{{Short description|Attempted murderer}} '''Rebecca Copin''' (born '''Rebecca W. Cobb''' on August 5, 1796 in Kanawha, Virginia – died May 10, 1881 in Kanawha County, West Virginia) is known for allegedly attempting to poison her husband, John Copin, with arsenic.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=The Great Catastrophe of My Life: Divorce in the Old Dominion|date=2002|last=Buckley|first=Thomas E.|isbn=0807853801|publisher=The University of North Carolina Press|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/greatcatastrophe00thom}}</ref> In addition, according to John Copin's petition for divorce in 1835,<ref name=":1">{{cite report |title=Journal of the Senate of Virginia |date=January 31, 1835 |page=75}}</ref> she also scalded him with boiling water, threatened to shoot him, and beat him with his own crutches when his leg was broken.<ref name=":1" />
While arsenic poisoning was known as a common way for wives to kill husbands in England in the early to mid 1800s,<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/14/murder-by-poison |title=Murder By Poison |last=Acocella |first=Joan |date=2013-10-07 |magazine=The New Yorker |access-date=2018-02-15 |df=dmy-all |language=en |issn=0028-792X}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |title=The Inheritor's Powder: A Tale of Arsenic, Murder, and the New Forensic Science |first=Sandra |last=Hempel |isbn=978-0393349887 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=2014}}</ref> Rebecca Copin's case is one of the earliest documented cases of attempted murder by a wife of her husband using arsenic in the United States, and also an early documented case of domestic violence in the legal system of the United States.
While the jury found that Rebecca Copin had indeed tried to murder John Copin, John Copin's petition for divorce was not granted.<ref name=":0" /> The jury also did not address any of the factors that may have led Rebecca Copin to attempt to murder John Copin.<ref name=":0" />
==References== {{reflist|25em}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Copin, Rebecca}} Category:1790s births Category:1881 deaths Category:Arsenic poisoners