Out Of The Shadows

On a warm June afternoon in 1868, a 24-year-old woman accepted a glass of lemonade from her nurse at a Geneva boarding house. Within moments, her pupils dilated grotesquely, her heart pounded violently, and reality dissolved into nightmare. That glass of lemonade broke open one of Switzerland's most disturbing criminal cases.SEASON & EPISODE CONTEXTThis is Episode 9 of Foul Play Season 36: "Serial Killers in History," examining murderers from ancient times through the early 1900s. This season explores 15 cases spanning centuries and continents, revealing how serial murder predates modern criminology by millennia.THE CASE SUMMARYBetween 1865 and 1868, Marie Jeanneret worked as a private nurse in Geneva and surrounding areas of Switzerland, moving between respectable boarding houses and private hospitals. Everywhere she went, patients died under mysterious circumstances. Eleven-year-old children. Elderly widows. Entire families.Her method was both calculated and cruel. She used cutting-edge pois