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Biography & Personal Stories
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The Nicotine Killer: How a Hungarian Housewife's Poisoned Brandy Exposed Her Secret Murders
Erzsébet Papp, Hungary's "Nicotine Killer," murdered four people with homemade nicotine from 1957-1958. Initially sentenced to life for one crime, a series of accidental poisonings exposed her full killing spree, leading to a retrial and her eventual execution by hanging in 1962.
A Deceptive Beginning
In the small Hungarian village of Tiszakécske, Erzsébet Papp appeared to be an ordinary woman navigating life in the late 1950s, a tumultuous period following the Hungarian Revolution. But behind this facade was a chilling ambition and a deadly secret. Unhappy in her marriage to József Papp, she began an affair with a local man, Tivadar Kálmán. Driven by a desire for her husband's life insurance and a future with her lover, Erzsébet turned to a common household item: tobacco. She painstakingly boiled large quantities of it to extract a potent, concentrated nicotine solution—a poison that was difficult to trace at the time. In 1957, she served her husband a fatal dose mixed into his drink. Authorities, finding no obvious cause, ruled his death a suicide, leaving Erzsébet free to collect the insurance money and continue her life.
A Trail of Poisoned Lovers
Freedom, however, did not bring contentment. Erzsébet soon grew tired of Tivadar Kálmán, the very man for whom she had murdered her husband. Her eyes had already settled on a new target: Pál Hegedűs, a married man. To clear her path once again, she employed her trusted method. Kálmán was poisoned and died, his death raising no more suspicion than her husband's. Now focused on Pál, Erzsébet saw only one obstacle remaining: his wife, Anna Hegedűs. In a shocking act of cruelty, Erzsébet poisoned Anna, removing the final barrier to her new relationship. Yet, her plans soured when Pál, now a widower, showed no intention of marrying her. Feeling betrayed and enraged, Erzsébet turned her poison on him. In 1958, Pál Hegedűs became her fourth and final victim.
Carelessness and a Fatal Bottle
The death of Pál Hegedűs finally drew scrutiny. An investigation was launched, and this time, evidence pointed toward Erzsébet Papp. Though authorities couldn't prove her involvement in the previous deaths, they had enough to convict her for Pál's murder. She was sentenced to life in prison. The story might have ended there, with three murders remaining her secret. However, a stunning twist of fate would bring her entire scheme crashing down. Upon her arrest, Erzsébet had left a bottle of brandy at her father's house—a bottle laced with her homemade nicotine poison. Unaware of its deadly contents, her father, János, offered a drink to a visitor, Gáspár Németh, who became violently ill but survived. A few months later, another visitor, Andrásné Tóth, was also offered a drink from the same bottle. She was not as fortunate; she drank the poison and died.
The "Nicotine Killer" Unmasked
The unexpected death of Andrásné Tóth triggered a new, intensive police investigation. Forensic experts traced the death back to the poisoned brandy, which was then linked directly to the imprisoned Erzsébet Papp. Authorities now had the key to unlock her past. They exhumed the bodies of her previous victims—her husband, her two lovers, and her lover's wife. Advanced toxicological analysis confirmed what investigators now suspected: all had died from nicotine poisoning. Confronted with the irrefutable evidence, Erzsébet Papp confessed to all four murders. Her life sentence was overturned, and in a new trial, she was found guilty of four counts of premeditated murder. On February 15, 1962, the woman dubbed the "Nicotine Killer" was executed by hanging, her deadly reign brought to an end not by brilliant detective work, but by her own careless mistake and a forgotten bottle of poisoned brandy.