Unknown Gender History: Female Serial Killers

► 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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