Nannie Doss killed eleven people between 1927 and 1954 — four husbands, two daughters, her mother, a sister, two grandchildren, and a mother-in-law — across Alabama, North Carolina, Kansas, and Oklahoma. She was arrested in October 1954 after her fifth husband died unusually fast after being discharged from the hospital. An autopsy found massive amounts of arsenic.

She confessed cheerfully, laughed with reporters, and was described by the press as "the giggling granny." She was convicted of one murder, sentenced to life, and died of leukemia in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in 1965.

She told anyone who asked she was just looking for "the real romance of life."