15. Judge George Wythe was poisoned by his grand-nephew with arsenic after he threatened to disinherit the 17-year-old for stealing from his house.
George Wythe, the first of seven Virginian signatories to the Declaration of Independence, served as a judge and law professor in addition to mentoring prominent figures including Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Henry Clay. Amassing a considerable fortune after a successful legal career, in 1805 Wythe’s grand-nephew, the then-seventeen-year-old George Wythe Sweeney, was caught having stolen books from the library to repay gambling debts. In response, the Wythe patriarch revised his will in early 1806 and threatened to disinherit his light-fingered relative entirely unless he change his immoral lifestyle. On May 25, 1806, Wythe, along with his maid Lydia Broadnax and house servant Michael Brown, fell ill.
Initially suspected to be cholera, rumors of foul play circulated after Sweeney attempted to cash a $100 check from Wythe’s account on May 27. Discovering multiple previous fraudulent checks, Sweeney was arrested. Wythe, clinging to life, refused to post bail and altered his will to remove reference to Sweeney after Brown passed on June 1. Succumbing to the illness himself on June 8, Sweeney was subsequently charged with poisoning the trio with arsenic. Despite evidence from the surviving Broadnax, who claimed she had seen Sweeney put powder in their morning coffees, as non-whites were prohibited from testifying in Virginian courts Sweeney was acquitted.