19th Century American Female Serial Killers
- Feb 12, 2014 3 John Rulloff. Arguably one of America s most bizarre serial killers, John Rulloff was known as the learned murderer in his day. According to him.
- Female serial killers: how and why women become monsters. by. peter vronsky.
- Little is known about Estonian mother and daughter Ivanova and Olga Tamarin, but the ladies appear to be bandits and serial killers with cannibalistic tendencies.
- TRUE CRIME BOOKS, SERIAL KILLERS SERIAL KILLERS: Serial Killers are individuals who have a history of multiple slayings of victims who were usually.
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It feels weird, in a way, to deal with female serial killers. The type of crime spree that inspires mass murder usually feels like the work of a deranged man, and a majority of the most notorious serial killers of the 20th century have been male: Ted Bundy, Zodiac, John Wayne Gacy. Statistically speaking, serial killers are usually white men in their 20s or 30s who come from lower- or middle-class backgrounds. Yet there are outliers, and it s impossible to ignore the fact that more than a few women have defied those stats and gone on horrific killing streaks. Their crimes bring with them an added level of shock: surely, people think, a woman couldn t have done this. But they did, and they have, and they will. These are the most infamous female serial killers:
Lavinia Fisher: Lavinia Fisher has the dubious distinction of being the first female serial killer in the United States, or at least the first one to grip to the public consciousness and earn the title. Her killings were so long ago, though she was born c. 1792 and died in 1820 that records about her youth and origin are lost. She and her husband owned and operated a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 19th century, and they gained notoriety when men started disappearing. Rumors about their methods have grown with time, tossing in details like trap doors and elaborate murders, but the most likely truth is that she would poison male guests, her husband would return later in the night to finish them off, and they d keep whatever cash or goods the guest had. She and her hsuband were hanged, though reports were that she jumped from the gallows in a technical suicide rather than let the executioner kill her. An appropriately gruesome end.
Aileen Wuornos: It would be impossible to talk about female serial killers without discussing Aileen Wuornos pictured above, a Florida-based killer and prostitute who murdered seven johns in 1989-1990 and whose actions were later chronicled in documentaries and feature films. She had a phenomenally rotten childhood: she was allegedly beaten and raped, and she conceived at 13 after a stranger assaulted her, and she subsequently gave birth and had the baby placed up for adoption. She started turning tricks at 15, when she was kicked out of her house. Her tragic life pretty much spiraled after that. After small crimes and arrests, she kept working the roads as a prostitute, killing her first john, 51-year-old Richard Mallory, in November 1989 in what she would later claim was self-defense. She killed several more men, and she was eventually caught after getting in a minor accident while driving one of her victim s cars. She was executed in October 2002.
Belle Gunness: Belle Gunness was a strong and brutal woman who tallied more than 40 victims in her day. Born in Norway in 1859, she emigrated to the U.S. and married and settled in Chicago. Her husband and some of her children died under sad and mysterious circumstances, and when she began dating again, her suitors wealthy men drawn in by her charms started disappearing. She had a hired hand named Ray Lamphere who did some dirty work for her, though she eventually turned him out and even managed to turn authorities onto him as a possible threat. Despite her habit of killing men, she managed to have the final laugh. In April 1908, her home went up in flames, and investigators found the bodies of her children next to a headless corpse under the wreckage. However, the dimensions of the headless body didn t match Gunness actual figure, and she was declared missing. Authorities started digging up her land and turning up plenty of corpses.
Jane Toppan: In 1901-02, after she was in custody, Jane Toppan confessed to dozens of murders. She was extremely dangerous and more than a little unhinged: she would spend the rest of her life at Taunton State Hospital, dying in 1938 at the age of 81. Toppan grew up in an orphanage and then as a servant. Her killing spree started in 1885, when she was training to be a nurse. She took to experimenting with patients, using different combinations of medicines and chemicals to tweak their nervous systems and slide them between life and death. She also later admitted to being aroused by the process of killing. Toppan got away with her deeds for a while, especially when she entered private practice, after which she started racking up more victims by killing her landlords and later her foster sister. After killing an elderly man named Alden Davis and two of his daughters, the Davis family requested a toxicology investigation, which turned up traces of the poison Toppan had used. She was eventually charged with multiple murders, but she was found not guilty and declared insane.
Velma Barfield: Velma Barfield has another claim to infamy besides being a serial killer: she was the first woman to be executed in the U.S. after the death penalty was reinstituted in 1977. She was put to death for the murder of Stuart Taylor, her boyfriend; she d been using his checking account to forge checks and buy prescription pills, and she poisoned his beer to knock him off, though she played at nursing him back to health for a few days. She was caught when an autopsy turned up traces of arsenic. She also confessed to killing her mother in the same manner. All told, she killed five people, but she spent so much time on death row that she found religion and became a devout Christian. Weird but true.
Amelia Dyer: In addition to having what is possibly the creepiest photo on Wikipedia, Amelia Dyer s also infamous for killing hundreds of victims. That s right, hundreds. The truly gruesome part is that her victims were infants. Dyer, born in England in 1838, earned her money in the baby farming system, taking in children whose mothers couldn t afford to feed or raise them and nursing them in exchange for a fee. Babies were killed through neglect and starvation, though many were murdered more quickly in order to allow for greater turnover and higher profits. Dyer was trafficking in pure evil. She even dodged the bullet once after investigators started checking out the number of deaths on her watch; she only did time for neglect. She was eventually found out by police, and though she was only convicted of one murder, it was clear from the pattern of disappearances and the evidence in her home that she d been doing this for years.
Nannie Doss: Nannie Doss was a lethal wife: all told, she murdered four husbands and a boatload of other relatives, including her sisters, two of her kids, and her own mother. She killed her second husband by poisoning his whiskey the day after he raped her. After her third husband died, his house mysteriously burned down, and the insurance money went to Doss. Her fourth marriage was a two-fer: she murdered her mother when the elderly woman came to live with her, and then she killed her husband a few months later. It wasn t until her fifth and final husband died that Doss was caught. After he was briefly hospitalized for a digestive tract issue, Doss poisoned him to collect the life insurance. The man s sudden death after being released tipped the doctors off to foul play, and sure enough, they found arsenic in the man s body. Doss confessed to the raft of murders but, because she was a woman, wasn t put to death. She died in prison in 1965, at age 59.
Bertha Gifford: Bertha Gifford s story is another one built on poison and infidelity. Born around 1876, Gifford lived in Misssouri and garnered a reputation for her desire to care for sick friends and family, many of whom subsequently died. Enough of them died before their time to arouse suspicion, and Gifford was eventually arrested for murder. An exhumation of several bodies led to the discovery of arsenic in the corpses, and Gifford s game was over. Like all serial killers, regardless of gender, Gifford was deliberate and wide-ranging, and she murdered almost two dozen people. She was found not guilty thanks to an insanity plea, and she spent the rest of her life in a mental hospital.
Jeanne Weber: Although she only lived to 36 and she died by her own hand in prison Jeanne Weber was a notorious killer at the turn of the 20th century. She started her killing spree by murdering her sister s children, killing an 18-month-old girl and her 2-year-old sister in rapid succession. Doctors declared the deaths accidental. She was also to play on her gender and the public s willingness to forgive a distraught woman for heinous crimes: although she was found trying to choke her nephew, she was acquitted when the defense said she was grief-stricken over the death of her own child. A death she actually caused. She was eventually charged with murder and sentenced to imprisonment in an asylum in 1908. Two years later, she hanged herself in her cell. No one was ever able to diagnose the mix of hate and insanity that had plagued her.
Dorothea Puente: The cold and calculating manner with which Sacramento s Dorothea Puente dispatched her victims is enough to turn anyone s stomach. After several marriages, Puente started committing fraud in the 1960s by dating older men and cashing their benefit checks. She did time for the deed, but it didn t dissuade her at all. In the 1980s, Puente ran a boarding house for the elderly and collected their mail, after which she would cash the checks of her tenants and pay them out in a smaller stipend. Tenants started dying and disappearing, as well; in fall 1985, Puente had a handyman dump a box she said was filled with junk near a river; when a fisherman reported the curious item, cops opened it up and found the remains of an old man. Another missing tenant led police to investigate Puente s facility. The short version: she d been killing tenants and burying them out back. Puente was sentenced to life in prison, and she always maintained that her tenants had died of natural causes. Despite the fact that there s nothing natural about burying them in a yard. She died in March 2011 at age 82.
11 Terrifying Female Serial Killers You ve Never Heard Of. They might be less common, but they re no less scary.
Early life. Holmes was born as Herman Webster Mudgett in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, on May 16, 1861, to Levi Horton Mudgett and Theodate Page.
There are at least 95 known Female Serial Killers of 19th
century America.
1816 – Rachel Clark – Carlisle, Pennsylvania
1829 – Martha Patty Cannon – Maryland/Delaware state line
1831 – Deerfield Slave Female Serial Killer – Caroline, Virginia
1840 – Kinney, Hannah Hanson – Boston Lowell,
Massachusetts
1845 – Mrs. Elizabeth Reed – Lawrenceville, Illinois
1847 – Mary Runkle – Whitesboro, Oneida County, New York
1851 – Nancy Farrer – Cincinnati, Ohio
1852 – Nancy Hufford – Cumberland, Md., Somerset, Pa.
1853 – Charlotte slave of Lafargue – Avoyelles, Louisiana
1854 – Pamela Myers alias Snyder – Nicetown, Philadelphia, Pa.
1855 – Clarissa – Yorkville, South Carolina
1857 – Polly Frisch Hoag – Alabama, Genessee
County, New York
1857 – Elizabeth Routt – Hazel Green, Tennessee
1858 – Lydia Studley – Valley Falls, Rhode Island
1858
– Phebe Westlake nee Irwin – Chester, New York
1860 – Mary Jane Bricktop Jackson – New Orleans,
Louisiana
1860 – Elizabeth P. McCraney – Lancaster, Wisconsin;
Medford, Otsego, N. Y.
1865 – Martha Grinder – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1867 – Margaret Grant – Westfield, Staten Island, New York
1868 – Mary Bowsher – Upper Sandusky, Ohio
1869 – Gardiner, Maine Black Widow Serial Killer –
Gardiner, Maine
1869 – Mrs. Wahle – Jacksonville, Illinois
1869 – Mrs. White – Lafayette Township, Sussex County, New
Jersey
1870 – Virginia Doyle – Detroit Michigan
1871 – Catherine Batchelor – Lockport, Indiana
1871 – Julia Calahan – East Cambridge, Massachusetts
1871 – Lydia Sherman – New Brunswick, New Jersey; New Haven
Danby, Ct.
1871 – Elizabeth Wharton – Baltimore, Maryland
1872 – Charlotte Lamb – Trimbelle, Wisconsin
1872 – Emily Lloyd – Leesburg, Virginia
1872 – Martha Whetstone – St. Louis, Missouri
1873 – Kate Katie Bender Bloody
Benders – Cherry Vale, Kansas
1873 – Sarah Earhardt – Germantown, Ohio
1873 – Mrs. York – Moweaqua, Illinois discredited
1874 – Winchester Female Serial Killer – Winchester,
Kentucky
1875 – Julia Fortemeyer – St. Louis, Missouri
1875 – Mary Reignolds – Holliston, Massachusetts child
care provider
1875 – Minnie Taylor – Humboldt, Tennessee
1875 – Wilhelmina Weick – Buffalo, New York
1876 – Margaret McClosky – New York, New York child care
provider
1877 – Agnes Parr – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania child care
1877 – Rozilla Worcester
– New York, New York child care provider
1878– Mrs. David Drake – Westfield, Massachusetts
1878– Sallie Hardman Gibbs – Enon, Ohio
1879 – Alice Danbrough – Lebanon, Illinois
1879 –
Frances Shrouder – Chittenango, New York
1881 – Nellie Webb Nancy French – Lancaster, New
Hampshire
1882 – Sally Story – Little Falls, New Jersey
1882 – Phyllis Wright – Savanna, Georgia
1883 – Mary Ganole aka Milly Walker – Flemingsburg,
1883 – Annie Piard – Philadephia, Pennsylvania
1883
– Emma Stillwell – Waterford, Ohio
1884 – Angenette B. S. Haight – Morrisville, New York
1884 – Nettie Hoxan – Whitewater, Wisconsin
1884 – Miss S. S. Nivison – Hammonton, New Jersey child
1884 – Mary Josephine Ward – New York, New York child care provider
1885 – Mary Kleman – Dubuque, Iowa
1886 – Sarah J. Dockery – Fulton, Kentucky
1886 – Mary Hart – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1886 – Harriet Nason – Rutland, Vermont
1886 – Sarah Jane Robinson – Somerville, Massachusetts
1886 – Eliza Wood – Jackson, Tennessee
1887 – Kate
Kit Kelly Kelly Family – No Man s Land, Kansas
1887 – Cynthia McDonald – Rochester, New York child care
1887 – Annie Snoots – Adamsville, Ohio
1888 – Mrs. Johnston – Villea, Iowa
1888 – Sarah Whiteling – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1889 – Lizzie Brennan – Holyoke, Massachusetts
1889
– Mary Glynn – Pittston, Pennsylvania
1889 – Jennie Seiffert – St. Louis, Missouri child care
1889 – Annie Zachoegner – Pittsburg, Pennsylvania
1890 – Charles Catherine Claus – Long Island, New
York child care provider
1890 – Julia Higbee – Meade County, Kentucky
1891 – Evelyn Abbott – Roxbury, Massachusetts child care
1891 – Mrs. Thomas Austin – Louisville, Kentucky
1891 – Mrs. John Dorsey – Indianapolis, Indiana
1891 – Elizabeth Dutton alias Howell – Wellsboro, Pennsylvania
1891 – Mrs. Caroline D. Sorgenfrie – Rome, N.Y.
1892 – Mary Ann Armagost – David City, Nebraska
1892 – Annie Hanson –
Chicago, Illinois child care provider
1893
– Lizzie Halliday – Burlingham, New York
1892 – Ella Holdridge – Tonawanda, New York – age 14 at time
of apprehension
– Mrs. D. H. Meyer – Illinois, Indiana, New York Ohio
1893 – Belinda Laphame – San Francisco, Ca.
1893– Annie Wagner – Indianapolis, Indiana
1893– Mattie C. Shann – Princeton, New Jersey
1894 – Mrs. Julian Butler – Hamburg, Michigan
1894 – Mary Cowan – Dixmont, Maine
1894 – Katharine Elizabeth Nolan – Waterford, New York
1896 – Celia Rose – Newville, Pleasant Valley, Ohio, USA 3 deaths, 2 events
1897 – Jennie Layton Mary Sammon – Camden, New Jersey
1897 – Nancy Staffleback – Galena, Kansas
1898 – Jane Morris – New York, New York
1899 – Lulu Johnson –
Enid, Oklahoma Territory
Normally, I do not list cases in which there are not 3 or
more separate murders or attempts. There are, however, some exceptions:
youthful killers and Black Widows with 2 victims. Here are examples of these:
1846 – Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh – Fulton, New York 2
husbands murdered
1868 – Nancy Lyman – Jordanville, Herkeimer Cty., New York 2
1874 – Mrs. Pleasant – Fort Laramie, Wyoming 2 husbands
murdered
1881 – Bronco Lou Mrs. Yankers – Southern Colorado 2
1888 – Martha Johnson – Stafford, Connecticut 2 husbands
1892 – Kate Painter – Pittsburg, Pennsylvania 2 husbands
1895 – Mary E. Hughson – Muskogee, Michigan 2 husbands
1896 – Fanny Scovell Scofield – Oswego, New York aged 13; 2
murders
1898 – Mrs. Camfield – Cataldo, Idaho 2 husbands murdered
1899 – Bertha Lankford – Houston, Texas 2 husbands murdered
4 DISCREDITED LEGENDS 19th c : Rebecca Cotton,
South Carolina, 1790s actual person, murders are a legend ; Lavinia Fisher,
1793-1820, Charleston, SC actual criminal who was executed, but serial
killings committed by her seem to be a legend ; Delphine Marie LaLaurie
actual person, but serial murders are undocumented, Louisiana; Sally Skull,
1860s, Texas unverified legend that she was a serial killer
Peter Vronsky s list, published in 2007, containing 140 female serial
killer cases, lists only five 19th century US cases: Bender, Cannon,
Jackson, Robinson and Sherman. I have not included Rachel Wall, the
piratess executed in Massachusetts in 1789, on my list, as it is
uncertain what her role might have been in the 24 murders attributed to
the crew with which she was associated.
The following article from 1873 demonstrates that the
current widely-held belief that serial killers of the female sex are an anomaly
was not held back then. Nor was that belief held in the 1920s either Three Women Who Admit Poisoning 29 Persons, May 1, 1925. The myth of female
killers being rare, in comparison with males, and related myths that serial
killers are primarily Caucasians or that they are rare outside North America
are of fairly recent origin 1980s.
FULL
TEXT: Another female poisoner has been brought to justice. Recently, at
Germantown, Ohio, public attention was attracted to the simultaneous poisoning
by arsenic of three members of a family named Hanna, while visiting the house
of a kinswoman, one Sarah Earhardt. Fortunately the amount administered to each
of the intended victims proved insufficient to cause death. Upon investigation
evidence was produced, if correct, proving the woman Earlhardt to be as great a
monster as either Lydia Sherman, Jane Ann Cotton or Mrs. Grinder. She is now in
custody on a charge of having attempted to take the lives of the three Hannas,
and it is to be the intention of the State prosecuting counsel to introduce
testimony at the trial to show that she has poisoned her husband, her son s
wife, her son-in-law s child, and her husband s first wife, all within a few
years. Minor crimes, such its the poisoning of juvenile animals and the burning
of numerous houses, are also said to be among the number of her achievements.
By the death of the Hannas she would have come into possession of a
considerable amount of property. The most extraordinary circumstance in
connection with this case is that the woman is upward of seventy years of age.
Another
Female Poisoner. The Bloomfield Times New Bloomfield, Pa., Jun. 10, 1873, p. 4
MYTHS MISTAKEN NUMBERS
A commonly cited statistic is that 16 of known serial
murderers in the United States from 1800 and 1995 are female The total number
of female serial killers known to the criminologist who proposed this ratio was
62 Hickey, 2002; 213. As you can see, the count on this website at present
of known female serial killer cases before
1900 is currently 65, the vast majority of which are unknown to even
specialized scholars.
It is also been claimed by criminologists that
three-quarters of female serial killers in the US made their appearance since
1950, and that a full half only since 1975. Hickey, 2002; 215. Thus it is
often stated that the phenomenon is increasing at an extraordinary rate. Yet,
the fact is that today s criminologists are relying upon the scanty, incomplete
research done by earlier generations of crime historians – without taking into
account the fact that the subject female serial killers of the past before the
1970s have never been systematically and thoroughly researched by scholars.
A great many false assumptions about incidence of such cases
and about larger questions of female psychopathology and criminality are
challenged by the new research on female serial killers that is presented on
this website.
Regarding Wikipedia and the rarity claim:
The Wikipedia page titled Serial killer accessed Jan. 20,
2014 states: Female serial killers are rare compared to their male
counterparts.
The Wikipedia list page titled Category: Female Serial
Killers accessed Jan. 20, 2014 contains links to a total of only 54 cases.
Like Farrell and her colleagues, we used the mass media approach to study female serial killers. We found the internet site Murderpedia.org to be a valuable.
TRUE CRIME BOOKS, SERIAL KILLERS NEW AND NOTEWORTHY TRUE CRIME BOOKS: If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.
