TRIAL OF FRENCH WIDOW FOR 11 DEATHS BEGINS TODAY: EVENING STAR, FEBRUARY 21, 1952

The Associated Press expected it to take a week. On February 21, 1952, Marie Besnard of Loudun went on trial at Poitiers, and that day the Evening Star in Washington introduced her to its readers as "a quiet, 54-year-old widow accused of dispatching 11 victims with poison in the last 25 years." The wire gave the case its scale by comparison. The trial was billed as one of the most sensational in France since "Bluebeard" Henri Desire Landru, convicted in 1921 of what it called "an equal toll of lady loves," and it was to be held in the Palais de Justice where, the report said, Joan of Arc had been questioned by bishops five centuries before.

The indictment, still to be read when the story was filed, would say that the "stout, bespectacled" widow had counted her own parents and both of her husbands among the dead. The husbands were Auguste Antigny, who died in 1927, and Léon Besnard, who died in October 1947. It was Léon's grave that started it. A friend, Louise Pintou, repeated that he had said on his deathbed that his wife was poisoning him, and when his body was exhumed in May 1949 a Marseille expert reported arsenic. Besnard denied every charge, and she had six lawyers to defend her.

The week turned into almost ten years. At Poitiers her defense showed that the jars of exhumed remains had been mislabeled and that the expert could not stand behind his own work, and the court ordered new reports. A second trial at Bordeaux in 1954 went no better for the prosecution, and she was let out on bail. Her lawyers then showed that the cemetery soil at Loudun could itself be laden with arsenic. At a third trial in Bordeaux she was acquitted for lack of proof on December 12, 1961, twelve years after she was charged. Whether any of the people she was accused of killing was murdered has never been established.

The story is a preview filed before the indictment was even read, so it sets out the state's case and nothing else; it is not a court record and reports no evidence. Marie Besnard was never convicted of anything: she was tried three times and acquitted on December 12, 1961, and the deaths remain unproved as murders. The report makes her 54, but she was born on August 15, 1896, and was 55 that day. It counts eleven victims, while the prosecution's own count had reached twelve by the time of trial. Once, in its third paragraph, it calls her "Mme. Bernard."

The Evening Star for February 21, 1952, falls inside the last ninety-five years, and the Library of Congress says of papers that recent that it believes them to be in the public domain but that they may contain some copyrighted third-party material. This piece is wire copy, bylined "By the Associated Press" rather than written by the Star's staff, and no separate copyright notice is printed on it. The image is the Library's own copy from Chronicling America, and its citation and rights statement are reproduced under the scan.

Nothing in these four paragraphs was hard to read, and the transcription is complete with no illegible marks. The wire's errors and forms are kept exactly: the misprint "Mme. Bernard," the name "Henri Desire Landru" printed without its accents, "Justice Palace" for the Palais de Justice, and the quotation marks around "Bluebeard." The story is whole in a single column of page 10.

Scan of a single column from page 10 of the Washington Evening Star, February 21, 1952: a bold two-line headline, "Trial of French Widow For 11 Deaths Begins Today," the line "By the Associated Press," and four short paragraphs datelined Poitiers. No photograph.
Evening Star (Washington, District of Columbia), February 21, 1952, page 10, column 1: "Trial of French Widow For 11 Deaths Begins Today." Library of Congress, Chronicling America (LCCN sn83045462).Select the scan to open it at full size. The full newspaper page: JPG or PDF.Rights: "The Library of Congress believes that the newspapers in Chronicling America are in the public domain or have no known copyright restrictions. Newspapers published in the United States more than 95 years ago are in the public domain in their entirety." This issue was published in 1952. Because it is less than 95 years old, the Library of Congress notes that issues like it may contain some copyrighted third-party material.

Transcription

Transcribed word for word from the page scan. Original spelling, punctuation, capitalisation and typographical errors have been kept exactly as printed. Unreadable words are marked [illegible]. Nothing has been modernised or corrected.

Trial of French Widow For 11 Deaths Begins Today

By the Associated Press

POITIERS, France, Feb. 21.—Mme. Marie Besnard, a quiet, 54-year-old widow accused of dispatching 11 victims with poison in the last 25 years, goes on trial today for murder.

Her court session has advance billing as one of the most sensational in France since "Bluebeard" Henri Desire Landru was convicted in 1921 of taking an equal toll of lady loves.

In its indictment to be read today the state will charge that the stout, bespectacled Mme. Bernard counted her parents and two husbands among her victims. She has denied all murder charges and has six lawyers to defend her.

The trial, in the Justice Palace where Joan of Arc was questioned five centuries ago by a committee of bishops, is expected to last a week.