Marie Besnard was first charged with multiple murder on July 21, 1949. After three trials lasting over 10 years (the first held in Poitiers), Besnard was finally freed in 1954, then acquitted on December 12, 1961.
Early life
Born in Loudun, France, Marie married her cousin, Auguste Antigny, in 1920. The marriage lasted until his death from pleurisy on July 21, 1927 (Antigny was known to suffer from tuberculosis). In 1928, Marie married Léon Besnard.
Suspicious deaths
When Léon Besnard's parents inherited family wealth, the couple invited them to move in with them. Soon thereafter, his father died, apparently from eating poisoned mushrooms.
His mother followed three months later, apparently a victim of pneumonia.
Shortly afterward, the Besnards sublet rooms to a wealthy childless couple, the Rivets, who were friends of Marie's husband. Monsieur Toussaint Rivet died of pneumonia on July 14, 1939,. Madame Blanche Rivet (née Lebeau) died on December 27, 1941 from aortitis. The Rivets' will had named Marie Besnard as their only heir.
Pauline Bodineau, (née Lalleron) and Virginie Lalleron, cousins of Marie, had also named Marie as their only beneficiary. Pauline died aged 88 on July 1, 1945, after mistaking a bowl of lye for her dessert one night. Virginie apparently made the same mistake a week later and died aged 83 on July 9, 1945. Marie's mother, Marie-Louise Davaillaud (née Antigny) died on January 16. After Marie discovered Léon was having an affair, Léon remarked to a close friend, Madame Pintou, that he believed he was being poisoned, saying "that his wife had served him some soup on a bowl that already contained a liquid." He died shortly afterwards October 25, 1947 apparently of uremia.
