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Collection of 22 original Philadelphia Police Department mug shots documenting individuals arrested in connection with the Philadelphia Poison Widows ring, a 1939 insurance murder conspiracy in which participants allegedly poisoned victims to collect life insurance proceeds. The group comprises original dual-view police booking photographs, each glossy, 4.5 x 3, the reverse of each bearing its original Philadelphia Police Department identification card recording the subject's name, physical description, occupation, arrest date, and other booking information.
Included are Stella Alfonsi, Anna Arena, Morris Bolber, David Brandt, Christine Cerrone, Gaetano Cicinato, Susie DiMartino, Maria Favato, Camella (Millie) Giacobbe, Sophie LaVecchio (Davis), Agnes Mandiuk, Emedio Muscelli, Dr. Horace Perlman, Herman Petrillo, Paul Petrillo, Raphael Polselli, Josephine Romualdo, Dora Sherman, Salvatore Sortino, Joseph Swartz, Caesar Valenti, and Marie Woloshyn.
Also included are two original signed Philadelphia Bureau of Police Detective Division letters, dated April and May 1939, relating to the investigation and the confinement of suspects Rose Carina and Maria Favato. In overall fine condition. Accompanied by a first edition of George Cooper’s 1999 book, Poison Widows: A True Story of Witchcraft, Arsenic, and Murder, which is signed inside by Cooper.
During the 1930s, Herman and Paul Petrillo organized an extensive murder-for-profit conspiracy centered in South Philadelphia's Italian immigrant community. Prosecutors alleged that members of the ring arranged life insurance policies on intended victims before killing them, initially through staged accidents and later by administering arsenic or other poisons, to collect insurance proceeds. The investigation broadened following the arsenic poisoning of Ferdinando Alfonsi in 1938, ultimately resulting in the arrests of dozens of alleged conspirators and one of the largest serial-poisoning prosecutions in American history. Herman and Paul Petrillo were convicted of murder and executed in 1941, while numerous other defendants received prison sentences or had their death sentences commuted.
