Lydia Sherman

{{Short description|American serial killer}} {{use American English|date=August 2015}} {{use mdy dates|date=August 2015}} {{cleanup rewrite|date=September 2018}} {{Infobox criminal | name = Lydia Sherman | image = Lydia Sherman (criminal).png | image_size = | caption = | alt = | birth_name = Lydia Danbury | other_names = The Derby Poisoner | birth_date = December 24, 1824 | birth_place = Burlington, New Jersey, U.S. | death_date = {{d-da|May 16, 1878|December 24, 1824}} | death_place = Wethersfield State Prison, Wethersfield, Connecticut, U.S. | occupation = Housekeeper | conviction = Second degree murder | sentence = Life imprisonment | victims = 11 (including 3 husbands and 8 children, 6 of whom were her own) | beginyear = 1863 | endyear = 1877 | country = | states = Connecticut, Rhode Island | apprehended = June 7, 1872 | imprisoned = Wethersfield | spouse = Edward Struck (1841–1864) Dennis Hurlburt (–1868) Horatio Sherman (–1871) | children = 7 | criminal_status = Deceased }} '''Lydia Sherman''' (December 24, 1824 – May 16, 1878), née Danbury,<ref>{{Cite book|title=Fatal : the poisonous life of a female serial killer|last=Schechter, Harold.|date=2014|publisher=Pocket Books|isbn=9781476729121|oclc=893102591}}</ref> also known as '''The Derby Poisoner''',<ref>{{cite news| author = Staff | url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1873/01/11/79028127.pdf|title=The Derby Poisoner. – Confession of Mrs. Lydia Sherman, the Murderer of Three Husbands and Four Children | publisher = Hartford Courant (via The New York Times) |date= January 11, 1873 | access-date = August 4, 2015}}</ref> was an American serial killer. She poisoned eight children in her care (six of whom were her own) and her three husbands and was convicted of second-degree murder in 1872.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.08016.com/2011/09/lydia-sherman.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130426062020/http://www.08016.com/2011/09/lydia-sherman.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 26, 2013 |title=Historic Burlington City, NJ: Lydia Sherman |date=February 4, 1998 }}</ref> Five years into her sentence, she escaped under the pretext of being sick and got a job as housekeeper to a rich widower in Providence. She was caught and imprisoned again before dying in Wethersfield State Prison on May 16, 1878, from cancer.

==Life and crimes== Lydia Danbury was orphaned as a child and raised by her uncle, the farmer John Claygay.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sherman|first=Lydia|date=1873|title=Lydia Sherman: confession of the arch murderess of Connecticut: bloody deeds perpetrated with a cold heart, numerous poisonings, trial and conviction|url=http://tinyurl.gale.com/tinyurl/CCrfC6|journal=The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926}}</ref> At age 16, she worked as a tailor and met her first husband, Edward Struck, at age 17 through the Methodist church. They moved to New York City. After her husband became depressed after losing work, Lydia Struck poisoned him with arsenic<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://connecticuthistory.org/lydia-sherman-the-derby-poisoner/|title=Lydia Sherman: The Derby Poisoner {{!}} Connecticut History {{!}} a CTHumanities Project|language=en|access-date=2019-11-12}}</ref> in 1864.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Speaking Ill of the Dead: Jerks in Connecticut History|last=Bendici|first=Ray|publisher=Morris Book Publishing|year=2012}}</ref> Six weeks later, she poisoned three of her young children in the same manner and two more children in 1865. Their death certificates listed "typhoid fever" as the cause of death.<ref name=":0" />

Meanwhile, Lydia Struck worked as a nurse and married her second husband, the widower Dennis Hurlburt, in 1868. After noticing her husband's declining health, she poisoned him with arsenic. She married Horatio Sherman in 1870 and killed him in May 1871.<ref name=":0" />

==Notes and references== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sherman, Lydia}} Category:1824 births Category:1878 deaths Category:19th-century American women Category:19th-century American murderers Category:American escapees Category:American female serial killers Category:American murderers of children Category:American people who died in prison custody Category:American prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Category:Criminals from New Jersey Category:Filicides in New York (state) Category:Perpetrators of mariticide Category:People convicted of murder by Connecticut Category:People from Burlington, New Jersey Category:Place of death missing Category:Poisoners Category:Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Connecticut Category:Prisoners who died in Connecticut detention Category:Serial killers from Connecticut Category:Serial killers from Rhode Island Category:Serial killers who died in prison custody Category:Female murderers of children Category:Child filicides in the United States Category:Perpetrators of filicide