Maria Velten
Maria Velten (* 1916 ; † June 9, 2008 ) from Kempen was a German poisoner who was sentenced to life imprisonment for three murders.
Maria Velten was a war widow with six children, two of them from relationships after the war. She was arrested in 1983 after one of her daughters-in-law alleged to her lawyer that her mother-in-law had poisoned her two husbands. The following police investigations revealed that Maria Velten had killed a total of five people in around 20 years - from 1963 to 1982: her father, an aunt, two husbands and a partner. She preferred to mix the plant protection agent E605 with blueberry pudding, as the color of the pudding masked the blue warning color of the poison. That is why she was referred to in the tabloids as "Blaubeer-Mariechen" and "Poison witch from the Lower Rhine".
Maria Velten killed mainly for financial reasons; however, she usually did not spend the money on herself, but gave it away to her children and grandchildren.
In 2009 a documentary about Maria Velten was broadcast on ARD. In the text accompanying the film it says:
“We have the classic case of a series of poisonings, committed by a woman. Women usually kill out of a situation of weakness in order to protect themselves or their families in a situation that is perceived as unbearable. If the deed is successful because it has remained undiscovered, the temptation to take the apparently so simple path of conflict resolution again becomes great. In addition, a woman who has always felt herself to be weak and a victim experiences a feeling of power while killing: She becomes the master of life and death in her environment. "
At the time the film was first broadcast, Maria Velten, 93 years old and demented , was living in a nursing home. She was released from custody for health reasons. According to a report by the Rheinische Post on January 14, 2014, she died in 2008 “mentally deranged”.
The cases were also shown in an episode of the RTL series Lawyers for the Dead .
Movie
- ARD: The blueberry Mariechen . Documentary by Ute Bönnen and Gerald Endres . 2009
Web links
- Tobias Dupke: poisoner on television ; RP Online, January 24, 2009
- Manuscript for the documentary Das Blaubeer-Mariechen (PDF file; 83 kB)
Remarks
- ↑ a b She died in 2008 of mental derangement. In: Rheinische Post Viersen, January 11, 2014, accessed on August 10, 2019.
- ↑ Das Blaubeer-Mariechen In: boen-end.de . Website by Ute Bönnen and Gerald Endres.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Velten, Maria |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German poisoner |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1916 |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 9, 2008 |