Kulthum Akbari is an Iranian woman convicted in connection with the deaths of 11 men who were her husbands, in Mazandaran Province in northern Iran. Over roughly two decades, according to prosecutors and the families of the dead men, she married elderly men who lived alone, most of them through temporary marriage, and gave them medicines that weakened them until they died. Because the men were old and many already had chronic illnesses, their deaths were treated as natural.
The case opened in 2023, after her last husband, an 82-year-old man, died a few months after their marriage. In September 2025 a criminal court in Mazandaran sentenced her to ten counts of qisas, the retribution in kind that Iranian law allows a murder victim's family to demand, and to ten years in prison for trying to kill another husband. In October 2026 the head of the Mazandaran judiciary said the Supreme Court had upheld the verdict and that the sentence could be carried out once a final permission procedure was completed. Iranian and foreign media came to call her Iran's "Black Widow."
Very little about Akbari's life before her arrest has been published. The reports place her marriages, the deaths and her trial in Mazandaran Province. They disagree about her age. Iran International gave it as 58 in September 2025. WION and ARY News, reporting in August 2025, and the Jerusalem Post and The Standard of Hong Kong, reporting in August 2026, all gave it as 56. Al Arabiya, covering her trial in August 2025, said her official age was in her late fifties, but that relatives of the victims believed she was considerably older.
Her first name appears in English in several forms, among them Kulthum, Kolsoum and Kolthoum, all renderings of the same Persian name.
Most of the men were married to her by sigheh, a form of temporary marriage recognized in Iranian law. As the Jerusalem Post explained in 2026, such a marriage requires a mahr (a sum or property promised to the wife) and a spoken contract, but no witnesses. Under Article 940 of Iran's Civil Code, temporary spouses do not automatically inherit from each other. Euronews Persian described the last marriage in the case as a sigheh, and Afghanistan International, reporting on the trial in September 2025, described all of her husbands under investigation as temporary husbands.
The Jerusalem Post reported that she received a dowry of 5 billion rials for one of these temporary marriages. Prosecutors told the court that after each death she demanded inheritance or dowry payments, Al Arabiya reported. WION reported that she moved the wealth she gained into her daughter's name; that claim is attributed to WION's reporting and was not confirmed by a judicial source.
The accounts of how the men died come from prosecutors, from statements the victims' relatives made in court, and from her own confessions as relayed by the press.
One of the victims' heirs told the court, according to the newspaper Haft-e Sobh as quoted by Iran International, that she combined diabetes medicines with sexual-performance drugs to wear her husbands down gradually, so that no sign of murder would remain. Al Arabiya, also drawing on Haft-e Sobh, reported that she used diabetes medicine and sexual-performance drugs, sometimes with industrial alcohol, to weaken the men over time; that in one case she was alleged to have smothered a drugged man with a damp towel; and that in another she kept drugging a husband who had begun to recover until he died. The Jerusalem Post, citing the Mazandaran judiciary's statement to state media, said she told investigators that she would marry a man temporarily, live with him for two or three months, and then kill him with pills given directly or dissolved in his drinks. The Standard reported that rubbing alcohol and sedatives were among the substances used.
Prosecutors told the court that she watched her husbands' health closely and chose her moment so as to avoid suspicion, Gulf News reported. The men's ages and existing illnesses made their deaths look natural, which is why, prosecutors said, she went undetected for so long. Iran International's Persian service added that some well-known families had even dropped complaints out of concern for their reputations.
The published record says little about the men as individuals. They were elderly, and prosecutors said she married them to take their money and property. Two are named in the judiciary spokesman's account of the verdict: Mohammadali Haddadi and Mirahmad Omrani. Beyond their names, the reports say nothing more about either man's life.
Her last husband was a man surnamed Babaei, who was 82. Al Arabiya and Gulf News give his first name as Azizollah; The Standard and WION give it as Gholamreza. He died in Mahmudabad, in Mazandaran, a few months after a temporary marriage to her, Euronews Persian reported. Before he died, the Jerusalem Post reported, he had told his children that she was forcing him to take heart and blood pressure medicine and that he often lost consciousness afterward.
Many relatives of the dead men took part in the prosecution. Al Arabiya and Gulf News reported in August 2025 that more than 45 people, mostly relatives and heirs of the victims, had joined the case as plaintiffs.
One of her husbands lived. The family friend who helped bring the case to light said that his father had been married to a woman named Kulthum Akbari, that she had tried to poison him with a spiked drink, and that he had survived and later divorced her, Al Arabiya reported. WION dated that attempt to 2020. The court later convicted her of attempted premeditated murder of a husband and sentenced her to ten years for it. The judiciary spokesman named that man; he is a living private person and is not named here.
When Babaei died in 2023, his family, who barely knew his new wife, asked for an autopsy, Al Arabiya reported, citing his son; no clear proof came of it at the time. The turning point came from a family friend, whose account of his own father's marriage to a woman of the same name, and of the drink that nearly killed him, led investigators to look further.
Euronews Persian, reporting the Mazandaran judiciary's account, said the case was opened in September 2023, the Persian month of Shahrivar 1402, after the 82-year-old man's death, when his family took their suspicions to the police. The Jerusalem Post reported that she was first arrested that month on suspicion of murdering him, after his children accused her.
Under questioning, the Jerusalem Post reported, she confessed to killing Babaei and 11 other men from 2000 onward, which it described as 12 of her 13 husbands. Afghanistan International reported in September 2025 that she had confessed to 11 killings and that investigators had found she had 13 temporary husbands, all of whom had died. Her confessions did not settle the total. The Standard reported that in a confession about a year before its August 2026 report she said: "I don't know how many I killed. Maybe it was 13 or 15 people. I don't remember exactly. I'd drug them and then use a towel."
Euronews Persian, summarizing published reports, said that after her arrest the investigation linked her to further deaths, most of them of elderly men she had married temporarily.
The case was tried by Branch 2 of the Criminal Court of Mazandaran Province, the judiciary spokesman, Asghar Jahangir, later said. The charges were several counts of premeditated murder and one of attempted premeditated murder; Gulf News and Al Arabiya, reporting from the August 2025 hearings, put them at 11 counts of murder and one of attempted murder. Some foreign reports described the court as a revolutionary court, but the judiciary's own account names the provincial criminal court.
The trial opened in early August 2025. ARY News dated a hearing to August 6, 2025, and Al Arabiya and Gulf News reported on it the following day. In court, Al Arabiya reported, she at first tried to deny responsibility. Prosecutors then showed a video of her re-enacting the crimes, and she accepted that her confessions were accurate, while still playing down details. The families of four victims formally asked for the death penalty at that hearing, and the remaining families were to state their wishes at the next session.
Her lawyer asked the court to have her mental health assessed. A relative of one of the victims rejected the idea, telling the court, as Al Arabiya reported, that "no insane person could orchestrate such a methodical plan and manipulate so many families." WION reported the same exchange.
A second session was held on a Sunday in mid-September 2025, Afghanistan International reported on September 15, 2025.
The verdict is dated 26 Shahrivar 1404 in the Iranian calendar, the judiciary spokesman said. Haft-e Sobh reported the outcome first, and Iran International and the legal news site Ekhtebar carried it on September 22 and 23.
The spokesman set out the details on September 30, 2025, in remarks carried by the Fars News Agency and Ekhtebar. For ten counts of premeditated murder, the court issued separate sentences of qisas, one for each set of heirs who had asked for it. In the death of Mohammadali Haddadi, all the heirs asked for diya, blood money, rather than retribution. In the death of Mirahmad Omrani, one heir, Seyed Hossein Omrani, forgave her, and the court issued an order ending the prosecution on that basis. For the attempted murder of the surviving husband she received ten years in prison, with her time already spent in detention counted toward it. Both she and the families had 20 days to appeal, and any appeal would go to the Supreme Court.
Iran International summarized the result as ten death sentences for poisoning 11 husbands over about 20 years. Ten families had demanded qisas, it said, and one had agreed to give up that right if she paid blood money. The Jerusalem Post later reported that the court also ordered all of her property confiscated, which Euronews Persian confirmed from the Mazandaran judiciary's statement.
Under Iranian law, a murder victim's heirs decide whether the killer is put to death. They may demand qisas, accept diya in its place, or forgive. That is why the court issued its sentences count by count, in favor of particular heirs, and why the outcome differed from family to family. The judiciary spokesman said in 2025 that heirs who chose to accept diya could do so by agreement, giving up qisas.
The record on forgiveness is not fully consistent. The judiciary spokesman said in September 2025 that one heir in the Omrani case had forgiven her. In August 2026 he said one heir had pardoned her and another had asked for diya. The Jerusalem Post reported in August 2026 that one family had forgiven her for the death of its relative and that a second family would forgive her once blood money was paid.
On Saturday, August 8, 2026, Jahangir told reporters that the case was under review at the Supreme Court, and that full details would be released once the verdict became final, Ekhtebar reported. The same week, the Mazandaran judiciary's public relations office told state media that ten sentences of qisas had been issued, as the Jerusalem Post and Euronews Persian reported on August 10 and 11. The Jerusalem Post added that she and the families had 20 days to appeal; that appears to repeat the appeal period first announced in 2025, since the case was already before the Supreme Court. The announcement drew a new wave of foreign coverage, including The Standard of Hong Kong, which described the sentences as if they were new.
In early October 2026 the head of the Mazandaran judiciary, Abbas Pouriani, announced that Branch 29 of the Supreme Court had reviewed the case, upheld the criminal court's verdict and rejected her appeal, Ekhtebar reported on October 8, 2026. The file had been sent back to the Mazandaran justice department for enforcement. Pouriani said the case concerned 11 killings of men who had been her husbands, that the families of ten had asked for qisas, and that she had been sentenced to ten counts of it.
Before a death sentence of this kind is carried out in Iran, the judiciary must complete istizan, a formal request for permission from higher authority. Pouriani said the sentence could be carried out once that step was finished.
By October 8, 2026, Akbari's convictions and sentences were final, the Supreme Court having rejected her appeal, and she was alive and in custody awaiting the istizan procedure. No execution, new pardon or settlement with the families had been reported by October 19, 2026.
Pouriani also said the judiciary had commissioned a criminological study of the case, working with university professors and the judiciary's deputy office for prevention and social affairs. A special personality file had been opened on her, criminologists and psychologists had been interviewed, and the findings were to be presented at a scientific and media session. He said the study had pointed to themes including a dangerous personality shaped by violence and poverty, and the neglect of the elderly.
Iran International called her the second known female serial killer in Iran, after Mahin Qadiri, who it said was executed in 2006 for poisoning seven husbands over 17 years.
Her case was reported against a sharp rise in executions in Iran. Euronews Persian, reporting her sentence alongside the execution of another woman in August 2026, cited Iran Human Rights as saying that at least 14 women had been executed in Iran since the start of 2026, and that at least 21 of the women executed in 2025 had been convicted of killing a husband or fiancé. It cited the US State Department as saying that at least 61 women had been executed in 2025, and rights organizations as putting the total number of executions that year at 1,639 at least, the highest since 1989.
Proven by final conviction: premeditated murder in connection with 11 deaths, with ten sentences of qisas, as the head of the Mazandaran judiciary described the case in October 2026; and the attempted murder of one husband who survived.
Not settled: how the 11 deaths divide between the counts. The judiciary spokesman's 2025 breakdown lists ten qisas counts, a diya count for Mohammadali Haddadi and a forgiveness order for Mirahmad Omrani, while the 2026 statements speak of 11 killings and ten qisas sentences. Whether the Omrani case is one of the ten qisas counts is not clear from the sources.
Confessed or attributed, never tried: any deaths beyond the 11. Reports quote her as saying "maybe 13 or 15"; the Jerusalem Post says she confessed to 12 of 13 husbands; Afghanistan International says 13 temporary husbands died. These are attributed to her by confession or by investigators, not proven in court.
Details that vary between sources: her age (56 or 58, with victims' families saying she is older); the year the killings began (2000, or 2001 according to Haft-e Sobh as cited by Al Arabiya); her last husband's first name (Azizollah or Gholamreza); the court (the judiciary names the provincial criminal court, while Gulf News, WION and ARY News call it a revolutionary court); the substances used; and whether the 20-day appeal window belonged to 2025 or 2026. The report that she moved money into her daughter's name rests on WION alone.
About 2000 or 2001: the first of the deaths later attributed to her, according to her confessions as reported.
2000 to 2023: marries a series of elderly men in Mazandaran, most by temporary marriage; most die within months.
2020 (per WION): a husband survives an attempt to poison him with a spiked drink and later divorces her.
2023: her husband Babaei, 82, dies in Mahmudabad a few months after their marriage.
September 2023: his family goes to the police; she is arrested and confesses.
About August 6, 2025: trial hearing in Mazandaran; four families ask for the death penalty; her lawyer seeks a mental-health assessment.
Mid-September 2025: second reported trial session.
September 2025 (verdict dated 26 Shahrivar 1404; reported September 22 and 23): Branch 2 of the Mazandaran Provincial Criminal Court sentences her to ten counts of qisas and ten years for attempted murder.
September 22 and 23, 2025: the verdict is reported.
September 30, 2025: the judiciary spokesman details the verdict and the 20-day appeal period.
August 8, 2026: the spokesman says the case is before the Supreme Court.
August 2026: the Mazandaran judiciary announces the ten sentences of qisas and confiscation of her property.
October 2026: Branch 29 of the Supreme Court upholds the verdict and rejects her appeal; the case returns to Mazandaran for enforcement, pending istizan (reported October 8).
October 19, 2026: no execution reported.