Philadelphia Food Poisoning Ring
Herman and Paul Petrillo were career criminals in Philadelphia who formed a matrimonial agency during the 30s to help widowed women remarry and get life insurance policies on their husbands. But, since the agency functioned as a conduit for collecting money from these policies, the Petrillo cousins had a vested interest in making sure their clients’ husbands always came to tragic ends, often with the wives as willing accomplices.
Soon, authorities noticed a pattern of Italian immigrants dying of arsenic poisoning throughout the city. All these victims had wives who took out life insurance policies through the Petrillos’ agency.
The total number of victims officially connected to them was 35, though authorities suspected it may have been higher. Fourteen people from the Petrillo cousins’ gang were sentenced to life in prison, and Herman and Paul went to the electric chair.
