Beware of the Candied Cherries

Florence Mildred Campbell was desperate to be the wife of John Rathom, a star reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1896, with whom she was having an affair. He had married her close friend, Mary, in 1890, but the couple was estranged. Florence plotted to remove her friend: “Miss Campbell bought some candied cherries and loaded them with arsenic,” wrote The Hemet News on October 13, 1899. Florence didn’t want Mary dead, just out of the way. So she came up with the idea of send