The Chocolate Cream Killer - from The Scary Book of Valentine's Day Lore
While Valentine’s Day itself has spawned a few good tales, the lore of love cannot be limited to a single day—just as romance is not limited to a single day, nor are the jealousies, errors, and tragedies that can attend it.
Love makes folks do some pretty strange things. Such as sending a valentine to someone you hate. Stalk others who are in throes of passion and exact your murderous intentions upon them. Reassemble your one true love’s body after it was brutally dismembered. All of these situations and many others are discussed in The Scary Book of Valentine's Day Lore, and they just might leave you feeling very differently about the affairs of the (sometimes bloody) heart. Love and desire will always be with us, but so will the darker parts of human nature, and when the two collide the results can be downright deadly. So, grab some chocolates and—if you’re so inclined—someone you love and explore the legends and tragedies of our romantic obsessions.
Who doesn’t love chocolate? Few people, but after reading this story you might think twice about eating it again. Chocolate is the favorite sweet treat for Valentine’s Day, and for pretty much any other day of the year, but for the poor victims living in Brighton, England, in the 1870s, chocolate was deadly.
The subject of this tale, Christiana Edmunds, was born in Kent in 1828, and grew up in a wealthy family, who saw to it that she received a good education. Still, there always seemed to be something a bit off about her, and a doctor diagnosed her with “hysteria” in the late 1850s. Bear in mind that this was an often sexist, catch-all diagnosis. However, it seems that Christiana was definitely troubled, and while living with her mother in the late 1860s, she began an affair with a married man, a doctor named Charles Beard. Christiana seems to have wanted the wife out of the way, so she offered Mrs. Beard a chocolate cream that she’d poisoned. The wife became very sick, but didn’t die. Beard would later say that he suspected Christiana was the culprit, but he didn’t have proof, and plus, being a typical Victorian, he didn’t want his dirty little secret to be made public.
In any case, the incident seemed to help Christiana develop a taste for poisoning. By 1871, she started acquiring chocolate creams, poisoning them with strychnine, and then having a local vendor, John Maynard, sell them. She obtained the poison from a local chemist, saying that she needed it to kill stray cats. But it wasn’t cats on her mind, it was people. She even tried to hide her activities by sending a couple of boys to buy the poison for her.
As a result of her awful activities, several people became ill from eating the chocolates, but at first, no one died, and no one linked the chocolates to these incidents. In June of 1871, a young boy, Sidney Barker, ate one of the chocolates and died. The coroner was able to link his death to the chocolate from the shop, but thought the poisoning was accidental. Christiana then started sending her poisoned chocolates to unsuspecting recipients, including Mrs. Beard, who again became very sick. It was now clear that someone was poisoning people with chocolate, but Christiana tried to deflect suspicion by mailing some of them to herself, claiming that she had been targeted, presumably by Maynard. Finally, Dr. Beard did the right thing and told the police about his suspicions, but denied that anything had ever happened between him and Christiana. Her evil plan fell apart quickly, and she was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death, although her sentence was eventually reduced to life in prison. She lived out the rest of her days at an insane asylum, dying in 1907.
We’ll never know what drove her to use the world tastiest treat to try to kill random people, but it probably put the people of Brighton off Valentine’s Day chocolate for a long time.
For more Valentine's Day history, ghost stories, urban legends, unusual customs around the world, and tragic love stories, dive into The Scary Book of Valentine's Day Lore! Anyone who has ever suffered from a broken heart knows that love has its dark side. But just how deep that darkness can may surprise you. Whether you love a good scare or just can't stand the sickeningly sweet side of Valentine's Day, The Scary Book of Valentine's Day Lore is all the company you'll need this holiday.