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In 1840s France, a young woman with aristocratic dreams married a man she didn’t want… and he didn’t live long enough to fix it. When Charles LaFarge fell violently ill, his symptoms made no sense — until a dead dog, a suspicious cake, and a trail of arsenic pointed straight at his new bride.

This episode dives into the life and crime of Marie LaFarge, the woman whose scandalous trial became France’s first forensic murder case. From the toxic marriage to the groundbreaking Marsh test, we unravel how a desperate wife, a bottle of arsenic, and one determined toxicologist changed criminal history forever.

Was Marie a cold‑blooded poisoner or a victim of 19th‑century hysteria?

Let’s get Dead Serious.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Lafarge

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/visibleproofs/galleries/cases/orfila.html

https://daily.jstor.org/the-arsenic-cake-of-madame-lafarge/

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=cholera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/1162417

https://www.missedhistory.com/article/marie-lafarge-arsenic-trial-1840-forensic-toxicology

Movie:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028556/?ref_=fn_t_1 (L'Affaire LaFarge)

Book: No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0786015772?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallbackhttps://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks14/1400041h.html

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Ames_Marie

Edited by: Buzcar Wojciech

At Dead Serious, my goal is to share these stories honestly and respectfully. Although I research each case thoroughly, some details published by media outlets and other sources may not be independently verified.