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Background of the case
Youth
Marie Fortunee Cappelle was born to a distinguished colonel in the artillery and to a lady of an
esteemed family in the early 1800s in France. Hailing from a family of aristocracy, she was accustomed a
life of affluence. Her father, however, perished when Marie was still of tender age. And when she also
lost her mother several years after, her relatives were therefore left with the burden of taking care of
her.
[Not too happy with the burden, her uncle then sought to find her a husband who could take her away.
Apparently, this was not an easy task as Marie was definitely a lady of good breeding. A matrimonial
broker was hired, and later, one Charles Joseph Pouche Lafarge, who represented himself as a man of
huge resources, was introduced to Marie. They were immediately engaged and their nuptials were
hurriedly arranged to the dislike of Marie, who consistently protested to be married to a man of coarse
manners.]
Marriage[While Marie was living with his uncle and aunt, his uncle sought to find her a husband in order to
relieve them of the burden of taking care of her. The said uncle sought the help of a marriage broker.
The search of the said broker led him to find Charles Lafarge, a twenty-eight year old master ironworker
who is supposedly rich. Maries uncle hid the fact that he sought the help of a marriage broker and
introduced Charles to Marie as his friend. Charles and Marie were set to be married and the latter did
not have any say in the process.] Only five days after their introduction, the two became married. After
the two were married and upon reaching their new home, the new couple had a furious quarrel. Marie
then shut herself in her room away from Charles.
It was said that outwardly, Charles seemed to be well-off but in reality, the man was on the verge of
bankruptcy. After some time, Marie had seemingly accepted the situation and the couple seemed to beliving peacefully. Marie was even reported to have written letters to her friends telling them that
Charles really has a good heart despite his tough exterior. Marie also helped Charles in trying to solve
their financial woes. She was said to have written recommendation letters to banks in order for Charles
to secure loans. She even executed a will in favor of Charles transferring her assets to him on the
condition that the latter will also do the same. Charles fulfilled this condition, but unknown to Marie, he
later executed another will assigning his mother as the beneficiary of all his assets. He then asked Marie
to execute a power of attorney to grant him authority to sell her assets to secure certain funds. He then
went to Paris to obtain the said funds.
While he was in Paris, a package was sent by Marie containing two cakes. He ate one of the cakes after
which he fell terribly ill. He refused to see a doctor as the Parisian illness was quite common at the
time and he rationalized that probably the cake became spoiled during transit. He went home bringing
the fruits of his conquest amounting to around 10,000 pounds in cash. However, he still felt very ill.
Charles family became so worried that his mother came to their house along with a certain Anna Brun.
This Anna Brun saw Marie put a white powdery substance to Charles food which aroused suspicion as
Charles condition worsened. Brun told her suspicions to Maries mother-in-law. Soon after, Charles
Lafarge died. Maries mother-in-law told their suspicions to the authorities. [It was soon discovered that
prior to the days when Charles became ill, Marie asked a house servant to buy a significantly strange
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amount of arsenic in order to kill the rats. 9 days after Charles death, Marie was arrested for the
alleged poisoning of her husband.]
Trial
[Evidence presented for the arrest consisted of testimonies regarding Marie's purchase of arsenic prior
to her husband's intermittent stomach pains. This was admitted but Marie interposed the defense of
having bought said substance for mice control.]
Her trial, which encountered several delays, finally took place on September 2, 1840. And because she
was a beloved public figure, the people indisputably did not take her case lightly. The controversy
became the centre of public discussions such that Paris newspapers regularly gave the public updates of
the case; the court-house was always overcrowded; and that even later, inns could no longer
accommodate outsiders who were likewise intrigued. Several articles even mention that it divided
France into pro and con Lafarge factions.
"You must be just; you cannot be so if you let this woman escape," said the prosecutor, whose
opposition was the well-renowned M. Paillet as counsel for the defense. As the trial progressed, several
chemists testified that arsenic was found in the milk, eggnog and the box from which Brun saw Marietake the white powder from. Some also testified that arsenic was likewise found in Charles' vomit and
stomach content.
It was during this stage that Mathieu Orfila, the forerunner in the field of poisons at that time, was
contacted by the defense lawyer. It was Orfila who suggested that the chemists use the recently
formulated Marsh Test because the results allegedly obtained by the chemists were inconclusive and
unreliable. The prosecution's lawyers then moved for the adoption of said test to better determine
whether or not Charles really died of arsenic poisoning. Another batch of chemists were then hired to
re-examine the precipitate extracted from Charles' remains. This time, however, tests proved negative.
The prosecution, however, were unsatisfied with the results and further moved to exhume Charles'body for further tests. The court acceded to this request despite finding the body in an advanced state
of decomposition. However, after a series of tests were again conducted, results still yielded negative
traces of arsenic. Relentless, the prosecution now moved to invite experts from Paris. Orfila then
arrived and personally assured the court that amounts of arsenic would be present in the victim's
remains, that this arsenic does not come from the apparatus nor the substances utilized in testing, that
the amount of arsenic supersedes the minute levels found in the human body. However, was only on
the third batch of testing that positive results were obtained. The court nevertheless gave credence to
this result. The jury later found her guilty and sentenced her to hard labor for life.
Death
Marie spent the rest of her years in jail. While imprisoned, she wrote her memoirs which were published
in 3 parts. Through the efforts of Charles Lachaud, her defense lawyer since the trial, she gained her
freedom after being imprisoned for 12 years. During this time of imprisonment, her health deteriorated
so much that she died only a few months after her release from jail. She died of tuberculosis at a young
age of 36.
Criticism of the Case
Although Marie Lafarge was convicted of the crime of killing her husband, public opinion is still divided
as to her guilt. Yes, Marie proclaimed her innocence until her dying day, but that is not the only reason
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why there are still those who believe that the woman is innocent. For one, on current standards, the
tribunal which heard her case has seemingly judged her as guilty even before the trial ended. In other
words, the judge and the jury were seemingly not impartial in determining her innocence or guilt. This is
because the judge kept on approving the motions of the prosecution to conduct a new test for arsenic
compounds despite having done so many times before but only yielded a negative result. The court only
became satisfied when Orfila conducted his third test which produced a positive result. While Orfila was
indeed highly regarded and can truly be considered an expert witness (again, he is later to be recognized
as the Father of Toxicology), his reputation or skill is not the one in question but the impartiality of the
tribunal. The court seemed to have waited for incriminating evidence to surface and it grabbed the
first opportunity to believe such evidence. The court convicted Lafarge based mainly on the expert
testimony of Orfila, for which reason that a lot of sources point to this case as the first case in which
toxicology is used in a murder trial. However, it must be remembered that the first two attempts of
Orfila did not show arsenic compounds in the Charles remains - which were like the earlier tests done
by other doctors/scientists. These numerous tests were considered by the court to have been
outweighed by the last test conducted by Orfila.
Two years after Maries conviction, a different case (Lacoste case) was being tried in which the presence
of arsenic compounds were also an important fact. In this case, Orfilas assistant in the Lafarge case,Chevallier was questioned on the witness stand. He was asked whether the compounds found in the
present case were of the same amount as that found in the Lafarge case. He answered that the amount
found in the Lafarge case was so infinitesimal that it could not fulfill the conditions of a standard of
comparison when we use the words more or less. The jury in that case was shocked and they
realized that the basis of Lafarges conviction years ago rested on scientific evidence which was so small.
In 1911, another Marie was facing murder charges for arsenic poisoning. Marie Besnard, who was later
tagged as black widow of Loudon was charged of murdering 12 people including her husband and her
mother. She was accused of killing those people because she had received benefits in one way or
another in the death of those 12. However, this Marie had a different fate. She was acquitted of the
charge because the defense was able to argue successfully that it is incumbent upon the prosecution toprove that the amount present in the bodies were sufficient enough to kill them. The prosecution in this
case failed to discharge the said burden of proof thats why Besnard was acquitted. Therefore, Lafarge
could have been also acquitted had the jury inquired into the quantity of arsenic present in Charles
Lafarges remains.