Lê Thanh Vân: Vietnam's Deadliest Woman Finally Caught [Crime Documentary

October 26th, 2005. A woman is led to an execution ground in southern Vietnam. She curses, struggles, and begs to see the sky one last time. Her request is denied. Minutes later, she is dead.
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Her name was Lê Thanh Vân — but to the Vietnamese public, she was known as "The Cyanide Witch," the country's first officially prosecuted female serial killer.
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Between 1998 and 2001, Vân poisoned at least 13 people with cyanide, including her own mother-in-law, her brother-in-law, her employer's mother, and complete strangers she had just met. She didn't kill out of passion or revenge — she killed for money. A few hundred dollars. A motorbike. A piece of land. To her, human life had a price tag.
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She disguised herself as a dentist, a caregiver, and a helpful friend. She entered people's homes, shared meals with them, and offered them tea, lemonade, or soup — all laced with poison. Within minutes, her victims collapsed. Most died in hospitals, misdiagnosed as heart attacks or strokes. No one suspected the quiet woman sitting beside them.
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Even when police arrested her in 2000 with cyanide in her bag, they couldn't prove she had used it. Forensic labs were outdated. Evidence was weak. So they released her on bail — and within weeks, she killed again.
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By the time investigators finally connected the deaths across multiple provinces, at least 13 people were already dead. Some believe the real number could be as high as 20.
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This documentary reveals the full story: her disturbing childhood, her criminal past, the murders one by one, the investigation that almost failed, the trial that shocked Vietnam, and her final moments before execution.

How did she get away with it for so long? Why did the system fail to stop her? And what made a seemingly ordinary woman into one of Asia's most prolific poisoners?
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This is the true story of Lê Thanh Vân — The Cyanide Witch.
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