On this latest episode of Minnesota’s Most Notorious: Where Blood Runs Cold, I speak with Matt Cecil about one of the most infamous murder cases in Minnesota history. In 1859, Ann Bilansky’s alcoholic husband, Stanislaus, passed away in his bed in the family’s St. Paul saloon/home. At first it was believed he had died of an unspecified illness, but when the Bilanskys’ neighbor, Lucinda Fitzpatrick, came forward with shocking news — she had accompanied Ann to buy arsenic not long before — suspicions suddenly turned to murder.
Matt Cecil is an accomplished author and J. Edgar Hoover expert who wrote about the Ann Bilansky murder case decades ago for Minnesota History magazine. He joins me to talk about this sensational case and the only woman ever executed in Minnesota.
Read the full article here: https://storage.googleapis.com/mnhs-org-support/mn_history_articles/55/v55i08p350-363.pdf
More information on the author’s books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Matthew-Cecil/author/B00I4BYFRQ