Alice Kyteler was born in 1263 in County Kilkenny, Ireland to a family of Flemish merchants. She was the first person in Ireland recorded to be accused and tried for witchcraft and her case set a precedent for the future persecutions of supposed witches in the country, who continued to be executed by burning until 1895.

Kyteler was married to four different men over the course of her life, all of whom died prematurely. The first was William Outlaw, a merchant and moneylender, followed by Adam Blund, another moneylender, and then Richard de Valle, a landholder in County Tipperary. Her fourth and final husband was John Le Poer, a man who would ultimately accuse her of poisoning him in 1324 after he grew ill, losing his hair and nails right before his untimely death.

Le Poer was not the first person to accuse Kyteler of a deadly crime, as she and her second husband were accused of killing William Outlaw, her first husband in 1302. The case was brief and ended without punishment, and Le Poer had even later defended his wife against this accusation before falling ill himself. In 1324, after his death, Le Poer’s children as well as children from her previous marriages came together to accuse Kyteler of witchcraft and poisoning.

There were seven formal accusations brought up by the accusers. These included the denial of God and the Church (and therefore the worship of the devil), sacrificing animals to multiple demons, asking said demons for advice concerning the practice of witchcraft, engaging in sexual acts with an incubus, having coven meetings, making potions and ointments using unusual ingredients such as chicken innards and unbaptized children, and finally using witchcraft to kill her four husbands.

The most serious of the accusations against Kyteler was not the murders themselves, but the alleged witchcraft undertaken. In 14th century Ireland, witchcraft was under the umbrella of heresy, a crime just as despised as murder. Records show that over half of the people accused of murder around the time of Kyteler’s trial were acquitted. This could be why her accusers focused on her potential witchcraft instead, as it was more likely to get her convicted than a series of non-supernatural murders.

Le Poer had previously imprisoned the Bishop of Ossory, Richard Ledrede, a man who had tried to arrest Kyteler in the 1302 accusations. After Le Poer’s death Ledrede was once again determined to have Kyteler arrested for her alleged crimes. Ledrede contacted the Chancellor of Ireland demanding that she be arrested, not knowing that Kyteler had familial relations to the leader, who allowed Kyteler to escape as he delayed the trial.

Although Kyteler herself had fled the town of her trial, Ledrede was determined to solve the case. After six months, a maidservant of Kyteler by the name of Petronilla de Meath confessed under torture to using witchcraft in involvement with her employer. Her confession is dubious due to the use of torture, but de Meath was arrested and then flogged and burned at the stake in November of 1324.

Alice Kyteler disappears from the historical record after her escape and is assumed to have fled to England. This leaves many questions about the true nature of her crimes and her possible motives if she really did murder her husbands. It is interesting to note that all of Kyteler’s husbands were quite wealthy and it is known that she received a widow’s dower payment for at least one of these marriages. However, it is also possible that Kyteler had been simply resorting to murder as a way to leave her husbands because divorce was an extremely difficult process to undertake due to the limited reasons accepted as justification in a court of law.