America’s First Female Serial Killer? – No! Not By a Long Shot

Ever since her arrest in 1986, Aileen Wuornos has been feminism’s favorite serial killer. Under the influence of feminist “helpers,” Aileen’s ever-changing story came to match the standardized feminist narrative. Wuornos, as she embellished her story eventually added a claim that all of the eight men she murdered had in fact been men who had attempted to rape her and that she needed to shoot them all the protect herself. Thus, ignoring the huge number of female serial killers in the United States who preceded her (at least 49 in the 19th century alone), she was dubbed “America’s “first female serial killer.” It was a lie, but few journalists cared. They repeated the falsehood cheerfully.

On June 26, 2012, about 10 years following her execution in Florida, a book was published memorializing Feminism’s most beloved serial killer – with her  own words.

The book is Dear Dawn: Aileen Wuornos in Her Own Words, edited by Lisa Kester and Daphne Gottlieb.

The Huffington Post published an interview. The interviewer, Ariel Gore, regurgitated the fictional “America’s first female serial killer” claim. Here is an excerpt from that interview that offers a glimpse into the feminist version of reality:

Ariel Gore (interviewing author Daphne Gottlieb : “When I first heard news about Aileen Wuornos’ killing spree, I was a young feminist in California, hanging out with a bunch of other young feminists, and Aileen did strike a lot of us as a vigilante hero. … There was something terribly and morbidly refreshing in the news reports that: “two women are being sought as possible suspects in the shooting deaths of eight to twelve middle-aged men in Florida.”

[Source: Ariel Gore, "Autobiography of a Serial Killer:Aileen Wuornos in Her Own Words," Huffington Post, Dec. 17,  2012]

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Not only was Alieen Wuornos not the first, but there were at least 49 known Female Serial Killers in 19th century America.

You can hundreds more in the Index of Female Serial Killers

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Female Serial Killers were not even regarded as “rare” in the early 20^th century. In the year 1925 at least 8 cases were reported in American newspapers.  Three of them (Anna Cunningham, Della Sorenson, Martha Wise) were caught and prosecuted and were pictured and discussed in a single newspaper article. Other 1925 cases include, in the United States, Helen Geisen-Volk, and in other countries, Mrs. Dvoracek (Czechoslovakia), Dinorah Galou (suspected, France), Vera Renczi, (Yugoslavia), Antoinette Scierri (France).

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Some other False “Firsts”:

Each of the following is called, in some sources,  “America’s First Female Serial Killer”:

1820 – Lavinia Fisher – an early date, but research shows that she probably did not commit any murders. She was, however a criminal and was executed. (source for error)

1917 – Amy Archer-Gilligan (source for error)

1908 – Belle Gunness (source for error)

1921 – Lyda Southard (source for error)

1928 – Bertha Gifford (source for error)

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Female serial killers are rare.” What? ? ? ? ? ?

You have been lied to. Who has been lying to you?

Aileen Wuornos, executed in 2002, was not only not America’s first serial killer, but she was not even the first American female serial kill killer to be executed. How about Elizabeth Reed, serial killer, executed in Illinois in 1845?

Start learning some honest history of violence against women and men and girls and boys – the kind the overpriced education industry kept you from knowing – here:

Female Serial Killers Executed

In this list there are 11 female serial killers executed in the united states before the 2002 execution of Aileen Wuornos.

1845 – Elizabeth Reed – Lawrenceville, Illinois – hanged

1866 – Martha Grinder – Pittsburgh, Pa. – hanged

1889 – Sarah Whiteling – Philadelphia, Pa.– hanged

1934 – Anna Marie Hahn – Columbus, Ohio – electric chair, Ohio Penitentiary

1936 – Mary Creighton – Ossining, New York – electric chair, Sing Sing Prison

1947 – Louise Peete – San Quentin, California – gas chamber, San Quentin State Prison

1951 – Martha Beck – Ossining, New York – electric chair, Sing Sing prison

1957 – Rhonda Belle Martin – Montgomery, Alabama – electric chair, Kilby Prison

1984 – Velma Barfield – Raleigh, North Carolina – lethal injection, Central Prison 

1998 – Judias Welty Buenoano – Starke, Florida – electrocuted

2000 – Betty Lou Beets – Huntsville, Texas – executed by lethal drugs, Huntsville Prison

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