Maria Catherina Swanenburg was a Dutch murderer who poisoned twenty-seven people with arsenic between 1880 and 1883. Her nickname was Goede Mie, Dutch for 'Good Mie'. More than fifty people she attempted to kill using the same method, but failed. Forty-five of them sustained chronical health-problems after the indigestion of the poison. Swanenberg's motive was the money she would receive through either the victim's insurance or their inheritance. She effected most of the insurances herself. Her first victim was her own mother, in 1880; shortly after she killed her father too. She was caught when trying to poison the Groothuizen-family, in December 1883. The trial began on April 23rd, 1885. Maria Swanenburg was convicted to live in a 'place of correction' for the rest of her life, where she died in 1915.
References
- J.H.H. Gaute and Robin Odell, The New Murderer's Who's Who, 1996, Harrap Books, London
- Lennaert Nijgh, Moord en Doodslag, 1990, Schoort