Madame Delphine LaLaurie nowadays is famous for the interpretation of Kathy Bates in the tv serie American Horror Story: Coven.

She was famous for torturing slaves and a lot of other sick behaviours, Delphine was born in New Orleans in 1787 from an irish immigrant (Barthelemy McCarthy) and a french woman (Marie-Jeanne). 

Delphine was known to be a beautiful woman and she got married quite early with a spanish official called Don Ramon de Lopez y Angulo, so Delphine became a really influent woman at that time.

After her husband died she married the richest man in the area, a banker: Jean Blanque and she had 4 children from him: Marie Louise Pauline, Louise Marie Laure, Marie Louise Jeanne, and Jeanne Pierre Paulin Blanque but unfortunately mr Blanque died 8 years later.

After that she married another man: dr. Leonard Louis Nicolas LaLaurie, with his name she got famous as Madame LaLaurie, he was about 20 years younger than her.

Delphine purchased a three-story mansion at 1140 Royal Street in the French Quarter, this place will become famous later on. At that time people started to talk about Delphine mistreatments of slaves that seemed to be very cruel.

It's a common opinion that in that time and after 3 marriage gone wrong Madame LaLaurie went really mad, there were rumors about her slaves living in continuous fear for her cruel actions. People said that she enchained a 70 years old cook to the stove, someone said that she sacrified a few slaves for her husband to practice Haitian Vodoo rithes.

One slave preferred jump out of the window than being tortured by Delphine and he died so. After that she cemented the window. Another slave: Lia jumped from the roof because Madame LaLaurie was mad at her because she didn't brush her hair properly. Afterwards Delphine buried her corpse.

When her Mansion went in flames in 1834 the police found the woman chained to the stove and seven other slaves tied with spiked iron collars and badly mutilated. Some of them had their guts out of their bodies and tied to them, something really disgusting.

In that event a mob invaded the LaLaurie's Mansion and Delphine and Leonard took to their carriage and escaped with their Creole coachman, Bastien driving. They traveled to Mobile, Alabama, and then to Paris.

After the people entered the mansion slaves confessed to the police that Delphine was performing medical experiments on them, removing their skin, breaking bones and amputating limbs. The slaves were forced to wear spiked collars, someone got his brain exposed being stirred with a stick, and some had their lips sewn shut after Delphine placed animal feces in their mouth. 

She lived then in Paris a respected life until she died in mysterious situations in 1849 but somebody suspected her to return in New Orleans anonymously.

Some really odd and cruel events are claimed to be true about her: some of her victim had arms amputated and skin peeled off in a circular pattern, making her look like a human caterpillar, someone had sewn her lips shut, a woman got her bones broken to make her fit into a really tiny cage.