The Belle of the Widow-Makers

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1016, 5 July 1930, Page 18

The Belle of the Widow-Makers

Pretty Hungarian Girl Uses Witch’s Cakes to Rid Herself tf Husband . . . Mote Mysterious Mass Murders . . . HNOWN ac the “belle of the widow-makers,” that amazing hand of Hungarian village women whose activities with arsenic constitute one of the most, terrible orgies of mass killing in the annals of crime, a young girl of but 20 year has just heard her part as an actress in a drama of passion and jealousy and murder laid bare, and received sentence for it. The girl was Elisabeth Molnar, and as she stood in the dock in the little courtroom of the country town of Snolnok, where these amazing murder trials have been resumed, she was the object of many eyes, some of them pitying, even though the girl stood a self-confessed i>oisoner. For, as was shown in half a dozen ways throughout the story that was unfolded, Elisabeth was vastly different to those other women who have stood in that dock to answer similar charges. In all, some 50 women of the adjoining villages of Xagyrev and TiszaKuert have been placed under arrest in connection with this series of mass; poisonings. Haunting Face Some have committed suicide since j the oflicers took them; some 20 have j already been tried and sentenced, two or three to death by hanging, the remainder to penal servitude for life. There remain some 25 women still to be tried.

Elisabeth Molnar’s form possessed a slimness and grace which not even the thick, heavy garb of the countryside could hide, and her pale face, with its frame of raven ringlets peeping out from under the traditional head-dress of the peasant, presented a picture of haunting sadness. That it was not a pose was amply demonstrated before the trial had moved to its conclusion. Elisabeth wafc a native of the village of Tisza-Kuert, and at 17 was the beauty of the place, and the most wooed girl of that particular part of the countryside. She was carried off her feet by the tempestuous wooing of a youth named Molnar, the son of a .small but quite well-to-do landowner in the neighbouring village of Nagyrev. He was a handsome young fellow, this Molnar, and at the village dance that had followed the gathering of the harvest he, in his quaint traditional costume of the countryside, had cut a dashing figure that Elisabeth had found irresistible.

Of the happiness of the young couple when they set up housekeeping there could be no question. Yet before many months had passed, shadows began to cloud the lustruous eyes of the girl-wife. Frauz noted it after a little, but to his oft-repeated questions girl assured him that nothing was worrying her, and that there was nothing that could cloud her happiness. But there was. A young villager of Tisza-Kuert—he with whom she had been dancing when Franz had first appeared on the scene and with whom she had been carrying on something of a flirtation innocent enougeli as she then thought—had resented the abrupt termination. lie, Palinkas by name, was the disappointed suitor, and as he quickly made clear had no intention of being dismissed even though she whom he desired was now the happy bride of another. Lover's Threat He crept up to the house one day while Franz and others of the household were busy in the fields and struck the first blow at the girl’s happiness. His demand was the blunt one that she should still remain his sweetheart. To her angry threat that unless he leave at once she would call her husband and have him thrashed

he returned a harsli laupli and a whisper that brought a blush of shame to her cheeks. Jt would have been better for three people had she there and then called her husband and had the matter settled once and for all. What the love-crazed youth before her threatened to do was to reveal certain imaginary secrets of that flirtation which bad been so rudely brought to an end, and to bolster up the story by the production of certain indiscreet little notes that had passed during that flirtation. The girl reflected —-and was lost. She knew she had nothing really serious on hep conscience, but she knew also that her husband was insanely jealous of her. Thereafter, when Molnar was away at neighbouring towns on business bent, there was a secret visitor of nights at the Nagyrev farmhouse. And it was this and the ever-present terror that discovery was at her elbow that brought shadows to displace the happiness in Elisabeth's eyes. Then it was there came to her mind strange tales she had heard of one Susie Fazekas, known as the “White Witch,” who, it was whispered in the village, possessed weird powers and charms which enabled wives to escape the no longer required attentions of husbands or lovers. And so one dark night, closely muffled up, she slipped away, and a little later was tapping Ualf-fearfully on the door of the “White Witch’s” little house on the outskirts of the village. The Magic Cake Frau Fazekas has since been revealed as the master poisoner behind all these amazing mass murders, and when the first hint of discovery came took her own life without a second’s hesitation. Elisabeth knew nothing at this time of any poisonings,' however. All she wanted was a charm—a magic something that would charm away the unwelcbme youth Palinkas and ensure her husband’s continued love and freedom from suspicion. That is how she explained her mission to the “White Witch,” whom she found sitting surrounded by bottles containing queer potions, and “magic” cakes, bread and jams of different kinds. The witch took up a small wheaten cake and pressed it into the visitor’s hand. This cake, she said, was to be eaten only by the youth Palinkas; none other was to eat a single crumb. Put having eaten it, Palinkas would from that moment, she could.rest assured, cease to trouble the unhappy girl wife. 0 And so, clasping the small cake with its magic properties and leaving the “White Witch” counting avariciously the silver she demanded as its price, Elisabeth sped back to her farmhouse. A day or two later she found the opportunity she sought. Her husband announced that he had to go into Snolnok to buy some farming implements and would be away a

[ day or two. and no sooner had h. ! than Klisabeth. castint di3c^eLf o, ' , the winds in her eagerness to fo, the witch's instructions. n °* message to Palinkas asking's*? * . come and have tea with her t£?> lowing day. *»► lie came, and among the ate was the '•magic" **?** it which though neither kuevri. C * kt simplv crammed with poison w* 1 had the properties that had t n ' claimed for it. for that prow* w inka'.-. last visit. Before 24 honr, ** passed he was writhing in agon- ** soon was being laid in his grar. ’ *** Klisabeth was rather aunalUa .. . terrible manner of his Passing had wised him to cease botherin,?.' but had never imagined that W ' listing the aid of the “White u'L? would have such devastating iS for the love-spurned youth. 6 Pondering the matter, she beg make inquiries and learned that » 5 people for whom the widow Fazew? charms wa re bought died in that « S d-n and horrible manner and UmT i was not for nothing she was LunV: :as the “widow maker." And i n young Klisabeth sensed that Palinkas had died from poison a’d^? 5 I istered by her hand. tta ' A new torture thereupon began j j! er . torture that her and out what bad now become^ ' d ° U a le She be P" t 0 Srow ha/ j card. Her young husband, PUz aA watched her at first quizzically tIT? ; later frowuingly, and to her mind his eyes were never turned w ! her guilty fac* j . - 1 Then there came to MolnaPs p strange little bits of tittle-tattled ' which he paid no heed at first Anio"i them was that young Palinkas hi'. ; died across there iu Tiszakuert, h-t ; wife’s native village, with her nacl : on his pain-twisted lips. Must Live and Sutter Ije mentioned the matter to hiswa ! in a casual sort of way, half jesting?-' i and she flew into such a rage that •I dropped the matter, but nr-verthelep ' thought a good deal about the strati" i ness of it. Thereafter his visits away Tmz i home became more and more fretjoer ! and of longer duration, and present/ | Klisabeth became obsessed with ti* thought that he had now found a nev ! love. The thing became an obsession wi-j | her. however, until at last the onb ; thought yiat kept hammering in h?. \ brain was the one that she mus‘ it ! all costs prevent any other woman | possessing the one man she- loved. So one night she again crept dovj to the cottage of the “White Witch* 1 Not very long after she stood a i the graveside, dry-eyed. halX<r*z*i : w-hile the remains of handsome vous: 1 Kranz Molnar were committed to ti' soil. It was not so very long after thu that the authorities, already grows suspicious at the large number of ; husbands who had died suddenly tt ! this part of the countryside, resohej j on their wholesale exhumations ana ! brought to light the most amazir; mass-murder case of the cent®? Molnar’s body was one of the first -c ! be taken again from the ground and S was found to be saturated with arseri Longed for Death Klisabeth remained frangeiy alo:l from the fifty-odd other women wbo | were, with her, arrested for these rat: murders, in which something over i hundred husbands and lovers are believed to have been done to death. Bb* made no excuse, nor attempted as did some of the other women to place a. the blame on the shoulders of tit dead “White Witch.” But while in gaol she made a determined effort to commit suicide bt hanging herself with strips torn froti her prison garments. She explain*-: to the prison officials that her only wish was to join her husband. “No longer,” she cried iu court.'*® I able to bear the burden of the terrible deed I committed. I long out for death, in which I shall again fc* united with the man I love.” But the judge passed se-’erce ,i penal servitude for life. Elisabeiii, still only a girl, must undergo a far greater punishment than death could ever be for her.