Have you ever wondered about the women who become serial killers?
Unlike male serial killers they tend to kill for financial reasons. We discuss some of the most famous women serial killers, what they did, and whether they got away with it.
Keep reading to find a female serial killer that sparks your interest.
Lavinia Fisher
Lavinia Fisher may be the first female serial killer in the United States. She lived in Charleston, South Carolina between 1792 and 1820. Avinia and her husband ran a hotel which became infamous for the men disappearing in it.
The crimes were the talk of the town and the tales evolved to include trap doors and intricate plots. The truth was more simple though. Lavinia would poison men visiting the hotel and then her husband would steal their money and valuables before finally killing them.
The couple was sentenced to death and executed by hanging.
Aileen Wuornos
Aileen Wuormos was a sex worker in Florida who robbed and killed seven of her Johns in 1989 and 1990.
Aileen had a bad childhood that included rape and physical abuse including having a child after being sexually assaulted at 13. She gave the baby up for adoption.
When Aileem was kicked out of her house at 15 she started her life of prostitution in Florida state. She started committing crimes and getting arrested before killing 51-year-old Richard Mallory in “self-defense” in November 1989. She killed six more men over the course of the next year.
She was caught after getting in an accident in her victim’s car and was sentenced to death row. She received the death penalty by electric chair in October 2002.
Black Widow
The Black Widow was a woman named Judias Buenoano who killed a husband, two boyfriends, and her son. She attempted to kill all four with arsenic poisoning, but only two actually died from it.
In each scenario, she collected life insurance that she used to maintain her lifestyle.
Her son died when they went kayaking. He wore metal braces as a result of the poisoning and the kayak flipped which caused him to drown. Her last boyfriend didn’t die from the attempter murder by poisoning but she created a car bomb that killed him.
Police found materials from the car bomb in her house and charged her with the murder for the car bombing. Judias was convicted of murdering John Gentry and executed by the eclectic chair in the state of Florida in 1998.
Jane Toppan
Jane Toppan was an orphan who grew up to be a servant. She was a nurse that started killing people in 1885. She would experiment on patients to kill them and bring them back to life because it aroused her.
When she started a private practice she was able to start killing people without much attention, but she killed her foster sister and some of her landlords. When she killed three members of the Davis family autopsies found the family were executed by lethal injection of poisons. This led to her arrest.
Like other women serial killers she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and lived her life in Taunton State Hospital. A couple years after being in custody she confessed to numerous murders before spending the next 36 years of her life in the mental hospital.
Belle Gunness
Belle Gunness was born in Norway in 1859 before moving to the U.S. She got married and moved to Chicago. Her children and husband died a mysterious death, but she started dating wealthy men who would disappear
She hired Ray Lamphere to assist her with burying bodies and framed him for the murders. Police realized their mistake when Belle’s house burnt down in April 1908.
Investigators found the bodies of her dead children and a headless corpse that did not match Gunness’ description. Authorities found more corpses when they dug up her property.
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.
Gunness was never found and charged with serial murder because she was declared dead despite the doctor who did the autopsy believing the headless body was a victim because the body was five inches shorter and 50 pounds lighter than Belle’s (anyone who watched Jerry McGuire knows the average human head weighs eight pounds).
Velma Barfield
The first woman put to death after the death penalty was reinstated was serial killer Velma Barfield. She is another of the female serial killers who used arsenic to kill her victims. She killed five people before she was finally caught for the murder of her boyfriend Stuart Taylor.
Velma was using Stuart's checks to buy prescription pills and decided to put arsenic in his beer.
She pretended to nurse him back to health but was continuing to poison him. When he died, an autopsy found trace elements of arsenic.
When questioned she admitted she killed her mother and three other people similarly. She was condemned to death row, but became a devout Christian before being put to death.
Amelia Dyer
Amelia Dyer was born in 1838 England and earned money by taking in infants whose mothers couldn’t raise them.
She would kill the babies using primarily starvation and neglect, but some were murdered in other ways to increase her profits.
Police started investigating the number of deaths under her care and she was arrested for neglect. After getting out of jail, she continued baby farming and was convicted of a single murder charge. The heinous crimes of infanticide were actually committed against hundreds of infants.
Nannie Doss
Nannie Doss murdered her sisters, four husbands, two of her kids, and her mom.
She poisoned her second husband for raping her.
Doss burnt down her third husband’s house to collect insurance after he died.
Doss murdered her mother after her mom moved in with her, and got rid of her husband shortly after.
She poisoned her fifth husband, which caused a hospitalization for digestive problems. Then finish the job shortly after.
Doctors were suspicious and found arsenic during the autopsy.
Doss confessed to all the murders, but avoided the death penalty because she was a woman. At the age of 59 she died in prison.
Bertha Gifford
Bertha Gifford was born in 1876 and lived in Missouri. Gifford would care for her sick family and friends.
The number of people who died young led to a police investigation which found arsenic in the bodies of corpses.
Gifford murdered almost 24 people and was arrested, but spent the rest of her life in the mental hospital because she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. Many serial killers, like Ed Gein, died in mental hospitals after similar pleas.
Jeanne Weber
Jeanne Weber killed her sister’s 18-month old and 2 year-old girls, killed her own child, and chocked her nephew, who survived.
When police realized she was killing kids, she was charged with murder and put in an insane asylum in 1908. At the age of 36 she hunt herself.
Dorothea Puente
Dorothea Puente was married several times before landing in Sacramento. Then Puente started dating older men and cashing their benefit checks, which led to spending time in prison for fraud.
After she got out in the 1980s, Puente start a boarding house for the elderly. She would collect the mail, cash their checks, and give them a small stipend.
In 1985 she started killing tenants and people started noticing they were disappearing.
Police were tipped off when a fisherman called after Puente paid a handyman to build a box similar in size to a coffin and dump it by the river.
Police found a body inside.
After another tenant was reported missing, police searched the house. They found bodies buried in the yard and arrested Dorothea. She was tried and sentenced to murder before dying in prison at the age of 82 in March 2011.
How rare are female serial killers?
One in six serial murderers are women, which makes them under-represented. Despite this, female serial killers have killed between 427 and 612 victims.
Which woman has committed the most homicides?
Amelia Dyer was likely the most prolific female serial killer because she killed hundreds of infants during her years earning money in her baby farming scheme.
Who is the hottest female murderer?
Who is the hottest female murderer?
Based on looking at pictures of female murderers most of them don’t exactly qualify as hot. I’d make the argument that the two that are closest to fitting that description are either Jodi Arias or Casey Anthony (She was found not guilty).
What do you think?
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