In 1841, at the age of just 17, Lydia married an older man named Edward, and they went

on to have seven children.

Two decades later though, her youngest child died of an intestinal illness.

A year later, her husband died of consumption, less than two months after that, three more

of her children passed away.

Fever and respiratory illness were blamed for those.

Over the next two years, her last three remaining children would also die of horrible illnesses,

and every time it happened, Lydia would be there, taking care of them and making them

comfortable.

A cup of hot chocolate.

A glass of cold water, medicine, or the pain.

She married again, but two years after that, that new husband passed away.

The attending physician said it was most likely cholera that did it.

But Lydia found a way to move on, marrying yet again in 1870 to a man with three children.

She had a family once again.

Once later, their youngest child died, then the next oldest.

A year after that, the last child passed away, all under the care of poor Lydia.

So when her husband died next, one doctor decided to look a bit deeper, past the sympathy

and bedside manner of the three-time widow, past the tragedy of so much illness and death,

and what he found was horrifying.

For eight years, Lydia Sherman had been slowly killing everyone around her with poison.

In fact, her last husband had enough arsenic in his system to kill three men.

...