The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (28 page)

CREEPY VENGEANCE

Catherine, the wife of Russian czar Peter I, had a wandering eye, and Peter caught on. To teach Catherine a lesson, he forced her to watch her lover be killed, then pickled the lover's head and kept it in their bedroom.

PRESIDENTIAL POISONING?

Did Florence Harding kill her husband, U.S. president Warren G. Harding, while he was still in office?
Rumors persist. It all started with allegations of an affair. While he was president, there were stories that Harding had fathered a child with a much younger woman. Mrs. Harding got the FBI on the case to put the rumor to rest. Agents discovered it was true, which peeved Florence to no end. She then inquired of the FBI about killing someone by putting an undetectable white powder in their food. What was that powder? she asked. They refused to tell her. Soon after, the president got sick with what was believed to be food poisoning—no one else got sick, although they all ate the same thing—and died. Mrs. Harding refused to allow an autopsy, and the death was officially regarded as a stroke.

ODD BEAUTY TREATMENTS

One of the most prolific murderers of all time was one Elizabeth Bathori, who lived in the 1600s in Transylvania. She is reputed to have killed more than 600 women and girls to drink and bathe in their blood, which she believed would keep her young. The niece of the king of Poland, she was not killed when the murders were discovered, but instead was walled up in her castle until her death.

JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL (EVENTUALLY)

In 1806, Becky Cotton, of Edgefield, South Carolina, was tried for murdering her third husband with an ax. When authorities dredged the pond to find her husband's body, they also discovered the bodies of Cotton's two previous husbands—one dead from poisoning and the other with a large needle stuck straight through his heart. An eyewitness account of her trial recalls: “As she stood at the bar in tears, with cheeks like rosebuds wet with morning dew and rolling her eyes of living sapphires, pleading for pity, their subtle glamour seized with ravishment the admiring bar—the stern features of justice were all relaxed, and the judge and jury hanging forward from their seats were heard to exclaim, ‘Heavens! What a charming creature.’”

Cotton was found innocent and promptly married a jury member. But justice did prevail eventually—her brother murdered her.

THE MURDER IN THE RED BARN

This much sensationalized and notorious murder took place in Polstead, near Ipswich, England, and achieved immortality in its many retellings. Maria, the daughter
of a local mole-catcher, was known about the village as a woman of loose morals. She bore an illegitimate son to Thomas Corder, the son of a wealthy local farmer. Later William Corder, Thomas's younger brother, became enamored of Maria, and eventually arranged to meet her in May of 1827 in the red barn on the family's farm, so they could travel together to Ipswich and get married. All accounts indicate that though Maria was seen heading to the barn, she was never seen again after that. In 1828 Maria's body was discovered in the red barn, and William Corder was hanged for her murder.

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