Rhonda Belle Martin
Rhonda Belle Martin (born Rhonda Belle Thomley;[1] 1907 – October 11, 1957) was an American serial killer.
Rhonda Belle Martin | |
|---|---|
| Born | Rhonda Belle Thomley 1907 |
| Died | October 11, 1957 (aged 50) |
| Resting place | Montgomery Memorial Cemetery |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Waitress |
| Known for | Female multiple murderer |
| Criminal status | Executed |
| Spouse(s) | W. R. Alderman (m. 1922–1926)George W. Garrett
(m. 1928–1939)Talmadge John Gipson
(m. 1939–1939)Claude Carroll Martin
(m. 1950–1951)Ronald Martin (m. 1951–1957) |
| Children |
|
| Parent(s) | James Robert Thomley, Mary Frances Grimes (d. 1944) |
| Conviction(s) | First degree murder |
| Criminal penalty | Execution by electrocution |
| Details | |
| Victims | 6 |
Span of crimes | 1937–1951 |
| State(s) | Alabama |
Murders
A forty-nine-year-old waitress in Montgomery, Alabama, she confessed in March 1956 to poisoning her mother, two husbands, and three of her children. She denied killing two other children. According to LIFE Magazine in an article published at the time, she loved getting the get-well cards, and later the sympathy cards that came when the victims died, as well as taking great care to have them buried side by side in a private plot.
Her fifth husband, formerly her step-son,[2] was poisoned like the others, but survived and was left a paraplegic. It was his illness that led authorities to look into the strange deaths surrounding Martin.
Prosecutors said collecting insurance proceeds prompted her killing spree, although this is unlikely, since she collected only enough to cover burial costs, and she never admitted this was the case.[3]
She was convicted of murdering fifty-one-year-old Claude Carroll Martin in 1951 by surreptitiously feeding him rat poison[4] and was executed in Alabama's electric chair on October 11, 1957. She was the last woman executed in Alabama until 2002, when Lynda Lyon Block was executed for the murder of a policeman.
Although Martin was only convicted of one murder, she admitted to committing every murder she was suspected of.[5]
References
- "Little Mrs Arsenic". Argosy Magazine. v346 (#4). April 1958.
- Not legally her step-son, since when she married his father, she was not yet divorced from her third husband.
- Jaffee, Al (1979). The Ghoulish Book of Weird Records. Signet. pp. 37–40. ISBN 0-451-08614-7.
- Some accounts say ant poison.
- "Rhonda". The Montgomery Advertiser. 1957-05-26. p. 1. Retrieved 2022-03-17.
Resources
- "Mother Tells 6 Killings by Poison," The Associated Press, March 14, 1956.
- "Jury Sentences Woman To Death," United Press International, June 5, 1956.
- "Rhonda Bell Martin," Mind of a Killer (DVD), Kozel Multimedia [1998].
- Shipman, Marlin (2002). "Murdered Family Members and Other Schemes". The penalty is death: U.S. newspaper coverage of women's executions. University of Missouri Press. pp. 46–51. ISBN 0-8262-1386-3.
External links
- "Black Widow" executed in Florida electric chair - Times-Herald Record at the Wayback Machine (archived March 31, 2003)
- 03/14/57 RHONDA BELLE MARTIN v. STATE ALABAMA FindACase
- Grisly Momma - The Malefactor's Register