A tailor’s back room, a bottle of “powder,” and a stack of insurance forms—our step-by-step tour of Philadelphia’s 1930s arsenic ring reveals how murder became a business, cloaked in folk magic and legitimized by paperwork. We start with a misdiagnosed “pneumonia,” follow the paper trail through forged signatures and overlapping policies, and watch a would-be hitman flip the script with the Secret Service. From sandbags meant to mimic brain hemorrhages to a spiritualist selling la fattura, the scheme preyed on fear, poverty, and the promise of a payout, turning neighbors into recruiters and grief into revenue.
Resources:
https://journals.psu.edu/phj/article/view/25642/25411
https://vtuhr.org/articles/42/files/submission/proof/42-1-76-1-10-20171116.pdf
https://billypenn.com/2023/05/28/pasta-arsenic-mass-murder-south-phillys-infamous-1930s-poison-ring/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_poison_ring
https://news.medtronic.com/Medtronic-smart-study-pivotal-moment-in-womens-health-newsroom
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