The Good Mary and Her Deadly Guinness Record Worthy Care

Once upon a time in the city of Leiden, in the Netherlands, there lived a lovely middle-aged lady. She was poor, but she never refused to help her neighbors. And for her kindness, everybody called her Goeie Mie - the Good Mary.

Although, it was not her "kindness" that granted this woman a spot in the Guinness World Book of Records.

Ordinary Life of a Poor Woman

Goeie Mie's real name was Maria Catharina Swanenburg, and her childhood was by all means no different than that of any other child living in one of the poorest Leiden neighborhoods.

In 1839, when she was born, the industrial revolution was in full bloom, but it didn't mean the conditions factory workers lived in improved. Poor neighborhoods were overcrowded, sanitation was lacking, and diseases were killing people off like flies. So much so that doctors didn't even bother personally visiting their patients.

Out of twelve children that Maria's parents had, only five reached adulthood. And by the age of twenty-nine, Maria herself had lost two out of three of her young children born prior to her marriage to the blacksmith Johannes van der Linden.

The couple went to have six more children, but four middle babies died soon after birth. One after another. Some speculate that they could have been Maria's first victims. However, with cholera and other diseases in full swing, it is more than likely those deaths were not her doing.

Maybe losing first her siblings and then six of her kids messed with Maria’s mental state, or maybe she was simply a heartless person all along, because she soon figured how to profit from all those deaths. Aside from babysitting and cleaning jobs, she became an avid and devoted carer of sick family members and neighbors. She'd even neglect her full household to spend most of the time at the patient's bedside until their last breath.

To those who knew Maria, she was an example of kindness and selflessness, and soon she was known by her nickname Goeie Mie. The Good Mary...

When Funerals Bring Profit

Yet, unbeknown to everybody, Maria found a way to profit from deaths by taking out funeral insurance policies on her sick or soon-to-be sick relatives.

It was different from life insurance, as people would take out funeral insurance policies to cover the cost of the burial. This appears less likely to be worth murdering for, as the insurer would have to part with most of the money anyway, right?

Wrong...

Where most people saw a way to guarantee themselves of their family members a simple yet decent burial, Goeie Mie spotted an opportunity and the flaw in the system that she eagerly exploited.

The truth was, one didn't need to be by any means related to the person they wanted to insure. More so, the insurance agents were so eager to sell the policies they didn't care how many insurance plans the person already had. So, our Good Mary did just that - she would take out multiple funeral insurances on a sick family member, and she'd have something extra left to pocket after.

And if they were not sick? Well, she'd take care of that too.

Yes, behind her kind exterior hid the monster with plenty of arsenic supplies to spice drinks or food of those she so devotedly looked after.

With multiple people dying, and with doctors ignoring home visits to poor households and skipping autopsies, Maria's hunting ground was full of victims and opportunities. Especially, when the lethal weapon was so easily accessible.

Enough Arsenic to Kill Hundred People

It's not that arsenic was a mystery at the end of the 19th century, and it's not like Goeie Mie was a genius who discovered its effect on humans. Everybody knew it was deadly poison, which is why any solution that required the use of arsenic was sold already mixed. Or at least they should have been.

Yet again, chemists' laziness and lack of care played in Maria's corner. Arsenic and limewash solution was used at the time to rid homes of wall lice, and people could only buy it pre-mixed in the pharmacy.

However, most mixtures were so poorly blended that if one wished to get themselves a scoop of arsenic, it was enough to drain the liquid to uncover the powder just waiting to be used in the bottom.

It is said that after Goeie Mie's arrest, police secretly visited the pharmacies to inspect how easy it was to get their hands on arsenic. And at the end of the day, they ended up with enough poison to kill a hundred people.

Auntie Maria's Special Sandwiches

Like most serial killers, Maria started close to home, and she would patiently and systematically kill off entire families of her closest relatives.

Although it has never been proven, Goeie Mie could have as well murdered her parents, as they died right when her killing spree began, with her father getting sick after eating a sandwich.

Out of twenty-seven of her confirmed victims, sixteen were related to Maria, and she didn't care much how close of the relationship it was.

Once her sister-in-law, Cornelia van der Linden died, of course, with Goeie Mie's help, in the spring of 1881, Maria cordially offered to take in her three nephews as any loving aunty would.

She did not feed and cared for them for too long though. In the summer of the same year, the middle brother Willem died, followed by his older sibling Arend only a few months later, in November.

Who knows, maybe the youngest one, Petrus, was lucky or he just didn't like Maria's cooking too much, but he survived the poisoning attempt. However, his caring aunt was not going to give easily. When the sick teenager ended up in a hospital, she sent her best wishes and spiked sandwiches his way. When that still didn't work, Goeie Mie probably decided to ditch her plans for Petrus. After all, his being in a hospital was an inconvenience with doctors and nurses all around.

You'd think, a failure like that would make her step back and lay in wait for a while, but Goeie Mie continued as if there was no stopping her, switching from killing for money to poisoning for the pure thrill of it.

Why Poison One When You Can Poison More

Although funeral policies point toward money being the motive behind the poisonings, she never really spent them, thus leading to other theories of why a seemingly ordinary and kind-hearted woman would wipe out families. One of them being - she simply loved the power it gave her, and her later killings and poisoning attempts would only prove it.

Babysitting was her legitimate and steady income, but Maria didn't hesitate to poison the two sisters she took care of. When one of the girls, Suzanna, passed away, Goeie Mie was alone with the sick girl in her room. Aside from the cat. And that very cat died the same day, after drinking milk from Suzanna's cup.

Still, nobody smelled anything fishy, and the murderous nanny grew daringly bold. Not only did she attend Suzanna's funeral, but she also prepared a special kind of coffee that nine people drank. Needless to say, they all got sick, but yet again nobody pointed a finger at Maria. Not even a pinkie.

Until one did, but first, it cost another family their lives.

Running Out of Luck

In December 1883, Frankhuizen family ate some porridge. Soon after, they fell ill, but one of them survived long enough to be taken to a hospital.

Bizarrely enough, the person who caught the attention of the doctors was Goeie Mie's husband himself. Johannes went directly to a doctor's office to ask to check in on the entire sick family, but the first doctor only wrote some prescriptions, not bothering to personally visit the house.

Maria Franhuizen and her six-month-old son Hendrik died later that day, but her husband, Hendrik Frankhuizen managed to get to the doctor's office with the help of his mother. Doctor Rutgers van der Loeff immediately suspected poisoning, and Hendrik was sent to a hospital.

Two weeks later, Hendrik also died, but doctors had enough time to notice all signs of poisoning, and the family's autopsy later confirmed the suspicion. Frankhuizens' deaths were ruled a homicide, and the investigation began.

Like the good Samaritan that she pretended to be, Maria cooperated and was questioned as a witness at first. She may have successfully fooled the police if it were not for the neighbor coming up with a surprising revelation. He remembered seeing and hearing Maria enter the Frankhuizens home when the family was not there.

Another neighbor noticed and let the police know about just how many funeral policies Goeie Mie had taken over time, and the strange deaths of those insured.

Dawn of Justice

Goeie Mie was arrested on December 15, 1883, to the shock and surprise of her neighbors who were convinced of her innocence.

A few days later, Maria confessed to the killings. She first tried blaming alcohol for clouding her judgment, then later she went on accusing Hendrik Franhuizen of making indecent proposals toward her. Allegedly, this made her angry, and she just wanted to teach him a lesson. Unfortunately for her, at the time of the arrest, officers found little Hendrik's insurance papers in her pocket, and nobody was buying her act any longer.

Yet, as the investigation proceeded, nobody was truly prepared for the magnitude and seriousness of her crimes. Thirteen bodies of those she took care of were exhumed for examination, and all showed signs of arsenic poison.

For almost two years, the investigation into suspected ninety more poisonings continued. Goeie Mie underwent a psychiatric evaluation, and despite clearly being a heartless and cold murderer, she was found fit to stand trial.

Long story short, on May 1st, 1885, Maria Swanenburg, aka Goeie Mie, was found guilty on three counts of murder of the Frankhuizen family and sentenced to life in prison. Nobody knows, why she was not trialed or convicted of the other proven deaths, but nonetheless, Goeie Mie never saw freedom until the day of her death in 1915.

On a side note, her husband, Johannes, divorced the serial poisoner the year after the trial and later remarried.

Bagels, Gin, and Guinness World Record

As with most curious cases in history, they tend to turn into tourist attractions. Goeie Mie’s story was no different. Immediately after the trial, people would go to see the house she lived in, and journalists from all over Europe would write stories about her. But as time passed and two world wars devastated Europe, the story of Goeie Mie lost its significance.

That is until recent years when a couple of history and gin enthusiasts created an “arsenicvrij” (arsenic free) gin named after the infamous murderer. It is said to be really good, and indeed free of poison.

Also, one bagel bakery created a special “poisonous” bagel on the occasion of a local film project. It is not on their daily menu, and it surely does not contain any arsenic, just a blueberry hidden under a layer of poppies in some of the special bagels. If you found one, you needed to go back for an “antidote”.

Oh, there is also a Goeie Mie's escape room where people can become the detectives in the hunt for the poisoner before she claims the life of her new victim. Her wax statue has been standing in the museum in Amsterdam for years too, but outside of the Netherlands not many have ever heard of the woman named the worst poisoner of all times in the Guinness Book of Records.

After all, it is suspected that Goeie Mie poisoned over ninety people, and killed at least twenty-seven of them, sixteen of those being her own family members, and to this day nobody has beaten the record. Although, some surely tried.

Disclamer: The original version of this story was published on another platform: https://medium.com/curious-history-nook/the-good-mary-and-her-deadly-guinness-record-worthy-care-a83dccd603c1