Lê Thanh Vân
Vietnamese serial killer
Lê Thanh Vân (5 December 1956 – 26 October 2005), popularly nicknamed The Cyanide Witch (Phù Thủy Xyanua), was a Vietnamese fraudster and serial killer who, together with her husband and accomplice Dìu Dãnh Quang, poisoned at least 13 people with cyanide from 1998 to 2001 for financial gain. Regarded as the most prolific and infamous serial killer in the country's history, she was convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently executed for her crimes in 2005.
Early life and crimes
Lê Thanh Vân was born on 5 December 1956, in Saigon, South Vietnam, the second in a family of eight children born to a drainage worker and a midwife. Her elder brother died as a child, leading to her being the oldest of the seven remaining siblings. From an early age, Vân had an eccentric and cold personality, was considered unruly, constantly argued with other family members and even beat the family pets. She studied until the 12th grade before dropping out halfway through the term, and in 1975, she enrolled at the Military Medical School of Dentistry. Some time afterwards, she was arrested for attempting to cross the border illegally and was sentenced to 16 months imprisoned at a re-education camp. Following her release, she worked various jobs in order to make a living.
In December 1979, Vân was arrested in District 10 for impersonating an army captain, for which she was sentenced to several months imprisonment. In March 1990, she was arrested in District 5 for a number of forgeries and thefts and imprisoned for 18 months.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lê Thanh Vân” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.