156 cases [as of May 14, 2021]
***
“Charms make me see human beings as flies.”
“I do not feel bad after killing anyone because I see it as
a job I paid to do.”
►Sakina Al Hammam – 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.”
“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.”
►Anna Allas – Munhall, Pennsylvania – accomplices Gizella
Young (see listing below), Mary Chalfa – The three-woman team murdered
relatives to collect insurance money. Gizella Young was a fortune teller. (1932)
Gizella Young did a tarot card fortune-telling reading for
Anna Allas who had poisoned her stepson, Andrew.
Gizelle Young: “There’s an ill person in your house”
Anna Allas: “Will he die?”
Young: “He won’t live three days.”
Allas: “Thank God!”
“If they take him out of the ground twenty different times, American doctors cannot discover that.” [referring to the poison she used to murder her victim, Andrew Allas, 16-years-old.]
“Why don’t you get a doctor?” George Allas Jr. demanded of his stepmother.
“If they take him out of the ground twenty different times, American doctors cannot discover that.” [referring to the poison she used to murder her victim, Andrew Allas, 16-years-old.]
“Why don’t you get a doctor?” George Allas Jr. demanded of his stepmother.
“We don’t need a doctor. The undertaker will take care of
things”, was the response.
►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.]
► Elisabeth Ashmead – New
York, N, Y.; Philadelphia, Pa.; Millville, N. J. – murdered a hundreds of
babies,sometimes throwing them alive into a furnace (1910)
“Mrs. Ashmead said to me: ‘We
wrapped the babies up in a newspaper and laid them aside until they died, when
we either threw them into the heater or out on the dump,’ ” said Dr. Joseph H.
King.
►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.
► Barbara of Chisinau – Chishau, Telenescha, Moldova – (1889)
"It's a great pity. I have only poisoned nine men, and
I had made up my mind to do for ten."
►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)
“I would like to share the last thing she said to me,” Wade Holder, a friend of Barfield, told reporters. “With radiance in her face, she said, ‘Wade, when I go into that gas chamber at 2 a.m., it’s my gateway to heaven.’”
►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.”
“We weren’t afraid of being arrested because I carried a ‘voodoo,’ which protected us from all punishment.” [“Forty Hideous Murders Charged to Negress, Who Says She Sought To Gain Immortality; Strange Woman Heads ‘Church of Sacrifice,’” The Cincinnati Enquirer (Oh.), Apr. 3, 1912, p. 1]
“We weren’t afraid of being arrested because I carried a ‘voodoo,’ which protected us from all punishment.” [“Forty Hideous Murders Charged to Negress, Who Says She Sought To Gain Immortality; Strange Woman Heads ‘Church of Sacrifice,’” The Cincinnati Enquirer (Oh.), Apr. 3, 1912, p. 1]
► Suzan Carson Barnes – California – Member of a messianic
mini-cult who murdered men for “sexually assaulting” her, meaning that they
accidentally brushed against her slightly (1983)
“You kill that demon or I will.”
►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)
“Everybody hates me. That’s why I am charged with being a poisoner,” exclaimed the accused.
“There is a hole in my memory.”
“Everybody hates me. That’s why I am charged with being a poisoner,” exclaimed the accused.
“There is a hole in my memory.”
“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.”
► Elfriede Blauensteiner – Vienna Austria – lonely hearts serial killer with a gambling
addiction. She murdered at least five men (including two husbands) and one
woman, suspected of many more murders. (1996)
“I wash my hands of it.”
“If there’s a vampire among you, he will turn you to a heap
of ashes.”
“I pity no man when he dies.” (“Es ist um keinen Mann
schade, wenn er stirbt”).
► Marie-Françoise Bougaran
– Brest & Lesneven, France (1865)
"Here is the little Henry who dies like his
sister."
"Oh! my God! I am a great criminal, it is I who
sent these poor children to paradise before their time!
► 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.
► Judias Welty Buenonano – Florida – (1983) – Suspected of 5 murders, including husband,
fiancé, 2 boyfriends, a son. She used proxies for gunshot murder, used arsenic
for several, used arsenic and drowning for one murder and used dynamite for her
final attempt on a husband who survived, but was severely disabled. She was
executed. “I didn’t ever kill anybody, Judge Thompson, I didn’t kill my
husband. I didn’t bomb Mr. Gentry’s car. That’s the truth. I never knowingly
harmed anyone in my life. I ask the court to spare my life.”
► 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)
Carol Bundy admitted that she had killed her
ex-boyfriend Jack Murray because he was
“an a**hole who deserved to die.”
Carol Bundy and her partner Douglas Clark kept the head of
their victim Exxie Wilson. in the freezer to preserve it for their use as a sex
toy. Carol admitted to a journalist that they had fun with it. “Where I had my
fun was with the make-up,” she is quoted as saying. “I was making her over like
a big Barbie doll.”
► Juanita Carr – Fossil, Oregon – murdered 3 of her own children (1950)
Dukek said Mrs. Carr gave no specific reason for having killed the children except that “at times she didn’t like them.”
► Mary Chalfa – Munhall, Pa. – Murdered numerous children for insurance money, attempted to murder child relative using a blackjack, but she survived, causing the investigation which uncovered serial killings involving accomplices Anna Allas and Gizelle Young. (1932)
“Those dumb Coroners don’t know where to look for poison.”
Mrs. Chalfa told Gizella about her sufferings. Gallstones,
for one thing. Gizella took her down to Braddock in October, 1931, and
introduced her to Dr. John Zock. Mrs. Chalfa didn’t bother to mention her
gallstones. She came straight to the point. She came straight to the point. She
wanted Dr. Zeok to sell her poison “for my husband, because he’s a drunkard.”
“Mrs. Chalfa!” exclaimed the horrified physician. “I wouldn’t sell you poison
for $1,000 or one million dollars.”
► Juanita Carr – Fossil, Oregon – murdered 3 of her own children (1950)
Dukek said Mrs. Carr gave no specific reason for having killed the children except that “at times she didn’t like them.”
► Mary Chalfa – Munhall, Pa. – Murdered numerous children for insurance money, attempted to murder child relative using a blackjack, but she survived, causing the investigation which uncovered serial killings involving accomplices Anna Allas and Gizelle Young. (1932)
“Those dumb Coroners don’t know where to look for poison.”
► 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]
► Tammy Eveans Corbett –
Brighton, Illinois, USA – murdered her three children over a period of three
years. (1989)
Tammy, according to testimony, told Richard “that she knew
what she was doing when she killed each child and that she could have stopped
herself.” She added the chilling detail that “she had looked into their son’s
eyes while she held her hand over his mouth . . . telling him “His eyes were
saying, ‘Help me mommy.’” [9-22-90, SLPD]
In 1993 trial testimony one witness, Gina Eveans, disclosed
that at the hospital in 1987 about a week before baby Robert died, “she heard
Corbett say as she stood over his crib, “Don’t worry, baby, I got even.”
[2-3-93, SLPD]
When Corbett put her had over Robert’s mouth (her
56-day?-old son), she said. “This is for you Ricky [husband Richard Eveans
Sr.].”
Corbett’s 10-year-old stepdaughter told her father that moments before Tammy
smothered the 3-year-old that she said something like “You’re going to die,” or
“I hope you die.” [9-22-90, SLPD]
► 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]
► Anna Cunningham – Crown Point, Indiana – Murdered her husband, three teenaged children, and attempted to murder another, who survived but was partially crippled (1925)
► Anna Cunningham – Crown Point, Indiana – Murdered her husband, three teenaged children, and attempted to murder another, who survived but was partially crippled (1925)
Something
told me to draw in my head and told me I had to
get rid of them. I thought that I was going to die and wanted to take
them with
me. I only poisoned the ones I loved best and I poisoned the ones I like
best in turn because I wanted them with me. [She was intending suicide,
she
claimed.] [Apr. 18, 1925 GL]
► Lillie May Curtis – Center Texas – She shot her husband
while he slept in 1935. She received a suspended sentence and murdered six of
her own children three years later. (1938)
“I was able to care for them, that is, not physically able
and not able in the way of money. I had not undressed when I went to bed, and I
was thinking kinda about killing them when I went to bed. I knew it was wrong
to kill these children. I did not kill the oldest one (James Travis) because
he is big enough to work for himself.”
►Anne Gaillard Delpech – Montauban, France – murdered 10
babies (1868)
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.”
► Johnanna Dennehy – Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England – A vicious thrill killer who only went after men, using a knife. She murdered 4 and wounded two. One of her victims was stabbed 40 times. (2013)
► Johnanna Dennehy – Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, England – A vicious thrill killer who only went after men, using a knife. She murdered 4 and wounded two. One of her victims was stabbed 40 times. (2013)
“I want my fun. I need you to get my fun.” She told her
friend, when she asked him to provide transportation in her hunt for the next
victim.
“As she lifted the knife like Norman
Bates in Psycho and plunged it into her final victim, she showed little emotion
and appeared not to enjoy herself. ‘Oh, look, you’re bleeding,’ she told John
Rogers, who nearly died from his wounds. ‘I’d better do some more.’” [Paul
Peachey, “Joanna Dennehy: The girl from a loving home who became a serial
killer,” The Independent (UK), Feb. 13, 2014]
“I want to do nine.” (referencing the number of murders committed by Bonnie and Clyde.)
“I want to do nine.” (referencing the number of murders committed by Bonnie and Clyde.)
Statement in court: “I killed to see how it felt; to see if
I was as cold as I thought I was, and then it got more-ish.” [slang indicating
desire for more].
►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.
“Poor, poor Arlie. You know what he said to me before he breathed his last? ‘Nannie,’ he said, ‘Nannie, it must have been the coffee.’”
►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.
“Poor, poor Arlie. You know what he said to me before he breathed his last? ‘Nannie,’ he said, ‘Nannie, it must have been the coffee.’”
►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)
“After I got a baby something seemed to say in my ears, ‘Get rid of it.’”
►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.”
“If these doses don’t get him, nothing else will.”
► Sachiko Eto – Sukagawa, Japan –murdered 6 persons in cult rituals (1995)
“After I got a baby something seemed to say in my ears, ‘Get rid of it.’”
►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.”
“If these doses don’t get him, nothing else will.”
► Ellen Etheridge – Meridian,
Texas – Planned to murder her 8 step-children because her husband loved them so
much she became jealous. She managed to kill four before getting caught. (1913)
To her husband: “Jim, I did it all, darling, but I want you
to forgive me. I did not mean to do anything wrong. The children are out of
their misery now and you know how poor we were. We could never have raised them
as we ought. My mother always said that her children who were dead were a
greater consolation to her than those who were living. You know none of these
children who are gone had reached the age of accountability to God, and I am
sure they are all right now. I have asked God to forgive me and he has heard my
prayer. I want you to be as good to me as God was. Be a friend to me if you
can, Jim.”
► 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, Russia – murdered 17 women (2012)
► Nancy Farrer – Cincinnati,
Ohio – suspected of murdering over 20 persons; confirmed poisonings include 5
deaths, and 2 persons who recovered from poisoning (1851)
Two or three days after the death of the child, a gentleman
remarked to her that she had “very good luck “ in losing people on whom she
waited. She said yes, — that she had lost six persons. On enumeration, however,
the number proved to be only five — the four referred to above, and the child
of another person. To a question as to what had been the matter with Mrs.
Forest and her child, she replied that the doctor had stated, but she had
forgotten. She added, “In a week or two Jimmy will die.” Being interrogated
what was the matter with him, she said she did not know, “only he would not
eat.” Jimmy was the child who had wanted the former servant girl to taste the
molasses syrup, and with the murder of whom she was subsequently charged. He
was at this time in his usual health, running about and playing with other
children. During this conversation, there was no excitement or emotion observed
in her conduct. Her manner was that of relating an ordinary fact.
►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.”
Early on in the proceedings, Mrs. Carina Favato, a 45-year-old housewife, stopped her trial by dramatically pleading guilty on the witness stand to killing her husband, her stepson and a husband’s friend by feeding them arsenic at breakfast. “I might as well get this over with. Let them send me to the chair. What have I got to live for?”
Early on in the proceedings, Mrs. Carina Favato, a 45-year-old housewife, stopped her trial by dramatically pleading guilty on the witness stand to killing her husband, her stepson and a husband’s friend by feeding them arsenic at breakfast. “I might as well get this over with. Let them send me to the chair. What have I got to live for?”
[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.
► Marie Fikackova – Susice,
Czechoslovakia – a nurse who murdered two babies and “attacked,” according to
her confession ten others, none of whom died. She was executed in 1961 by
hanging. (1960)
“When I was pressing little Prosserová’s head, I could feel
my fingers sinking into it. I did not feel any skull cracking at that time. I
was just pressing the little head and my fingers got deeper and deeper. My
anger faded away after a while and I could continue working.”
► Julia Fortemyer – St. Louis, Missouri – murdered a large number of babies (1875)
► Julia Fortemyer – St. Louis, Missouri – murdered a large number of babies (1875)
As the doctress sat in her cell at the station-house
muttering to herself, she was overheard to say, “Ashes tell no tales.” Another
hasty search was made, and in the stove were found the calcined bones of a
child.
► Winnie Ola Freeman (Winona
Green) – Little Rock, Arkansas – A 30-year career of murder, fraud featuring two jailbreaks (1954)
She is certain she will escape jail – because she is a
woman. “Who ever heard of a woman being electrocuted or hanged in Arkansas?”
she demands whenever the death penalty is mentioned to her. Furthermore she is
not remorseful. “I’m not sorry for my deeds,” she repeats again and again. “I
planned both murders, thinking them all out thoroughly in advance. Now that I
have admitted everything, I am willing to meet whatever fate awaits me.” (Quoted in 1924, early in her murder career).
“God wants us to be married,” Melissa wrote to Robert Friedrich, the second man she was to marry, rob and murder.
► Kathleen Megan Folbigg –
Mayfield, NSW, Australia – murdered 3 of her own children (2001)
– “With Sarah, all I wanted was her to shut up. And one day,
she did.”
– “Even though I'm responsible, it's alright. She accepts
and is happy... She's a fairly good-natured baby, thank goodness - it saved her
from the fate of her siblings. I think she was warned. …another one like Sarah.
She saved her life by being different.”
– “I feel like the worst mother on this earth, scared that
she'll leave me now like Sarah did. I knew I was short-tempered, and cruel,
sometimes, to her, and she left - with a bit of help.”
– “…would like all my mistakes and terrible thinking be
corrected and mean something, though. Obviously, I'm my father's daughter.”
►Irina Gaidamachuk –Yekaterinburg, Russia – 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. – Child care provider and child trafficker who abused, battered and
murdered scores of children, mostly babies (1925)
“Babies and animals should be disciplined all the same. When
they become unruly, I hold them under water or push them in closets or bang
them. I’ve trained children for 20 years that way.”
“Didn’t fifty-three infants die in your place?” asked
District Attorney Pecora. “No,” was Mrs. Geisen-Volk’s reply. “There were only
twelve or fourteen deaths.”
►Jeanne Gilbert – St. Amand Montrond, France – murdered 4 relatives with poison and
attempted to murder 4 others, who survived. (1908)
When it was proposed to exhume the various bodies, Jeanne professed
to be greatly shocked. “You must not disturb the dead!” she said. “You will
bring ill luck upon us all if you do.” But the exhumations were made and the
poison was discovered.
►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.”
►Betty Jo Green – Athens, Georgia, USA– 2 murders (husband, sister-in-law) & 2 attempted murders (daughter, fiance) (1984)
“Betty Jo Green of Athens, Alabama, only killed an ex-husband and a sister-in-law, but her legal defense wins the prize. Green claimed "she had another woman living in the left side of her body." She, or they, were convicted anyway and are serving a life term in the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women.” Forgotten Tales of Alabama, The History Press, 2013]
►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)
►Betty Jo Green – Athens, Georgia, USA– 2 murders (husband, sister-in-law) & 2 attempted murders (daughter, fiance) (1984)
“Betty Jo Green of Athens, Alabama, only killed an ex-husband and a sister-in-law, but her legal defense wins the prize. Green claimed "she had another woman living in the left side of her body." She, or they, were convicted anyway and are serving a life term in the Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women.” Forgotten Tales of Alabama, The History Press, 2013]
When asked for an explanation for the
deaths, one of the sisters reportedly said, “The food didn't agree with them.”
“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)
►“Hadfield’s Maid” –
Florence, Italy – Murdered four Hadfield children under the delusion she
was performing “a good act,” sending them to Heaven. (c 1763)
One day a maid servant went in the nursery, took me in her
arms, and said: “Pretty little creature, I have sent four
to heaven I hope to send you also.”
“She tried to leave me.”
►Annie Hauptrief – San Marcos, Texas – murdered 4 step-children, one husband and attempted to murder a second husband, crippling him (1924)
► Lizzie Halliday – Burlingham, New
York – Known to have murdered at least 5 persons over a period of 13 years,
with many additional confirmed murder attempts, and numerous arson escapades
(including one that was fatal). A particularly vicious and reckless specimen.
(1893 / 1906)
1906 murder: Throttling the nurse, Mrs. Halliday snatched a pair of
scissors from Miss Wickes’s belt. With a frenzied cry, she sunk the sharp
blades again and again into the nurse’s throat. Miss Wickes’s screams brought
half a dozen to the door. Dr. Lamb was summoned, and he opened the door with a
duplicate key. On the floor lay Mrs. Wickes, gasping her last breath. Mrs.
Halliday stood by a window, calmly watching the death struggles. A maniacal
smile of triumph lighted her face.
“She won’t leave me now,” she said, and laughed as she
spoke.
Miss Wickes was hurried to a cot, but died within an hour
without recovering consciousness. Mrs. Halliday laughed gleefully when told she
was dead. Superintendent Lamb had Mrs. Halliday locked in a room and placed
under special guard. She sat gazing with amused interest out of the window. She
seemed to know precisely what she had done, but was indifferent. When Coroner
Goring asked her why she had committed the murder she replied:
►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.”
When confronted with the display of the containers she stored poison in, Mrs. Hauptrief said “I suppose you want me to tell you about the poisoning of my husband.”
When confronted with the display of the containers she stored poison in, Mrs. Hauptrief said “I suppose you want me to tell you about the poisoning of my husband.”
In regard to the children, she said they were “unacceptable
and too noisy about the house.”
“They were in the habit of drinking coffee each afternoon
upon returning from school,” the statement said, “so I put arsenic in the
coffee until all of them died.”
►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]
► Emma Heppermann – Wentzville, Missouri, USA – Had 7 husbands, murdered several of them and possibly several children (1940)
“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]
► Emma Heppermann – Wentzville, Missouri, USA – Had 7 husbands, murdered several of them and possibly several children (1940)
Trial: Witnesses for the State yesterday included Steve
Hepperman, brother of Tony and Mrs. Rosie Simpson, Negro laundress, who worked
occasionally for the Heppermans. The brother testified that four days before
his death his brother had known he was poisoned. Mrs. Simpson testified that
Mrs. Hepperman told her shortly before Hepperman’s death, “Hep has $1,000 and
I’m going to get it.”
► Sabine Hilschenz – Brieskow-Finkenheerd, Brandenburg, Germany – Murdered nine
newborns. (2005)
Sabine Hilschenz’s defense team
argued that her alcohol consumption during labor would cause her to pass out.
When she awoke, she would find the child dead and buried in soil on her
balcony.
“I would sit on the balcony and talk to them in the flowerpots,” she told police before the trial.
► Ella Holdridge – Tonawanda, New York – A would-have-been serial killer: a girl of 14 years whose morbid passion for seeing death and funerals has led her to kill one of her playmates and cause the serious illness three others by poison. (1892)
“I would sit on the balcony and talk to them in the flowerpots,” she told police before the trial.
► Myra
Hyndley – Gorton, Manchester, England – With her mate, Myra committed five
murders, among the worst sexual predation, torture murders in crime history (1965)
“Ooh, that was a messy one.” [Pearson, When She Was Bad, 1997, p. 172]
► Ella Holdridge – Tonawanda, New York – A would-have-been serial killer: a girl of 14 years whose morbid passion for seeing death and funerals has led her to kill one of her playmates and cause the serious illness three others by poison. (1892)
She remarked with respect to the corpse one of her victims,
Louisa Stormer who she said “made the prettiest corpse ever put under New York soil.”
“I
guess she’s dead now, ‘cause they’re all in there crying and there’s a man
there with a box. She’s dead, she’s dead, I knew it!” and she danced off out
into the street. When Ella was asked hew she knew the poison would kill the
children, she said: “If it killed rats and mice it would kill children.”
►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.
►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.”
► Hélène Jégado – Ille-et-Vilaine, France – murdered 43 persons (1851)
“I am a wretched creature; wherever I go people die.”
“It [murdering people] gave me a sense of power, which I enjoyed.”
► Hélène Jégado – Ille-et-Vilaine, France – murdered 43 persons (1851)
“I am a wretched creature; wherever I go people die.”
“It [murdering people] gave me a sense of power, which I enjoyed.”
► Sophie Johannesdotter – Fredrikshald (Halden), Norway – a
maidservant who killed another servant in the household where she was employed,
plus her employers and their relative. She was also an arsonist. (1875)
“Some are ungraceful
on the outside, yet beautiful within. Others have a lovely appearance, but a
hideous inside. I’m ugly both on the outside and the inside.”
“On the tape [Martha
Ann Johnson] confessed to suffocating Jennyann and James as a way of getting
back at her husband after they’d argued. Her actual words to the police were
‘…I was just in a rage. I was mad. It hurt.’ Of the suffocation, she explained
‘I took Jennyann to bed with me and laid on her so she could not breathe. When
she stopped moving I knew it was over with.’ At another juncture she said ‘I
hated him (Earl Bowen) so much for what he put me through.’ But she denied
killing the two children actually fathered by him.” [Carol Anne Davis,
Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial Killers, 2001, Allen & Busby Ltd,
London, p. 58; spellings “Jennyann,” “Tibitha,” in original text retained]
►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)
► Juana, “La Peque Sicaria” – Baja California, Mexico –
executioner in Los Zetas in Tamaulipas cartel (2016)
“[I felt] excited by it [blood], rubbing myself in it and bathing in it after killing a victim and I even drank it when it was still warm.”
► Chisako Kakehi – Kyoto, Japan – Murdered 6 men, 4 husbands and 2 paramours (2014)
“I killed my husband,” Ms Kakehi said from the witness stand on Monday. “I have no intention of hiding the guilt. I will laugh it off and die if I am sentenced to death tomorrow,” [“‘Black Widow’ confesses to killing fourth husband,” New York Times, Jul 12, 2017]
“[I felt] excited by it [blood], rubbing myself in it and bathing in it after killing a victim and I even drank it when it was still warm.”
► Chisako Kakehi – Kyoto, Japan – Murdered 6 men, 4 husbands and 2 paramours (2014)
“I killed my husband,” Ms Kakehi said from the witness stand on Monday. “I have no intention of hiding the guilt. I will laugh it off and die if I am sentenced to death tomorrow,” [“‘Black Widow’ confesses to killing fourth husband,” New York Times, Jul 12, 2017]
►Maria Kardos – Hungary – 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.”
This once beautiful woman, who was condemned to death a few days ago for having murdered her husband and only son, came to the Court in the custody of gendarmes. She was also in a her finery, After taking the oath, she turned upon the cringing figure in the dock [Maria Varga], and cried, “You know your statements about Suzanne Fazekas. All we villagers know that if Aunt Suzanne entered the house, it signified unavoidable death. Everybody knew Suzanne’s profession. She led astray all the women in the village. Whenever she darkened the door of a village home, some unwanted man or woman soon died.” I heard you promise the midwife 500 weights of wheat if she killed your husband.”
This once beautiful woman, who was condemned to death a few days ago for having murdered her husband and only son, came to the Court in the custody of gendarmes. She was also in a her finery, After taking the oath, she turned upon the cringing figure in the dock [Maria Varga], and cried, “You know your statements about Suzanne Fazekas. All we villagers know that if Aunt Suzanne entered the house, it signified unavoidable death. Everybody knew Suzanne’s profession. She led astray all the women in the village. Whenever she darkened the door of a village home, some unwanted man or woman soon died.” I heard you promise the midwife 500 weights of wheat if she killed your husband.”
►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)
“Mrs. Klimek did not show any grief at all. She used to joke about her husband’s sickness, and, after he was buried, she told how she grabbed him by the ears as he lay in his coffin and said to him ‘You old devil, you’ll never get up again to bother me.’”
“The next meal I cook is going to be for you – you have caused all my trouble.”
“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.”
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)
“Mrs. Klimek did not show any grief at all. She used to joke about her husband’s sickness, and, after he was buried, she told how she grabbed him by the ears as he lay in his coffin and said to him ‘You old devil, you’ll never get up again to bother me.’”
“The next meal I cook is going to be for you – you have caused all my trouble.”
That was the significant remark
made by Mrs. Tillie Klimek, on trial on charges of poisoning her third husband,
to Police Lieutenant Willard Malone when he arrested the woman on a charge of
murder, the officer testified today.
►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.”
►Piroska Jancsó Ladányi – Törökszentmiklós, Hungary – rape
murders of 5 girls (1954)
►Ida Leckwold – Minneapolis,
Mn. – She murdered five of her babies under one year of age, and, a daughter,
aged 9. (1913)
Mrs.
Leckwold is said to have declared a man whose name has not been made public
inspired her “to get rid of her entire family.”
►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.”
Christa Lehmann, sobbing “I was mean, I was so mean,” confessed at her murder trial today that she poisoned her husband and father-in-law and then begged her own father to commit suicide and take the blame. [“Woman Admits Poisoning Husband, Father-In-Law,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Fl.), Sep. 21, 1954, p. 7]
Christa Lehmann, sobbing “I was mean, I was so mean,” confessed at her murder trial today that she poisoned her husband and father-in-law and then begged her own father to commit suicide and take the blame. [“Woman Admits Poisoning Husband, Father-In-Law,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Fl.), Sep. 21, 1954, p. 7]
►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)
“Through the strange powers given me by God, I knew that my second husband, William Lindloff and my two children, Alma and Arthur were going to die. I had visions, in which I saw three caskets, side by side. I could see the faces of my husband in one while the others seemed to contain all that I hold dear to me: two children. I was afraid – fearful of the powers of the great unknown, but stoically awaited my portion of fate and when the time came when I was accused, I, a warm hearted mother, of the horrible, unthinkable and unnatural crime of murdering my own child, I was not astounded. I met my fortune calmly as one who has known and understands. But to think, that I, his mother, would harm a hair of my poor boy’s head is more than shameful. It is inhuman.
“Through the strange powers given me by God, I knew that my second husband, William Lindloff and my two children, Alma and Arthur were going to die. I had visions, in which I saw three caskets, side by side. I could see the faces of my husband in one while the others seemed to contain all that I hold dear to me: two children. I was afraid – fearful of the powers of the great unknown, but stoically awaited my portion of fate and when the time came when I was accused, I, a warm hearted mother, of the horrible, unthinkable and unnatural crime of murdering my own child, I was not astounded. I met my fortune calmly as one who has known and understands. But to think, that I, his mother, would harm a hair of my poor boy’s head is more than shameful. It is inhuman.
I know he died of poison, but I do
not know how he got it. He was sick and I took the best care of him, according
to the orders of the physicians and then I took him to the hospital, where he
died.
I have put my trust in the
almighty, I feel sure that my spirits of my dear ones will arise from their
bondages and help me. I am weary of this prison cell, tired of the taint and
stigma of this awful suspicion. I’ll be glad when its over – when I’m free.”
►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)
►Elena Lobacheva – Moscow, Russia – (2015) – 25-year old sexual
sadist, with her 20-year-old male accomplice, whose alternative sexuality
preference involved stabbing 12 men (up to 107 times), all strangers, randomly
selected, to death, and photographing them “with their stomachs cut open.” She
was inspired by the movie “Bride of Chucky,” and has a tattoo of the character
on her arm.
“Randomly stabbing the body of a dying human brought me
pleasure comparable to sexual pleasure.”
►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 Martí – 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.”
►Mary May – Colchester, England – Executed for the murder of
her half-brother, she was suspected of having murdered all or many of the 14
children who died and have been associated with a local female poisoning
syndicate (1848)
From the trial testimony:
From the trial testimony:
-- The Coroner: “What did Mrs. May say?”
-- Mr. Charles Elrich: “Mrs. May, after hearing the
particulars of the quarrel, remarked to Mrs. Ham, “If he was my husband I would
give him a pill.”
-- Coroner: “Did Mrs. Ham make any reply?
-- Elrich: “I’ll be damned if I don’t give him a dose one of
these days.”
[“The Poisonings In Essex.” The Times (London, England),
Sep. 5, 1848, p. 8]
►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. It
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.”
► Josephine Ellen Molloy – Maryborough, Queensland, Australia – murdered three newborns over a period of years (1953)
“Oh, no! Not That!” screamed Mrs. Josephine Ellen Molloy from the dock of Brisbane Criminal Court on Wednesday when she was sentenced to life imprisonment for the wilful murder of her child.
“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)
► Josephine Ellen Molloy – Maryborough, Queensland, Australia – murdered three newborns over a period of years (1953)
“Oh, no! Not That!” screamed Mrs. Josephine Ellen Molloy from the dock of Brisbane Criminal Court on Wednesday when she was sentenced to life imprisonment for the wilful murder of her child.
► 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.”
► Robin Murphy –Fall River, Massachusetts, USA – with her pimp, she murdered 3 prostitutes (1980)
Miss Marsden was beaten to death with a rock before her throat was slit, her body mutilated her neck in a swampy woodland in Westport in February 1980. Witness Robin Murphy, 17, who Monday testified she was present during the murders of the two woman and a third prostitute, said Tuesday she participated in Miss Marsden’s murder while in a trance-like state. . . . “I wouldn’t do anything like that to Karen,” Miss Murphy told her the crowded courtroom. “I loved her. I did it, yes, but not because I wanted to.” . . . Miss Murphy testified . . . that Drew broke Miss Marsden’s neck, ordered her to slit the woman’s throat, then tore the head from the body with his bare hands. After the murder, Miss Murphy said she went to Miss Fletcher’s home where she “ate some chicken, drank a beer and smoked a joint.”
► Edith Murray – Cleveland, Ohio – suspected of murdering 3 husbands and 2 of her own children (1922)“I would like to get rid of him. I would like to give him
arsenic.”
►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.
Here’s how she killed 31-day-old Richard Alan: “He couldn’t
tell me what was bothering him. He just kept crying. I put him on his belly
instead of his back in his bassinet, and there was a pillow under his face.
Then I took my hand and pressed his face down into the pillow until he stopped
moving.”
“Elizabeth was a lot stronger than
Richard was, and she was fighting when the pillow was over her face. I held the
pillow over her face until she stopped moving.”
“All I can figure is that I’m ungodly sick. I
never had the money to get help, and I didn’t know where to go for help
anyway.”
“All I can figure is that I’m ungodly sick. I
never had the money to get help, and I didn’t know where to go for help
anyway.”
►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)
► Kate Painter – Pittsburg, Pennsylvania – suspected of murdering 2 husbands.
► Kate Painter – Pittsburg, Pennsylvania – suspected of murdering 2 husbands.
Mr. Carter, another commonwealth witness, said that when he
entered the room where Mr. Painter lay dead he saw Mrs. Painter kneeling beside
the corpse, and heard her say: “O, God, forgive me for what I have done, What
will his children think of me for this.”
“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)
She told several prisoners that she was “tired of
hearing that these little girls were nicer than she” and had taken them “under
her arms and hocks, and had thrown them into the well.”
► Mrs. Perkins – Bratford, Canada – murdered 6 victims
(1865)
Indirect quote: “She said she had a mania to destroy human
life, and it was by the greatest self-denial that she could restrain herself
from secretly poisoning all persons with whom she was on terms of friendship.”
► Martha Petromany – Knees (Knez; Satchinez), Temesvar, Romania ("Hungary") – very large number of poisonings (1906)
► Martha Petromany – Knees (Knez; Satchinez), Temesvar, Romania ("Hungary") – very large number of poisonings (1906)
“I know that you live unhappily with your husband. If
you pay me, I’ll bring you poison. If you give this to your husband, he will
die in a few days and you are rid of him!”
►Brittany Pilkington – Bellefontaine, Ohio, USA – murdered
her three sons over an extended period of time. (2015)
“Prosecutor Bill Goslee said Brittany confessed to the
murders, and said she was motivated by jealousy that her husband, 43-year-old
Joseph Pilkington, paid more attention to their sons than he did to their
surviving 3-year-old daughter, Hailey.”
►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.
Trial testimony: “Bruna took the
knife out of my hand and handed it to Jorge so he could kill her [Jessica].
I was holding the small child [Jessica’s 18-m-o
daughter)]. I was very nervous. She said she ate the meat of Jessica grilled with rice.
The child also ate. She
was there with us, was part of the family.” [“Julgamento dos Canibais de
Garanhuns será retomado nesta sexta,” Diario de Pernambuco; Estadão Alagoas, Nov. 14, 2014]
►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, Baba Anujka) – Vladimirovac, Yugoslavia (Serbia) – Sold poison for the murder of primarily husbands to women for 50 years before being arrested at the age of 90. She was known as “The Witch of Vladimirovac.” (1928)
► Anujka de Poshtonja (Anna Pistova, Baba Anujka) – Vladimirovac, Yugoslavia (Serbia) – Sold poison for the murder of primarily husbands to women for 50 years before being arrested at the age of 90. She was known as “The Witch of Vladimirovac.” (1928)
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.”
“If it [the poison she sold] was good enough to kill Gaja Marinkov it will do for anyone.”
►Eliza Potegian – Fresno, Ca. – murdered husband and step-daughter (1923)
“If it [the poison she sold] was good enough to kill Gaja Marinkov it will do for anyone.”
►Eliza Potegian – Fresno, Ca. – murdered husband and step-daughter (1923)
“I’ll make ashes of them.”
►Dorothea Puente – Sacramento, California – murdered 9
elderly tenants in her boarding house (1988)
“I’ve got a psychiatric condition. I sometimes forget my
actions.”
► Marie Emilie Raymond – Galan, Hautes-Pyrénées, France – serial killer nurse (1952)
“I love looking at dying people. The last smile on a dying face gives me a great thrill.”
She also had a rake because, “I love raking freshly filled graves.”
► 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).
► Marie Emilie Raymond – Galan, Hautes-Pyrénées, France – serial killer nurse (1952)
“I love looking at dying people. The last smile on a dying face gives me a great thrill.”
She also had a rake because, “I love raking freshly filled graves.”
“The dying, they’re so inspiring.”
► 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.”
► Tamara Samsonova – St. Petersburg, Russia – suspected of murdering, dismembering, and perhaps cannibalizing up to 14 victims (2015)
When Samsonova appeared in court in the opening week of August, 2015 to face the first charges to be made against her, the murder of her friend Ulanova, the prisoner declared to Judge Roman Chebotaryov: “I was getting ready for this court action for dozens of years. It was all done deliberately. With this last murder I closed the chapter.” He replied: “I am asked to arrest you. What do you think?” Her answer was: “You decide, your honor. I am guilty and I deserve a punishment.”
► Mary Rose Robaczynski –
Baltimore, Maryland, USA – Serial killer nurse who committed euthanasia. (1978)
“I only did it to the Gorks,” Mrs. Springham quoted Mrs.
Robaczynski as saying, explaining that “Gork” was a hospital term for comatose
patients whose chances of survival were slim.
► Tamara Samsonova – St. Petersburg, Russia – suspected of murdering, dismembering, and perhaps cannibalizing up to 14 victims (2015)
When Samsonova appeared in court in the opening week of August, 2015 to face the first charges to be made against her, the murder of her friend Ulanova, the prisoner declared to Judge Roman Chebotaryov: “I was getting ready for this court action for dozens of years. It was all done deliberately. With this last murder I closed the chapter.” He replied: “I am asked to arrest you. What do you think?” Her answer was: “You decide, your honor. I am guilty and I deserve a punishment.”
“I came home and put the whole pack of Phenazepamum - 50
pills - into her Olivier salad. She liked it very much. I woke up after 2am and
she was lying on the floor. So I started cutting her to pieces.”
►”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.”
► Amy Lynn Scott – Florida – babysitter who murder 3 babies
of parents she had met in church. (1989)
After Rachel Whitmer’s baby - the last of the three -
died, Whitmer remembered Scott telling her in 1989, “I had seen a lot of death
in my life and that I feel that I am an instrument to help people, spirits, go
to the next life.”
►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)
The
next day all the four children left for a better world, and that night the boy
heard her call out to her son-in-law: “I say, Koonya, take away those puppies;
they’re dead.” They had been systematically starved to death, a method of
disposing of them which set her right in the eyes of the law, and enabled her
to say to the procurator: “I did not kill them. They died, poor things, because they were very
weak. My calling was an honest one.”
►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)
“They can’t prove murder unless they find the body!” [Jay Robert Nash, Look for the Woman, 1981, p. 344.]
► Dr. Virginia Helena Soaresde Souza – Brazil – doctor suspected of being responsible for the deaths of up
to 320 of her patients (2013)
“I want to clear the intensive care unit. It’s making me
itch.” (statement obtained via wiretap recordings.)
► Della Sorenson – Dannenborg,
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.”
“We [Della and husband, Joe] had a quarrel, a bad quarrel, one day. I had it in for him. After he died and I came to, I was sorry for what I had done and wished I had never done it.” [Michael Newman, Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers, Loompanics Ltd., 1993, p. 159]
“I had feelings which would steal over me at times forcing me to destroy and kill. I felt funny and happy. I like to attend funerals.”
“Mrs. Cooper was always running down my reputation and to get even with her, I decided to kill three of her children.” [Michael Newman, Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers, Loompanics Ltd., 1993, p. 160]
“I put strychnine in some chocolate candy and gave it to the Knott children because their father stole my wine and I felt like I wanted to get even with him.” (signed confession) [“Killer of Seven Sent to Asylum,” The Lincoln Star (Nebraska), April 20, 1925, pages 1 – 2]
► 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.”
“We [Della and husband, Joe] had a quarrel, a bad quarrel, one day. I had it in for him. After he died and I came to, I was sorry for what I had done and wished I had never done it.” [Michael Newman, Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers, Loompanics Ltd., 1993, p. 159]
“I had feelings which would steal over me at times forcing me to destroy and kill. I felt funny and happy. I like to attend funerals.”
“Mrs. Cooper was always running down my reputation and to get even with her, I decided to kill three of her children.” [Michael Newman, Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers, Loompanics Ltd., 1993, p. 160]
“I put strychnine in some chocolate candy and gave it to the Knott children because their father stole my wine and I felt like I wanted to get even with him.” (signed confession) [“Killer of Seven Sent to Asylum,” The Lincoln Star (Nebraska), April 20, 1925, pages 1 – 2]
► 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.
► Maria Swanenburg (Van der Linden) – poisoned over a hundred persons, permanently crippling many.
Suspected of having committed around 90 murders.
She [Van der Linden, or, Swanenberg] went the length of marking down her victims beforehand. “It will be your turn in a month,” she openly told one man, who had been bemoaning the sudden death of a relative. The month passed, and this man was carried to his grave. [pp. 311-2; Arthur Griffiths, Mysteries of Police and Crime: A General Survey of Wrongdoing and Its Pursuit, Volume 2, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, N. Y. 1899]
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.
► Maria Swanenburg (Van der Linden) – poisoned over a hundred persons, permanently crippling many.
Suspected of having committed around 90 murders.
She [Van der Linden, or, Swanenberg] went the length of marking down her victims beforehand. “It will be your turn in a month,” she openly told one man, who had been bemoaning the sudden death of a relative. The month passed, and this man was carried to his grave. [pp. 311-2; Arthur Griffiths, Mysteries of Police and Crime: A General Survey of Wrongdoing and Its Pursuit, Volume 2, G. P. Putnam’s Sons, N. Y. 1899]
“I have dedicated myself to Satan!”
►Josefa Szanyi (Josephine Tzany) – Budapest, Hungary – an avowed
predatory misandrist who sought out men, mostly married ones, to seduce and
then murder, 12 of them. (1926)
Lillian Thorman's confession contained this remarkable statement: “I am a devil and I will burn them.”
“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.”
► Lillian B. Thornman – York, Pennsylvania – A 15-year old
servant girl murdered a child who was “roasted from head to toe” by placing the
youngster on the stove. She had murdered 2 children the same way previously.
(1906)
►Alsa Thompson – Hollywood, California (1925)
“I
guess I was just mean and liked to see them suffer,” the girl is said to have
declared in admitting the poisonings. In speaking of the deaths of one of her
little sisters, Alsa showed only a slight trace of emotion, saying “she was so
pretty – I was sorry I had given her anything.” [“Second Grade School Girl
Poison Fiend – Alsa Thompson, 7, Confesses Causing deaths of Sisters and
Woman,” Logansport Pharos-Tribune (In.), Feb. 3, 1925, p. 1]
“It’s all true; I did it because I enjoyed watching them
suffer,” she said.
Lillian Thorman's confession contained this remarkable statement: “I am a devil and I will burn them.”
“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)
“I could have worked for years longer at poisoning if I
hadn’t killed four people in one family almost all at once. That was the
greatest mistake of my life.” [Harold Schechter, Fatal: The Poisonous Life of a Serial
Killer, Pocket Books, 2008, 278]
“I went to the funeral and felt as jolly as could be. And
nobody suspected me in the least.” [Harold Schechter, Fatal: The Poisonous Life
of a Serial Killer, Pocket Books, 2008, 135]
“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?”
“Then came the wait. I would have to watch and watch and watch as the pupils contracted, and, at the right moment then inject the atropine and watch and watch until the pupils were again wide and vacant. This was hard, precise work, all of it. I had to dose the patients slowly, a littloe at a time. It tyook days, sometimes weeks to kill them.” (Nash, 367)
“Don’t blame me, blame my nature. I can’t change what was meant to be, can I?”
“Then came the wait. I would have to watch and watch and watch as the pupils contracted, and, at the right moment then inject the atropine and watch and watch until the pupils were again wide and vacant. This was hard, precise work, all of it. I had to dose the patients slowly, a littloe at a time. It tyook days, sometimes weeks to kill them.” (Nash, 367)
She
worried herself into an emaciated state and became so frail that doctors gave
her only a few weeks to live. Finally, one physician asked her why she was
worrying. Jane replied, “Because I have no remorse for murdering all those
people.” (Nash, 367)
►Francoise Trenque – Arronede, Mirande Dept. (Gers Dept.), France – murdered father, mother, brother; permanently injured sister; poisoned other brother, who recovered. (1829)
“I alone am guilty of the crimes of which I have been condemned. The old woman whom I accused is innocent. I wanted to save my head and lied.”
►Francoise Trenque – Arronede, Mirande Dept. (Gers Dept.), France – murdered father, mother, brother; permanently injured sister; poisoned other brother, who recovered. (1829)
“I alone am guilty of the crimes of which I have been condemned. The old woman whom I accused is innocent. I wanted to save my head and lied.”
“And why did you kill them ?” she was asked.
“For money,” was the cold-blooded reply. “I love money I
adore it. I used to steal from the nuns in the convent, and they never
suspected it, When I returned home I wanted our house and garden for myself.
Why,” she added, her eyes with cupidity,
“they are worth at least 4,000 francs. Now let me pray.”
►Frieda Trost – Philadelphia, Pa. – murdered 2 husbands and 3 children (1912)
“I want his soul,” she said.
“If you say anything about me doing anything wrong to Fritz I’ll have you put in jail,” the woman warned him. “And if your wife says anything I’ll have her put in jail, too. Your brother died of typhoid pneumonia. The certificate says he did.”
“There’s a baker with a lot of money I could marry if I wanted to do,” she said, “and I would if I thought he would be dead in a week”
►Lise Jane Turner – Christchurch, New Zealand – 2 own babies, 1 other baby & 4 other attempts (1984)
“If you say anything about me doing anything wrong to Fritz I’ll have you put in jail,” the woman warned him. “And if your wife says anything I’ll have her put in jail, too. Your brother died of typhoid pneumonia. The certificate says he did.”
“There’s a baker with a lot of money I could marry if I wanted to do,” she said, “and I would if I thought he would be dead in a week”
►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].”
►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.” (source, book: Mrs. Catherine Crowe, From
Light and Darkness; or Mysteries of Life, in 3 volumes, London, Henry
Colburn, Pubs, 1850, p. 63)
► Maria Varlane – Fundul Galbenei, Hîncesti District, Moldova –
Victims: small son, small daughter, her father, her mother, her sister 3 or 4
domestics, her lovers, 5 or 6 shepherds. (1931)
“I loved the smell of burnt flesh among the scent of
fir trees!”
“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.”
“I kept insurance policies on most of my boarders,” she said, “because that is the way my people do. We want a good funeral. There must be flowers and lodge members. I gave everyone a fine funeral.”
“I kept insurance policies on most of my boarders,” she said, “because that is the way my people do. We want a good funeral. There must be flowers and lodge members. I gave everyone a fine funeral.”
►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.”
► Waltraud Wagner (“Lainz Angels of Death”) – Group of serial
killer murders who confessed to 49 individual murders. Waltraud Wagner was
considered the “leader.” (1989)
In custody, the
“death angels” confessed to forty-nine specific murders. Wagner allegedly
claiming thirty-nine on her own. “The ones who got on my nerves,” she
explained, “were dispatched directly to a free bed with the good Lord.” It was
not always simple, she allowed: “Of course the patients resisted, but we were
stronger. We could decide whether these old fogies lived or died. Their ticket
to God was long overdue in any case.” [Michael Newton, Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of Female Murderers,
Loompanics Unlimited, 1993, pp. 8-9]
► Jeanne Weber – Paris, France
– strangled 8 children of various ages to death, most of them relatives – (1908)
► Mrs.
Fred West – Des Moines, Iowa, USA – Baby farmer accused of burning
babies alive. (1907)
“Let’s give him some laudanum and put him out of his misery.”
“Let’s give him some laudanum and put him out of his misery.”
►Sarah Whiteling – Philadelphia, Pa. – She murdered her husband, daughter and son (2)
and was executed. (1888)
“I did not poison all of them at one time for fear I would be found out, so I thought I would poison them one month apart, then no one would suspect me.”
► Elisabeth Wiese – Hamburg, Germany – Baby farmer, murdered numerous babies; thought to have burned some alive; superstitious (1904)
”Children’s blood and the blood of white doves brings good luck.”
“I did not poison all of them at one time for fear I would be found out, so I thought I would poison them one month apart, then no one would suspect me.”
► Elisabeth Wiese – Hamburg, Germany – Baby farmer, murdered numerous babies; thought to have burned some alive; superstitious (1904)
”Children’s blood and the blood of white doves brings good luck.”
“The carbon residue resulting from the burning of a placenta
brings good luck.”
►Catherine Wilson – London, England – Murdered two husbands, and employer, robbed defrauded, and murdered female fiends and murdered her own children. (1862)
The longer she nursed [her victims], the sicker they got. ‘Drink it up dear; it will do you good,’ she was reported to have insisted as one friend resisted a glass of sulphuric acid.
►Bernice
Williams – Denver, Colorado, USA (1943)
Arrested
after the manager of her apartment found the three bodies in the basement,
Bernice Williams, 23, told authorities she thought the babies should die
“because I didn't want anyone else to have them and I didn't believe I could
raise them.” “I couldn't help it because they were born,” she said. “I’m just
constituted that way. I'm over-sexed.”
►Catherine Wilson – London, England – Murdered two husbands, and employer, robbed defrauded, and murdered female fiends and murdered her own children. (1862)
The longer she nursed [her victims], the sicker they got. ‘Drink it up dear; it will do you good,’ she was reported to have insisted as one friend resisted a glass of sulphuric acid.
The image she consistently maintained was of a concerned
friend. ‘I would not have her cut up, poor thing,’ she advised the
credulous husband of another victim, thereby heading off an autopsy.
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 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.
► Lillie Winter – Fairfield,
Illinois – 3 Suspected murders & 1 attempt, including 3-year-old grandson
(1948)
“Grandma told me,” Marjorie [who survived a small dose of
arsenic] testified, after she had related how she became ill, “that sometimes
‘God tells us to do certain things. We can’t understand why but we just have to
do them.”
“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.”
“I robbed ‘em and I killed ‘em, as cold as ice.” (from video interview)
“I robbed ‘em and I killed ‘em, as cold as ice.” (from video interview)
► Gizella Young – Munhall, Pa. – Murdered numerous children for
insurance money, attempted to murder child relative using a blackjack, but she
survived, causing the investigation which uncovered serial killings involving
accomplices Anna Allas and Mary Chalfa. (1932)
[Andrew] Young came to the county detective’s offices and
made his accusations against his wife [Gizella Young]. Mary [cousin, Mary
Chalfa], he said, visited his home so frequently at one time that he protested
to his wife. She answered, Young said:
“Oh, that’s all right. I just told her fortune,”
“What was it?” Young said he then asked and his wife
replied:
“Well, she’s having a lot of trouble with her husband. so I
told her to insure him and he would die in three months.”
Young told [Detective] McDermott he asked his wife how he
knew Chalfa would die in three months and she answered: “I’ll give her
something to give him.”
[“’Murder Plot’ Probe Widens – Alleged Insurance Scheme Here
Linked to Wholesale Hungarian Poisonings,” The Pittsburgh Press (Pa.), Jul. 10,
1932, p. 2]
►Lila Gladys Young – Fairfax, Nova Scotia, Canada – Child care provider, child trafficker who murdered hundreds of babies (1936)
►Lila Gladys Young – Fairfax, Nova Scotia, Canada – Child care provider, child trafficker who murdered hundreds of babies (1936)
The
following quotation comes not from the serial killer Lila Gladys Young herself,
but from her employee. Yet it is a startling one and thus is included in this
collection:
“Handyman
Glen Shatford would later admit burying between 100 and 125 babies in a field
owned by Lila’s parents near Fox Point, adjoining the Adventist cemetery. ‘We
buried them in rows,’ he said, ‘so it was easy to see how many there were.’”
[Michael Newman, Bad Girls Do It!: An Encyclopedia of
Female Murderers, Loompanics Ltd., 1993, p. 190]
►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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[8202-3/7/21]
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► Elisabeth Wiese – Hamburg, Germany – Baby farmer, murdered numerous babies; thought to have burned some alive; superstitious (1904)
ReplyDelete“Children’s blood and the blood of white doves brings good luck.”
“The carbon residue resulting from the burning of a placenta brings good luck.”