83 cases
***
►Sakina Abdel Al – Alexandria, Egypt – with her sister murdered and robbed 17 women; both were executed. (1920)
“I myself have cut the throats of six women,” she began. “My first victim was called Hanem. I leaned over Hanem as if to whisper in her ear. Soon after death had passed.”
“After a throat-cutting or smothering we took off the jewellery and searched for the valuables, which were divided. I had to look sharp to make sure I was not cheated out of my share.”
►Amy Archer-Gilligan – Windsor, Connecticut – She ran an
elder care business and murdered her clients for insurance money. She was
convicted and sentenced to death, but later found insane and institutionalized.
The play, and later movie, “Arsenic and Old Lace” was loosely based on this
case.(1917)
“I will prove my innocence if it takes my last mill. I will
hang before they prove it.” [A mill is monetary unit equaling 1/10 of a cent.]
►Marie Aszendi (Szendi, Eszendi) –
Nagyrev (?), Hungary – murdered her 23-year-old son and 2 husbands (1930)
Marie Aszendi has
been charged with having murdered her son, because he made her look too old. Did you know that
the midwife Susan Fazekas was poisoning your son?” Aszendi who was terrified, wavered and
confessed that she did know, “We cooked a nice supper,” she said, “and put
poison in it. I paid Fezekas ₤2. My son died. It took three doses of poison to
kill my husband. The poison was put in his food.”
►Susan Atkins (Charles Manson “Family”) – Los Angeles,
California (1969)
“We wanted to do a crime that the world would have to stand
up and take notice.”
“You have to have a real love in your heart to do this for
people … I loved her, and in order for me to kill her I was killing part of
myself when I killed her.” (V, 400)
“Wow. What a trip! I thought, ‘To taste death, and yet give
life.’ Have you ever tasted blood? It’s warm and sticky and nice.” (V, 400)
“They didn't even look like people... I didn't relate to Sharon Tate as being anything but a store mannequin... [Tate] sounded just like an IBM machine... She kept begging and pleading and pleading and begging [for the life of her unborn child], and I got sick of listening to her, so I stabbed her.”
►Babita – Gurgaon, India – (2008)
Deputy Commissioner of Police Jagdish Nagar said the accused admitted to have killed 6-year-old Sunny on October 10 as she couldn’t “bear the hue and cry the boy would made.” However, she said she didn’t kill the other children.
“They didn't even look like people... I didn't relate to Sharon Tate as being anything but a store mannequin... [Tate] sounded just like an IBM machine... She kept begging and pleading and pleading and begging [for the life of her unborn child], and I got sick of listening to her, so I stabbed her.”
►Babita – Gurgaon, India – (2008)
Deputy Commissioner of Police Jagdish Nagar said the accused admitted to have killed 6-year-old Sunny on October 10 as she couldn’t “bear the hue and cry the boy would made.” However, she said she didn’t kill the other children.
►Velma Barfield – Fayetteville, North Carolina – Murdered at least five
persons (1978)
[Velma] was cross-examined during her trial and accused of
murdering Dollie: “You made Mrs. Edwards sick with Singletary’s rat poison did
you not?” Velma arrogantly snapped back, “No, I thought it was roach and ant
poison.” (V, 213)
Barfield, describing her preparation to murder her mother: “While I waited for my prescription at the drugstore, I walked around and looked at things. I saw some ant and roach poison in a clear plastic bottle. I don’t remember thinking about what I would do next. But somewhere inside me, I must have already conceived of the plan. I had done it once, even though I had blotted it out of my memory.” (V, 208)
►Clementine Barnabet –
Lafayette, Louisiana – convicted of 17 murders, victims were “horribly mutilated” (1912)
“I killed them all, men,
women and babies, and I hugged the babies to my breast. But I am not guilty of
murder.”
►Marie Becker – Liege, Belgium – murdered husband, a
paramour and 9 elderly women friends (1938)
One of her victims, she said,
“looked like an angel choked with sauerkraut.” Another she described as “dying
beautifully, lying flat on her back.” (N, 23)
“I like hurting people.”
“Brian Howe had no mother, so he won’t be missed.”
“If I was a judge and I had an eleven-year-old who’d done this, I’d give
her eighteen months. Murder isn’t that bad, we all die sometime anyway.”
Norma, Mary's 13-year-old best friend, who took part in the second murder, stated that Mary told her: “I squeezed his neck and
pushed up his lungs that’s how you kill them. Keep your nose dry and don’t tell
anybody.”
“Oh, I know he’s dead, I wanted to see him in his coffin,”
Mary said to the mother of the child she murdered.
►Marie Besnard – Paris, France – Known as “Queen of Poisoners” and has having committed “the perfect crime.” She is suspected of having murdered 12 persons. (1949)
Judge: “Some people call you vicious and a liar. Other
testimony shows you were a decent, well-behaved woman without blame. What have
you to say?” he asked. The widow replied: “I’m not a solid piece of gold.”
“If you would gain a throne and hold it, fear not to make of human
skulls thy stepping stones.”
“As a woman dealing with men, let dissimulation be thy watch-word. Let
no man know thy secret thoughts and ambitions.”
“If another woman stand in thy way, take her to thy bosom; if a man,
beguile and marry him.”
►Debra Denise Brown – 6 states in the USA – with Alton
Coleman; 8 murders (including 3 children aged 7, 9 and 15), 7 rapes, 3
kidnappings, and 14 armed robberies in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois (1984)
“I killed the b****. I don’t give a damn. I had fun out of
it.” referring to the murder of Marlene Walters, 44, of Norwood, Ohio
►Cynthia Buffom – Little Valley, N.Y. – killed husband, 2
children, crippled another (1913)
“I loved Ernest
Frahm so much more than I did my husband that I would have done anything,
everything for him. He told me to kill my husband and poison my children. I did
what he told me to do — but it was he, he, he who made me do it.”
“Ernest said he wanted to marry me, and he wanted Willis out
of the way. We talked it over. Norris was dead, and Earnest thought we should
get Willis out of the way as soon as possible. He said to me: ‘I suppose I
could catch him out in the dark some
night and put a bullet in his head, but you know an easier way.’ I knew he
meant the poison.
Then I began to place the poison in
Willis’ food. I took the staff from bottles used by my brother, James Colf, in
which to keep medicines, which he used to treat his horses. For about a week
Willis didn’t seem to show any effects from the poison – then he began to get
sick. Each day he got worse, but I kept right on giving him the poison.
Finally we called Dr. Hillsman. He
examined Willis and asked me some questions about him. I said nothing about the
poison. After the doctor had been called Ernest met me and asked me if the
doctor suspected anything. I told him I did not think so.
Dr. Hillsman sent in some medicine
to be given to Willis. I mixed the poison in the medicine and kept on giving it
to him. A few days after that Willis got very bad and that night he died.
A few days later I gave the poison
to Herbert, Clarence and Laura. When Laura was very sick Ernest didn’t seem
satisfied with the way things were going, and said we would have to hurry. Then
I heard a lot of talk going around that the doctors were saying that Willis had
been poisoned and I stopped using the poison. Willis was taken out of his grave
after that and nurses were sent to take care of Laura.”
►Carol Bundy – Los
Angeles, California – along with her boyfriend Doug Clark, she raped, tortured
and murdered a suspected six young women. (1980)
“I have been told that murder is the easiest of crimes to
get away with,” “I believe it. If I hadn’t confessed … ah well. Too late. Too
late.” (P, 200)
“Remember, I look innocent. Impression is worth as much as
facts.” (P)
► Sarah Chesham – England – Murdered her own children with
arsenic and helped others commit murders.
Nothing could be proven in the death of the infant, but
police exhumed the bodies of her sons who died under suspicious circumstances.
The doctor attending the death of the first son recalled that Chesham refused to
order a coffin for him, explaining that one coffin can easily hold two bodies.
Several days later, her second son died and the two sons were buried together
in one coffin. Both had been enrolled in a burial club. When the bodies of her
sons were tested, massive doses of arsenic were detected.
“I threw the
pieces into a pot, added seven kilos of caustic soda, which I had bought to
make soap, and stirred the whole mixture until the pieces dissolved in a thick,
dark mush that I poured into several buckets and emptied in a nearby septic
tank. As for the blood in the basin, I waited until it had coagulated, dried it
in the oven, ground it and mixed it with flour, sugar, chocolate, milk and
eggs, as well as a bit of margarine, kneading all the ingredients together. I
made lots of crunchy tea cakes and served them to the ladies who came to visit,
though Giuseppe and I also ate them.” [from the murderess’s published autobiography]
Virginia
Cacioppo, a former soprano said to have sung at La Scala “ended up in the pot,
like the other two... her flesh was fat and white, when it had melted I added a
bottle of cologne, and after a long time on the boil I was able to make some
most acceptable creamy soap. I gave bars to neighbours and acquaintances. The
cakes, too, were better: that woman was really sweet.” [from the murderess’s published autobiography]
“While my victim was drinking an elixir I had prepared. I got an axe, placed myself behind my victim and, summoning my strength, struck the back of her neck – a rattle, nothing else. … It was a master stroke that almost beheaded her.” [from the murderess’s published autobiography]
“While my victim was drinking an elixir I had prepared. I got an axe, placed myself behind my victim and, summoning my strength, struck the back of her neck – a rattle, nothing else. … It was a master stroke that almost beheaded her.” [from the murderess’s published autobiography]
►Mary Ann Cotton – West Auckland, England – convicted of
murdering her children; suspected of murdering 3 husbands, 3 paramours; 22
suspected murders in total (1873)
Mary Ann's downfall came when she was asked by a parish
official, Thomas Riley, to help nurse a woman who was ill with smallpox. She
complained that the last surviving Cotton boy, Charles Edward, was in the way
and asked Riley if he could be committed to the workhouse. Riley, who also
served as West Auckland's assistant coroner, said she would have to accompany
him. She told Riley that the boy was sickly and added: “I won’t be troubled
long. He’ll go like all the rest of the Cottons.” [Wikipedia]
►Madame Delpech – Toulouse, France – murdered 10
babies (1869)
Judge:
“These children were found after they had been dead two or three days?” Mme. Delpech: “Yes, sir; I kept one for two
or three days at the foot of my bed!’
Judge: “You killed them by putting their heads in a pail of water. Is it
not so?” Mme. Delpech: “Yes sir.” She
chopped up one child. The judge then asks, “You suffocated another?” Mme.
Delpech: “Comme l’autre; mon Dieu, oui.” “Yes; exactly the same as the others.” Judge: “And you buried it under the
staircase?” Mme. Delpech: “Yes; dug a hole with a shovel.” Here she roared with
laughter. Judge: “And the third, child?” Mme. Delpech: “Oh; always the same
operation.”
►Nannie Doss – Tulsa, Oklahoma – murdered 4 husbands and 6 others (1954)
“I was searching for the perfect mate, the real romance of
life,” Doss, who murdered four husbands, told interrogators. Of course, that
didn’t explain why she also poisoned two children, a grandchild, two sisters,
and her mother. (S, 36)
Mrs. Doss confessed has poisoned Mr. Doss by putting “a lot of poison on his prunes. …He sure did like prunes,” she said. “I fixed a whole box and he ate them all. ”After eating them he went to the hospital for 23 days.
►Amelia Dyer – Caversham (near Reading), England – baby-killer for hire and bogus foster parent; hundreds of babies murdered (1896)
►Christine Falling – Perry, Florida – baby sitter,
killed 3 children (1982)
Mrs. Doss confessed has poisoned Mr. Doss by putting “a lot of poison on his prunes. …He sure did like prunes,” she said. “I fixed a whole box and he ate them all. ”After eating them he went to the hospital for 23 days.
►Amelia Dyer – Caversham (near Reading), England – baby-killer for hire and bogus foster parent; hundreds of babies murdered (1896)
Correspondence to the mother of one of Dyer’s victims: “We
are plain, homely people, in fairly good circumstances. I don’t want a child
for money’s sake, but for company and home comfort. ... Myself and my husband
are dearly fond of children. I have no child of my own. A child with me will
have a good home and a mother’s love.”
“My Dear Madam—Your letter just to hand, and I shall only be
too pleased for yourself or any friends to come and see baby and us. We don’t
have many visitors out here in the country. I should really like you to know
that, the pretty child was with some one who would really care for her, and you
would feel more comfortable I know. I promise you faithfully that if you send
her to me I will do mother’s duty for her and bring her up as my own. First I
must tell you that we are plain honest, happy people, in fairly good
circumstances. When you come afterward, you will see I have done my duty. Dear
child! I shall only be too glad to have her, and I will take her entirely for
₤10. She shall be no further expense to you. I am, yours ever faithfully, A.
HARDING. [a Dyer alias]”
Dyer to police, advising them on identification of babies’
corpses, referring to the method by which she strangled them: “You’ll know all
mine by the tape around their necks.” (N, 136)
►Nora Scuders Edwards – Missouri – murdered 3 husbands and a daughter (1929)
► Sachiko Eto – Sukagawa, Japan –murdered 6 persons in cult rituals (1995)
►Nora Scuders Edwards – Missouri – murdered 3 husbands and a daughter (1929)
“Why, I was reared in the Christian church. I never did give
poison to anybody. I wasn’t brought up that way.”
► Sachiko Eto – Sukagawa, Japan –murdered 6 persons in cult rituals (1995)
“I did it as part of a religious service. I never thought
they were going to die.” (describing the exorcism ritual in which she beat her 6 victims with traditional taiko drumsticks)
“I love young ‘uns. I don’t know why I done what I done …
The way I done it, I seen it done on TV shows. I had my own way though. Simple
and easy. No one would hear them scream. I did like, you know, simple, but it
weren’t simple. I pulled a blanket over the face. Pulled it back. Then again I
did the blanket pulling over the face …just the right amount for the little
one. A voice would say to me, ‘Kill the baby,’ over and over …very slow, and
then I would come to and realize what happened.” (V, 287)
►Irina Gaidamachuk –Yekaterinburg, Russian – murdered 17 women (2012)
►Carina Favato – Philadelphia, Pa. – One of the leaders of
“Arsenic Incorporated.” (1939)
Raymond Pace Alexander, attorney for accused husband-killer,
Stella Alfonsi : “Isn’t fattura really
a love potion?”
Christina Favato, convicted murderess: “Yes it is, but it
gives death. All those who took it died.”
[George Cooper, Poison Widows: A True Story of Witchcraft,
Arsenic and Murder, 1999, St. Martin’s, Press, p. 180]
►Melissa Friedrich (Weeks) – Florida, Nova Scotia –
Career con artist and serial husband killer (2012)
“God wants us to be married,” Melissa wrote to Robert
Friedrich, the second man she was to marry, rob and murder.
►Irina Gaidamachuk –Yekaterinburg, Russian – murdered 17 women (2012)
“I did it for money. I just wanted to be a normal mum, but I
had a craving for drink,” “My husband Yury wouldn’t give me money for vodka,”
►Helen Giesen-Volk – New York, N.Y. – Murdered dozens of
children (1925)
►Annie Gobay & Emma Kitchen – Atlanta, Georgia – child
care providers; 3 babies died in a short period of time (1905)
“You people act as if there were something wrong about the
business. Of course, children die here, as they die everywhere. This is a
specially bad month.”
►Helen Golay – Santa Monica, California – with her friend, Olga Rutterschmidt, murdered two homeless men and planned to murder a third; life insurance scam (2008)
“I am
evil. . . . You have no idea how evil I am.”
►Gesche Gottfried – Bremen, Germany – murdered 17 persons; executed (1831)
►Helen Golay – Santa Monica, California – with her friend, Olga Rutterschmidt, murdered two homeless men and planned to murder a third; life insurance scam (2008)
►Gesche Gottfried – Bremen, Germany – murdered 17 persons; executed (1831)
“I was born without a conscience.”
►Gwendolyn Graham & Catherine May Wood – (Grand Rapids,
Michigan) – Lesbian couple, nurses who worked together murdered patients as a
game and for the sexual thrill of homicide (1988)
“When she [Graham] was killing people at Alpine and I didn’t
do anything, that was bad enough. But when she would call me and say how she
wanted to smash a baby, I had to stop her somehow. I knew she was working in a
hospital there. She said she wanted to take one of the babies and smash it up
against a window. I had to do something. I didn’t care about myself anymore.”
(K&K, 146)
►Dana Sue Gray – Canyon Lake, California – murdered 3 women, attempted a fourth (1994)
“I got desperate to buy things. Shopping puts me at rest.
I’m lost without it.” This statement is meant to explain why she murdered three
woman, and attempted to kill a fourth, and then went on shopping sprees with
her victims’ credit cards.
►Anna Marie Hahn – Cincinnati, Ohio – murdered as many as 15
elderly men, executed in the electric chair (1937)
“I love to make old people comfy,” she said. It wasn’t her
fault that most of these elderly gentlemen died of dysentery, was it? “I know
it’s very peculiar, but why pick on me, chief?
“We searched your place, Mrs.
Hahn,” Cincinnati Police Chief Patrick Hayes, told her. “We found enough poison
to kill half of Cincinnati.”
“I have been like an angel of mercy
to them,” Anna said through quivering lips before bursting into tears. “The
last thing that would ever enter my head would be to harm those dear old men”
(N, 179)
►Annie Hauptrief – San Marcos, Texas – murdered 4
step-children, one husband and attempted to murder a second husband, crippling
him (1924)
When confronted with evidence that pointed toward her guilt,
shortly after her arrest last spring, she said at once that she had done it,
but — “I don’t know why I done it.”
►Linda Burfield Hazzard – Seattle, Washington – sociopathic quack who “cured”
patients with extreme fasting, while getting them to sign over their assets to
her; she killed 15 people with her expensive treatments (1913)
“As
I did not commit any crime, (it was by the persecution
of the medical profession that I am here) I cannot give any account of
it.” ... “I intend to get on the stand and show up that bunch. They’ve
been
playing checkers but it’s my move. I’ll show them a thing or two when I
get on the stand.” [source: Gregg Olsen, Starvation
Heights: A Story of Murder and Malice in the Woods of the Pacific Northwest,
1997, p. 400]
►Karla Homolka – St. Catharines, Canada – with her boyfriend
she tortured, raped her sister and 2 other girls (1992)
“Dr Arnold was right. I did kill somebody. I killed my
sister. How can anyone ever be forgiven for that? I think about what I did
every day. I really do.”
“I hope they let me do my hair in jail. I would just die if
my hair went to hell.” (V, 363)
Because police and prosecutors were duped by bogus feminist
theories, Karla Homolka got away with a wrist-slap.
► Hélène Jégado – Ille-et-Vilaine, France – murdered
43 persons (1851)
►Waneta Hoyt – Newark
Valley, NY – murdered 5 of
her own children (1996)
“I miss my children. They all died one by one – you know,
that crib disease.” (K&K, 56)
►Virginia B. Jaspers – New Haven, Ct. – nurse/babysitter
murdered 3 babies and injured others (1956)
After
her arrest Mrs. Jaspers said: “How will I ever face people again?”
“It
was all uncontrollable. I didn’t know why I did it. Children sometimes get on
my nerves.”
“I am a wretched creature; wherever I go people die.”
►Genene Jones – San Antonio, Texas – nurse, murdered between
11 and 46 children (1984)
While awaiting trial, Jones told someone, “I always cry when
babies die. You can almost explain away an adult death. When you look at
an adult die, you can say they’ve had a full life. When a baby dies,
they’ve been cheated.” (source)
►Maria Kardos – co-conspirator in husband-killing syndicate
which killed scores (perhaps hundreds), of victims mostly married men at the
behest of wives (1929)
Mrs. Kardos testified, telling of the last moments of her
23-year-old son’s life: “I gave him some more poison,” said Mrs. Kardos in
court. “Suddenly remembered how splendidly my boy used to sing in church, so I
said, ‘Sing, my boy! Sing my favorite song!” He sang it with his lovely clear
voice, then suddenly he cried out, gripped his stomach, gasped, and was dead.”
►Sharon Kinne – Independence, Missouri – murdered 3 persons
(1964)
Sharon Kinne’s testimony telling the story of how, according to the murder defendant, her 2-year-old daughter fatally shot her husband, the first of the three murders she ultimately was accused of: “Then I heard Danna in the bedroom. She was saying ‘Show me this, Daddy, show me this.’ just as she had done several times before with several toys, and I heard a shot. I guess it was a shot.” I went into the bedroom and Danna was standing there and James was lying there and I saw the blood and I thought he was dead. I picked Danna up and put her on the couch and called James’ father.”
“I’ve shot men before and managed to get out of it.”
“It’s too bad that I have such bad luck with husbands. I
hope the next one lasts longer.” (Alan Hynd, Murder, Mayhem, And Mystery: An Album Of American Crime, 1958, p. 360)
Sharon Kinne’s testimony telling the story of how, according to the murder defendant, her 2-year-old daughter fatally shot her husband, the first of the three murders she ultimately was accused of: “Then I heard Danna in the bedroom. She was saying ‘Show me this, Daddy, show me this.’ just as she had done several times before with several toys, and I heard a shot. I guess it was a shot.” I went into the bedroom and Danna was standing there and James was lying there and I saw the blood and I thought he was dead. I picked Danna up and put her on the couch and called James’ father.”
“I’ve shot men before and managed to get out of it.”
►Tillie Klimek (Gburek) – Chicago, Illinois – murdered an
estimated 20 persons (1923)
When visiting a fabric store to purchase black material to
make a dress for her fourth husband, Joseph Guszkowski’s funeral, the clerk
offered her condolences and asked Tillie when her husband died. "My husband's," said Tillie.
"When did he die?" “Ten days from now,” Tillie's next stop was at an undertaker's, where
she bought the cheapest coffin in the place and had it delivered to the
basement of the tenement. (Alan Hynd, Murder, Mayhem, And Mystery: An Album Of American Crime, 1958, p. 360)
►Frances Knorr – Brunswick, Australia – child care provider Australia murdered at least 2 babies (1894)
“Placed as I am now within a few hours of my death, I express a strong desire that this statement be made public, with the hope that my fall will not only be a warning to others, but also act as a deterrent to those who are perhaps carrying on the same practice. I now desire to state that upon the charges known in evidence as Number 1 & 2 babies, I confess to be guilty”.
►Christa Lehmann – Worms, Germany – murdered 3 persons (1954)
Occasionally
she runs toward the Mainz prison gate. “Is there a crowd?” she asks the guard.
“Well, open the door and let them see what a poisoner looks like.”
►Yvette Lelièvre – Saint-Pierre-lès-Nemours, France – a mother who murdered 6
newborns during the 1950s through 1960s. (1969)
“I kept the first child because we wanted to reach family
allowances and get a loan to buy the house.”
►Louise Lindloff – Chicago, Illinois – murdered 5 family
members (1912)
“I can see my family arising to defend me against this cruel
charge.” She said yesterday. “From the spirit world they come in filmy forms to
stand beside me and protect me from my enemies.”
“I want justice and women have been pretty successful in
getting justice from juries composed of men. I want no women to sit on the jury
that tries me.” (source)
►Juliana Lipka – Nagyrev, Hungary – murdered 7 family
members (1929)
Mrs. Lipka had murdered her entire family to obtain real
estate, and, by the time she was one of the richest women in the district. All
she thought of was her land, even after she was found guilty and sentenced to
death. “When can I go home?” she absentmindedly asked her lawyer. “They will
auction off my property while I am here.” (N, 160)
►Anjette Donovan Lyles – Macon, Georgia – two husbands, her
daughter and her mother-in-law (1958)
Also two weeks before her daughter [whom she poisoned] died,
Anjette, remarking “Well, she won’t be using these anymore,” packed up the
girl’s personal things in the hospital room, discarded the flowers, and put the
suitcases in the hall, but kept some of the flower vases, saying she was going
to take them to the cemetery.
►Christine Malèvre – Versailles, France – nurse who murdered
patients, in acts of self-appointed euthanasia (2003)
“I’m
having trouble remembering. I had to act on dozens of
people, I have never acted at the request of the family. It was I who decided to end their days”
► Enriqueta Martà – Barcelona, Spain – She kidnapped
children, used them in child prostitution; murdered children and cooked their
corpses to make “magic “potions” The remains of 2 children were identified by forensic
experts. There were certainly many more victims during Enriqueta’s 20-year career.
"Come, pretty, come, for I have candy for you. "
Enriqueta said, as she kidnaps little Tesresita Guitard Congost.
►Rhonda Belle Martin – Mobile, Alabama – murdered her
mother, and 3 daughters and 2 husbands (1956)
“At
my death, whether it be a natural death of otherwise, I want my body to be
given to some scientific institution to be used as they see fit, but especially
to see if someone can find out why I committed the crimes I have committed. I
can’t understand it, for I had no reason whatsoever. There is definitely
something wrong. Can’t someone find it and save someone else the agony I have
been through.”
►Margaret McCloskey – New York, N. Y. – child care provider,
at least three babies died (1876)
Mrs. Clifford found the youngest child apparently dying from
starvation, and was told by one of the women that Mrs. McCloskey had been angry
because the other infant had been removed, and had struck the little one,
saying:
“Let it die; it’s paid for.”
►Mary McKnight – Kalkaska, Michigan – confessed to 3 murders, and suspected of 8 others (1903)
►Mary McKnight – Kalkaska, Michigan – confessed to 3 murders, and suspected of 8 others (1903)
Here
is a self-serving rationalizing confession, that leaves out McKnight’s eight
other suspected murders and other crimes: “The baby woke up and cried while its
mother was gone, and I mixed up a little strychnine in a glass with some water
and save a spoonful to the baby. I didn’t mean to harm the little thing at all.
I confessed all to the Lord this afternoon, and I feel that he has forgiven me.
When Gertrude came home and found the baby dead she got awfully nervous. She
came to me and said: ‘Mary, can’t you give me something to quiet me; something
that you take yourself?’ I said that I would, and I really didn’t think that it
would hurt her if I gave her one of the capsules. She had spasms right after
that, and I suppose that It was the strychnine that killed her. I really didn’t
mean to hurt her. Then John seemed to feel so badly about it, so broken up,
that I often thought after Gertie died that it would be better if he were to
go, too. John was feeling bad one night a couple of weeks after Gertrude died.
He came to me and wanted something to quiet him. I had two or three of the
capsules on my dresser, and I told him to go and get one of them. I didn’t mean
to hurt him, but I thought that it would sooth him, and then I thought that. H
would be for the best if he were to go, anyway. He helped himself, I don’t know
whether he took one or two. Then he went to bed, and by and by he called me.
Mother came, too, and he began to have those same spasms. I suppose that the
strychnine was working.”
►Eva Micsik – Csoka, Hungary – murdered her own children, 8 of them (1888)
“I have had eight children and have killed them all. … They were all
previously baptised. I did not want any children. My husband knew nothing of
what I had done. I lived on bad terms with him, and wanted to vex him.”
►Catherine Miller – Fredericksburg, Pa. – murdered 4 family members (1904)
►Catherine Miller – Fredericksburg, Pa. – murdered 4 family members (1904)
“I
killed the baby born to my niece while she was visiting me because the child
was a disgrace. I thrust a pin into its soft little head and it died in a
minute.”
►Mrs. Balint Nagy – Debreczen, Hungary – The “Poison Witch” who ran a poisoning syndicate (1935)
“I was only an innocent dealer in harmless herbs.”
►Marie Noe – Philadelphia – murdered 8 of her own children before they reached the age of 2 years (1998)
►Blanche Taylor Moore – Alamance County, North Carolina – Convicted of one murder; suspected of
others: 2 husbands, a lover, father, mother-in-law, others; sentenced to death
(1989)
“I know arsenic was found in these people but it’s not
because I put it there.” (K&K, 53)
► Helen Patricia Moore – Claymore, Campbell, Australia –
baby sitter who murdered 4 children, including her own brother, and caused a
baby to lose its sight and the ability to walk (1980)
“Mum, I didn’t plan it. It just happened.”
►Mrs. Balint Nagy – Debreczen, Hungary – The “Poison Witch” who ran a poisoning syndicate (1935)
“I was only an innocent dealer in harmless herbs.”
►Marie Noe – Philadelphia – murdered 8 of her own children before they reached the age of 2 years (1998)
After the birth of one of her sons, a nurse overheard Noe
threaten him while trying to feed him, “If you don’t take this, I’ll kill you.”
Some suspected foul play, but no one acted.
►Lydia Olah – Nagyrev, Hungary – sister of serial killer
Suzi Olah, co-conspirator in husband-killing syndicate which killed scores
(perhaps hundreds), of victims mostly married men at the behest of wives (1929)
“We are not assassins! We did not stab our husbands. We did
not hang them or drown them either! They died from poison and this was a
pleasant death for them!” (N, 159)
“It was my task to take out the organs while Pandy [Andras,
her father] was cutting up the remains. I just used a kitchen knife. You have
to exercise strength. It’s not that that easy.” Agnes Pandy, explaining how she
had eviscerated on of her own stepsisters. (S, 79)
►Agnes Pandy – Brussels, Belgium – incestuous cannibal
father and daughter serial killer team; confessed to five murders (1997)
►Louise Peete – Pacific Palisades, Ca. – executed for one
murder, suspected of several others (1945)
“No gentleman would put a lady to death.” (P, 156)
►Isabel Cristina Pires da Silveira – Garanhuns, Pernambuco State, Brazil – murdered and cannibalized 3-10 women for cultic reasons. (2012)
►Isabel Cristina Pires da Silveira – Garanhuns, Pernambuco State, Brazil – murdered and cannibalized 3-10 women for cultic reasons. (2012)
In her statement to the State Police, recorded on videotape,
Isabel said she also sold empanadas made with body parts of her victims in
hospitals and police stations. "I even sold one to you," she told one
of the officers.
►Thekla Popov – Melencze, Serbia (Hungary) – leader of
husband-killing syndicate with about 100 victims (1882)
Thekla Popov’s daughter further declared that she actually
saw Kudin’s wife pour this poison into his coffee, and that she told her mother
what she knew and had seen. To this the old gipsy replied, “ One day I will
poison you also, unless you hold your tongue.”
► Anujka de Poshtonja (Anna Pistova) – Vladimirovac, Yugoslavia (Serbia) – Sold poison for the muder of priomarily husbands to women for 50 years before being arrested at the age of 90. She was known as “The Witch of Vladimirovac.”
► Anujka de Poshtonja (Anna Pistova) – Vladimirovac, Yugoslavia (Serbia) – Sold poison for the muder of priomarily husbands to women for 50 years before being arrested at the age of 90. She was known as “The Witch of Vladimirovac.”
To a
young police sergeant: “I work with the devil, young man. If you imprison me
you’ll remember it to your dying day. Don’t play with the forces of evil.”
►Dorothea Puente – Sacramento, California – murdered 9
elderly tenants in her boarding house (1988)
“I’ve got a psychiatric condition. I sometimes forget my
actions.”
► Betsy Reese – Arcadia, Florida – She served time for the murder of one
husband and is suspected of murdering another one as well as 7 children, aged 2
through 8. (1967)
“I did it. Lord forgive me,” (The is a reference to the
murder by poisoning of 7 children at a single meal. The statement was made in
her old age, while the children’s father, who had been framed and convicted of
the crime, still languished in prison).
►Vera Renczi – Bekerekul, Yugoslavia – murdered a husband, a
son, and 33 paramours and kept their corpses in storage (1925)
“Why did you kill all these human beings?” asked the judge.
“They were men,” she answered. “I could not endure the thought that they would
ever put their arms around another woman after they had embraced me.” “But,”
the judge stammered, “you also murdered your own son.” “He had threatened to
betray me,” said Madame Renczi. “He was a man, too. Soon he would have held
another woman in his arms.”
►”Sao Paulo Girl Serial Killer” – Sao Paulo, Brazil –
stabbed 30 men to death over a 2-year period according to her confession (2011)
“I don’t have enough courage to hold a gun — but I can hold
a knife. “I am confessing because I promised I would do so before becoming 18 —
to avoid upsetting my family.”
►Lydia Sherman – New Haven, Ct. – murdered 3 husbands and 7 children (1871)
“I gave him [husband Edward Struck] the poison because I was
discouraged. I know that is not much of an excuse, but I felt so much trouble
that I did not think about it.” (N, 344)
Referring to her son George, aged 14, whom she murdered: “I
thought he would become a burden upon me, so I mixed up some arsenic in his
tea. I think he died the next morning.” (V, 114)
Referring to her daughter Ann, aged 12, whom she murdered:
“I thought if I got rid of her that Lydia [her 18-year-old daughter] and myself
could make a living.” (V, 114)
►Mary Eleanor Smith “Shoebox Annie” – Washington –
She gained the nickname Shoebox Annie for her bootlegging delivery method.
With her son, she committed several murder-robberies characterized by the teams
methodical corpse-disappearing technique. (1938)
“All right. Prove we
killed her. Find the body!” (N, 345)
►Della Sorenson – Omaha,
Nebraska – murdered 8 relatives, including 3 of her own children (1925)
“They bothered me, so I
decided to kill them.”
“After the death of my little daughter, Minnie,” the poison slayer said. “I had a feeling of elation and happiness. Then, after I got to thinking about what I had done, I was afraid and tried to hide it. I had the same feeling after the death of every one of those I poisoned.”
► Anna Louise Sullivan – Milwaukee, Wisconsin – murdered husband and step-son; another husband and 2 step-children survived (1939)
“Every
time I gave poison to one of Mrs. Cooper’s children, I said to myself, “Now I’m
going to get even with you (Mrs. Cooper) for what you have said about me,” the
confession said.
“After the death of my little daughter, Minnie,” the poison slayer said. “I had a feeling of elation and happiness. Then, after I got to thinking about what I had done, I was afraid and tried to hide it. I had the same feeling after the death of every one of those I poisoned.”
► Anna Louise Sullivan – Milwaukee, Wisconsin – murdered husband and step-son; another husband and 2 step-children survived (1939)
“I didn’t like them, so I put paris green [poison] in their
soup.”
Departing for the women's state prison, Mrs. Sullivan, remarked
that she thought the life term imposed for the paris green murder of her
stepson, James Sullivan, 18, was “too long.”
►Margaret Summers – Chicago, Illinois – suspected in the
murders of 19 persons, including several of her 5 dead husbands, her son, and
several boarders (1939)
Referring to her boarders whom she murdered: “I was just
good to them,” she said, “and they expressed their appreciation by taking out
the policies.” Later she said she had paid most of the premiums.
“I have dedicated myself to Satan!”
►Marybeth Tinning – Schenectady, New York – murdered her own
children, 9 of them (1985)
“I smothered them with a pillow,” she told detectives,
“because I’m not a good mother.”
►Jane Toppan – Lowell, Massachusetts – nurse,
murdered up to 100 patients and others (1901)
“This my ambition: to have killed more people, more helpless
people, than any man or woman has ever killed.” (P. 146)
“I want to be known as the greatest criminal, that is my
ambition.”
“Most of the people I killed were old enough to die, anyway,
or else had some disease that might cause death. I never killed children. I
love them. (V, 133)
“I seem to have a sort of paralysis of thought and reason. I
have an uncontrollable desire to give poison without regard to consequences. I
have no objection against telling my feelings, but I don’t know my own mind. I
don’t know why I do these things.” (V, 133)
“Get some morphine, dearie, and we’ll go out into the ward.
You and I will have a lot of fun seeing them died.” (V, 133)
Toppan herself attempted to explain her motives clearly in
terms of sexual impulses, as she put it, “the desire to experience sexual
excitement by killing people.” (V, 132)
“Don’t blame me, blame my nature. I can’t change what was
meant to be, can I?”
►Frieda Trost – Philadelphia, Pa. – murdered 2 husbands and 3 children (1912)
“I want his soul,” she said.
►Lise Jane Turner – Christchurch, New Zealand – 2 own
babies, 1 other baby & 4 other attempts (1984)
“I thought, okay. I never got caught for [the first baby's]
death, I don't want this child, how am I gonna get rid of it, you know, so I
smothered her the same way as I did with [the first baby].”
►Josephine Tzany – Budapest, Hungary – an avowed predatory misandrist who sought out men, mostly married ones, to seduce and then murder, 12 of them. (1926)
“I am an enemy of the male sex. Years ago a man wronged me deeply and broke my girl’s heart. I
vowed to be revenged on him and his sex. I have kept my word, for I have made
men suffer something of what I have suffered. They may say I am responsible for
the death of these men, and they may even take my life for what they call my
crime. If they do I shall be glad to die with the knowledge that I have paid my
debt in full. I do not deny that I have derived pleasure from the sufferings of
the men they call my victims. I have enjoyed every pang they suffered, every
agony they endured. Pangs and agony have been balm to my wounded and bruised
heart. My one regret is that I was not able to strike directly at the man who
wronged me.”
►Sophie Ursinus – near Berlin, Germany – She was found
guilty of the murder of her aunt and the attempted murder of her servant, and
was sentenced to life imprisonment; also believed to have been responsible for
poisoning her husband. Her trial led to a method of identifying arsenic
poisoning. (1803)
After her release from prison – “It is related that a lady,
at one of her evening parties, having evinced some uneasiness at seeing grains
of a white substance sprinkled over a salad she was about to eat, Madame
Ursinus said, sarcastically” “Don’t be afraid; it’s not arsenic.” (soourc, book: Mrs. Catherine Crowe, From
Light and Darkness; or Mysteries of Life, in 3 volumes, London, Henry
Colburn, Pubs, 1850, p. 63)
“I
was hard up and needed the insurance money on the man. I tried to poison him
twice but he didn’t die, so I pushed him out of the attic window.”
►Louise Vermilya – Chicago, Illinois – murdered 9, including
2 husbands, 3 of her own children and a policeman (1912)
“It’s just as surprising to me as to anybody, that arsenic was found in the bodies of my son and Mr. Smith,” declared Louise Vermilya.
“I do not believe a jury of women would do me justice. I should insist on being tried by men.”
“It’s just as surprising to me as to anybody, that arsenic was found in the bodies of my son and Mr. Smith,” declared Louise Vermilya.
“I do not believe a jury of women would do me justice. I should insist on being tried by men.”
►Mary Elizabeth Wilson – Jarrow on Tyne, England – murdered 3 husbands and one male boarder. (1957)
At the registrar’s office where she had to record her husband’s deaths, Mrs. Wilson joked: “There should be a discount for me."
At her wedding reception, for her third marriage, a friend asked her what she was going to do with the large number of sandwiches and cakes that were left over. Her reply: “Keep them for the funeral.”
“Men like me, and I like men,” Mrs. Wilson explained during the course of her trial.
“I liked their funerals. I could get dressed up and see
folks and talk to them. I didn’t miss a funeral in twenty years. The only fun I
ever had was after I kilt people.”
Martha said to the prosecutor referring to the three murders
she had been accused of committing: “Yes, I did it! But it was the devil who
told me to do it. He came to me while I was in the kitchen baking bread. He
came to me while I was working in the fields. He followed me everywhere. It was
the devil, I tell you! The devil!” She went on to admit not only to the murder
of her mother and other relatives but to committing many burglaries in the area
and also setting many fires. “I like fires. They were red and bright, and I
loved to see the flames shooting up into the sky.” (N, 391)
►Ada Wittenmyer – Nashville, Tennessee – married four times, she murdered two husbands, luring them with lonely hearts ads; she was captured while in the process of reeling in another catch; she committed suicide in jail (1984)
After her arrest Ada told her cellmate she was going to go
through life finding men with money and poisoning them, using the lonely hearts
club ads. She said that she enjoyed to see them in pain from the poison.”
►Aileen Wuornos – Volusia County, Florida – murdered 7 men
(1990)
“May your wife and children get raped, right in the ass. (to
the jurors who convicted her), They say it’s the number of people I killed, I
say it’s the principle.”
“They’re daring me to kill again. To me, this world is
nothing but evil, and my own evil just happened to come out cause of the
circumstances of what I was doing.”
“I am a serial killer. I would kill again.”
“I really got tired of it all. I was angry about the johns.”
“I robbed them, and I killed them as cold as ice, and I
would do it again, and I know I would kill another person because I’ve hated
humans for a long time.”
“I wanted to clear all the lies and let the truth come out.
I have hate crawling through my system.”
“I’m one who seriously hates human life and would kill
again.”
►Maria Zwanziger – Bavaria, Germany – murdered at least 3
persons (1809)
She stated: “Yes, I killed them all and would have killed
more if I had the chance.” Then she referred to arsenic as her “truest friend.”
Before being beheaded in July 1811, she told her executers “It is perhaps
better for the community that I should die, as it would be impossible for me to
give up the practice of poisoning people.”
When asked how she could cause such suffering to her acquaintances, she said that she couldn’t bear to look at their healthy, happy faces and wanted to seen them writhe in pain. She added that if undetected she would have gone on poisoning men, women and children indiscriminately for many years., that she had a compulsion to kill. (D, 19)
When asked how she could cause such suffering to her acquaintances, she said that she couldn’t bear to look at their healthy, happy faces and wanted to seen them writhe in pain. She added that if undetected she would have gone on poisoning men, women and children indiscriminately for many years., that she had a compulsion to kill. (D, 19)
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Notations:
“D”: Carol Anne Davis, Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial Killers, Allison and Busby (London), 2001
“N”: Nash, Robert Jay, Look for the Woman: A Narrative Encyclopedia of Female Poisoners, Kidnappers, Thieves, Extortionists, Terrorists, Swindlers and Spies from Elizabethan Times tom the Present, Evans, 1981
“P”: Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence, Viking, 1997
“S”: Harold Schechter, The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World’s Most Terrifying Murderers, Ballantine Books, 2004
“V”: Peter Vronsky, Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters, Berkley Books, New York, 2007.
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“D”: Carol Anne Davis, Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial Killers, Allison and Busby (London), 2001
“K&K”: Michael D. Kelleher & C. L. Kelleher, Murder Most Rare: The Female Serial Killer,
Praeger, 1998
“N”: Nash, Robert Jay, Look for the Woman: A Narrative Encyclopedia of Female Poisoners, Kidnappers, Thieves, Extortionists, Terrorists, Swindlers and Spies from Elizabethan Times tom the Present, Evans, 1981
“P”: Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad: Violent Women and the Myth of Innocence, Viking, 1997
“S”: Harold Schechter, The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World’s Most Terrifying Murderers, Ballantine Books, 2004
“V”: Peter Vronsky, Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters, Berkley Books, New York, 2007.
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The listed date represents the year in which the perpetrator
has been identified as a serial killer (after at least 3 murdered are
identified).
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