Rosemary West, One of the Most Shocking Sadists in Female Serial Killer History – England, 1994

Since this a well-known and extensively documented case, whose details are easy to find in both internet and print media, this post will focus on only certain aspects. Of 11 murders recorded by Fred West, all but one involved wife Rosemary. While the crimes of rape, torture and mutilation of the victims – all of them female – is outrageous enough in itself, this case has an added horror of incest followed by torture and murder, involving Rosemary’s 16-year-old daughter and her 8-year-old step-daughter. The murders were committed in Gloucester, England from 1971 through 1987. It was through the arrest of Fred for a non-homicide crime that led to the discovery of what came to be called “The House of Horrors” in Gloucester.

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EXCERPT: The exact nature of Rose’s relationship with Fred has also been the subject of much debate. Rose’s own line, once she was in custody, was that she had fallen under the influence of a bad man who had killed before he met her and who drew her into his madness: much the same argument that Mrra Hyndley had earlier employed about Ian Brady. Folie á deux. Plenty of people who knew the Wests not see it that way at all. Rose was the dominant partner, they thought, and it was Fred who was hopelessly besotted with her and did her bidding; did everything just to please Rose, in fact.

[Richard Glyn Jones, “Keeping It in the Family,” in The Mammoth Book of Women Who Kill, revised edition, 2002, Robinson, London, p. 476]

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EXCERPT: Such women are usually highly sexed. Rose West certainly was having intercourse with up to five men during an average day of prostitution. On other mornings she had lesbian sex with a neighbour or she went out in the van at night to pick up other paying customers. Afterwards she posed pornographically for her husband Fred. Rose made lesbian advances on her male lodgers and took part in the sexual abuse of her daughter Anne Marie.

[p. 242, Carol Anne Davis, Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial Killers, 2001, Allison & Busby, London]

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On lesbianism (from 2014):

EXCERPT: The twisted fiend has enjoyed a string of lesbian romps since being caged and makes sure she takes her pick from the new women banged up alongside her. The 60-year-old is feared on Finchale Wing at Country Durham's Low Newton nick and controls the section with a rod of iron. Last night a source revealed: "Rose controls the wing as the senior prisoner and despite her age the rest of the girls are in awe of her.

"The staff look to her to keep things in order and she decides who is friends with whom and keeps things under control. She hates anyone in for drugs offences and thinks they are the lowest of the low - despite her being a serial killer. “She has her own single cell and spends a lot of time in there with girls she especially likes. She always gets the pick of the fresh meat and the girls know better than to argue with her because she can make life difficult for them with the staff.”

[Bill Francis, “Black Widow: Serial killer Rose West is the kingpin of her prison wing,” Daily Star (England),  10th Aug. 10, 2014]

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Born Rosemary Pauline Letts, Nov. 29, 1953, Barnstaple, Devon, England(1953-11-29)

GENERAL CHRONOLOGY:

Nov. 29, 1968 – While still married to Costello, 27-year-old West met his next wife, Rosemary Letts, on her 15th birthday.

Dec. 4, 1970 – Fred West was imprisoned for theft

Jun. 1971 – Charmaine West (8), Rosemary’s step-daughter, murdered, Fred was in prison at the time

Jun. 24, 1971 – Fred released from prison.

Aug. 1971 – Catherine Bernadette “Rena” West Costello (27)

Jan. 29, 1972 – The Wests are married

Apr. 1973 – Lynda Carole Gough (19)

Nov. 1973 – Carol Ann Cooper (15)

Dec. 1973 – Lucy Katherine Partington (21)

Apr. 1974 – Theresa Siegenthaler (21)

Nov. 1974 – Shirley Hubbard (15)

Apr. 1975 – Juanita Marion Mott (18)

May 1978 – Shirley Anne Robinson (18)

Aug. 1979 – Alison Jane Chambers (16)

June 1987 – Heather Ann West (16), murdered

May 1992 – West filmed himself raping one of his other daughters, and twice again afterwards. She told friends at school what had happened.

Aug. 4, 1992 – one of the friends told her mother and she went to the police.

Feb. 25, 1994 – Fred West arrested, after discovery previous day of remains of Charmaine

Jan. 1, 1995 – Fred West hanged himself while in prison

Oct. 1995 – Rosemary went on trial

Nov. 22, 1995 – Rosemary West was found guilty of 10 murders; sentenced to life in prison

2001 – West announced her intention not to appeal, while maintaining her innocence.

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THE MURDERS

1) Charmaine West (8; born 22 February 1963): Rose’s step-daughter. Killed in June 1971 by Rose West while Fred was in prison, the motive said to be Rose’s wish to break links with Charmaine’s mother, “Rena.”

2) Catherine Bernadette “Rena” Costello (27; born 14 April 1944): Fred’s ex-wife. Killed August 1971. Rena had called to take Charmaine away with her and it is believed Fred West killed her to avoid an investigation into Charmaine’s whereabouts.

3) Lynda Gough (19; born 1 May 1953): Killed April 1973. A lodger at 25 Cromwell St, Gough and Rosemary would share lovers. Following her disappearance Gough’s mother called to visit and Rosemary, wearing Gough’s clothes and slippers, told her she had moved to find work in Weston-super-Mare.

4) Carol “Caz” Ann Cooper (15, born 10 April 1958): Killed November 1973. Cooper was living in a children’s home in Worcester when she disappeared while walking home from the cinema.

5) Lucy Katherine Partington (21, born 4 March 1952): Killed December 1973. Spent Christmas with her family in Cheltenham and visited a friend, and disappeared after leaving to catch a bus home. There is strong evidence that she had been kept alive for at least several days. A week after she disappeared, Fred went to a hospital in the early hours of 3 January 1974 to get a serious laceration stitched. A knife matching the cut was found with Partington’s body and police surmise he sustained the injury while dismembering it. Partington, a university student, was the cousin of novelist Martin Amis and the sister of author Marian Partington, who wrote about her sister’s disappearance and the discovery of her remains in her memoir If You Sit Very Still (2012).

6) Therese Siegenthaler (21, born 27 November 1952): Killed in April 1974. A student in South London who left to hitch-hike to Ireland and disappeared.

7) Shirley Hubbard (15, born 26 June 1959): Killed November 1974. Left a work experience course in Droitwich to return home but did not arrive. When her remains were found her head was completely covered in tape with only a three-inch rubber tube inserted to allow her to breathe.

8) Juanita “Nita” Marion Mott (18; born 1 March 1957): Killed April 1975. A former lodger at 25 Cromwell St, Mott was living with a friend of her mother’s in Newent when she disappeared.

9) Shirley Anne Robinson (18; born 8 October 1959): Killed May 1978. A lodger at 25 Cromwell St, Robinson was a prostitute for the Wests. Disappeared after becoming pregnant with Fred’s child.

10) Alison Chambers (16; born 8 September 1962): Killed August 1979. Last known sexually motivated killing.

11) Heather Ann West (16; born 17 October 1970) Daughter of Rose and Fred. Killed June 1987. Heather became the focus of Fred’s attentions after Anne Marie left home. She complained to friends about the abuse, and when this got back to Fred and Rose, they decided to eliminate her as Heather now risked exposing them. Also, Heather was probably sired not by Fred, but by Rose’s abusive father, Bill Letts. Fred West claimed he had not meant to kill her but she had been sneering at him and he “had to take the smirk off her face”. Rosemary told an enquiring neighbour the following day that she and Heather had a “hell of a row” so it is believed Rosemary may have initiated her death. The Wests told their children Heather had left for a job in Devon, but later changed the story to her having run off with a lesbian lover when she failed to contact or visit them. Later still Fred would threaten the children that they would “end up under the patio like Heather” if they misbehaved. Heather’s body was found under the patio that Fred had built over the fishpond dug by his son Stephen. Heather’s murder indirectly led to the Wests’ arrests almost seven years later.

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“When Caroline Roberts accepted a job at 25 Cromwell Street, the infamous address of Fred and Rose West, she was only 16. Realising that there was something very malevolent about the couple, she left their employment soon after, glad to be rid of them. The story should have ended there. A month later she was abducted by the Wests and suffered violent sexual abuse at their hands before being told that she would be killed and buried. Through a combination of sheer luck and quick thinking, despite the trauma of what had happened, Caroline managed to escape to freedom.” [Caroline Roberts & Stephen Richards, The One That Got Away, 2012, Metro Publishing]

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Links to more Serial Killer Couples

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[16200-12/31/20]

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What is Misandric Fixation?

Q: What is Misandric Fixation?

A: An obsession with eradicating maleness 

Contrary to what we might nowadays suppose to be the case, misandric fixation is not necessarily the result of subjection to ideological indoctrination. Historical cases reveal that the condition can take hold without the subject having been influenced by either Marxist or eugenics ideologies. Indoctrination can, obviously, exacerbate certain vulnerabilities in the subject – weaknesses of character which were pre-existent; yet indoctrination is not a necessary prerequisite to the misandric fixation condition.

By far the most well-known example of misandric fixation is that of Valerie Solanas, author of the 1967 feminist classic, S.C.U.M. (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto. In 2011 public awareness of progressive feminist calls for the achieving of an anti-male utopia (to be manifested itself in violence against children and adults) was revived by the appearance of a Solonas-inspired organization in Sweden and by the disclosure of writings characterized by misandric fixation at a website called RadfemHub, founded by best-selling writer Pamela O’Shaughnessy.

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Here are some notable historical cases of misandric fixation: 

►1901 – 3 cases : Marie Irrgang (Austria), Gretcheu Marie Schultz (Germany), Marie Lenoir (France) 

A famous Austrian misandrist, founder of a formalized misandric organization in Austria, plus two other famous European misandrists of the nineteenth century. 

►Early 20th Century – Josephine Gondon “Arria-Ly” (France)

Writer who “aspired to found a new cult of “arrialsme” which would be a perfect expression of her hatred of the male sex, whose ultimate extinction she envisaged by the practice of universal virginity on the part of women.”

►1904 – The Man-Hater’s Club, Washington, D. C. – Mrs. Martha McWhirter (USA)

►1909 – Harriet Evans (England)

Personal misandry pathologized to the maximum by an Englishwoman. 

►1909 – Sarah Hunt (USA)

Hatred of not only men, including those who would assist her in a dangerous emergency, but of all creatures male. 

►1912 – Mme. Kaissavow (Russia)

A wealthy Russian’s enormous book collection which male authors are banished. 

►1913 – Louise Deverly-Dupont (France)

Writer who “had two favourite themes, namely that the great majority of men were infected with syphilis and that women should at all times carry guns against the omnipresent threat of assault from the predatory male.”

►1922 – League of Women Victims of Men (France)

“Requisites for membership included a violent hatred of men.” The organization lasted only six months.

►1922 – Marie Petti, London ultra-feminist organization leader (UK)

“Man is but one of a million humble fertilizers. Nature intended woman to reign supreme.” Marie Petti, leader of a secret ultra-feminist movement that has sprung up throughout the British Isles, … voiced this slogan of the new organization.

►1926 – “The Man-Hating Feminist” (USA)

The life of a “man-hating” feminist on her “having it all” quest is described by a female author.

►1926 – Josefa Szanyi (Josephine Tzany) (Hungary)

She preyed upon married men; suspected of murdering 12. – Quote: “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.”

►1933 – Viktoria Rieger (Hungary)

Cross-dressing misandrist who formulated an original husband-murdering service which she farmed out to Hungarian wives in a mood for a change. 

►1939 – Sarah Hyslop (Scotland)

Sadistic Scottish woman who perfected the art of matrimonial terrorism, racking up 53 victims of her special psychological torture technique.

►1940 – Mary Orban (USA)

Since little boys grow up to be patriarchal oppressors, strong women like this infanticidal American are prepared to take action in the name of “social justice.” 

►1946 – Louisa Strittmater (USA)

Personal misandry pathologized to the maximum and then twisted into a utopian ideology by an American woman.

►1956 – Beatrice Adams (USA)

This woman was quite pleased with herself for running over a man with her car over and over again. “I feel no remorse over having killed him,” Miss Adams said. “I’d do it again. God and I are tired of men taking advantage of women.”

►1960 – Zein Khattab Ghanzala (Egypt)

A bearded, cross-dressing, 37-year-old bandit named Zein Khattab Ghanzala for 10 years terrorized the entire Behaira Province in the Nile delta. She explained: “I began to grow the beard when I was only 14. After that no man would look at me. So I vowed to terrorize these weakneed male creatures – and I got my revenge in kidnapping and plunder.”

►1962 – June Ann Olsen (USA)

June Ann Olsen was a serial arsonist from Miami who, over a period of nine years, set scores of fires.  In 1962 she burned down an entire Miami city block. On numerous occasions she would lure men into motel rooms. After they were undressed, she would slosh lighter fluid onto the bed and torch it. “You ought to see them run,” she told one reporter. She told police: “I just hate men. They ought to stop the world – and push them all off.”

►1968 – Valerie Solanas (USA)

A very famous, but not in the least bit innovative, lunatic misandrist.

►1971 – Ellery Queen, “Sweet Assassins” and the Liberation

Crime novelist offers a non-fiction overview of homicidal feminism.

►1972 – Feminists of New York (organization) conference (USA)

Affirming the central importance of promoting of the “hatred of men” (their words) is the central topic of the presentations.

►1981 – Priscilla Bradford (USA)

A group of feminist women have an ideal “career” situation in mind that can be achieved, they believe, by making a false domestic violence report followed by a frenzied session of bludgeoning with kitchen implements upon the head of a hard-working, mild-mannered husband. 

►1984 – Charmaine Pfender & Sara Mae Richardson (USA) 

This female couple so despised heteronormatives that they set up a double date (for double murder fun) with two easy marks, but caught after one of the victims survived their murderous attacks. His friend did not. 

►2005 – Feminist Action League (USA)

At an event called "Patriarchy Slam," 40 women in the audience, many wearing scissors around their necks, laughed and clapped in response to misandric presentations, then broke into a light-hearted song about castration.

►2009 – “Sao Paulo Girl,” Serial Killer (Brazil)

A 17-year-old girl confessed to stabbing to death 30 men within the period of two years.

►2009 – Psychology of Hate (USA)

How the profession of psychology is infected with rampant political bias.

►2010 – Josefin von Zeipel Segerberg (Sweden)

A worshipper of Valerie Solanas.

►2011 – Krista Jane Heflin “Femitheist Divine” (pseud. of Krista Leighanne Milburn) (USA)

This young American loves to write about her genocidal authoritatian fantasies of a feminist Utopia.

►2011 – Danielle Elina Pynnonen (Australia?)

Another worshipper of Valerie Solanas.

► 2012 – Vanja Krajina: Change Agent (Canada)

 University of Toronto “rape culture” promoter

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[5220-11/2/20]

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María Concepción Ladino, Colombian Serial Killer “Witch” - 1998

María Concepción Ladino Gutiérrez is a Colombian charlatan, swindler and a serial killer. Alias: “Doña Conchita,” “La Hermana María” (“Sister Mary”); called by the press “La Bruja Asesina” (The Killer Witch).

No mention of her age has been located yet, but a photo that appeared in the newspapers has the appearance of a woman of about 40. The image used here was taken from a Columbia’s true crime Discovery Channel show, Instento Asesino, which was first broadcast Feb. 7, 2011.

Her murder career began, as far as is is known, in 1994. She used poison on some of her victims, all of whom believed her claims of having magical powers. One of them was drugged and then incinerated in her own car. In at least two cases, her credulous clients were recipients of letters they were expected to believe were written by the spirits of their deceased loved ones, including from one of the murder victims address to his widow.

The known death toll is seven, plus one poisoning in which the victim survived the attempted murder, as well as at least twenty swindles. The number being indeterminate due to the dupes’ very reasonable fear of violent reprisal from the “witch’s” male accomplices.

She was arrested September 1998 (and assigned a public defender on September 25, 1998), was convicted and sentenced to 40 years in prison on September 11, 2002 and released to "house arrest” in 2009, a decision which, when discovered by El Tiempo, elicited controversy.

~ Murder Number 1: Carlos Julio Montaña (Oct. 13, 1994) ~

The earliest recorder murder, that of 54-year-old father of three Carlos Julio Montaña, occurred in the Fontibón district of western Bogota. On August 15, 1994, Doña Conchita rented rooms in the home of the Montaña family. She soon began to “diagnose” her new landlord as suffering from emaciation and offered him her magical curative.

She offered Señor Montaña baked desserts and gave him a concoction that she poured from “dark bottles” (another news report states they were in pill form), a measure of laxative that Doña Concita announced was worth more than the rent she was paying. After that she coaxed her patient to submit to continuous herbal baths with herbs that wold exorcise the evil spirits from his body. She likewise subjected his three young children to this treatment.

On October 13, when Señora Montaña was absent, she went in for the kill. The poisoner sent the little ones outdoors and prepared to finish him off. At about one in the afternoon according to one newspaper account, she went to her victim’s room and plied him with liquid refreshments.

When, five hours later, the wife returned she was surprised to see that her husband’s lunch, which she had prepared for him, before she left. She went to her husband’s bedroom where she found him, apparently, asleep. Behind her came the magic woman and warned the woman to let him be as he was in a trance in which he was put in order to cure heart disease. She then gathered the mother and children together for a séance for the purpose of spiritually augmenting the Señor Montaña’s magic cure, oblivious to the fact that he had passed away hours earlier.

Unsettled by the witch’s eerie incantations, Señora Montaña panicked and rushed to her husband’s side, where, as reports tells us, he was found in a pool of blood. (It is not made clear how the poisoning led to such a result). She assumed he had died of a heart attack with a burst artery. Then she called the police, but unbeknownst to Señora Montaña, already made the call.

Confronted with the officer after his arrival, Mary maintained an insouciant facade. The widow spooked by the events of the day and the presence of the woman she believed to have supernatural powers failed to report her suspicions. The lodger moved out.

Soon the widow started receiving letters purported to have been written by the spirit of her departed husband. The spirit missives instructed the bereaved woman to put her trust in Doña Concepción. “Trust,” it turned out, came to mean the witch was to have the Montaña home signed over to her possession. The widow was about to given but had a change of heart and turned on the witch, threatening to expose her. Doña Concepción left empty-handed.

~ Murder Number 2: Nebardo Adalberto Guevara Torres (after Aug. 14, 1994) ~

Nebardo Adalberto Guevara Torres, residing in the La Serafina district, came to be the witch’s next target. He owned two livery vehicles, a taxicab and a van. The victim’s brother had told him about a woman dealing in chickens and salt in need of transport. Guevara was not getting enough business and he suspected his cars had been contaminated by the salt. Doña Concita examined the vehicles and announced that indeed they were contaminated and that evil spirits were inhabiting them and his own person as well but that for 500,000 pesos she could disperse them. She gave the victim the same treatment as the last: liquids (a foul-tasting green potion) and herbal baths.

Wearied of the vain rituals, Guevara decided to just get rid of the “contaminated” vehicles and placed an advertisement to sell the. As soon as Doña Concita got wind of this plan she interceded. She said she had a son who would buy them. He agreed to allow Doña Concita to purchase the taxi and van, accepting post-dated checks for 11 million pesos as payment. The checks, of course, bounced; they were from a stolen checkbook. Yet Doña Concita was prepared. She had convinced Guevara to undergo a purification ritual at the river Cáqueza. He went with her and that was the last time he was seen alive. And it was the last time Doña Concita was seen by Señora Guevara. Yet right way the witch was to employ the standard truck she used on her gullible hopelessly superstitious clients: she created letters from the spirit of the dead that were delivered to the widow. The widow reported her missing husband to the police and named Doña Concita as the person responsible. She was arrested, but as there was no hard evidence to hold her as responsible for Guevara’s disappearance, she was released.

~ Murder Number 3: Haydee Sánchez Florez (Aug. 1996) ~

The con woman eventually changed location to Bucaramanga, a major city 186 miles (300 kilometers) to the northeast of Bogota and adopted a new alias, “La Hermana María” (“Sister Mary”). She found her next known murder victim in that city in  August 1996, in the shape of a jewelry seller by the name of Haydee Sánchez Florez. He business was doing poorly and she wanted to rid it of “bad energy.” Sister Mary gave her the usual prescription: spiritual spells, curative baths and green-colored magic potions. The witch soon, drugged her victim with benzodiacepina sleeping pills, scooped up her goods and drove her, in the drugged woman’s own car, to a secluded spot doused the jewelry seller with gasoline and lit the fuel, burning her to death.

~ Murder Number 4: Helena Cáceres González (1997) ~

Ladino next performed her magic on an elderly couple living in Ciudad Jardín del Norte de Bogotá. She grabbed 15 million pesos and the wife disappeared. Her corpse was found in the río Amarillo.

~ Multiple Swindles in Ciudad Jardín del Norte de Bogotá  (1997) ~

It was learned later, after Ladino had been indicted for multiple murders that in Ciudad Jardín del Norte de Bogotá during this time period that Ladino had defrauded an additional 20 persons. This fact was discovered through telephone calls made to newspaper reporters of El Tiempo who stated that the victims never reported the crimes “for fear that behind it is an organization that could threaten their lives.” El Tiempo did not, at least in articles found by this researcher, did not name the “organization,” but referred to “gunmen friends of Doña Concepcion riding around the city in taxis.” Yet once it is learned (from U. S. court filings) that the organization was the FARC guerrilla communist group the fears prove to have been well-substantiated.

~ Attempted murder: Name unknown ~

Back in the center of Bogota proper she made friends with a woman (at number 17 on calle 19) she learned had saved up 3 million pesos. Ladino poisoned her with scopolamine placed one of her potions yet the victim’s constitution was robust and she survived the attempt on her life. When the victim recovered consciousness her assailant threats cowed her into silence so the crime remained, until much, later unreported.

~ Triple murder: The Bello Clavijo sisters (Oct.? 1997) ~

In early 1997, María Concepción Ladino exploited the painful illness of a dying woman in order to prey upon the old woman’s three daughters Bello Clavijo, Elsa Clara, Luz Stella and Ana Lucia. The lady was suffering from neck cancer and the worried young ladies looked at the magical lady as a possible savior.

Yet Dona Conchita’s potions were of no avail and her patient expired, leaving to the three the a 13 million peso inheritance, which a spoil which the wicked “healer” concentrated her energies. After going through the motions of assuaging the grief over the death of their beloved mother, the three girls were persuaded to invest their inheritance in a magical procedure which Dona Conchita assured them would, in less than four months, double their money.

A month later, she locked himself in a room of the house of the sisters and instructed them to deposit their inheritance money in a chest, and invoked the powers of the spirit world with magical prayers. The cheat was placed under a bed and the credulous girls were then warned that under no circumstanced should they open it.

Following this base theatrical performance, the woman offered to serve as a spirit medium so that the Bello sisters might communicate with the soul of their deceased mother. The result was that girls received more than fifteen letters, which were supposed to have been written by the dear departed, and which announced to the motherless girls that Mrs. Concepcion was to be received as their new mother.

After three months however, the faith of one of the girls was waning, and doubting the witchcraft she disobeyed orders, and peering into the chest found not a multiplication of the original 13 million, but merely four 10,000 peso notes.

To mollify the three furious Bollas, Dona Conchita reassured them by disclosing the wondrous fact only she could – due to her special powers – see the invisible banknotes and, to reassure the suspicious orphans, she offered to conduct a special purification rite in order make their eyes pure enough to see that which was unseen. The ritual was to occur at a natural water source. With this pretext, the girls were led a stream of the Sabana de Bogotá where, with the assistance of two hired killers, they were pummeled to death with stones.

Yet there was a surviving brother, Santiago Bello Clavijo, who immediately instigated an investigation.

Court records from Clavijo’s plea for asylum in the United States, explain the specifics of the “organization” and the gunman friends” that the newspapers so gingerly reported:

“Clavijo is a native and citizen of Colombia. In August 1998, Clavijo’s three sisters were murdered in Colombia after they refused to make extortionate payments to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (“FARC”). Clavijo began assisting Colombian authorities with the investigation into his sisters’ murders. Two days after the murders, Clavijo’s brother received a telephone call from an individual who identified himself as a member of the FARC. The caller threatened to kill Clavijo if he continued to assist with the murder investigation. Clavijo continued to assist the police and continued to receive telephone death threats from the FARC.” [United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. CLAVIJO v. U.S. ATT. GEN.  No. 07-10042 Non-Argument Calendar. (11th Cir. Aug. 13, 2007)]

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María Concepción Ladino Gutiérrez was arrested in August 1998. Two of her male accomplices were also captured. She was briefly hospitalized on the 30th of that month after a what appeared to be a suicide attempt. She was brought before the court on September 6th and assigned a public defender on the 25th. The process dragged on, resulting in a trial on multiple charges, ending on September 11, 2002, when the Criminal Court 52 in the Bogota Circuit sentenced Ladino to 40 years in prison fined her $30,000.

In 2009, Ladino was released from prison and placed under “house arrest” as part of a furlough program, with an explanation that the decision was due to medical considerations. The newspaper registered strong complaints about this, and other cases, of violent criminals receiving lenient treatment.

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NOTE: This narrative has been patched together from various, sometimes sketchy, sources. It will be checked for accuracy of dates, some of which had to be inferred, as well as other details when additional sources become available.

Sources:

1) Juan Carlos Escobar, “Crímenes De Una Bruja,” El Tiempo (Bogota, Colombia), Nov. 1, 1998

2) “Condenada La Bruja María Concepción,” El Tiempo (Bogota, Colombia), Sep. 22, 2002

3) Bogotá, D.C., cuatro (4) de agosto de dos mil cuatro (2004). CORTE SUPREMA DE JUSTICIA SALA DE CASACIÓN PENAL, Magistrado Ponente: Dr. EDGAR LOMBANA TRUJILLO Aprobado Acta No. 065, Bogotá, D.C., cuatro (4) de agosto de dos mil cuatro (2004).

4) United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit. CLAVIJO v. U.S. ATT. GEN.  No. 07-10042 Non-Argument Calendar. (11th Cir. Aug. 13, 2007)

5) “Estos son los cinco delincuentes que deben estar tras las rejas, pero tienen casa por cárcel,” El Tiempo (Bogota, Colombia), Mar. 20, 2010

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►7 Known Murder Victims:

Oct.. 23, 1994 – Carlos Julio Montaña, 54, poisoned, “two glasses of soda”

After Aug. 14, 1994 – Nebardo Adalberto Guevara Torres, “green water,” disppeared

Aug. 1996 – Haydee Sánchez Florez, burned to death

1997 – Helena Cáceres González, body found in river

Oct.? 1997 – Elsa Clara Bello Clavijo, pummeled to death with stones by hired killers

Oct.? 1997 – Luz Stella Bello Clavijo, pummeled to death with stones by hired killers

Oct.? 1997 – Ana Lucia Bello Clavijo, pummeled to death with stones by hired killers

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For more cases of this type, see: Occult Female Serial Killers

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For similar cases, see: Female Serial Killer Bandits

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MORE: Female Serial Killers & Arson

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[3447-4/20-20]
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Female Serial Killers – Q & A

► Question #1

Q: How many female serial killer case are known?

A: Over 800.

See Index: Female Serial Killers

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► Question #2

Q: Who is the world’s most prolific female serial killer?

A: Credonia Mwerinde, with at least 1,186 confirmed murders.

For other prolific examples see The Prolific Female Serial Killers.

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► Question #3

Q: How many serial killers have been executed for their crimes?

A: 86 examples are known at this time.

See: Female Serial Killers Executed

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► Question #4

Q: Who is the most sadistic female serial killer?

A: Theie is no single definitive answer. Elizabeth Bathory (1610, Hungary) is the most obvious answer, but there are some other impressive contenders:

Darya Saltykova (1762, Russia), Anne Gaillard Delpech (1868, France), Enriqueta Marti (1912, Spain), Moulay Hassen (1938, Morocco), Felícitas Sánchez Aguillón (1941, Mexico), Myra Hindley (1965, England), Karla Homolka (1992, Canada), Rosemary West (England).

Also, see Female Serial Killers & Sadism

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► Question #5

Q. Are there any cross-dressing female serial killers?

A. Yes, several: “White Necked Crow” (940, China), Mademoiselle Bonhours (France), Viktoria Rieger (1933, Hungary), Juana Barraza (2006, Mexico).

See: Female Serial Killer Bandits

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► Question #6

Q. Was the phenomenon of the serial killer “baby farmer” primarily (as I read on Wikipedia) a British Victorian one?

A. Not at all. Baby farmer serial killers are known well before the 19^th century. Many cases can be found in Europe, Russia, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere. The most prolific of these female child-murderers known so far are Mrs. Holmen (a serial killer couple, 1906, Sweden) and Madame Kusnezowa (1913, Russia).

Also, see: The Forgotten Serial Killers: Child Care Providers (“Baby Farmers”) Who Murdered Children

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► Question #7

Q: I read that most female serial killers have male accomplices. Is this true?

A: Not in the least. Only a fraction of female serial killers have male accomplices. Despite efforts to argue otherwise, the fact is that in many serial killer couple cases involving brutality and sexual perversion it is the female member who is psychologically dominant, as with Judith Neelley (1982, southern USA) and Karla Homolka (1985, Canada).

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► Question #8

Q. But it is true that female serial killers almost always target members of  their intimate circle, isn’t it?

A: No. Perhaps a majority do, however. Yet there is a very large share that do not fit this stereotype. “Ogresses” frequently murder the children of strangers. Female Serial Killer Bandits target strangers, obviously.

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► Question #9

Q: Is it true that female serial killers almost never target strangers of the female sex?

No. The claim is untrue. Here are some examples of female serial killers who targeted women who were not part of their intimate circle:

Elizabeth Bathory (1610, Hungary), Darya Saltykova (1762, Russia), Leopoldine Kasparek (1917, Austria), Leonarda Cianciulli (1941, Italy, cannibal), K. D. Kempamma (2007, India), Dana Sue Gray (1994, USA), Juana Barraza (2006, Mexico), Irina Gaidamachuk (2010, Russia), Mahin Qadiri (2009, Iran).

Also, see: Female Serial Killers Who Like to Murder Women

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► Question #10

Q. It is often said material necessity or greed or self-defense is the real motive of female serial killers. It this accurate?

A. It is true that a huge share of female serial killers make some material profit (money or property) from their murders, yet it is a mistake to see this as the deepest motive.

“[There is] only one reason why a woman would, over the span of years, kill off the people closest to her, one by one, in ways that are guaranteed to make them undergo terrible suffering: because she gets pleasure from doing it.” [Harold Schechter, Fatal, 2003]

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► Question #11

Q: What on earth is a “Champion Black Widow Serial Killer”?

A: Women who have murdered (or attempted to murder) four or more husbands (or paramours).

See this checklist of 41 such cases: Champion Black Widow Serial Killers

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► Question #12

Experts have claimed that the incidence of female serial killer cases greatly increased in the last few decades of the 20^th century. Is this true?

No. The claim is based on the false assumption that the cases the criminologists making this claim devoted their attention to represented an accurate representation of historical cases (meaning cases that occurred before the phenomenon came to be seriously studied during the late twentieth century).

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See: Female Serial Killer Quotations: Voices of Violent Women

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SEE MORE: Female Serial Killer Collections

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SEE: Female Serial Killer Collections: MASTER LIST

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