text: martha wise martha wise ( 1884 – june 28 , 1971 ) , born martha hasel , was an american poisoner . after her husband died and her family forced her to end a relationship with a new lover , wise retaliated by poisoning seventeen family members , of whom three died , in 1924 . she was convicted of one of the murders , despite defense claims that she was mentally ill and that her lover had ordered her to poison her family . the case is considered one of the most sensational of the era in ohio , where it occurred . early life wise was born in 1884 to sophie hasel and her husband , farmers in hardscrabble , a town in medina county , ohio . three brothers and a sister were also born to the family , although contemporary sources name only one , a brother named fred . in 1906 , martha hasel met the substantially older albert wise at a box social ; the two were married , though wise neglected to give her a wedding ring . the marriage was not happy . martha moved onto albert 's 50 - acre ( 20 ha ) farm , but quickly discovered that he expected a farmhand more than a wife , and life was no less poor as a married woman than it had been when she lived with her parents . even when pregnant , she was forced to do farm work that was generally male - oriented ( such as plowing fields and slopping hogs ) as well as the usual household chores of baking and cleaning . the couple 's first child , albert , did not survive infancy ; four others , everett , gertrude , kenneth , and lester , did . wise 's main source of diversion during this period was funerals ; she seldom missed a visit to any funeral held in or near the town , whether she had known the deceased or not . when questioned , she simply said that she liked funerals . albert wise died suddenly in 1923 , leaving his wife a 40 - year - old widow with four children . her odd behavior and fixation on funerals became more noticeable , and she began not only attending funerals , but openly crying and lamenting at them , no matter who had died . deaths within a year of albert wise 's death , martha wise , though not considered a particularly good or attractive catch , found new male companionship in the form of walter johns , who worked as a farmhand on property adjacent to her farm . the relationship was frowned upon by wise 's family , and both wise 's mother , sophie hasel , and her aunt , lily gienke , made no secret of their desire for wise to end the relationship . by the end of 1924 , wise had acquiesced , and the relationship ended . johns moved to cleveland and the couple lost contact . on thanksgiving evening , 1924 , several members of the family , including sophie hasel , fell ill with a severe stomach ailment . the others recovered shortly , but hasel 's illness worsened , and she died on december 13 , 1924 . new year 's eve of 1925 brought more illness . wise 's uncle fred gienke , his wife , lily , and several of their children all began suffering stomach pains similar to those hasel had experienced before her death . several family members were hospitalized , and lily and fred were both dead by february 1925 . in total , seventeen relatives were taken ill with similar symptoms in the fall and winter of 1924 / 1925 . four of the gienke children were left partially paralyzed from the mysterious illness . investigation after the deaths of the , authorities began to investigate the cluster of deaths . the county sheriff , fred , soon discovered that martha wise had signed at a local drug store for a series of purchases of large quantities of arsenic . an autopsy on lily gienke confirmed the presence of arsenic in her digestive tract . brought in for questioning by the sheriff , wise at first claimed she had obtained the arsenic to kill rats , but eventually confessed that she had used it to poison family members by putting it in water buckets and coffee pots the family drank out of . trial despite her confession , wise pleaded not guilty to the charge of murdering lily gienke in front of a grand jury on march 23 , 1925 . she told the grand jury that she was irresistibly attracted to attending funerals , and that when there were not enough funerals in the community , she was driven to create them by killing . wise was indicted on a charge of first - degree murder on april 7 , 1925 . wise 's trial for murder began on may 4 , 1925 . she was represented by joseph pritchard and prosecuted by joseph seymour . defense claims included that wise was criminally insane and that she was ordered to commit the murders by her former lover , walter johns . a number of setbacks plagued the defense , including the may 6 suicide of wise 's sister - in - law , edith hasel , and the subsequent collapse of her husband fred hasel , both of whom had been prepared to testify for the defense ; the recantation of testimony by a man named frank metzger , who told the prosecution on cross - examination that the defense had asked him to himself to support claims that wise was insane ; and wise 's choice to take the stand on her own behalf . family members including wise 's son , lester , and three of the ' children testified against her . after one hour of jury deliberation , wise was found guilty of first - degree murder . the jury urged mercy in sentencing , and the judge sentenced wise to a life sentence in prison , under the terms of which she could only be freed by executive clemency . later life in 1962 , as a result of wise 's good behavior in prison , ohio governor michael commuted wise 's sentence to second - degree murder and she was paroled at age 79 . wise 's remaining family refused to take her in , and a number of rest homes for the elderly similarly declined her residency ; within three days wise returned to prison , lacking anywhere else to go . her parole and the commutation of her sentence were revoked . wise died in prison on june 28 , 1971 . in media wise was featured in a 1930 toledo news - bee article series profiling " [ w ] omen who are paying the price for folly , women who gambled against society and lost " . a 1962 issue of the st. joseph gazette called the wise case " one of ohio 's most publicized crimes of the era " , and she has been labeled the " poison widow of hardscrabble " and a " poison fiend " . wise 's case was covered in a 2008 episode of the investigation discovery network series deadly women .