Download or read book Poison Widows written by George Cooper and published by St Martins Press. This book was released on 1999-01 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A true story of disgruntled wives, old world witchcraft, and murder as revealed in the trials of the infamous "Poison Widows" in Philadelphia in 1939. of photos.
Download or read book Poison Widows written by George Cooper and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Poison Widows written by Self and published by Nook Press. This book was released on 2016-12-29 with total page 246 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: George Cooper's first book, Lost Love, won acclaim for its riveting portrayal of tender passions and sensational murder in old Manhattan. It was history rendered in a page-turning narrative style, a style that Cooper now applies to the 1930s and the infamous poison murder ring that infected the superstitious Italian immigrant community of South Philadelphia. Poison Widows describes a world where the evil eye could bring ruin upon a family, where malevolent spirits stalked the living, and where the only relief lay in the fattuchiere, the witch doctors of the Old Country. It tells the story of a self-proclaimed sorcerer, Morris "Louie the Rabbi" Bolber, who claimed he could cure cancer with a magic butter knife given to him by a Chinese witch; Paul Petrillo, who discovered that the Rabbi's love potion, while useless as an agent of romance, was quite a handy and seemingly untraceable poison; and the dozens of "poison widows"--women who, some as willing accomplices and others just foolish dupes, sent their husbands to an excruciatingly painful death. When the scheme was eventually uncovered, a protracted battle was waged upon the widows in the courts, urged on by a frenzied press and an ambitious district attorney. Drawing on trial transcripts, press reports, and interviews with participants, Cooper paints a vibrant, darkly comic portrait of this sordid chapter in the history of crime. The parallels to recent trials, including the impact of media coverage and the awesome powers of a skilled lawyer to redefine "justice" on his own terms, gives Poison Widows the timeliness of a story sprung right from the headlines, mingled with the morbid timelessness of mankind's darkest nature.
Download or read book Widows Pariahs and Bayad res written by Binita Mehta and published by Bucknell University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes how French dramatists reproduced certain images of India such as the burning widow, the lowly pariah or untouchable, and the exotic 'bayadere' or dancing girl in four plays and one ballet written from the eighteenth century through the twentieth centuries. Addressing questions of Orientalism, the book also argues that it was because the French lost their Indian colonies to the Briish in the eighteenth centuries that India became a part of the French literary imagination.
Download or read book Poison written by Jim Morelli and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing. This book was released on 1997 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chances are you, or others in your home, use a poisonous substance to wash dishes, do laundry, or clean the toilet, oven or sink. This book takes you on a fascinating tour of the toxic substances found in your home and enlightens you about some that are supposed to be but really aren't. Filled with historical trivia and interesting nuggets, it's the kind of home poisoning book you'll pick up not just in a panic, but to read for pleasure. So, please, read it before you need it.
Download or read book Psychology written by Richard A. Griggs and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2008-02-15 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The updated 2nd edition of this brief introduction to Psychology, is more accessible and ideal for short courses. This is a brief, accessible introductory psychology textbook. The updated 2nd edition of this clear and brief introduction to Psychology is written by the award-winning lecturer and author Richard Griggs. The text is written in an engaging style and presents a selection of carefully chosen core concepts in psychology, providing solid topical coverage without drowning the student in a sea of details.
Download or read book The Black Widows of the Eternal City written by Craig A. Monson and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-09-21 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Black Widows of the Eternal City offers, for the first time, a book-length study of an infamous cause célèbre in seventeenth-century Rome, how it resonated then and has continued to resonate: the 1659 investigation and prosecution of Gironima Spana and dozens of Roman widows, who shared a particularly effective poison to murder their husbands. This notorious case has been frequently discussed over 350 years, but the earliest writers concentrated more on fortifying their reading constituency’s shared attitudes than accurately narrating facts. Subsequent authors remained largely content to follow their predecessors or keen to improve upon them. Most recent writers and bloggers were unaware that their earlier sources were generally unconcerned with a correct portrayal of real events. In the present study, Craig A. Monson takes advantage of a recent discovery—the 1,450-page notary’s transcript of the 1659 investigation. It is supplemented here by many ancillary archival sources, unknown to all previous writers. Since the story of Gironima Spana and the would-be widows is partially about what people believed to be true, however, this investigation also juxtaposes some of the “alternative facts” from earlier, sensational accounts with what the notary’s transcript and other, more reliable archival documents reveal. Written in a style that avoids arcane idioms and specialist jargon, the book can potentially speak to students and general readers interested in seventeenth-century social history and gender issues. It rewrites the life story of Gironima Spana (largely unknown until now), who has dominated all earlier accounts, usually in caricatures that reiterate the tropes of witchcraft. It also concentrates on the dozen other widows whose stories could be the most recovered from archival sources and whom Spana had totally eclipsed in earlier accounts. Most were women “of a very ordinary sort” (prostitutes; beggars; wives of butchers, barbers, dyers, lineners, innkeepers), the kinds of women commonly lost to history. The book seeks to explain why some women were hanged (only six, in fact, most of whom may not have directly poisoned anyone), while dozens of others who did poison their husbands escaped the gallows and, in some cases, were not even interrogated. It also reveals what happened to these other alleged perpetrators, whose fates have remained unknown until now. Other purported culprits, about whom less complete pictures emerge, are briefly discussed in an appendix. The study incorporates illustrations of archival manuscripts to demonstrate the challenges of deciphering them and illustrates “scenes of the crime” and other important locations, identified on seventeenth-century, bird’s eye-perspective views of Rome and in modern photographs. It also includes GPS coordinates for any who might wish to revisit the sites.
Download or read book A Taste for Poison written by Neil Bradbury, Ph.D. and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2022-02-01 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A fascinating tale of poisons and poisonous deeds which both educates and entertains.” --Kathy Reichs A brilliant blend of science and crime, A TASTE FOR POISON reveals how eleven notorious poisons affect the body--through the murders in which they were used. As any reader of murder mysteries can tell you, poison is one of the most enduring—and popular—weapons of choice for a scheming murderer. It can be slipped into a drink, smeared onto the tip of an arrow or the handle of a door, even filtered through the air we breathe. But how exactly do these poisons work to break our bodies down, and what can we learn from the damage they inflict? In a fascinating blend of popular science, medical history, and true crime, Dr. Neil Bradbury explores this most morbidly captivating method of murder from a cellular level. Alongside real-life accounts of murderers and their crimes—some notorious, some forgotten, some still unsolved—are the equally compelling stories of the poisons involved: eleven molecules of death that work their way through the human body and, paradoxically, illuminate the way in which our bodies function. Drawn from historical records and current news headlines, A Taste for Poison weaves together the tales of spurned lovers, shady scientists, medical professionals and political assassins to show how the precise systems of the body can be impaired to lethal effect through the use of poison. From the deadly origins of the gin & tonic cocktail to the arsenic-laced wallpaper in Napoleon’s bedroom, A Taste for Poison leads readers on a riveting tour of the intricate, complex systems that keep us alive—or don’t.
Download or read book King of Poisons written by John Parascandola and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2012-10-31 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, arsenic's image as a poison has been inextricably tied to images of foul play. In King of Poisons, John Parascandola examines the surprising history of this deadly element. From Gustave Flaubert to Dorothy Sayers, arsenic has long held a place in the literary realm as an instrument of murder and suicide. It was delightfully used as a source of comedy in the famous play Arsenic and Old Lace. But as Parascandola shows, arsenic has had a number of surprising real-world applications. It was frequently found in such common items as wallpaper, paint, cosmetics, and even candy, and its use in medical treatments was widespread. American ambassador Clare Boothe Luce suffered from exposure to arsenical paint in her study, and Napoleon's death has long been speculated to be the result of accidental or intentional poisoning. But arsenic poisoning is still a public menace. In the neighborhood surrounding American University in Washington, D.C., the army has undertaken a massive cleanup of artillery shells and bottles containing chemical warfare agents such as arsenical lewisite after a number of workmen and residents became ill. Arsenic contamination of the water supply in Bangladesh and in West Bengal, India, is a major public health problem today as well. From murder to crime fiction, from industrial toxin to chemical warfare, arsenic remains a powerful force in modern life.
Download or read book Engendered Death written by Joseph W. Laythe and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2011 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Engendered Death: Pennsylvania Women Who Kill is an historical and interdisciplinary study of women who kill in Pennsylvania from the 18th century to the present. It is not an examination of what motivates women to kill, although the reader may deduce that from the case studies included. Instead, it is an examination of how society perceives women who kill and how the gender-lens is applied to them throughout the legal process in the media and in the courtroom. What makes this work particularly unique is its combination of both scholarly analysis and narrative case studies. As such, it will appeal to both the scholar and the reader of true-crime non-fiction. If we are to recognize the complex variables at play in all criminal offenses, we will need to understand that the laws of a community, its social values, its politics, economics, and even geography play a factor in what laws are enforced and against whom they are enforced. The decision to define and label certain behaviors and certain people was based on social, political, and economic considerations of each community. Thus, the commission of murder by a woman in Arizona may have a variety of factors associated with it that are not present in the case of a woman who murdered her husband in Maine. This study, in part because of the volume of cases and in part to limit the variables affecting the cases, has limited its scope of women killers to the state of Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is the ideal state to study because of its long and stable legal and political traditions, its historically diverse population, and the large number of newspapers that will help us gauge the public's view of women and women who kill. By limiting our scope to one state, we know that the legal definitions are fairly consistent for all of the women during a certain period and we can more easily identify the shifts in social values regarding women and homicide.
Download or read book Criminal Poisoning written by John H. Trestrail, III and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-04-30 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this revised and expanded edition, leading forensic scientist John Trestrail offers a pioneering survey of all that is known about the use of poison as a weapon in murder. Topics range from the use of poisons in history and literature to convicting the poisoner in court, and include a review of the different types of poisons, techniques for crime scene investigation, and the critical essentials of the forensic autopsy. The author updates what is currently known about poisoners in general and their victims. The Appendix has been updated to include the more commonly used poisons, as well as the use of antifreeze as a poison.
Download or read book Women and Capital Punishment in the United States written by David V. Baker and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2015-11-26 with total page 439 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the execution of women in the United States has largely been ignored and scholars have given scant attention to gender issues in capital punishment. This historical analysis examines the social, political and economic contexts in which the justice system has put women to death, revealing a pattern of patriarchal domination and female subordination. The book includes a discussion of condemned women granted executive clemency and judicial commutations, an inquiry into women falsely convicted in potentially capital cases and a profile of the current female death row population.
Download or read book The Poison Plot written by Elaine Forman Crane and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Explores in colonial Newport, Rhode Island, the tumultuous marriage of Benedict and Mary Arnold in the 1720s and 1730s. In and through their sordid and possibly criminal marital story, in which Mary is accused of poisoning Benedict, Crane sheds light on the liabilities and possibilities for women under couverture, the complex social and economic networks that bound together the elite and laboring classes of Newport, and the trans-oceanic cultures of trade, consumption, and sociability that came to shape expectations for marital satisfaction on both sides of the Atlantic"--
Download or read book Poison s Kiss written by Breeana Shields and published by Random House Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 2017 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an alternate world based on the mythology of India, a girl trained since birth as a -poison maiden- in the Raja's service is ordered to kill a boy she loves.
Download or read book The Making of a Rescuer written by Nicholas Campbell Corff and published by Trafford Publishing. This book was released on 2012-11-26 with total page 537 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about the making of a hero - a rescuer. There are few of us that can claim to be bigger-than-life heroes, but surely the story of Dr. Otto Trotts life is the story of one of these. Because of his existence many lives have been saved or improved, human suffering has been reduced, and the world is a better place. What greater statement can be made about a person? A hiker sees the beautiful blue of a mountain gentian just off the trail and stops to capture the image through a snapshot, but in seeking a slightly wider angle steps back -- in a flash the hiker lies injured amid the rocks. A snowboarder searches for untouched powder snow, but finds a cliff instead. A small plane has engine trouble and glides steeply toward a mountain meadow. An early snowstorm catches two climbers exposed in the high alpine. An avalanche buries a foolish snowmobiler trying to make the highest mark on the side of snow-covered slope. An older gentleman has a heart attack far from his city hospital. Its quite possible and even probable that what all of the above have in common is Dr. Otto Trott. He co-founded the search and rescue organization that seeks out the injured and carries them down from the mountains, he pioneered the medical treatments that will be used for hypothermia and frostbite, he introduced advanced European methods of climbing as well as the identification of avalanche danger areas and the systematic search for and rescue of accident victims. Most importantly, Otto taught generations of others to follow in his footsteps. As Lou Whittaker, the renowned mountain guide states, This book is a must for anyone who seeks the mountains and their reward. Dee Molenaar the acclaimed mountaineer, artist and writer, says that this treatise is long overdue, while the legendary high altitude premier climber Jim Wickwire writes that Nicholas Corff has brought to life the fascinating story of Otto Trott There is no question that Dr. Otto Trott was one of those few men who was a legend in his own time, but he always remained a man of great empathy as well as skill who sought to relieve suffering, improve the safety of the outdoors and protect the mountain environment he so loved. In his long and adventuresome life he overcame great loss with courage and perseverance, and ultimately was the recipient of many awards including the Jefferson Award. Along with the text there are over 250 full page photos and illustrations.
Download or read book Representing the Race written by Kenneth W. Mack and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-17 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A wonderful excavation of the first era of civil rights lawyering.”—Randall L. Kennedy, author of The Persistence of the Color Line “Ken Mack brings to this monumental work not only a profound understanding of law, biography, history and racial relations but also an engaging narrative style that brings each of his subjects dynamically alive.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of Team of Rivals Representing the Race tells the story of an enduring paradox of American race relations through the prism of a collective biography of African American lawyers who worked in the era of segregation. Practicing the law and seeking justice for diverse clients, they confronted a tension between their racial identity as black men and women and their professional identity as lawyers. Both blacks and whites demanded that these attorneys stand apart from their racial community as members of the legal fraternity. Yet, at the same time, they were expected to be “authentic”—that is, in sympathy with the black masses. This conundrum, as Kenneth W. Mack shows, continues to reverberate through American politics today. Mack reorients what we thought we knew about famous figures such as Thurgood Marshall, who rose to prominence by convincing local blacks and prominent whites that he was—as nearly as possible—one of them. But he also introduces a little-known cast of characters to the American racial narrative. These include Loren Miller, the biracial Los Angeles lawyer who, after learning in college that he was black, became a Marxist critic of his fellow black attorneys and ultimately a leading civil rights advocate; and Pauli Murray, a black woman who seemed neither black nor white, neither man nor woman, who helped invent sex discrimination as a category of law. The stories of these lawyers pose the unsettling question: what, ultimately, does it mean to “represent” a minority group in the give-and-take of American law and politics?
Download or read book The Elements of Murder written by John Emsley and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-04-28 with total page 437 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How can a chemical we need on a daily basis to keep us healthy be fatal at a different dose? Why should elements that are intrinsically dangerous be used in medicine? How did poisoners use the chemical properties of chemicals to cover their tracks? Emsley gives detailed histories of five of the most toxic elements - arsenic, antimony, lead, mercury, and thallium, highlighting some of the most famous murders and how the murderers used the chemical properties of elements to hide what they were doing. He shows how the elements have been behind many modern day environmental catastrophes including accidental mass poisonings from lead and arsenic, and the Minamata Bay Disaster in Japan. The array of fascinating stories shows how chemicals have impacted the lives of people ranging from the Greeks and Romans to Newton, Napoleon, Lucrezia Borgia, Mozart, Nelson Mandela, and Saddam Hussein. Emsley also touches on subjects close to home: cot deaths, laxatives, venereal disease, alleged cures for acne, hangovers, and insanity.
