Mass poisonings in a small town in Hungary

There is a small town in Hungary called Nagyrév. With a population of 800, it seems unlikely to make the news. But a century ago it turned out to be the centre of a murder ring, and suddenly it became the focus of news-paper reports across the world. The unlikely setting made the story. It was a backwater, literally: the redirecting of the Tiszaltiver river decades earlier had cut Nagyrév off. Forget cars: this was a town where it was notable in the 1920s if someone owned a bicycle. Yet the place had the murder rate of a violent city.

By the time the authorities woke up to what was going on, they discovered dozens of homicides going back several years, and all traced to the town’s midwife, Suzannah Fazekas. The local doctor also served other surrounding villages and only held a clinic in Nagyrév once a week, which meant people turned to the midwife for daily medical assistance.