The Deadly Romantic with the Taste for Judges and Wife Killing

Once upon a time, there was a girl enchanted with romance and love. But after failing to find her true love, she turned to her “truest friend” arsenic instead.

Tough Start in Life

The story of Anna Maria Schoenleben begins with tragedy and tears in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1760. She was born to a couple of innkeepers. Unfortunately, Anna's father died when she was just eighteen months old, and at the age of four, she also lost her mother.

The girl was thrown from one relative’s house to the other for years before she arrived in Nuremberg to live with a pastor’s widow. It is unclear how or why Anna later switched home again, but one thing is certain – at the age of ten, she was given to a wealthy merchant to raise, and he took his new duties rather seriously.

Aside from the typical education for girls that included taking care of the house and household, Anna also learned to write, some math, and basic French, which made her feel superior to others.

No Prince Charming for Anna

Anna loved to read, and would consume one love story after another, dreaming about prince charming on a white horse. Instead, she was presented with a notary twice her age when she was only fifteen.

At first, Anna refused to marry the thirty-year-old Zwanziger, but after a couple of years of pressure from both her potential groom and her guardian, Anna said yes.

Unfortunately for the young bride, the guy turned out to be an alcoholic who spent more time in bars than by his wife’s side. Even worse, the money he had was running out like the booze down his throat, which could be up to ten bottles of wine per day.

The future was looking gloomy, but then Anna turned twenty-one and received a substantial inheritance left by her father. This sudden outpour of cash turned both husband's and wife’s heads, allowing them to live a lavish lifestyle.

However, without any business plan, and with numerous dinners, parties, and costume balls, the high society dream did not last long.

The money ended, sending Anna to unforeseen lengths to maintain her status. Even if it meant sleeping with high-ranking politicians, lawyers, and military officers for money.

At one point, Anna even left her husband for one of her clients, but somehow, maybe because they did have two children together, Zwanziger managed to convince her to return. And they lived perhaps not-so-happily, but still ever-after until his death.

On the Hunt for a New Husband

Widowed at the age of 36, Anna embarked on a journey of finding new income in Vienna. She tried working in toy making field, in a bakery, and as a housekeeper to wealthy Austrian families, but nothing seemed to work.

Anna believed herself to be better than any of the people she worked for, and she was not afraid to let them know. Needless to say, her employment was always short-lived, but she didn't care.

Why settle for being a housekeeper when you can be the lady of the house, right?

This is exactly what she wanted, and she tried…. She really did. Her lovers tended to be rich and powerful. For a while, they’d support her financially, but they never offered their hand and heart. In her travels between Vienna, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg, Anna left a trail of faked pregnancies, abortions, and illegitimate babies given up for adoption.

But as nothing still seemed to work, she tried ending her life. Twice. Yet, both attempts were halfhearted, to say the least. First, she cut her wrists in the room she was renting, just before her landlord walked in and saved her.

Then, she tried drowning herself. While on a walk along the river together with a maid... In front of the fishermen... Of course, she was rescued faster than her clothes got soaked.

Unfortunately for Anna, her married lover didn't fall for the trick and was sick of the drama. He told her to get lost once and for all.

Angry and heartbroken, she left and soon found a new housekeeper's position in Thuringia. Not for long though. After barely six weeks, she decided she was too good for the job and left with no warning. However, she did not go empty-handed. As payment for her hard labor, Anna stole a set of rings with precious stones belonging to the lady of the house.

A Wanted Woman but not for Love

To avoid trouble, Anna fled to her daughter's house. But she only managed to hide there for three days before her son-in-law found a "Wanted" poster in the newspaper and told Anna to go her merry way.

She did, but before leaving, Anna made sure to let the people she stole from know just how inconveniently they ruined her reputation by publicly accusing her of the crime she actually committed.

Inconvenient it was indeed. Anna was struggling to find a job or place to stay. So, she decided to reinvent herself by switching back to her maiden name Schoenleben and changing her first name to Nanette.

For a while, all seemed good. Nanette moved to Neumarkt and became known as a great handcrafting teacher for girls. In no time, she had enough students to make a decent living.

But decent living was not what she wanted. Anna or Nanette – they both wanted a rich husband. And when she met an old, wealthy general from Munich who promised to take care of her, the now 45-year-old woman jumped right onto the wagon which was going nowhere.

Love letters and faked pregnancies did not help. The general soon refused to see her even when Nanette traveled to Munich in person. All she got was a small sum of money and another order to not come back.

Taking Matters into Her Own Hands

You’d think Anna would finally learn. Well, she did, but what she learned was far from what one would expect.

With the next employment opportunity at Judge Glaser’s house in Switzerland, Nanette resolved to quit waiting and start acting.

However, there was one obstacle. The man was separated from his wife, but still officially married and was not planning on divorcing his wife any time soon.

But Nanette wanted to be the new lady of the house, which meant the old one had to go. The new housekeeper started working on bringing the wife back into the picture, encouraging and even pushing Glaser to reconcile with her.

The couple eventually got back together, and ever since Frau Glaser returned to the house, Nanette became her best servant and friend, building the woman's trust she'd betray not long after.

As her first attempt, Nanette served tea with a teaspoon of mosquito insecticide in it. Frau Glaser got sick, but she didn’t die. So, the second time, Nanette added an entire tablespoon of rat poison to make sure it killed the competition.

The poor woman died the following day after the night of agonizing pain and vomiting, but nobody suspected the devoted maid.

Meanwhile, the said maid, now convinced that Glaser would be hers, turned into a most loyal and hardworking employee. Yet, no matter how many shoes she polished, how clean she scrubbed the floors, or how much rouge she put on her cheeks, Glaser remained indifferent.

At last, sick of working and furious about being ignored, she wanted out. But not before avenging her crushed dreams. One evening, when Glaser had some guests over for drinks, Nanette laced them with arsenic.

Luckily, although some guests got really sick, none of them died, and soon after, defeated, Nanette left the Glaser household.

Here’s to Judge Grohmann

In the autumn of 1808, Anna, or rather Nanette, found a new job as a housekeeper. Again in the estate of a judge. The man was 38 years old, so ten years younger than the romantic poisoner, and most importantly, Judge Grohmann was single.

Despite his rather young age, the man suffered from different ailments, and the helpful new housekeeper was more than eager to nurse him and run the household for him.

The judge was grateful and even fond of Nanette, which only encouraged her to go further. Once Grohmann got better from whatever illness he had at the time, she would put a small dose of poison into his food. All that to keep nursing him and to show Grohman just how much he needed her.

If any other house servant tried to intervene, she'd poison them too, to keep everyone but herself away from the judge.

Nanette had already begun to feel like the lady of the house and could hear the church bells ring in her head when competition arrived. Once the daughter of a fellow judge stepped foot inside the house, Grohmann was smitten. She was the perfect match, and it didn't take long for them to announce their engagement.

Needless to say, Nanette was more than pissed. In fact, she was so furious she openly complained about her situation to whoever would listen, even to the judge himself, making him more and more aware that something was not entirely there in his housekeeper’s head.

Unfortunately, before the wedding could ever happen, Grohmann became seriously ill. This time, the symptoms were much worse and included excruciating spasms, diarrhea, vomiting… Yes, you guessed it. The scorched housekeeper prepared a Bavarian soup and then fed it to him. Eleven days after the symptoms started, the man died.

Strangely, despite Nanette’s odd behavior and open complaints, nobody suspected the overly dramatic maid. She would scream and howl in sorrow whenever there was someone to listen to it. Or maybe she was indeed grieving the loss of yet another illusion?

In any case, Nanette was by far not done trying. Only five days after the death of Grohmann, a third judge came into the picture. Perhaps fooled by her grief, or feeling sorry for the jobless woman, he and his heavily pregnant wife offered her the job of housekeeping and babysitting.

The Nanny with Anger Issues

Once Richter Gebhard (yet another G) opened his doors to Anna, she wasted no time starting to boss everybody around. If they didn’t want to listen, there was always a way to punish them by slipping some poison into their food or drinks.

And Nanette started with the lady of the house who was displeased with her new housekeeper’s behavior and laziness.

On the day of Nanette’s arrival, the woman gave birth to her baby prematurely, so she was still bedridden when four days later the new nanny decided to “teach her a lesson”.

Nanette poured poison into the barrels of beer stored in the basement, knowing pretty well the husband was going to serve the drink to his wife. Later, as the murderous nanny was confessing to her crimes, she claimed she didn’t want to kill Frau Gebhard, she only wanted to make the woman unwell for “annoying” her.

Although, if that was truly the case, she would have stopped once the woman began to suffer from vomiting and cramps. Instead, once Frau Gebhard started to recover, Nanette brought her a glass of beer from the second barrel that she had laced with rat poison.

The judge’s wife died in agony the same night, accusing the housekeeper openly of poisoning her, but nobody listened.

As this happened only days after childbirth, and she had other illnesses, including a tapeworm in her stomach, those distinct poisoning symptoms were written down as natural causes.

Nanette was off the hook yet again. Only the rumors of the back luck she was bringing to those she worked for began to spread.

By then, Nanette was unstoppable. One bad look, one angry word, a mockery, or simply an argument with somebody – and she’d poison them to the point where some, including Gebhart himself, had to be hospitalized.

Nanette continued to work for the judge for another twenty weeks before he decided to listen to his friends and fire her. Little did those friends who called her an ominous creature know they were already being poisoned by her. Some more than once.

Gebhard, despite the babysitter's obnoxious behavior, wrote her a good recommendation letter and gave her two days to vacate his house, which was his greatest mistake.

During her last two days, Nannette got busy executing her ultimate revenge, starting with mixing arsenic into the salt and sugar jars and containers. When asked by other maids why she was taking care of refilling salt shakers, she made up a story of some goodbye ritual the servants did.

The maids shrugged it off to her weirdness, and when, before leaving the house, Nanette offered them coffee, the women unsuspectedly drank it.

She also gave the judge's son a biscuit dipped in arsenic-laced milk as she hugged him goodbye.

Now, poisoning the child was not part of her revenge plan, though. The murderous woman was hoping the sick child would cry a lot, everybody would believe he was missing his nanny, and Gebhart would invite her back.

Both maids recovered from the poisoned coffee, but unfortunately, the twenty-week-old child died, and finally, fingers were pointed at the person responsible.

One of the maids told Gebhart about seeing Nanette refill salt, and the judge took some of the containers to the pharmacist for examination.

Sure enough, plenty of arsenic was found, and an investigation began. Bodies of Nanette's previous employers were exhumed, and autopsies were carried out. They also learned that Nanette was, in fact, Anna Schonleben.

Still hoping to return, and unaware of the child's death, Anna wrote letters to the judge where she told him just how much she missed the boy. This made it all too easy to locate the poisoner. On 18th October 1809, Anna was arrested and brought back to Nuremberg.

At first, she tried denying everything, but after six months behind bars, she changed her mind. Anna proudly confessed to the crimes committed with the help of her “truest friend” as she dubbed the poison she used.

She also stated that had she not been caught, she would have continued poisoning and killing people.

The End of Romance

Even from prison, Anna attempted to do more damage. She claimed that the first judge was the mastermind behind the idea to kill his estranged wife. But just as all her life, nobody took Anna seriously.

She was sentenced to death for the four murders and numerous poisonings. When the magistrate asked her what her motive was, Anna again shifted the blame onto somebody else. More precisely, she stated that the married lover who laughed at her suicide attempts years prior broke her heart. So, if nobody was there to pity her, she was not going to show pity to them either.

With the crowd watching, on 17th September 1811, Anna was beheaded. And that was the end of the story of the woman who once dreamed of roses and chocolate but ended up murdering four innocent people, including a child.