Oct 4, 2026 · 16 min · 9 segments
Hey everyone, welcome back to Pretty Creepy. On today's episode, we'll be talking about the most infamous serial killers from Alabama, Alaska, and Arizona. I'll be making my way, alphabetically…
Nanny Doss, born Nancy Hazel, in 1905, was an American serial killer who operated completely undetected for nearly three decades under the guise of a sweet, traditional homemaker.
Dubbed by the press as the Giggling Granny and the Lonely Hearts Killer, Doss took the lives of at least 11 people between 1927 and 1954. spanning multiple states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
What makes her case so chilling is that her victim pool was comprised entirely of her own family members.
Her body count included four of five of her husbands, her mother, her sister, her mother-in-law, two of her own children, and two of her grandsons.
Her primary method of execution was highly calculated and agonizingly slow.
She regularly mixed arsenic and commercial rat poison into the food and drink she served her loved ones, often using prunes or a freshly brewed pot of coffee to mask the taste.
While Doss did financially benefit from some of her victims' life insurance policies, her primary motive was rooted in a deeply warped psychological obsession.
Having grown up under a highly abusive father, Doss spent her life reading romance magazines and looking for the ideal mate.
Whenever a husband turned out to be less than perfect or a relative became a caretaking burden, she simply poisoned them so she could move on to her next romantic pursuit via Lonely Hearts newspaper columns.
Nanny's decades-long murder spree finally came to an end in late 1954 after the sudden death of her fifth husband, Samuel Doss.
A suspicious doctor ordered an autopsy that revealed Samuel's body contained enough arsenic to kill a horse.
Upon her arrest, Doss famously shocked police investigators by smiling, chuckling, and giggling as she casually confessed to her horrific crimes, giving her the infamous name Giggling Granny.
She also bargained for her full confession just to keep one of her favorite romance magazines.
Dawes pleaded guilty in 1955 and was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, avoiding the death penalty due to being judged insane before dying of leukemia behind bars in 1965.
Okay, so she has so many victims and I found all of them and how she murdered them.
So let's go through her victims.
Husband number one, Charlie Braggs.
He actually managed to survive by fleeing the marriage.
He grew terrified of Nanny after two of their children suddenly died, noticing she only smiled when they were in pain.
Husband number two, Frank Harrelson.
Nanny laced his evening jar of moonshine with rat poison after a particularly bad drunken argument.
He died in agony a few hours later.
Husband number three, Arlie Lanning.
An abusive alcoholic, Arlie died of what doctors assumed was heart failure.
Nanny Doss, born Nancy Hazel, in 1905, was an American serial killer who operated completely undetected for nearly three decades under the guise of a sweet, traditional homemaker.
Dubbed by the press as the Giggling Granny and the Lonely Hearts Killer, Doss took the lives of at least 11 people between 1927 and 1954. spanning multiple states, including Alabama, North Carolina, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
What makes her case so chilling is that her victim pool was comprised entirely of her own family members.
Her body count included four of five of her husbands, her mother, her sister, her mother-in-law, two of her own children, and two of her grandsons.
Her primary method of execution was highly calculated and agonizingly slow.
She regularly mixed arsenic and commercial rat poison into the food and drink she served her loved ones, often using prunes or a freshly brewed pot of coffee to mask the taste.
While Doss did financially benefit from some of her victims' life insurance policies, her primary motive was rooted in a deeply warped psychological obsession.
Having grown up under a highly abusive father, Doss spent her life reading romance magazines and looking for the ideal mate.
Whenever a husband turned out to be less than perfect or a relative became a caretaking burden, she simply poisoned them so she could move on to her next romantic pursuit via Lonely Hearts newspaper columns.
Nanny's decades-long murder spree finally came to an end in late 1954 after the sudden death of her fifth husband, Samuel Doss.
A suspicious doctor ordered an autopsy that revealed Samuel's body contained enough arsenic to kill a horse.
Upon her arrest, Doss famously shocked police investigators by smiling, chuckling, and giggling as she casually confessed to her horrific crimes, giving her the infamous name Giggling Granny.
She also bargained for her full confession just to keep one of her favorite romance magazines.
Dawes pleaded guilty in 1955 and was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, avoiding the death penalty due to being judged insane before dying of leukemia behind bars in 1965.
Okay, so she has so many victims and I found all of them and how she murdered them.
So let's go through her victims.
Husband number one, Charlie Braggs.
He actually managed to survive by fleeing the marriage.
He grew terrified of Nanny after two of their children suddenly died, noticing she only smiled when they were in pain.
Husband number two, Frank Harrelson.
Nanny laced his evening jar of moonshine with rat poison after a particularly bad drunken argument.
He died in agony a few hours later.
Husband number three, Arlie Lanning.
An abusive alcoholic, Arlie died of what doctors assumed was heart failure.
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