Be the change you want to see in the world.
Establishing credibility can be so difficult for a psychic. They need to trick you into believing they know what the future holds, which is incredibly challenging given that it's not possible. But what if—what if they predicted the future and then, real quick, made that future happen??
Tillie Klimek, turn-of-the-century Polish-American immigrant, ambitious clairvoyant, and insouciant husband murderer did just that.
Born Theofila Gburek in 1877 Poland, Tillie arrived at the New York harbor at just three years of age, alongside her parents and nine-month-old brother.
"My future lies west, Matka... I will go to the town of Chicago, where I can murder many husbands and collect the insurance payouts. I will make you proud."
It's difficult to find information on Tillie's formative years, but we do wonder if she was a collector early on. Perhaps she amassed a treasure trove of dolls or empty spools of thread, paving the way for her someday-collection of coffins, mourning hats, and rat poison. A girl can dream.
No one seemed to bat an eye when Tillie's first three husbands, all of whom had life insurance policies, died suddenly. One was suggested to have died due to heart trouble. You know, the kind of heart trouble you have after you've been poisoned with arsenic.
But when her fourth husband Joseph Klimek didn't quite die despite her attempts, and arsenic was found in his system, suspicions finally became aroused.
In November of 1922, with husband Joseph Klimek still in the hospital, people around her began to ask questions. People who had been sickened after eating at Tillie's home came forward. The realization that Tillie's three former husbands died young and suddenly prompted them to ask some questions. Bodies of multiple potential victims were exhumed and found to have substantial amounts of arsenic in their bodies.
Former neighbors of Tillie's reported that a couple of years prior, she had informed them that her third husband Frank Kupczyk wouldn't live very long. Sure enough, he took ill shortly thereafter, proving Tillie's remarkable clairvoyance. Ta-da! Tillie's neighbors testified that while Frank was still very much alive, but sick and convalescing in their apartment, Tillie found an absolute steal on a coffin and asked her landlady if it would be cool if she stored it in the basement of their building until... you know...
Tillie's former landlady Martha Wesolek testified that she visited Tillie once while Frank lay sick in the kitchen, and found her playfully draping a mourning veil over her hat, laughing as she remarked that she planned to wear it to his funeral. She recalled Tillie telling her, "My man, he's only got two inches to live. But you... you got eight inches to live."
Tillie's cousin Nellie Koulik (who also became indicted for murder herself) testified that Tillie had complained she was tired of Frank and when Nellie suggested divorce, Tillie said, "No, I will get rid of him some other way." And so she did. Ta-da!
Had Tillie not been such a talented psychic, she may have never been caught. Her uncanny ability to prophesy the murders she had not yet but was definitely planning to commit was unparalleled. Taunting her fourth husband as he slowly died from having "Rough on Rats" arsenic sprinkled over his Sunday dinner, she reportedly said things like, "You are pretty near dead now," or "Did I not tell you you were not going to live long?" Ta-da! How does she do it?!
An actual 1880 advertisement for Rough on Rats arsenic, 15 cents a box. (The racism was free.)
Aside from her mind-blowing, Nostradamus-adjacent knowledge of the future, we would be remiss to not mention the degree to which Tillie's physical appearance seemed to have directly affected how she was viewed, treated, and punished. She killed people—and no one here is taking that lightly—however, other "lady killers" at the time were frequently shown leniency when they presented themselves as well-dressed and refined. It can be assumed, too, that a prerequisite for this leniency was also being white and middle class and... you know... not Polish.
Tillie Klimek was a proud resident of Chicago's Little Poland neighborhood. She wore no make-up and didn't present herself as restrained and demure.
Tillie stated in her defense, "I didn't poison nobody; I didn't kill nobody. I didn't. Everybody pick on me."
They sent her straight to the hoosegow.
This is a from real article written by a human, that appeared in the Chicago Tribune, describing Tillie and cousin Nellie. "Capacious hands" might be the stealthiest dig on a woman we've ever witnessed. 7 March 1923.
Said New York's Daily News: "She was a crude, unattractive, uneducated woman, yet she calmly fed arsenic to at least two of her four husbands and watched them gasp their last breaths on a bed of pain."
Let's just take a moment to unpack that sentence, shall we? So... the implication is that had Tillie Klimek been a refined, formally educated, traditional beauty, then her calm and calculated style of murder would have been expected. A refined murder could only be committed by a lady, obviously, and, therefore, a poor immigrant woman would be capable of nothing more than what? Crudely stabbing her victims and parading around town, blood-soaked and grinning? I mean, really, what must one do to get a high-caliber, dignified murder around here?
The article went on to call Tillie "middle-aged and dowdy," really painting a scene for us all as to how repulsive the journalist found, first and foremost, her physical body, followed second by her propensity to end human lives.
The police lieutenant just predicted her prison-for-decades future. Chicago Tribune, 28 October 1922.
Tillie's trial was daily news throughout November of 1922, and multiple publications made sure to mention her lack of traditional feminine qualities, a crime for which, sadly, she was never officially held accountable.
On Christmas Day in 1922, a local opera singer came and sang to the inhabitants of the Cook County jail. Tillie was counted amongst the group of female jail dwellers, referred to by the Chicago Tribune as "unfortunates." Mary McCormick of the Chicago Civic Opera sang to the women, described in the newspaper as "twenty-two women—thieves, prostitutes, hopheads and Tillie Klimek..."
In March of 1923, Tillie was finally found too unattractive to avoid jail, and was sentenced to life in prison, which was—at the time—the harshest sentence a woman had received in Cook County. All in all, it is believed that she poisoned 22 people and one dog, resulting in 14 deaths.
Prison is indeed where Tillie Klimek spent the remainder of her days, which were not many—but she already knew that was going to happen, obviously. Ta-da?
Tillie Klimek died in 1936 at the age of 60 in the Joliet Correctional Center.
Sources
"Arsenic Cousins Go On Trial with Air of Peasants," Chicago Tribune, 7 Mar 1923.
"Hostess at Poison Banquets Gets Life for Her Crimes," Daily News [New York], 5 Jul 1925, p. 77.
"How Mrs. Klimek Jested of Death of Husband Told," Chicago Tribune, 9 Mar 1923, p.9.
"Joy and Pathos Mix as City Passes Greatest Christmas," Chicago Tribune, 26 Dec 1922, p. 5.
"Klimek Poison Charges Ready for Grand Jury," Chicago Tribune, 18 Nov 1922, p. 3.
"Tillie Klimek," Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tillie_Klimek : 15 Oct 2024).
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