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Nannie Doss
(Nancy Hazle Doss)
Nannie Doss, "the black widow", killed four husbands; one in Alabama, one in North Carolina, one in Kansas and one in Oklahoma, Samuel Doss, for which she was eventually tried and convicted. There were other numerous family members who became victims as well. Nannie killed her mother, two of her four daughters, mother-in-law #2, either by her favorite form of homicide, prunes salted with rat arsenic, special coffee, or by way of suffocation.
When arrested, she laughed. She laughed through the entire police interrogation, even as she named the husbands she killed. The press dubbed her "The Giggling Granny, "The Jolly Widow or The Black Widow." She never showed remorse, regret nor seemed to understand that what she did was a crime. She went to prison for life, giggling.
Nancy Hazle, later to be known as Nannie, was born to Louisa and James Hazle in 1905 in Blue Mountain in the bottomlands of northeastern Alabama. Louisa, Nannie's mother was a nurturing woman but was terrified of her husband James Hazel. It is rumored that Nannie was born out of wedlock. 1905 census records Louisa living with a daughter alone. Her marriage to James Hazel occurred after 1905. James had a reputation as being "in control". He got what he wanted from his wife and children even if he had to beat it out of them. Being a farming family field work came first. If there was farm work to be done the kids stayed home from school to work the fields. Nannie's attendance at school was on again and off again.
For most of her life Nannie loved two things: romance magazines and prunes and they became necessary in getting through day to day life. Romance provided her with an escape into a fantasy of knights in shining armor coming to save the damsel in distress. Prunes, known for their medicinal power of natural and unnatural elimination: husband after husband.
Nannie blamed a train accident on the way to a relative's house in southern Alabama for her mental instability. She suffered a blow to the head when the train had to make an emergency stop and she hit her head on the iron frame of the seat in front of her. She complained of black outs and headaches for the rest of her life. Nannie had terrible mood swings and dreamed of love and of finding her own Prince Charming. Her only interest was her mother's romantic magazines and she would sit for hours just looking at the loving couples from the pages. When she was older her favorites were the ads for the "lonely hearts clubs."As a teenager Nannie was forbidden the typical teenage social affairs by a father who viewed her as just an other field hand he was unwilling to part with. She was not allowed to wear makeup or dress in the least attractive manner. James stated that his daughters would not dress like whores to tempt any man and when the time for marriage came he would be the one to choose the husbands.
Nannie's father stayed true to his word and forced the marriage of Nannie to Charley Braggs, Nannie's co-worker at Linen Thread Company where she went to work in 1921. Nannie wrote, "I married, as my father wished, in 1921 to a boy I only knowed about four or five months who had no family, only a mother who was unwed and who had taken over my life completely when we were married. She never seen anything wrong with what he done, but she would take spells. She would not let my own mother stay all night..."Nannie and Charles had four children, all daughters. The eldest, Melvina born in 1923 and the youngest, Florine born in 1927. Nannie began drinking and developed a chain smoking Habit. Infidelity found it's way into the marriage by way of both Nannie and Charles. Eventually they were only in each others company at the dinner table by happenstance.
In 1927 The Braggs lost their two middle children to "accidental" food poisoning. Charles did not by this explanation and took his favorite oldest daughter and left Nannie leaving the newborn Florina behind. Braggs has gone on record to state that he was frightened of his wife, as was his mother and the rest of his family. He never drank or ate anything that she prepared when in a foul mood. Those at the time who knew her less intimately than Charley might have laughed at his suspicions, for she always appeared domestically happy. She ceremoniously outlined every meal, complete with coffee for Charley and milk for the kids.Nannie was forced to take a job at the nearest cotton mill to support herself and Florine.
Charley is known as 'the husband who got away. Husbands number two, three, four and five died horrible deaths.
Nannie had returned to her parents house as well as her job at the cotton mill and turned wide-eyed to the lonely-hearts column in the local newspaper, writing men whose advertisements interested her. One of the responses that interested her was from 23-year-old factory worker Frank Harrelson. Frank wrote pretty verses and looked even better with dimpled cheeks and wavy hair. She sent him a cake, a picture of herself and alluring words that implied sex. Harrelson lived in nearby Jacksonville, so he took off and headed straight south to Blue Mountain. Waiting on her door step he found an alluring young thing. The picture Nannie had sent him had not done her justice as far as Frank was concerned. It had not represented the fire in her black eyes that titillated him.
They married in 1929 but months later the honeymoon had come to an end with Nannie's discovery that Frank was a full blown alcoholic. Not only that, but she discovered much to her annoyance that he had spent time in jail for felonious assault. Frank was no gentleman, the Jacksonville cops showed up at their door a couple of times every week to tell Nannie that Harrelson was in the brig again for brawling drunk. They saw Nannie's face and comprehended her dark moods, sometimes sinister, each time she had to fetch the wavering and slur-tongued Harrelson from the hoosegow.
Nannie abided Her husband's drinking for many years.. He'd smack her around in his most drunken states, but she stayed. He'd yell at and threaten her growing kids for nothing. Black and blue, forlorn and unloved, she stayed. The marriage would last sixteen years. She had not yet discovered how to rid herself of a husband.
