Black Widow Louise Vermilya
SEASON 3 : EPISODE 47
FEBRUARY 14, 2025
At the end of every episode, I usually ask you, the listening audience, to let me know what you thought about the the story I just told… But tonight, I really want to know what you think. On the surface, it’s a “black widow” story. Or is it? I’m not so sure, but, as usual, I have done my best to separate fact from fiction and give you the full story.
This is the story of black widow, Louise Vermilya.
Follow along on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube @agoodnightforamurder.
The bonus content on Patreon for this episode is another black widow case, and just like the story of Louise Vermilya, I am very divided on if she was actually the villain or the victim.
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INTRO
Hello everyone, welcome to A Good Night for a Murder, a Victorian true crime podcast.
My name is Kim, and at the end of every episode, I usually ask you, the listening audience, to let me know what you thought about the the story I just told… But tonight, I really want to know what you think. On the surface, it’s a “black widow” story. Or is it? I’m not so sure, but, as usual, I have done my best to separate fact from fiction and give you the full story.
This is the story of black widow, Louise Vermilya
But first, a Victorian society tip.
TIP
In honor of Valentine’s Day and the month of love in general… just in case it’s taken me until after Valentine’s Day to get this episode out… I am going to share with you 4 Victorian lonely heart ads
I’ve shared lonely heart ads before, both on this podcast and on social media, and since I’ve read more than a few now, I can tell you that the Victorians actually had pretty much all of the same problems we do today when it comes to dating
There are catfish, there are scammers, there are those who are actually better off hiring a maid…
We’ll start out mild and get more unhinged as we go…
It sounds like this first man wants… how do I put this… someone else's pre-trained wife…
He wants a wife to do wife things…
This ad reads:
This next man started out fairly benign until he threw in that you can also have all of his dead wife’s jewelry as a selling point
I guess some people wouldn’t mind… but… what else does he expect me to have or wear of hers?
Also I want my own things… I’m not looking to get haunted by any first wife…
Onward to bachelor number 3 though
He writes
Okay… first off… he says we can play dress up with wigs.
Cute
However, that last part about either having a fortune or industry sufficient for her support…
That is a bold statement for someone who opened by listing all of the members of nobility in his family
Suspicious…
This last bachelor however, is certainly not looking for a wife:
Sir, you are looking to hire a cook
Also a housekeeper
You just don’t want to pay them - though, I’m sure you can, because taking out these personal ads, was not cheap
If he had the money to list all of the recipes he wants his wife to make, he might as well just hire help
Though I bet he probably tried that, and couldn’t even pay them to stay either, now he’s got to try and gaslight some young 17 - 21 year old…
Get out of here Alphonso!
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Before we dive in, I have some new Patreon welcomes to share this month!
Welcome to first time members Mary and StacyJean!
Thank you so much for supporting the podcast, I’m so glad you’re here!
CONTENT WARNING
A Good Night for a Murder is a true crime podcast that does cover stories including death, violence, sexual assault, and other adult themes.
Please take care while listening.
EPISODE
Louise was born in July in 1868 in Cook County, Illinois
Her parents were Prussian immigrants Wilhemina, or Minnie, and John Woolf
She was the third oldest out of 11 siblings
She had 6 brothers, and 4 sisters
On April 2, 1885, when she was 17, Louise married Frank Brinkamp
Now, I could not find a concrete birth date for Frank Brinkamp, so I don’t know exactly how old he was, but, based on the ages of his children and grandchildren from his prior marriage, it appears he was in somewhere in his 50s!
It sounds like he had 2, maybe 3 children, though I’m thinking they must have been nearly grown by the time he married Louise
It does sound like his 5 year old granddaughter, Lillian, was in his care though.
So, they’re married… 17 year old Louise and 50 something year old Frank…
And they move to a farm in Barrington, IL where, so far as I can tell, they have 3 children together of their own
Their children were
Cora - born literally the same year they were married…
Frank - born 2 years later in 1887
And Florence, - born another 2 years later in 1889
An usual anecdote is related by the town undertaker, Mr. E. N. Blocks from Louise’s time in Barrington, which was that he couldn’t keep her out of the mortuary…
He said, “while I never employed her for a couple of years I couldn't keep her out of the office. at every death she would seem to hear of it just as soon as I and she would reach the house only a little behind me."
Now, I’m going to guess that the reason this anecdote is included in the source material I used for this episode, is because highsight is 20/20
We all already know that Louise is going to go on to do some despicable things…
But keep in mind, Louise is a very young mother, married to a man more than twice her age, and - come to find out - in the year 1892, she tried to file for divorce from Frank, citing cruelty as the reason…
Now no articles I saw mentioned that… I only found it in a small newspaper clipping on her Find a Grave memorial
So, I don’t think we can judge too harshly that she maybe sought out sanctuary by hanging around the local mortuary with the kindly undertaker, who is sounds like, let her just come and go as she pleased…
But, from here on out, it does seem like something snapped in Louise…
In 1893, the year after Louise filed for divorce, her husband Frank died
The coroner ruled the cause of death as a heart attack
He was in his 60s after all…
After this, Louise inherited $5,000 from their life insurance policy
Very shortly after the death of her father, little Cora Brinkamp, who was only 8 years old also died…
Sources also report that Louise’s youngest daughter, Florence, also died in quick succession after her sister, but I can’t actually verify this
A couple of years later, around 1899-ish
When Louise is in her mid-30s about, she moved to Chicago and married Charles Vermilya
I’m going to be honest, the records were not very good, and it was a challenge to sort out all of the kids and how old they were… but…
To Chicago, she brought with her:
her son, Frank, who would be about 19 now,
her two older step children,
and also her step grand daughter, Lillian, who is in her early 20s now
In 1906, Lillian died from acute nephritis
Nephritis tells us they thought it had something to do with her kidneys
It’s agreed that the modern diagnosis of most “nephritis” cases would be diabetic kidney disease
So probably not a particularly quick death, not too suspicious, but rumors that the Brinkamp family might be cursed started to arise, due to the high number of deaths in the family
Towards the end of July in 1909, Louise’s husband Charles became suddenly violently ill with stomach pain and vomiting
After about 1 week of this, he was not getting any better, and he died on Aug 1, of 1909
The cause of death was ruled as gastritis
Gastritis is just what they called anything that involved stomach upset
He left Louise with $1,000 in cash and a home in Crystal Lake, Illinois
Now, sources say that Charles’s stepson Harry argued with Louise about the inheritance of the home, and he also died shortly thereafter
But this is not true!
Charle’s son Harry had predeceased him
I know because it said so in Charles’s obituary
Charles did have two other sons, but they lived much longer lives than this
I can not deny though, that the quick death of her second husband does sound suspicious…
Onward with our story though…
In 1910, Louise’s son Frank died and left her an inheritance of $1,200
Upon his death bed, he confided to his fiance that he thought his mother had been involved in the death of his father
He was also said to remark he was - quote - “going the way his father did.”
This makes it sounds like Louise was also responsible for the death of her son, but I think those remarks are taken out of context, because Louise was nowhere near Frank at the time of his death
He was in the southeastern United States and his cause of death was malaria
I mean…he was 6 when his father died - he could have just seen him looking unwell in bed at some point and said I saw the same thing when my father died
So far as what he saw or heard that made him suspicious of his mother’s part in his father’s death, I cannot speak to that
There are more strange events in 1910 that Louise was directly involved with that we have to talk about though…
On January 15, 1910, a railroad fireman named Jason Rupert was boarding with the Vermilyas
He reportedly became very sick after eating a meal prepared by Louise, and died two days later…
To what end would Louise want to kill her boarder though, we have no idea…
By the next month, Louise had taken on another boarder in her home named Robert Smith
Apparently, the two struck up a whirlwind romance and were married
Hardly a month later, on March 11, 1910, Robert Smith died of gastritis
Two days prior, he had eaten a meal prepared by Louise and had become very sick
Now, it turns out Smith had an estranged wife when he married Louise so if there was any life insurance money to be had, she got none of it
After this she met Mr. Arthur Bissonette
Louise became a good friend to Arthur and even helped him get accepted into what was called the Home Guard, a militia-like entity for men who were unable to qualify for the military.
In return, Arthur agreed to name Louise as the beneficiary of the insurance policy offered to him through the Home Guard
In October of 1911, Arthur and his father dined at the home of Louise, where Arthur was boarding by now
They both became very ill, and Arthur died shortly thereafter!
Arthur’s family asked for an investigation
In the investigation, it came out that Arthur’s father had seen Louise sprinkle white pepper over their meals immediately before serving it to them
They performed an autopsy and it revealed Arthur’s cause of death was ARSENIC POISONING
It’s for the insurance money, right?
Turns out though, that Arthur actually named his fiance, who was living in another city, as the beneficiary
After this, Louise was arrested on October 28 and put on house arrest
We will never know why, but during this time, she apparently started dosing herself with the suspicious “white pepper”
After a few days, she had slowly been getting sicker and sicker, and needed to be rushed to the hospital on November 4
Maybe she thought it would delay her trial, or she could lay blame on someone else if they saw she was sick too?
Whatever her reason, if she had one, it didn’t work, and two days later she appeared in court, in a wheelchair to be arraigned for the murder of Arthur Bissonette
By November 9th, papers were reporting that she likely wouldn’t live to see her own trial
Whatever she had taken, plus the stress of her arrest, had brought on an entire slew of health problems now to the point where her doctors were worried her heart would give out
On November 24th though, she was discharged from the county hospital, but she was still far from well,
And on December 9th, it sounds like she suffered a stroke
Despite this, prosecutors continued to pursue her trial, but on March 7th of 1912, the charges were dropped
It had been discovered that Arthur was taking medication that contained arsenic, which made a conviction unlikely
Prosecutors were not done with Louise Vermilya yet though
After the results of Arthur’s autopsy, an autopsy was performed on Robert Smith as well, which also revealed arsenic
The prosecutor stated that, “There are several cases as to which Mrs. Vermilya may be tried and I don't want to try her more than once...For that reason, I want to pick out the strongest one and I have concluded the Smith one is the strongest…”
Louise was quickly rearrested, and charged with the murder of Robert Smith
While in custody, it was reported she tried again to commit suicide for a second time.
Her trial for the murder of Robert Smith began on March 21, 1912
It lasted 16 days, but ended in a hung jury
The case was resubmitted for trial 10 days later, but, again, ended in a hung jury
At this point, the jury selection had become… problematic…
Everyone had heard of, and had an opinion on the case
And most men were unsure they would be able to inflict the death penalty on a woman…
Women were not allowed as jurors in the state of Illinois until 1937
Further, any potential jurors who had a problem with circumstantial evidence needed to be excused
By October of that year, Louise was still in custody, but her health was failing
As summer approached, there were concerns about housing Louise in the non-airconditioned jail,
So, bail was set and paid at $5,000, and Louise was released
On April 18, 1915 it was decided that it would be impossible to obtain a conviction on the Smith indictment
It was deemed that another trial with the same evidence would be expensive with little consequence,
And so, at the request of Louise’s attorney, the charges against her were dropped
It is estimated that Vermilya amassed a total of $15,000 from deaths she is suspected of
$15,000 back then would be nearly $490,000 in today money
After the dismissal of her charges, Louise apparently led a quiet life
This was likely due to the toll her incarceration had taken on her health, as she only survived another 3 years
She died on December 31st of 1915 at the age of 47
She was buried in the Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois
I do not know if she shares a plot with them, but her 3 children Cora, Florence, and Frank are also buried in the same cemetery
I’m unsure where her first husband was buried, but her second husband was buried in Crystal Lake, Illinois
Both are likely buried with their first wives
Though she was only tried for the murders of Arthur Bissonette and Robert Smith, it’s often reported that Louise Vermilya is suspected in the murders of a total of ten people
I honestly think that’s a tad inflated, though
So let’s recap and I’ll tell you which I actually think she may have been responsible for, and we’ll take them chronologically, so…
First, her first husband, Fred Brinkamp
This seems plausible
Perhaps she did it for the insurance payout, or perhaps to escape
Second, her 8 year old daughter, Cora -
She was of course not tried for this so there is no evidence, but perhaps she was motivated by not wanting the burden of a young child in her care as a single woman
Third is her 4 year old daughter, Florence -
Now Florence did die as a child, but sources are very conflicting on the timeline
Some say it was right after Cora and make it seem like Louise was on some sort of killing spree
Others show Florence’s death date to be after she married her second husband
So, for that reason I just can’t take the claims that she was one by one murdering her children that seriously,
But, who knows?
Fourth, she’s also said to have murdered Lillian, her 26 year old step grand daughter
Can not prove nor disprove, but I have no clue what her motive would be there…
Fifth, her second husband, Charles Vermilya
Again, possibly motivated by the insurance payout, as we do see a bit of a pattern develop later on…
Sixth would be her step son Harry…
I firmly believe she is not responsible for this as I found evidence that died before his father
Seventh is her own son, Frank
Another one I don’t believe she’s responsible for as he died far away from her
Eighth is her boarder, Jason Rupert
There is very little information about this and it doesn’t make much sense that she’d murder a tenant
But as I said earlier, there does seem to be a bit of a pattern about to develop
And that emerges with 9th and 10th alleged victims, Robert Smith and Arthur Bissonette
Now these two were autopsied, and she was charged with their murders
So, by this point, I have to say, it does seem to be some sort of insurance scam she’s running
but if that were the case, she was actually pretty bad at it…
Neither would have given her any money, and she got caught!
So, I feel like potentially 5 - 6 victims is actually more accurate
I’m curious to know what you think about this case though
Do you think she’s actually guilty of murdering all ten?
And what do you think her motives were?
If you head on over to Instagram, TikTok or YouTube @agoodnightforamurder, you can let me know there.
I’ve also posted some photos Louise and more
You can also see the photos and source links for this episode on the episode blog on my website at agoodnightforamurder.com
The bonus content for Patreon members for this episode is another black widow case, and just like the story of Louise Vermilya, I am very divided on if she was actually the villain or the victim.
Listen through the outro music to hear a short preview of this Patreon bonus content
To subscribe to Patreon and learn more about the podcast you can visit agoodnightforamurder.com.
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Thank you for listening,
And I will talk to you again soon