Vera Renczi

(1903-1960)

Romanian serial killer

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Vera Renczi (dubbed the Black Widow or Chatelaine of Berkerekul), was a Romanian serial killer who allegedly confessed to poisoning 35 individuals including her two husbands, multiple lovers, and her son with arsenic during the 1920s. The earliest report published by Otto Tolischus in the United States was in May, 1925. The article is based on letters from the readers without naming any reference. Renczi's story has surfaced repeatedly, but without traceable details such as specific dates of her birth, marriages, arrest, conviction, incarceration or death. Most sources place the murders at Berkerekul, Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia), or Bečkerek, which changed the name to Zrenjanin in 1946, although the spelling Berkerekul is unknown for this city. In 1972, the Guinness Book of World Records found no authoritative sources to support the claim that 35 people were killed by Renczi in early 20th-century Austro Hungarian Empire..