French homicide; guilty of infanticide and drug addiction.
At 14, she left home for Paris where she took various jobs. In 1893 she married a blue collar worker. Short, fat and lethargic herself, she was a heavy drinker along with her alcoholic husband.
She was available to watch her sister-in-laws kids when a grim series of events began to plague the family for a terrifying month. On 3/02/1905, one of the kids died from a sudden illness. A second child died on 3/11/1905 when Jeanne was baby-sitting and the doctor said it was from convulsions, A third death on 3/26/1905 was attributed to diphtheria. On 3/29/1905, Jeanne’s own seven-year-old son died and the doctor again said it was from diphtheria.
On 4/05/1905, the mother came home to find Jeanne strangling one of the boys. He recovered and told of her attack.
The trial of nine days began on 1/29/1906. Two of Jeanne’s kids had died from supposed illnesses, as well as two others for whom she had cared. As there was no witness, she was acquitted. Jeanne was shunned by neighbors who gathered in the streets to revile her. Her husband left her and Jeanne fled the hostile environment, disappearing for 15 months.
Assuming an alias, she took up with a man who took her into his home and bed. When his nine-year-old son died suddenly, Jeanne was again arrested on 5/04/1907. She was again acquitted when the doctor testified that the boy’s death was from an illness.
Released in December 1907, Jeanne vanished. Reports surfaced that she had been seen working as an orderly in a children’s hospital, and also in a children’s home. When caught choking a sick child, she was fired. On the streets of Paris, she was arrested as a vagrant and sent to a mental asylum, but later released.
Jeanne became a street whore until she found a man who took her in as a housekeeper. When she was caught in the act of strangling to death a ten-year-old boy, she was declared insane on 10/25/1908 and locked in a mental hospital. The doctor who had been responsible for declaring her innocence admitted his responsibility in the deaths of the children.
Credited with eight murders, Jeanne may have killed 20 or more children. While in the asylum, she would have insane fits of imaginary strangulations and during such an attack, 5 July 1918, she hanged herself.
Link to Wikipedia biography