Maria VELTEN

Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Poisoner
Number of victims: 5
Date of murder: 1963 - 1980
Date of arrest: August 1983
Date of birth: 1916
Victim profile: Her father, an aunt, two husbands and a lover
Method of murder: Poisoning
Location: Kempen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Status: Sentenced to life imprisonment in 1983

A classic "black widow," Maria Velten spent twenty years killing her loved ones, around Kempten, West Germany, before she was finally arrested at age 67.

Her father was the first to die, in 1963, followed by an elderly aunt in 1970. Under questioning, Velten would describe the early poisonings as murders of convenience, with her victims being ill and she unable to provide the necessary care.

From that point on, a profit motive would prevail, with Velten killing off two husbands -- in 1976 and '78 -- along with a well-to-do boyfriend in 1980.

Arrested during August 1983, she was convicted on the basis of her own confessions and was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment.

Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers - Hunting Humans

SEX: F RACE: W TYPE: T MOTIVE: PC/CE

MO: "Black widow" poisoner of father, aunt, husbands/lovers; "mercy" motive claimed in first two deaths; others killed for money.

DISPOSITION: Life sentence, 1983.