| Baba Anujka | |
 Baba Anujka during the trial | |
| Birth: | 1 July 1838 Malovăț, Mehedinți, Romania |
| Death: | 1 September 1938 Vladimirovac, Banat, Yugoslavia (now Serbia) |
| Age: | 100 years, 62 days |
| Country: |  ROU SRB
|
| Centenarian | |
Ana di Pištonja (née Drakšin) better known as Baba Anujka (Serbian Cyrillic: Баба Анујка; 1 July 1838 – 1 September 1938) was a Serbo-Romanian serial killer amateur chemist from tghe village of Vladimirovac, which was during her life part of the Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungary and eventually Yugoslavia. She was apprehended in 1928 at age 90 and sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1929 as an accomplice in two murders. She was released due to old age after spending eight years in prison. She was released at the age of 98, and died in her home two years later at the age of 100, making her the oldest serial killer ever at that time.
Life[]
Early Life[]
She was born in 1838 in Romania (which at the time was actually the Principality of Wallachia, the Principality of Moldavia, and might also be referring to some other areas then in the Austrian Empire) to a rich cattleman and moved to Vladimirovac in the Banat Military Frontier province of the Austrian Empire around 1849. However, she claimed that she was born in 1836. She attended private school in Pančevo with children from rich families, and later lived in her father's house. She allegedly became a misanthropist at age 20 after being seduced by a young Austrian military officer; she contracted syphilis from him before he left her broken-hearted. After that, she sought seclusion and started to show interest in medicine and chemistry. She spoke five languages. She later married a landowner named Pistov or di Pištonja with whom she had 11 children, only one of whom survived to adulthood. Her husband was much older than her, and died after 20 years of marriage.
Anujka made a laboratory in one wing of her house after her husband died, and she earned a reputation as a healer and herbalist in the late 19th century. She was popular with wives of farmers who sought her help for health problems, and she earned a respectable income which enabled her to live comfortably.
Anujka sold her "magic water" to Stana Momirov in January 1924 for 2,300 dinars. Stana gave the mixture to her husband Lazar Ludoški, and he fell ill and died after a few days.[2][10] Stana later married another man from the same village. A rich uncle of her second husband died under similar circumstances within a few months. The police questioned Stana, and she incriminated Anujka.
Anujka then sold her magic water in December 1926, who intended to kill Sima's 70-year-old father, Nikola Momirov. Their motive involved a family quarrel. According to their claim, Nikola was an alcoholic and abusive towards his children and grandchildren. Sofija heard about Anujka from a woman named Danica Stojić (or Stajić), and they contacted Anujka who sold them her magic water for 5,000 dinars. Sofija gave it to 16-year-old Olga Sturza, Nikola's granddaughter, and ordered her to ensure that Nikola drank it. Nikola drank the potion, fell ill, and died after 15 days, and she also sold poisonous mixtures which she branded "magic water" or "love potions". She sold the so-called "magic water" mostly to married women; they would give the concoction to their husbands, who would usually die after about eight days.
Later Life[]
Anujka's "love potion" contained arsenic in small quantities and certain plant toxins that were difficult to detect. When told about a marriage problem, Anujka would ask her client, "How heavy is that problem?", which meant, "What is the body mass of the victim?" She was then able to calculate the dose needed. Anujka's victims were usually men, typically young and healthy. Her clients claimed at her trial that they did not know that her "magic water" contained poison, but that they believed that she had some kind of supernatural powers to kill people using magic. Anujka's potions killed between 50 and 150 people at the time.
In the 1920s, Anujka had her own "sales agent", a woman named Ljubina Milankov, whose job was to find potential clients and take them to Anujka's house. The price of Anujka's "magic water" fluctuated between 2,000 and 10,000 Yugoslav dinars.
Anujka died at the age of 100 in 1938, being the oldest criminal.