Nannie Doss: The Giggling Granny and Her Trail of Poisoned Husbands
Nannie Doss was an American serial killer whose crimes unfolded quietly inside homes and marriages rather than in the public places more commonly associated with serial murder. Born Nancy Agnes Hazel on November 4, 1905, in Blue Mountain, Alabama, she became known by a collection of sensational nicknames, including the "Giggling Granny," the "Giggling Nannie," the "Jolly Black Widow," and the "Lonely Hearts Killer." By the time authorities finally investigated her in 1954, suspicious deaths had followed Doss through several states and through nearly every stage of her adult life.
Although Doss has frequently been credited with as many as eleven murders, the historical record requires some distinction between what she actually admitted, what investigators established through toxicology, and what later writers have attributed to her. Contemporary reports are especially clear that Doss admitted deliberately poisoning four of her five husbands. Authorities also investigated the deaths of her mother, sisters, children, grandchildren, and a mother-in-law. Some of those bodies were exhumed and tested for poison, while others remained suspicious but were never conclusively proved to have been murders. Doss was ultimately convicted of only one murder: that of her fifth husband, Samuel Doss.
Early Life and First Marriage
Doss grew up in rural Alabama in a strict household and received relatively little formal education. As a girl she reportedly became fascinated with romance magazines and the lonely-hearts advertisements printed in them. The romantic fantasies presented in those publications became a recurring part of her adult life. She repeatedly sought husbands through personal advertisements and correspondence, apparently imagining that each new marriage might finally provide the idealized romance she wanted.
At sixteen, she married Charley Braggs. The couple had four daughters. In 1927, two of their middle daughters died within a relatively short period, with the deaths attributed at the time to food poisoning. Decades later, after Doss had been exposed as a poisoner, Braggs asked authorities to investigate the deaths of the children. No criminal case was ever established against Doss for their deaths, and surviving records do not provide the same certainty that exists for the husbands she later admitted murdering.
Braggs eventually left Nannie and survived. He became the only one of her five husbands who did not die while married to her. Their divorce was finalized in 1928.
Frank Harrelson
Doss met Robert Franklin "Frank" Harrelson through a lonely-hearts advertisement and married him in 1929. Their marriage lasted approximately sixteen years. Harrelson reportedly drank heavily and could be violent. According to Doss's later confession, the marriage ended not through illness or accident but through deliberate poisoning.
Harrelson died on September 15, 1945, in Alabama. Doss later said she placed rat poison in his corn whiskey. His death did not immediately provoke a murder investigation. At the time, the illness preceding his death could be interpreted as being connected to his drinking or another natural explanation. Only after Doss's arrest years later did investigators return to Harrelson's death and recognize it as part of a much larger pattern.
The Death of Her Grandson
Another disturbing death occurred shortly before Harrelson's. Doss's young grandson Robert Lee died while under her care on July 7, 1945. His death was recorded as asphyxia from an uncertain cause. Doss had obtained a life-insurance policy on the child and subsequently received approximately $500.
Accounts of the case differ on the grandson's surname, with Robert Lee Haynes being commonly used while some contemporary newspaper reports rendered the name as Higgins or Wiggins. The death was investigated again after Doss became a murder suspect, but it never produced a separate murder conviction. It remains among the deaths historically associated with her suspected victims.
Arlie Jackson Lanning
Doss next married Arlie Jackson Lanning, a resident of the Lexington area of North Carolina. Once again, the relationship reportedly began through a lonely-hearts connection. Like Harrelson, Lanning was described as a heavy drinker, and his existing health and lifestyle helped disguise what Doss later admitted she had done.
Arlie Lanning died on February 16, 1952, in Lexington, North Carolina, at age 52. His death was initially attributed to heart failure. No immediate homicide investigation followed. After Doss's confession in 1954, however, Lanning's grave was opened and portions of his remains were examined. Toxicological testing was reported as strongly positive for poison. Doss admitted poisoning Lanning and reportedly attributed the killing to jealousy over his relationships with other women.
The investigation into Lanning's death produced one of the most unusual episodes in the case. Because of the deteriorated condition of the coffin during the 1954 exhumation, a county coroner reportedly entered the grave and removed tissue samples there. Laboratory examination subsequently strengthened the murder case against Doss.
Deaths Surrounding the Lanning Marriage
Other members of Doss's family and Lanning's family also died during this period. Lanning's elderly mother, Sarah Elizabeth Lanning, sometimes referred to in later accounts as Betty Lanning, died in 1950. After the Doss investigation began, her remains were exhumed and reportedly tested positive for poison. Authorities therefore considered her another possible victim of Doss, although Doss was never convicted of her murder.
Doss's sister Dovie Frances Hazel Weaver also died under suspicious circumstances. Contemporary reporting gives Dovie's death date as June 30, 1950. She had reportedly been ill, and Doss spent time with her around the period of her death. Once the full scale of the investigation became apparent in 1954, Dovie's remains were among those examined by Alabama authorities. Her death consequently became part of the wider inquiry into unexplained deaths surrounding Nannie Doss.
Louisa Holder Hazel
Doss's mother, Louisa Emily Holder Hazel, died on January 3, 1953, in Lexington, North Carolina, at age 74. Her death initially appeared to be another natural death in the family. That conclusion changed dramatically after the arrest of her daughter.
Louisa Hazel's body was exhumed in 1954, and toxicological examination reportedly revealed poison. North Carolina authorities obtained a murder warrant charging Doss in connection with her mother's death. Contemporary accounts are important here because they conflict with some later biographies: newspapers published during the investigation reported that Doss denied killing her mother and maintained that the only people she had murdered were four of her husbands. She was never brought to trial for Louisa's death.
Richard L. Morton
Doss's fourth husband was Richard L. Morton, whom she met through another correspondence or dating service. They married in 1952 and lived in Emporia, Kansas. Their marriage soon became troubled, with Doss reportedly believing that Morton was interested in other women.
Richard Morton died on May 19, 1953, in Emporia. Doss later admitted poisoning him, reportedly placing poison in coffee. His death, like those of the husbands before him, initially failed to expose the pattern. Only after Samuel Doss died the following year did investigators in Kansas connect Morton to the woman whose husbands repeatedly succumbed to sudden illnesses.
Samuel Doss and the Crime That Exposed Her
Nannie's fifth husband, Samuel Luther Doss, was a religious and comparatively conservative man living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Doss was associated with the Church of the Nazarene and reportedly objected to some of Nannie's favorite forms of entertainment, particularly the romance stories that had fascinated her throughout her life. Their domestic disagreements extended to money, television, magazines, and other aspects of daily life.
Samuel became seriously ill in 1954 with severe gastrointestinal symptoms. He was hospitalized and eventually improved enough to return home. Instead of recovering, he suddenly became ill again and died in October 1954. Most later historical accounts give his date of death as October 12, 1954, although some contemporary records and genealogical records give October 10, making the precise day one of the inconsistencies in surviving accounts of the case.
The crucial difference between Samuel Doss and Nannie's previous husbands was that his doctor refused to accept the sudden death without further examination. An autopsy revealed a massive quantity of arsenic in Samuel's body. The amount was far beyond anything that could reasonably be explained as accidental exposure. Investigators now had physical evidence of poisoning and a widow whose marital history contained an extraordinary number of deaths.
Confession and Expanding Investigation
When police began questioning Doss, investigators gradually uncovered the history of her marriages. She admitted intentionally poisoning Frank Harrelson, Arlie Lanning, Richard Morton, and Samuel Doss. Contemporary newspaper photographs and stories focused heavily on her cheerful demeanor. She smiled and laughed during questioning and court appearances, behavior that produced the nickname "Giggling Granny."
What began as an Oklahoma murder investigation quickly spread across the country. Authorities in Alabama, North Carolina, and Kansas began reopening old deaths. Bodies were exhumed, relatives were interviewed, insurance records were examined, and investigators reviewed the deaths of people who had become sick while Doss was present. Her mother, sisters, children, grandchildren, mother-in-law, and other acquaintances all became subjects of scrutiny.
Later biographies frequently state that Doss confessed to eleven murders. Contemporary reporting presents a more complicated picture. Reports from late 1954 repeatedly described her as confessing to the poisoning of four husbands while denying responsibility for several blood relatives. Because of these conflicting accounts, the most historically cautious description is that four husband murders were admitted by Doss, while additional deaths were suspected, investigated, or attributed to her on the basis of toxicology and circumstances.
Victims and Suspected Victims
- Robert Lee, Doss's grandson — Died July 7, 1945, in Alabama while in Doss's care. His death was attributed to asphyxia of uncertain cause. Doss later collected approximately $500 from a life-insurance policy on him. The surname is commonly reported as Haynes, although 1954 newspaper accounts used variants including Higgins and Wiggins. His death was investigated as suspicious but did not result in a conviction.
- Robert Franklin "Frank" Harrelson — Died September 15, 1945, in Alabama. Doss admitted placing rat poison in his alcohol. He was her second husband and one of the four husbands she confessed to murdering.
- Dovie Frances Hazel Weaver — Died June 30, 1950, in Alabama. Dovie was Nannie's sister. Her death was examined by investigators after Doss's arrest and was considered suspicious, although Doss was not convicted of killing her.
- Sarah Elizabeth Lanning — Died in 1950 in North Carolina. She was the mother of Arlie Lanning and therefore Nannie's mother-in-law. Her body was later exhumed during the Doss investigation, and poison was reportedly detected. No separate conviction resulted.
- Arlie Jackson Lanning — Died February 16, 1952, in Lexington, North Carolina. His death was originally attributed to heart failure. After Doss was caught, his remains tested strongly positive for poison. Doss admitted poisoning her third husband.
- Louisa Emily Holder Hazel — Died January 3, 1953, in Lexington, North Carolina. She was Nannie Doss's mother. Her exhumed remains reportedly tested positive for poison, and Doss was charged in connection with the death in North Carolina, although she denied killing her mother and was never tried for the crime.
- Richard L. Morton — Died May 19, 1953, in Emporia, Kansas. Morton was Doss's fourth husband. She admitted poisoning him, reportedly by putting poison into coffee.
- Samuel Luther Doss — Died in October 1954 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with October 12 most commonly given as the date, although some records give October 10. An autopsy discovered a lethal concentration of arsenic. His murder led directly to the investigation that exposed Nannie Doss.
- Two unnamed daughters of Nannie Doss and Charley Braggs — Both died in 1927 after illnesses attributed at the time to food poisoning. Their father later asked authorities to investigate their deaths after Doss was exposed as a serial poisoner. The surviving record does not establish their deaths as murders with the same certainty as the husbands Doss admitted killing.
- An infant granddaughter — Died shortly after birth in 1945. Later accounts describe allegations from Doss's daughter that Nannie may have deliberately caused the infant's death. The allegation was never proved in court and the precise circumstances remain disputed.
Methods and Motives
Poison was Doss's defining weapon. Rat poison and arsenic could be introduced into ordinary foods or drinks while producing symptoms that resembled severe gastrointestinal disease. In an era when autopsies were not routinely performed after apparently natural deaths, particularly when a victim already had health problems or drank heavily, poisoning could remain undetected.
Financial gain played a role in several cases. Insurance policies existed on some victims, and Doss received money following certain deaths. Money alone, however, does not fully explain the pattern. According to her statements about her husbands, jealousy, anger, dissatisfaction, abusive relationships, and disappointment with married life also contributed to her decisions. Her lifelong pursuit of an idealized romance repeatedly ended with a husband disappointing her and, in four admitted cases, being poisoned.
Conviction and Imprisonment
Despite the many deaths investigated across several states, Oklahoma concentrated its prosecution on Samuel Doss because the forensic evidence in his case was immediate and overwhelming. Nannie eventually pleaded guilty to his murder in 1955. She was sentenced to life imprisonment rather than death.
The sentence effectively ended the investigations' practical need to prosecute every suspected murder. She remained incarcerated at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester. Her notoriety followed her into prison, where her apparent cheerfulness and joking manner continued to attract attention.
Death and Legacy
Nannie Doss died of leukemia on June 2, 1965, while incarcerated in Oklahoma. She was 59 years old. She was buried in McAlester, ending a life in which marriage, family, insurance money, poison, and unexplained death had repeatedly intersected.
Doss remains one of the most notorious female serial killers in American history, but her case is also a reminder of the importance of separating established facts from later legend. She unquestionably admitted murdering four husbands and was convicted of murdering Samuel Doss. Forensic examinations connected poison to additional family deaths, while still other deaths remained suspicious without definitive proof. The commonly repeated total of eleven victims therefore encompasses a mixture of confessed killings, poison-linked deaths, and suspected murders rather than eleven separate convictions.
