Agrippina

This ancient Roman is believed to have used arsenic to kill a variety

of individuals, including her husband, thereby freeing her to marry the
emperor Claudius, who she poisoned in 54 AD, enabling her son Nero
to become emperor.
Cesare Borgia
At the end of the 15 th century, the powerful Borgias family living in
Rome are said to have killed large numbers of people by using arsenic.
It is postulated that they got a recipe to make arsenic trioxide from
the Spanish Moors and certainly, the family had Spanish connections, as
Cesare’s father was a Spanish cardinal who became Pope Alexander VI,
but died mysteriously after a banquet …
Mary Ann Cotton
This daughter of a coal miner was born in Durham in 1833, married
young, and moved to Cornwall, where three of her four children died
suddenly of a ‘gastric’ illness. The fourth died shortly after she moved
back to County Durham, along with numerous other members of her
family. She was arrested after it was found that her stepson had died
with high levels of arsenic in his body. The bodies of other victims were
exhumed and also found to contain high levels of arsenic. She was convicted
with the murder of her stepson and was executed by hanging at
Durham jail in 1873.