Not Everyone Had a Good Mother

Including me.  But it could be worse.

Chicago, IL (1882)
6/9/1882: Baker’s wife dressed her four children “in fresh white clothes, with bright ribbons, gave them strychnine, and when they died, laid them out carefully with flowers in their hands and all surroundings made as beautiful as possible.”  Then she took it herself and waited for her husband to return home to tell him what she had done.  “See how pretty they were, with nice flowers for [angels].”  Described as “demented”: no other obvious explanation.
Category: family
Suicide: yes
Cause: mental illness
Weapon: poison[1]

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[1] “AMother’s Crime,” Wheeling [W.Va.] Register, Jun. 12, 1882, 1.

There are a lot of tragedies that I find.  Many are monstrous in choice of weapons (like blowtorches).  But the ones where a mother murders her children are especially hard to read.