ALLEGED FEMALE BLUEBEARD.

Shannon News, 17 April 1923, Page 4

ALLEGED FEMALE BLUEBEARD.

— ON TRIAL IN CHICAGO. The death penalty was asked by the prosecution at the opening of the trials of Mrs Tillie Klimek and Mrs Nellie Koulik, alleged female “Bluebeards,” in Chicago. The women are alleged to have planned and carried out a wholesale poison plot which claimed at least six lives and caused serious illness to nearly a score more. Investigation of the case led the authorities back a decade to graves of persons long since forgotten.

The two women, cousins, originally planned to poison their husbands emd collect the life insurance, Assist ant State's Attorney Wm. McLoughlin prosecutor declared.

Later friends and relatives uecaine suspicious and the cousins attempted to put them out of the way at a series of “poison parties.” ~, The women were indicted on six 'counts of murder. In practically every case rat poison was used, authorities declared. Ten bodies of relatives of the two women have been exhumed. Analyst revealed arsenic in six—two former husbands of Mrs Klimek, two former husbands of Mrs Koulik, and two children of Mrs Koulik. Joseph Klimek, husband of one ot •he accused women, will be chief witness of the State. He recently recovered from the effects of arsenic alleged to have been administered by his wife. He wishes to see the two women hanged. The alleged poison plot was first discovered when Klimek was found near death several months ago. When he recovered from poison effects he assisted the State in its probe. Mrs Koulik, according to ifPS police, was the purveyor of poison for the "Bluebeard pair,” while Mrs Klimek, in most instances, mixed the deadly potion with food and drink of the intended victims.