Fatal: The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer

Front Cover
Simon and Schuster, 2003 - True Crime - 309 pages
In an era that produced some of the most vicious female sociopaths in American history, Jane Toppan would become the most notorious of them all. AN ANGEL OF MERCY In 1891, Jane Toppan, a proper New England matron, embarked on a profession as a private-duty nurse. Selfless and good-natured, she beguiled Boston's most prominent families. They had no idea what they were welcoming into their homes.... A DEVIL IN DISGUISE No one knew of Jane's past: of her mother's tragic death, of her brutal upbringing in an adoptive home, of her father's insanity, or of her own suicide attempts. No one could have guessed that during her tenure at a Massachusetts hospital the amiable "Jolly Jane" was morbidly obsessed with autopsies, or that she conducted her own after-hours experiments on patients, deriving sexual satisfaction in their slow, agonizing deaths from poison. Self-schooled in the art of murder, Jane Toppan was just beginning her career -- and she would indulge in her true calling victim by victim to become the most prolific domestic fiend of the nineteenth century.
 

Contents

Section 1
3
Section 2
28
Section 3
46
Section 4
57
Section 5
64
Section 6
74
Section 7
83
Section 8
88
Section 20
177
Section 21
188
Section 22
192
Section 23
203
Section 24
213
Section 25
220
Section 26
229
Section 27
239

Section 9
97
Section 10
101
Section 11
107
Section 12
114
Section 13
126
Section 14
131
Section 15
136
Section 16
145
Section 17
151
Section 18
156
Section 19
169
Section 28
251
Section 29
264
Section 30
272
Section 31
280
Section 32
288
Section 33
298
Section 34
304
Section 35
307
Section 36
310
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