=26 June 2017|access-date=8 June 2021|language=ro}} They had a son named Lorenzo.Joseph Geringer, "[http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/widows/5.html Black Widows: Veiled in Their Own Web of Darkness] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071001000557/http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/widows/5.html|date=2007-10-01}}", CrimeLibrary.com Renczi poisoned Schick's wine with arsenic after she discovered that Schick may have been cheating on her.{{Sfn|Pop|Zaimova-Tsaneva|2024|p=200}} 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.

Subsequent murders

Shortly after allegedly hearing the news of her first husband's "automobile accident", Renczi remarried{{citation needed|date=May 2014}}, this time to a man nearer her own age{{citation needed|date=May 2014}}. 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|date=May 2014}}. After only months of marriage, the man vanished{{citation needed|date=May 2014}} and Renczi then told friends and family that he had abandoned her. After a year had passed, she then claimed to have received a letter from her husband proclaiming his intentions of leaving her forever. This was her last marriage.

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|date=May 2014}}. The men came from an array of backgrounds and social positions. All vanished within months, weeks, and in some cases, even days after becoming romantically involved with her.{{citation needed|date=May 2014}} When connected to men she was openly having an affair with, she invariably concocted stories of them being "unfaithful" and having "abandoned her".{{Citation needed|date=June 2013}}

She was caught after having poisoned her last lover, a bank officer named Milorad;{{Cite web |last=Ioana |first=Bucur |date=2020-11-02 |title=Vera Renczi sau Văduva Neagră. Povestea cutremurătoare a celei mai periculoase criminale din România. Ce a făcut cu trupurile bărbaților uciși |url=https://www.stiridinlume.ro/life-style/vera-renczi-sau-vaduva-neagra-povestea-cutremuratoare-a-celei-mai-periculoase-criminale-din-romania-ce-a-facut-cu-trupurile-barbatilor-ucisi-13244.html |access-date=2024-08-14 |website=Stiridinlume.ro |language=ro}} his wife reported his disappearance to the police, who ignored her. Nevertheless, she pursued her own investigation and rapidly found that Vera was her husband's mistress. She went back to the police, who sent two inspectors to the chateau. She admitted to them that Milorad had been her lover, but claimed he had quit her. Impressed by her beauty, wealth, and excellent reputation, the police abandoned their search. The wife went back to the police and started to ask questions which should have been asked long before: where was her husband Joseph? Where was their son? What happened to the numerous other men who people knew were her lovers and had also disappeared? The police went back to see her; not only did she then deny that Milorad was her lover, which she had admitted before, but the police had proof, a love letter sent by her to her lover. The police got a search warrant and discovered a locked round cellar underground. In it were 35 spaces, each with a zinc-lined coffin inside. In the middle of the cellar were a red armchair, a big church candle, and an empty bottle of champagne. She told them that the coffins contained family members, but they insisted on opening one coffin. Inside, they found the decomposed body of a man; upon opening the rest, they found the same thing. After she was arrested, she confessed that she had poisoned all of them with arsenic when she suspected they had been unfaithful to her or when she believed their interest in her was waning {{citation needed|date=May 2014}}. She also confessed that on occasion she liked to sit in the armchair, surrounded by the coffins of all her former lovers.

She was convicted of 35 murders and sentenced to death, but Yugoslavia did not execute women at that time. She was instead condemned to life in prison. During her trial, she started showing signs of schizophrenia.{{Sfn|Glinkowska|Paprzycka|2020|p=67}} In prison, she began to talk to her victims.{{Sfn|Steiger|2009|p=24}} She died in 1960.

= Personality =

Early childhood friends described Renczi as having an almost pathological desire for constant male companionship{{citation needed|date=May 2014}} and possessing a highly jealous and suspicious nature. Renczi did not socialize much, and only interacted with "gentlemen" that she invited over for dinner or to have sex with.{{Sfn|Pop|Zaimova-Tsaneva|p=200|2024}} According to Hannah Scott, Renczi was considered "a tragic figure in the community who could not keep a husband or a lover".{{Sfn|Cluff|Hunter|Hinch|1997|p=297}}

In culture

Some{{Who|date=February 2025}} have speculated that Renczi's story may have inspired Joseph Kesselring's play Arsenic and Old Lace, yet this is incorrect. It was the Amy Archer-Gilligan case which the playwright used as his model.{{Citation needed|date=June 2013}}

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. Renczi was featured in the series' first episode titled "Obsession",[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1306345/ Deadly Women: Season 1, Episode 1 Obsession] (8 Feb. 2005) where she is described as having killed her victims in the "1930s in Bucharest, Romania".10:30 into the episode As for her motivation, the voice-over says "modern analysis suggests she was simply looking for love."14:20 into the episode

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.[http://www.iberianblackarts.com/blog/daily-mirror/ MARCH 20, 2012 "THE DAILY MIRROR USED MY PICTURE TO ILLUSTRATE SERIAL KILLER, AND FOLLOWED APOLOGY"]

References

= Sources =

{{Cite journal |last1=Pop |first1=Alicia-Ximena |last2=Zaimova-Tsaneva |first2=Emelina |date=11 January 2024 |title=A Psychobiography and Illustration of Schahriar Syndrome Model in Vera Renczi |journal=Psychiatria Danubina |publisher=Medicinska naklada |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=243–250 |doi=10.24869/psyd.2024.243|doi-access=free }}
{{Cite journal |last1=Cluff |first1=Julie |last2=Hunter |first2=Allison |last3=Hinch |first3=Ronald |date=August 1997 |title=Feminist Perspectives on Serial Murder: A Critical Analysis |journal=Homicide Studies |publisher=Sage Publications |volume=1 |issue=3 |doi=10.1177/1088767997001003006 |via=HeinOnline}}
{{Cite journal |last1=Glinkowska |first1=Anna |last2=Paprzycka |first2=Olga |date=2020 |editor-last=Dąsal |editor-first=Mateusz |editor2-last=Smakosz |editor2-first=Aleksander K. |title=Trucizna - broń kobiet |url=https://open.icm.edu.pl/server/api/core/bitstreams/52edde24-858d-4695-a169-1a9904370991/content |journal=Acta Uroboroi. W kręgu alchemii |language=pl |publisher=Studenckie Koło Naukowe Uroboros |publication-place=Wrocław |volume= |issue=2 |pages=60–70 |isbn=978-83-949471-9-4 |via=OPEN Repository}}
{{Cite book |last=Steiger |first=Brad |title=Real Vampires, Night Stalkers and Creatures from the Darkside |date=1 September 2009 |publisher=Visible Ink Press |isbn=978-1578592555 |pages=22–24}}

External links

[https://web.archive.org/web/20130514060649/http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/badgirls/types.htm Francis Farmer's Revenge: Types of female Serial Killers]

Category:1903 births

Category:1960 deaths

Category:20th-century murderers

Category:Filicides

Category:Hungarian people convicted of murder

Category:Hungarian people who died in prison custody

Category:Hungarian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment

Category:Mariticides

Category:People convicted of murder by Romania

Category:People from Bucharest

Category:European people whose existence is disputed

Category:Poisoners