Vera Renczi

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Vera Renczi (dubbed the Black Widow, Ms. Poison or Chatelaine of Berkerekul), was a Romanian serial killer who was charged with poisoning 35 individuals including her two husbands, multiple lovers, and her son with arsenic during the 1920s. Journalist Otto Tolischus published the earliest known related article in the United States in May 1925 based on letters from the readers without naming any reference. Renczi's story has surfaced repeatedly, but without traceable details such as specific dates of her birth, marriages, arrest, conviction, incarceration or death. 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.

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