Iran | 'Black widow', 56, who poisoned 11 elderly husbands faces death penalty

Kolsum Akbari, 56, reportedly killed 11 of her husbands over a period of 22 years with the deaths having gone undetected for decades due in part to how far away the victims were from one another

A woman dubbed the "black widow" after she poisoned her 11 elderly husbands over the course of two decades now faces the possibility of being put to death in Iran.

Kolsum Akbari, 56, married elderly men before administering blood pressure medications, diabetes drugs, sedatives and even industrial alcohol in order to inherit their property.  Her killings went undetected for 22 years due to her husbands' health conditions and old ages.

She currently awaits sentencing. 

She later confessed to the killings. Families of the victims have asked for her to be executed.

I don’t know how many I killed. Maybe it was 13 or 15 people. I don’t remember exactly.

Beginning in 2000 and carrying on until 2023, she killed over and over until she became careless with her final husband, 82-year-old Gholamreza Babaei. 

Babei's son was suspicious of the woman after a family friend revealed his own father had previously been married to a woman called Kolsum who had tried to poison him. 

Police were called, and the woman was arrested. Upon interrogation police managed to get her to confess, though she reportedly gave conflicting accounts on just how many people she killed. 

She said: 'I don’t know how many I killed. Maybe it was 13 or 15 people. I don’t remember exactly.'

Her life as a married woman began when she was just 18, having been involved in a short marriage with a man who suffered mental health problems. 

She was then married to a much older man who had children from a prior marriage. Akbari was said to have been regularly beaten by her husband and stepsons.

After her second husband died, she is said to have sought out marriages with lonely older men through women's gatherings. She would befriend the daughters of these men and, after investigating their means, would agree to marry them for a significant dowry. 

Though she administered poisons, in some cases she would suffocate victims with pillows and towels. 

In many cases, the victims would die shortly after getting married to her.  

Mirahmad Omrani, 69, died a month after their marriage in 2013; Esmail Bakhshi, 62, died two months after their 2016 wedding, and Ganjali Hamzei, 83, died 43 days after marrying her. 

One man survived Akbari's attempted murder in 2020 after consuming tainted soup. Though he kicked her out, he chose not to report the incident to police. 

Akbari was charged with 11 counts of premeditated murder and one count of attempted murder.  

Though Akbari initially tried to deny the charges in the Sari Revolutionary Court on Wednesday, she eventually confessed to the killings. 

Her victims lives in cities across Iran, which stopped authorities from connecting the dots for years.

Their families have asked for her execution, though the court will only deliver its verdict once hearing from all 45 plaintiffs involved in the case.

Source: Mail Online, Perkin Amalaraj, August 10, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde