Milka Pavlović

Milka Pavlović (1905 – 18 May 1935) was a Croatian serial killer. A peasant woman living in Stari Pavljani, near Bjelovar, she poisoned family members, relatives and servants with arsenic between March and July 1934, succeeding in killing six and wounding ten others so she could acquire their inheritance. After being convicted of the crimes, she was sentenced to death and subsequently executed.

Biography Little documentation of Pavlović's early life exists. She was born in 1905 in the small village of Kokinac, and at some point, she married Rade Pavlović of nearby Stari Pavljani, moving into his home and finding work as a milkmaid. A childless, bitter woman, Milka was regarded poorly by her fellow villagers.

Around March 1934, she bought arsenic from a local pharmacy under an alias, claiming that it was for killing rats. She then took the poison home and put it into the food served to her husband Rade, who soon after began vomiting violently and died. His death was not regarded as suspicious, and Milka inherited his estate since the couple had no children. During her trial, it was additionally revealed that she had planned to dispose of a two-year-old child, the heir to an inheritance, with a poisoned loaf, but was stopped in the nick of time by the child's mother. For her crimes, she was brought to Bjelovar, where she was executed by hanging on 18 May 1935.