Female Serial Killers: Weapons, Poisons & Methods

This checklist is still in progress. The study of female aggression is still in its infancy. Criminologists largely overlooked violence by women as a serious subject of study until the 1950s. Yet the subject was quickly deemed “politically correct” and was deemed an “inappropriate” topic for scientific research.

Finally we are beginning to see the beginnings of an honest academic approach to this still largely taboo, subject emerging among the braver among the new young generation of criminologists, sociologists, and psychologists.

As of yet, women’s studies specialists have not expressed any interest in exploring the fact that female serial killers are far more common and far more diverse in ethnicity and in methods employed than is claimed by the experts.

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From a review of the new academic book, Helen Gavin, Theresa Porter, Female Aggression, December 2014, Wiley-Blackwell: The authors “challenge our most cherished feminist beliefs about women as the more compassionate, cooperative, “maternal,” and non-violent of the genders.”

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► Asphixia variants

• Asphyxia – Michele Kalina
• Choke with Stone – Margaret Messenger (FSK girl)
• Choke with potato – Jeanne Bonnaud
• Choke with stone – Jeanne Bonnaud
• Choke with Washcloth – Gwendolyn Graham
• Hanging by noose – Viktoria Rieger
• Smother – Mary Cowan, Gwendolyn Graham,Marie Doiselet (handkerchief, FSK girl, 2 v), “La Flèche Serial Killer Girl,” Sieske Hoekstra, Hazel Howe Spicer, Barbara Wilkinson
• Smother with blanket – Christine Falling (“smotheration”)
• Smother with pillow – Claudette Kibble, Marybeth Roe Tinning, Debra Sue Tuggle,
• Stethoscope – Juana Barraza, strangle with stethoscope
• Strangle – Juana Barraza, Martha Beck, Mary Bell, Carol May Bundy, Amelia Dyer, Leontine Kasparek, Diane Lumbrera, Celine Lesage, Junko Ogata, Maria Reyes, Kathleen Riefer, Mary Runkle, “Shanghai Female Jack the Ripper,” Veronica Molnar, Jeanne Weber, Rosemary West
• Strangle with edging tape (millinery) – Amelia Dyer
• Strangle with handkerchief – Ane Nielsdatter
• Strangle with hands – Agnes Norman, Jeanne Weber
• Strangle with ligature – Stella Williamson
• Strangle with silk cord – Rachel Lynn
• Strangle with silk scarf – Myra Hindley
• Strangle with string – Myra Hindley
• Strangle & drown in tank – “Kakoorgachi Serial Murderess”
• Suffocate – Marie Bouriant, Dominique Cottrez, Anne Gaillard Delpech, Christine Falling, Waneta Hoyt, Elizabeth Kirkbride, Celine Lesage, Diane Lumbrera,  Marie Noe, Agnes Norman, Fru Olsen, Johannsen and Andrasen baby farmers; Mahin Qadiri, Maxine Robinson, Debra Sue Toggle, Rosemary West, Stella Williamson, Gwendolyn Graham & Catherine May Wood, Martha Woods
• Suffocate by stuffing mouth with toilet paper – Myriam Marlein

► Drowning

• Boat (push into water) – Judias Buenoano
• Drown – Henrietta Bamberger, Dagmar Overbye, Debra Sue Tuggl, Janet Smith
• Drown in Bathtub – Claudette Kibble
• Drown in Ditch – Ane Cathrine Andersdatter
• Drown in Icy Water – Ane Cathrine Andersdatter
• Drown in pail of water – Anne Gaillard Delpech
• Drown in Reservoir – “Black widow gang”
• Drown in River – María Concepción Ladino Gutiérrez, K. D. Kempamma, Ane Nielsdatter
• Drown in “sink” (open sewer) – Pamela Myers
• Drown in Tank – “Kakoorgachi Serial Murderess” (strangle under water)
• Drown in Well – Ane Cathrine Andersdatter, Jeanne Bonnaud (FSK girl), Margaret Messenger (FSK girl)
  

► Poisons

• Anafranil – Elfriede Blauensteiner
• Antidepressants – Dena Thompson 
• Antimony – Martha Grinder, Marie Jeanneret, Mary Meyer
• Antifreeze (ethylene glycol) – Shirley Elizabeth Allen, Stacey Castor, Diane & Rachel Staudte, Julia Lynn Turner
• Antiseptic solution - Ayumi Kuboki
• Anxiolytics (sleeping pills) – Manuela Gonzalez Cano
• Arsenic – (incomplete list ) Amy Archer-Gilligan, Mary Ann Armagost, Velma Barfield, Mary Bateman, Marie Besnard, Frances "Fanny" Billing & Catherine Frary, Edith Agnes Bingham, Therese Blaumsteiner, Giovanna Bonanno, Frau Buchmann, Mary Emily Cage, Clara Carl, Barbara Chishau, Eriminia Colavito, Emily Stone Conyers, Mary Ann Cotton, Mary Cowan, Ivy Crabtree, Anna Cunningham, Persa Czirin, Alice Danbrough, Nannie Doss, Elizabeth Dalzey, Mary Demmer, Virginia Doyle, Roberta Elder, Ellen Etheridge, Nancy Ferrer, Sarah Freeman, Polly Frisch (Hoag), Marie Gagey, Nellie Mary Anne Geering, Janie Lou Gibbs, Bertha Gifford, Betty Jo Green, Anna Marie Hahn, Emma Heppermann, Bertha Gossett Hill, Marie Hilley, Susannah Holroyd, Margarete Jäger, Helene Jegado, Eliza Joyce, Monsieur Joye, Karoline Kieper, Tillie Klimek, Ida Leckwold, Anjette Donovan Lyles, Louise Mabre, Rhonda Belle Martin, Alice Mason, Daisy de Melker, Blanche Taylor Moore, Martha Needle, Katherine Nolan, Effie Norris, Milka Pavlovich, Mary Pimlett, Madame Popova, Anujka de Poshtonja, Eliza Potegian, Anna Przygodda, Betty Rowland, Esther Sarac, Jane Scott, Della Sorenson, Caroline Sorgenfrie, Carrie Bodie Sparling, Harriet Ann Stevens, Anna Louise Sullivan, Maria Catherina Swanenburg, Rose Theyre, Anna Tomaskiewicz, Louise Vermilya, Annie Wagner (Rough on Rats), Mrs. Wahle, Nellie Webb, Phebe Westlake, Sarah Jane Whiteling, Hattie Whitten, Martha Wise, Eliza Wood, Annie Zachoegner
• Arsenic (“mouse butter”; arsenic mixed with fat) – Gesche Gottfried
• Arsenic covered shirt – Marie Bosse
• Arsenic in castor oil – Hattie Whitten
• Arsenic pills – Elizabeth Dalzey
• Atropine – Maria Kramer, Marie Jeanneret, Jane Toppan
• Belladonna – Marie Jeanneret, Mari Azalai Jager
• Bichloride of mercury – Mattie Shann
• Black hellebore (hollebore niger) – Julia St. Joseph
• Bleach (intravenous) – Kimberly Clark Saenz
• Bromazepam – Francesca Ballesteros
• Carbon monoxide – Kanae Kijima; Rose Veres, Manuela Gonzalez Cano
• Carramuni flower - Gaetana Stimoli
• Chlorodyne – Amelia Sach & Annie Walters
• Chlororoform – Nellie Haven & Hattie Graham, Belle Gunness
• Chlorphenamine – Marli Teles de Souza
• Colchacine (colohioum, colchion) – Catherine Wilson
• Colme (anti-alcoholism drug) – Francesca Ballesteros
• Corrosive Sublimate (mercuric chloride) – Clothida Cravana
• Creosote & Sulphuric acid – Elizabeth Berry
• Croton oil - Vandergrift
• Cyanide – Chisako Kakehi, H. D. Kempamma, Bernardina Maria de las Mercedes Bolla Aponte “Yiya Murano,” Chen Kao Lien-yen, Galya Tannenbaum, Le Thanh Van
• Diamorphine – Anne Grigg-Booth
• Digitalis – Marie Becker, Marie Jeannebraq (digitaline), Mary Tene Steiner, Rodica Negroiu
• “Drug overdose” – Dorothea Puente
• Dushuqiang rat poison (tetramethylene: TETS) – Wang Fang
• E605 insecticide (parathion) – Christa Lehmann
• Epinephrine – Kirsten Gilbert
• Ether – Mrs. David Drake
• Euglucon – Elfriede Blauensteiner
• Feces as poison - Marie-Françoise Bougaran
• Fly poison – Ida Leckwold
• Furadan (carbofuran) –Yadira Narvaez Marin
• Gramoxone (herbicide) – Noh
• Ground glass - Alsa Thompson, Henrietta Williams
• Horse tonic (containing arsenic) – LaVerne O’Bryan
• Hostetter's Stomach Bitters – Lydia Sherman
• Hydrochloric acid – Martha Rendell
• Insulin – Beverly Allitt, Cecile Bombeek, Bobbie Sue Tyrell
• Laudanum – Rosa Bronzo, Alice Danbrough, Minnie Dean, Eliza Joyce, Mrs. Reignolds, Mrs. Fred West (Clara West)
• Levomephpromazine – Marli Teles de Souza
• Liquid Fly Poison – Ida Leckwold
• Liquor – Margaret Waldegrave
• Luminol – Dr. Margarethe Heubsch, Dr. Marianne Tuerk
• Lye – Ellen Etheridge
• Matches (source for white phosphorous and arsenic) – Anne Dupin (“Lucifer matches” containing white phosphorous), Marguerite Léris Grieumard
• Mercury – Lottie Lockman
• Mivacuriam chloride (Mivacrom) – Vickie Dawn Jackson
• Morphine – Annie Crawford, Caroline Finity, Dr. Margarethe Heubsch, Marie Jeanneret, Christine Malvere, Leticia Page, Jane Toppan, Dr. Marianne Tuerk, Jane Toppan, Waltrud Wagner (& 3 other nurses), Elisabeth Wiese
• Nitric acid – Francois Trenque (nitric acid & arsenic)
• Ointment, poisoned – Anna Allas & Mary Chalfa & Giselle Young 
• Opiates – Margaret Waters
• Opium – Nellie Campbell (“opium gum soaked in milk”), Belinda Laphame
• “Pain Killers” (Lethal injections) – Timea Faludi
• Paracetomyl – Dena Thompson
• Paraffin oil – Jeanne Bonnaud
• Paregoric – Anna Allas & Mary Chalfa & Giselle Young 
• Parathion – Besse Reese
• Paris green – Mattie Shann, Caroline Sorgenfrie, Anna Sullivan, Anna Snoots, Anna Tomaskiewicz
• Phosphorous – Mary Elizabeth Wilson
• Phosphorous paste – Brigitte Burckel
• Porformaldehyde – Judias Buenoano
• Potassium – Christine Malvere
• Potassium chloride – Daniela Poggiali
• Potassium cyanide – Mrs. H. D. Zarin
• Pyralion and ether (mix containing acetate of lead used for killing weeds) – Antoinette Sierri
• “Rat Poison” (very incomplete list) – Shirley Elizabeth Allen, Ella Holdridge
• Rose Bay Leaves – Malvina Roester
• Sleeping pills and morphine concoction – Irmgard Swinka
• Spider poison – Anna Allas & Mary Chalfa & Giselle Young
• Spirits of salt – Martha Rendell
• Stannous chloride (tin salt) – Anna Allas & Mary Chalfa & Giselle Young
• Strychnine – Amy Archer-Gilligan, Catherine Batchelor, Velma Barfield, Ada Bilbrey, Hazel Dulcie Bodsworth, Mary Ann Britland, Alice Danbrough, Belle Gunness, Mae Hamilton, Rae Anderman Krauss, Charlotte Lamb, Victoria Lefebre, Frau Manko, Mary McKnight, Nettie Hoxan, Isabella Newman, Kate Painter, Alice Platt, Hattie Stone, Birdie Strome, Sally Story, Margaret Waldegrave, Harriet Ann Stevens, Jane Toppan, Hattie Whitten
• Strychnine in castor oil – Hattie Whitten
• Succinylcholine (powerful muscle relaxant) – Genene Jones
• Sulfuric acid – Catherine Wilson, Alsa Thompson
• Tartar emetic – Elizabeth Wharton
• Tetramethylene (TETS; Dushuqiang rat poison) – Wang Fang
• Thallium – Caroline Grills (Thall-Rat), Tamara Ivanyutina (liquid Clerici, highly toxic thallium-based solution), Martha Marek
• Tin chloride – Anna Allas & Mary Chalfa
• “Tranquilizers” (Lethal injections) – Timea Faludi
• Truxal – Marianne Nölle
• Typhoid germs – Julia Shepherd
• Valium – Patricia Dagorn
• Variety of poisons – Anna Marie Hahn (“each victim was administered a different poison,” Kelleher)
• Veronal – Dr. Marianne Tuerk, Dr. Margarethe Heubsch
• Vitriol and sugar – Madame Delpech (“pouring vitriol and sugar down its [baby’s] throat”)
• White mercury – Elizabeth Ridgway
• Zolpidem – Francesca Ballesteros

► Poison Carriers (Poisoners’ Cookbook)

• Almond milk – Gesche Gottfried (“Almond milk with arsenic”)
• Apple pie and cheese – Elizabeth Berry
• Ale and rum – Betty Rowland
• Baked Apple – Virginia Doyle
• Banana pudding – Blanche Taylor Moore
• Bananas and Eggs – Roberta Elder
• Barley soup – Sophie Johannesdatter
• Beans – Victoria Lefebre
• Beef tea – Amelia Winters
• Beef steak – Edith Agnes Bingham
• Beer – Shirley Elizabeth Allen, Mrs. Camfield, Daisy de Melker, Ellen Wharton, Anna Marie Zwanziger
• Biscuits, buttered – Jessie Bigbee
• Bread and Butter – Anna Cunningham 
• Bread and milk – Charlotte Lamb
• Blueberry Pudding – Maria Velten
• Brandy – “Kisoda, Hungary Serial Killers,” Pètronillo Schimonska, Lydia Sherman, Amelia Winters
• Broth – Marie de Brinvilliers, Elizabeth Ridgway
• Buttermilk – Anjette Lyles
• Cakes –  Mary Bateman, Brigitte Burckel, Gesche Gottfried (“funeral cake”), Kathi Lyukas
• Candy – Bridget Carey, Christa Lehmann, Eliza Potegian
• Castor oil – Hattie Whitten (with arsenic, strychnine)
• Christening cakes – Makrena Stankovic
• Cheese – Jeanne Gilbert
• Cheese and eggs – Roberta Elder
• Chicken meat – Jeanne Gilbert, Catalina de Los Rios y Lisperguer
• Chicken sandwich – Blanche Taylor Moore
• Chicken soup – Pauline Rogers
• Chocolate – Marie de Brinvilliers
• Chocolate pudding – Mary Creighton
• Cigarettes poisoned – Irmgard Swinka
• Clam Chowder – Lydia Sherman
• Cocoa – Mary Frances Creighton, Ella Holdridge (FSK girl)
• Coffee – Anna Carlson, Mrs. Elmer Conyers, Daisy de Melker, Ekaterini Dimetrea, Marie Gagey, Betty Jo Green, Agnes Orner, Thekla Popov, Anna Pryzgodda, Antoinette Scierri, Annora Yeoman
• Cookies – Della Sorenson
• Corn and Beans – Phebe Westlake
• Cottage cheese (smear case) – Celia Rose
• Cream – Dora Bullock Frost
• Croton oil – Anna Marie Hahn
• Curry – Dena Thompson
• Dumplings – Fanny Billings & Mrs. Frary
• Egg nog – Sarah Whiteling, Mary Creighton
• Epsom salts – Daisy De Melker
• Fried Potatoes – Nancy Farrer
• Grape juice – Eliza Potegian
• Gin and Garlic – Betty Rowland
• Gruel – Fanny Billings & Mrs. Frary, Virginia Doyle, Sussanah Holroyd, Betty Rowland, Anna Zwanziger
• Ham and eggs – Louise Vermilya
• Holy water – H. D. Kempamma
• Ice Cream – Blanche Taylor Moore
• Kebab – Shirin Gul
• Lemonade – Amy Archer-Gilligan, Mattie Shann, Mrs. H. D. Zarin
• Milk – Elfriede Blauensteiner, Nellie Campbell, Ellen Etheridge, Suzi Olah, Florence Peters, Maria Swanenburg  (Van Der Linden)
• Milk of Magnesia – Roberta Elder
• Mince pie – Sarah Chesham
• Molasses syrup – Nancy Farrer
• Okra stew – Eliza Potegian
• Onion syrup – Nancy Farrer
• Orange Juice - Bertha Gossett Hill
• Pastry (masa finas) –Yiya Murano
• Peaches and Cream – Martha Grinder
• Peanut Butter Milkshake – Blanche Taylor Moore
• Peach pie – Martha Grinder
• Pepper – Louise Vermilya
• Pie – Sarah Chesham
• Pigeon Pie – Marie de Brinvilliers
• Plum tart – Jeanne Gilbert
• Pork – Caroline Sorgenfrie (“fresh pork”)
• Porridge – Jane Scott
• Potato soup – Emma Heppermann
• Prasad – H. D. Kempamma
• Prune Juice – Nannie Doss
• Prunes – Sophie Ursinus
• Pudding – Mary Frances Creighton, Virginia Doyle, Blanche Taylor Moore
• Pumkin pie – Nancy Hufford
• Rice – Sophie Ursinus
• Rice with milk – Martha Grinder
• Rice pudding – Mary Ann Milner
• Sake – Ineigo Kaneiko
• Salt – Anna Marie Zwanziger
• Sandwich – Mary T. Hartman
• Soup – Marie de Brinvilliers, Renette C. Bussey, Martha Grinder, Madame Mizard & Anne Dupin, Anna Louise Sullivan, Frau Zivacky
• Spinach – Anna Marie Hahn
• Strawberry Ice Cream – Pauline Rogers
• Sweet Tea – Julia Lynn Turner (antifreeze)
• Sweetcakes – Eliza Potegian
• Tea – Marie Becker, Lizzie Brennan, Bridgett Carey, Caroline Grills, Shirin Gul, Sophie Johannesdatter, Charlotte Lamb, Mary May, Martha Needle, Florence Peters, Sarah Jane Robinson, Lydia Sherman, Birdie Strome
• Toast – Phebe Westlake
• Veal soup – Gesche Gottfried
• Water – Mae Hamilton, Elsie Bible Malinsky, Sally Story, Martha Wise
• Whiskey – Nellie Webb, Rhonda Bell Martin
• Wine – Virginia Doyle, Ineigo Kaneiko, Eliza Potegian, Gaetana Stimoli ("Stomoli")
• Yogurt – Christa Lehmann, Aino Nykopp-Koski
• Zwiebak and meat soup – Gesche Gottfried (Zwieback is a type of crisp, sweetened bread, made with eggs and baked twice.)

► Weapon: Blade

• Axe – Raya Aly Hammam, Clementine Barnabet, Belle Gunness, Irina Gaidamachuk, La Gizzi, Lizzie Halliday, Estis Liberis, Maria Oliviero, Ekaterina Pishianova, Emma Stillwell, Lala Wanh
• Blade (cutting throat) – Myra Hindley, Elizabeth Kirkbride
• Box cutter – Elena Lobacheva
• Butcher knife – Eugenia "Sweetlove" Moore
• Hatchet – Ane Nielsdatter, Anastasia Permiakova (to neck)
• Ice Pick – Eugenia "Sweetlove" Moore
• Knife – Raya Aly Hammam (throat), Marie-Françoise Bougaran, Carol May Bundy, Johanna Dennehy, Jaroslava Fabianova, Mary Jane Jackson, Kimberly McCarthy, Doretta Kirksey, La Gizzi (or sword?), Elena Lobacheva, Sylvia Meraz (Knife?: Ritual sacrifice), Itzel Garcia Montano, Eugenia Moore, “PK,” Maria Petrovna, Karina Rybalkina, “Sao Paulo Girl,” “White-Necked Crow,” Dorothy Williams
• Machete – Sara Maria Aldrete
• Meat Cleaver – Jaroslava Fabianova
• Razor blade – Marie Krueger
• Scissors – Lizzie Halliday

► Weapon: Blunt

• Drum Sticks – Sachiko Eto
• Hammer – Martha Beck, Bender Family, Mademoiselle Bouhours, Jaroslava Fabianova, Irina Gaidamachuk
• Hoe – Sarah Dockery (beat brains out with hoe)
• Iron Bar – Mahin Qadiri
• Pipe – Eugenia Moore
• Steel Bar – Eugenia "Sweetlove" Moore

► Weapon: Pins & Needles

• Darning Needle – Pauline Middlestedt
• Hatpin – Nannie Doss (in head of baby)
• Hairpin – Ida Schnell (into brain)
• Icepick – Eugenia Moore
• Knitting Needle – Sophie Gautié Bouyou
• Needle – Sarah Jane Makin (into heart)
• Pin – Catherine Miller

► Weapon: Pistol, Rifle, Explosive

• Bomb – Judias Buenoano (in car), Marjorie Diel-Armstrong
• Grenade – Yoke Ying
• Gas Gun – Mary Eleanor Smith
• Musket – Maria Oliviero
• Pistol – Sara Maria Aldrete, Putli Bai, Mary Lou Beets, Grete Beier, Anna Bergmann, Big Mama,  Carol M. Bundy, Verónica Mireya Moreno Carreon, Celeste Carrington, Suzan Carson, Faye Della Copeland, May Curtis, Charlene Gallego, Mary Ganole, Jessie Findlay, Molly Foxwater, Mary T. Godau, Winnie Ola Freeman (Winola Green), Josephine Gray,  Angenette Haight, Shauntay Henderson, Maria Jiminez, Sharon Kinne, Michelle Knotek, Bertha Lankford, Raynella Dossett Leath, Frau (Ziesig) Manko, Leonarda Martinez, Alma McClavey (Theede), Carolyn Elizabeth McCrary, Euphemia Mondich, Kusuma Nain, Judith Neelley, Betty Neumar, Lillie Louise Peete, Caroline Peoples, Charmaine Phillips, Bessie Pierson,  Jane Taylor Quinn, Nancy Manriquez Quintanar, Amastaa Rubio de Pascadera, Leo Rongzhi, Diane Spencer, Donna Marie Stone, Minnie Wallace Walkup, Brookey Lee West, Blanche Wright, Angel Wright-Ford, Aileen Wuornos
• Rifle – Inessa Tarvdiyeva
• Shotgun – Inez Brennan

► Other

• Abandonment – Sabine Hilschenz
• Automobile (run over victim) – Betty Lou Beets, Henen Golay & Olga Ruttsrschmidt, Melissa Friedrich Weeks
• Battery – Anjanapaia (sp?), Helen Geisen-Volk, Marie Bouriant, Barbara Wilkinson, Magdalena Solis, Miyoko Sumida
• Beat to death with wine bottle – Lisa Karl
• Bomb – Judias Buenoano
• Bludgeoning – Belle Gunness
• Burning alive – Patty Cannon, Mme. Couturier, Julia Fortmyer, Kanae Kijma, Dagmar Overbye, Marianne Skoublinska, Lillian Thornman, Mrs. Fred West (Clara West), Henrietta Weibel, Martha Wiese
• Bury alive – Elizabeth Ashmead
• “Death Acceleration” (Nazi term) – Sister Liesel Bachor, Valentine Bilien, Margarethe Heubsch, Anna Katschenka,  Kathe Pisters, Matron Ella Schmidt, Marianne Tuerk
• Dismember while alive – Felicitas Sanchez Aguillon
• Drop child on head – Eunice Brillhart
• Exposure to cold – Elizabeth Bathory, Helen Geisen-Volk (freeze to death)
• Exposure to sun – Georgia Tann
• Neglect – Miyuki Ishikawa, Coleen Thompson, Michele Kalina, Georgia Tann, Margaret McCloskey
• Push off balcony – Pamela Hupp
• Push out window – Rose Veres
• Shake to death – Gail Cutro (SBS, Shaken Baby Syndrome), Virginia Jaspers
• Starvation – Ellen Batts, Guadalupe Martinez de Bejarano, Madge Clayton, Maude Dieden, Seema Mohan Gavit, Moulay Hassen, Linda Burfield Hazzard, Mme. Julien, Miriam Soulakiotis
• Smash head against telephone pole – Seema Mohan Gavit
• Starvation – Bessey Binmore, Anna Allas & Mary Chalfa & Giselle Young, Mme. Barthian, Nellie Campbell, Linda Burfield Hazzard, Madame Julien, Margaret McClosky, Cynthia McDonald, Junko Ogata, Elizabeth Reed, Mrs. Tanaka
• Stomp with heavy boots – Helene Braunsteiner
• Torture – Elizabeth Bathory, Guadalupe Martinez de Bejarano, “Romanian Female Bandit,” Dianorah Galou, Moulay Hassen, Josepha Perez, Darya Saltykova, Mariam Soulakiotis, Georgia Tann
• Twist neck – Wilhelmena Eckhardt
• Whipping – Mariam Soulakiotis, Darya Saltykova

► Miscellaneous (cause of death or following death)

• Decaptiation – La Gizzi, “Druse Lebanese Serial Killer,” Esteis Liberis
• Electrocution – Junko Ogata

► Special cases

Anna Allas & Gizella Young – “Gizella told the police that Mrs. Allas has pushed her husband, Mantyo, downstairs; that Andrew and Steven had been killed by slow starvation, paregoric, and poinson ointment; and that Richard Duyava had been starved, fed paregoric, and his body massaged with an ointment which congealed his blood and hampered its flow. Oh, yes, and he’d been given chopped spiders in his food!”

Elizabeth Bathory – The methods would include whipping, cutting with shears, burning with fire irons, beating with a cudgel, and sticking needles under their fingernails. When a girl would attempt to pull out the needle her fingers would be sliced off. Efforts were made by commoners to stop the crimes but to no avail. Eventually she would take into her household teenaged girls from noble families in decline. They were eventually treated the same as the peasant girls.

Marie-Françoise Bougaran – “When interrogated she confessed that she had killed all the children by forcing them to swallow excrements, and then cutting the veins of the neck with a knife, which she inserted in the mouth. The post-mortem examination of the poor children has fully proved this statement to be true.”

Raya & Sekina Aly Hammam – “They enumerated the methods by which various women were put to death, explaining that some were strangled, some stabbed, some attacked from behind with bludgeons and still others slain by choloroform or arsenic.”

Marie Jeanneret – “Bodies of her deceased clients were examined with several types of poison were found. Maried had used atropine (a derivative of belladonna), morphine, and antimony, a mineral.” [Robert Nash, Look for the Woman, 1981, p. 211]

Rachel Lynn – “Mrs. Rachel Lynn used fiendish cunning in killing the babes by strangling them to death with cords, by piercing their heads with sharp iron instruments and burning them alive in red hot stoves and grates.”

Rebecca Smith – “She confessed that she had poisoned eight of her children, by applying arsenic to her own breast when she suckled them.” [“School For Criminals.”  The Spectator (London, England), Aug. 25, 1849, p. 802]

***

Harold Schechter: – Partly, no doubt, because it was the favorite murder method of Victorian woman, most people tend to think of poisoning as a comparatively genteel way to commit serial homicide, not nearly as savage, say, slitting a victim’s throat and tearing out his entrails. And it is certainly true that mutilation-murder is far more sensationally grisly. Whether it is also crueler than poisoning is an open question. Though a significant number of male serial killers engage in hideous torture, many others – including some of the most notorious ones – have dispatched their victims in a fairly quick manner. This is true, for example, of most rippers. The atrocities perpetrated by Jack the Ripper seem nearly inhuman in their ferocity. But at least they were inflicted on his victims after death, which came with merciful swiftness.

By contrast, poisoners often subject the people closest to them – friends, family members, and coworkers – to excruciatingly slow and painful deaths, and derive pleasure from observing the torments of their victims.

[Harold Schechter, The Serial Killer Files: The Who, What, Where, How, and Why of the World's Most Terrifying Murderers, Ballantine, 2003, 306-7]

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SEE MORE: Female Serial Killer Collections

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[4089-4/15/20; 5128-7/3/23]
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Lillie May Curtis, Texas Family Annihilator - 1938

This case does not strictly meet the criteria for a “series” of killings in that the murders occured in only two separate occasions, rather than three or more. Yet the extraordinary fact that Curtis killed six children after receiving a suspended sentence following the killing of their father makes the case so noteworthy that it ought to be studied along with serial killing cases.

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FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 5): Center [Texas], June 4. – Mrs. Lillie Mae Curtis, 36, mother of nine children was placed in jail here this morning by Sheriff J. B. Sample, on a charge of killing her husband, Robert Curtis, 41, at their home in the Haley’s Store Community, twelve miles south of Center, last night.

Curtis, the sheriff said, was shot through the head while he slept.

An examining trial for Mrs. Curtis was scheduled for this afternoon. She made no statement.

[“Mother of Nine Charged Killing Husband,” Corsicana Daily Sun (Tx.), Jun. 4, 1935, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 5): Center, March 17. A mother who told officers she was ill and unable to provide for her family killed six of her nine children at a lonely farm home near here last night, kissing each of them goodbye before and after shooting them as they were sleeping.

~ UNDER SENTENCE ~

District Attorney Wardlow Lane said he would file murder charges against Mrs. Lille May Curtis, she was under a five-year suspended for slaying her husband, Robert Curtis, 44, in 1935.

The children ranged from five to 13 years of age. They were:

Marcle Jack, five, boy.

Margie Ree, seven.

Robert, nine.

Billie Burke, 10, girl.

Gloria Jean, 11.

T. O. Curtis, 13.

Justice of Preace Ben Eddins who returned an inquest verdict of “death at the hands of Lillie May Curtis” in each case, said the children were lying dead in their beds in one room when he arrived at the scene about midnight.

Sheriff J. B. Sample was summoned by one of one of the older children, Travis, 16, who was spared, the mother said “because he could take care of himself.”Sheriff Sample said he found the woman alone in the woods 400 yards from the slaughter.

~ MOTHER’S STATEMENT ~

Lane said Mrs. Curtis in her statement to him said “I was unable 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, and 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.”

The statement, Lane said, also told how the mother moved the youngest child from bed in another room and placed him with the other victims in a single room of the farm home 22 miles south of here at West Hamilton.

Lane said Mrs. Curtis’ statement said she placed a .22 calibre pistol at the heart of each child, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest.

Lane said powder burns were found on each victim, and that each was turned on the side in bed. The district attorney said apparently none of the children had awakened.

District Judge T. O. Davis called the grand jury to meet promptly to investigate the filicide.

Lane said James Travis had been awakened by his mother after the shootings and sent to telephone to Sheriff Sample. When the sheriff arrived, the spared boy told him the direction his mother had taken when she left the house for the woods after the tragedy.

Sheriff Sample said he looked for the woman and finally called for her, receiving an answer close by. The shriff said Mrs. Curtis told him she had placed the death weapon under the steps of the farm home, where it was later found.

[“Texas Mother Kills Six Of Children In Slumber – Asserts Inability To Provide For Tots To Officers – Center Woman To Be Charged With Murder,” The Adeline Reporter-News (Tx.), Mar. 17, 1938, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 5): Center, April 6 – Mrs. Lillie May Curtis pleaded guilty today as her trial opened on one of six murder charges filed against her for the slaying of six of her nine children near here the night of March 16.

Testimony was being heard by a jury was to decide on punishment. District Judge T. O. Davis indicated separate trials would be held on five other charges of murder filed after six of the woman’s nine children were shot fatally in their lonely piney woods country home south of here. Judge Davis instructed veniremen not chosen for the first trial to remain in town for possible duty.

The state offered three witnesses in the trial of Mrs. Curtis on a charge of murdering T. O. Curtis, one of the victims who ranged in a ge from 5 to 13.

Fred Hudson, hardware dealer here, testified he sold Mrs. Curtis a .22 calibre pistol the day before the shootings and identified the gun.

L. S. Oates, health officer, testified each child showed powder burns near the heart where each was shot.

He also testified he believed Mrs. Curtis able to distinguish right from wrong, but that she was not mentally normal.

District Attorney Wardlow Lane, sworn as a witness, presented two written statements he said Mrs. Curtis made him detailing the tragedy.

The state indicated the death penalty would not be asked.

District Attorney Wardlow Lane said after the slaying the woman had made a statement she kissed the children goodbye and shot them because she was uunablr to provide for them.

One son at the time of the filicide, James Travis, was spared, Lane said Mrs. Curtis told him, because he was able to take care of himself. Another son and a daughter were not at the farm home when the tragedy occurred.

Mrs. Curtis at the time was under a five-year suspended sentence for the slaying of her husband, Robert Currtis, 44 [sic], in 1935.

[“Mother Slayer of Six Children Pleads Guilty – Mrs. Lillie May Curtis On Trial On First Of Six Murder Charges,” Corsicana Daily Sun (Tx.), Apr. 6, 1938, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 5): Center, Texas – Mrs. Lillie May Curtis, who killed six of her nine children as they slept, was given a total of 495 years in the penitentiary in her trial today on five of the six murder counts.

Se was given a 99-year sentence in each case. One case was left hanging.

A five-year suspended sentence for killing her husband in a similar manner three years ago was ordered continued.

Mrs. Curtis will be transferred to the state penitentiary probably tomorrow.

The children, ranging from five to 13 years old, were killed she said, because she could not provide for them.

[“Woman sentenced To 495-Year Pen Term In 5 Deaths,” syndicated (AP), The Sandusky Register (Oh.), Apr. 7, 1938, p. 1]

***

EXCERPT (Article 5 of 5): Lillie May Curtis died February 3rd, 1980 at the age of 80, and was buried with the husband that she had shot and killed 45 years earlier, in the same Cemetery as the graves of the six children she brutally murdered only three years later while they slept. [On This Day in Murder... March 16th, 1938 , “Lillie Mae Curtis Murders 6 of her 9 Children Friday, 16 Mar. 16, 2012]

http://thisdayinmurder.blogspot.com/2012/03/lillie-mae-curtis-murders-6-of-her-9.html

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[1708-1/9/20]
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Alsa Thompson, the “Baby Borgia” – Los Angeles: 1925

 

It was never determined whether Alsa had or had not actually murdered any human being. It was, however, established, that she did deliberately kill pets and that she made several attempts to kill members of her step-family (including one of their visitors), and had attacked her little sister and another child wielding a razor blade.

For an example of a girl of around the same age who had a “mania” for murder, see the following case:

1892 – “Bottoms Girl” – Atoka, Kentucky – age 6 at time of apprehension.

***

►11 purported (alleged) victims of murder or attempted murder:

1923 – Mildred & Muriel Thompson, 2-year-old twins; ground glass, died; Dauphin, Canada

Jan. 1925 – Miss Nettie Steele (same as Mrs. Price?), daughter of Alice Steele; poisoned with “ant paste”; died

1925 – Maxine Thompson, 2-years-old; separately poisoned; attempt to slash with razor blade

1925 – Mr. Jess Platt (or Platts); poisoned (family meal)

1925 – Mrs. Inez Platt; poisoned (family meal)

1925 – Lorraine “Lou” Platt; poisoned (family meal) 12-years-old; attempt to slash with razor blade

1925 – youngest Platt;

1925 – William Kearns, Fireman, visitor to Platts home; poisoned (family meal)

1925 – Canaries; poisoned; died

1925 – Cat; poisoned

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FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 14): Los Angeles, Calif, Feb. 3 – Police are today investigating one of the strangest criminal cases that has ever come before the State of California, that of Alsa Thompson, aged 7, who has confessed, the officers say, that she caused the death of her twin sisters and a woman by poison and attempted to poison eight other persons.

The girl was taken into custody upon request of Mr. and Mrs. Jess Platts, with whom the child boarded, after a strange substance of solution from a radio battery and ant paste was spread over the food, the Platts with their infant daughter, as well as Maxine Thompson, the girl’s two year old sister, were about to eat.

~ Shows Little Emotion ~

According to police, the girl frankly admitted the poison attempt and that she had caused the death of her twin sisters by ground glass two years ago while her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Russell Thompson, were residing in Dauphin, Manitoba. She further asserted, the police claim, that she caused the death of a Mrs. Price [in other sources, “Steele”] with whom she once lived, by administering rat poison to her.

“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.”

~ Also Poisons Birds ~

The child is also said to have frankly admitted that in addition to poisoning humans, she had poisoned two canaries and a cat and had taken great pleasure in watching them writhe in pain before death.

Alsa is said to be one of the smartest pupils in the second grade she attends and is said to have shown great interest in recent crimes, recently having asked Mrs. Platts to read her the daily stories of the case of Dorothy Ellingson, San Francisco matricide.

[“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]

Summary of Ellingson case: [Traciy Curry-Reyes, “Dorothy Ellingson: Jazz girl killed mother Annie Ellingson,” Examiner.com, July 28, 2013]

http://www.examiner.com/article/jazz-girl-dorothy-ellingson-killed-mother-annie-ellingson

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 14): Los Angeles, Feb. 4 – Seven-year-old Alsa Thompson still has authorities puzzled over her confession that she killed her baby twin sisters two years ago, and later an adult who took care of her. Her father, Russell Thompson, characterized the story as absurd and impossible, but members of the family with which she has been boarding insisted she told the truth and cited alleged instances of poisonings lately attempted by the girl.

A fireman told the police he was sure preserved peaches that made him sick had been treated with acid by little Alsa and even the fact that one member of the family temporarily lost his voice was attributed to the child’s skill as a poisoner.

[“Puzzled in Poisoning,” syndicated, The Charleston Daily Mail (W. Va.), Feb. 4, 1925, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 14): Los Angeles, Feb. 4.—A complaint charging Alsa Thompson, 7, with insanity was issued today, it was announced by the trunacy commission and she will be tried  tomorrow by Judge W. S. Gates. The complaint was sworn to by Mrs. Jessie Platt, who said the girl told her she had attempted to poison Mr. and Mrs. Platt and their children.

Love and tragedy were linked hand in hand today when seven-year-old Alsa Thompson’s confession that she took the lives of her baby twin sisters, by feeding them ground glass in their food two recently tried to take the lives of eight other persons by giving them poison, was believed to have caused a reconciliation between her estranged mother and father.

~ Alienists Study Girl. ~

Meanwhile physicians and doctors are continuing their examination of the girl to determine whether they believe her weird confession or if it is simply a figment of her imagination. Among those making a study of the girl and her revolting narrative is Dr. Edwin Williams, well known alienist.  Police are of the opinion that the child is an accomplished fictionist and scoff at her story. However in opposition to these theories and beliefs is the fact that a strange substance, supposedly a mixed solution of acid water from a storage battery and ant paste, was found spread over the food for a meal in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Jess Platts, with whom the child and her young sister have been borders. It was the discovery of this solution in the food that led police investigation and subsequent taking of the little girl into custody.

~ Believes Her Story. ~

Dr. Williams stated, that in his opinion, Alsa’s story impresses him as being truthful and that she had probably the mind of a girl three or four years her senior.

He also said she was possessed with too much intellect and not enough judgment and that her psychic energy has been wrongly directed.

In explaining her acts to the officers and her questioners, the girl showed no sign of emotion and she said she “guessed she was just bad.”

The child’s father, Russell G. Thompson, scoffed at his daughter’s confession as being true.

The mother was reported nearly hysterical and unable to make a statement.

[“Girl’s Ghastly Tale Reunites Parents – Claim 7-year-old Lass to Be Murderer of Three Reconciles Father and Mother. - Police Scoff At Story - Authorities Believe Self-styled Poison Fiend’s Story Is a Figment of Imagination.” Logansport Pharos-Tribune (In.), Feb. 4, 1925, p. 1; note: “scout her story” correct to “scoff at her story.”]

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FULL TEXT (Article 4 of 14): Los Angeles, Cal., Feb. 5 — An insanity complaint against Alsa Thompson, seven year old confessed poisoner of three persons, was dismissed today by Judge Walter S. Gates.

“I will not find this girl insane,” Judge Gates said. “But her amazing story should be further investigated and she will be placed under the observation of authorities who will determine whether to place her in an institution.”

Investigators failed to shake the girl’s tale of crime, convincing the officials she is afflicted with “murder complex” and should be placed under observation.

“It’s all true; I did it because I enjoyed watching them suffer,” she said.

[“Says Girl Who Insists She Killed Three Persons Should Be Under Observation.” The Star Journal (Sandusky, Ohio), Feb. 5, 1925, p. 6]

***

FULL TEXT (Article 5 of 14): Los Angeles – If Alsa Thompson, 7-year-old Lucretia Borgia, by her own confession, really poisoned and killed the persons she said she did, then auto-suggestion, in the opinion of the authorities, had much to do with it.

Alienists and juvenile authorities, long schooled in handling child delinquency, believe the little girl is telling the truth. Most relentless questioning has not been able to shake her story. In the scores of times she has been called upon to tell and retell the death tales she has not deviated in a single point.

“Alsa is a perfectly normal child mentality,” one of the examining alienists said today. “She is neither too bright, nor too dull for her years. She is entirely lacking in emotion.

Illustrating this lack of emotions her story of feeding ground glass to her baby sisters.

“I didn’t see them while they were sick, but I could hear them crying,” she said. “I wasn’t sorry then. When they died everybody cried and I cried too. I felt sorry after they were dead. But I went out and played and forgot about it.”

It is necessary to recount the child’s story in detail to show the part auto-suggestion may have played in her crimes – if she actually did commit them.

Two years ago, when only five years old, and living with her parents at Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada. Alsa’s mother warned her never to put broken glass in her mouth – that it would cause death. Within a month because her twin sisters, aged 2, cried in the night and “bothered her,” the diminutive girl, according to her confession, fed them ground glass in their breakfast food. Both died.

~ Parents Separated ~

Two years ago her parents moved from Canada to Los Angeles where they separated. Seven-year-old Alsa went to board with Mrs. Alice Steele. One day the little girl saw the latter placing ant paste about the cupboard. She was warned not to touch it – that it was poison and would kill her. Shortly thereafter, according to the child’s own confession, she placed ant poison in the food of Miss Nettie Steele, daughter of Mrs. Alice Steele, because the young woman had scolded her. Her third attempted poison victim also died.

Several weeks ago Alsa changed her boarding place to the home of Mrs. And Mrs. Platt. The latter had two children of their own and Alsa often quarelled with them. The Platts had a radio set. Mrs. Platt warned the little girl boarder that the battery operating the radio contained a poisonous solution. A month ago, according to the child’s confession, she surrepitiously removed some poisonous solution and fed it to the whole Platts family in their breakfast coffee. All became ill, but timely medical aid saved their lives.

A week ago Alsa quarreled with another little girl playmate. Again, according to her own confession, she resorted to poison in the radio battery box. The little girl victim almost died. As a result of her last poisoning attempt, the infantile counterpart of the famous Lucrezia Borgia, was suspected. Eventually she confessed.

It is a diminutive and mild-appearing child herself who explains the part that innocent auto-suggestion played in her alleged spreading of death and attempts to kill others.

“My mother told me that broken glass would kill – so that is how I knew it would cause the death of my little sisters. I didn’t know antpaste was poison until Mrs. Steele told me. I wouldn’t have given it to Nettie if I hadn’t known it was poison. Mrs. Platt told me that the water in the battery of the box was poison. When I got mad at her and the rest of the family I fed it to them.”

[L. C. Owen, “Auto-suggestion Plays Big Part, Alienists Think, in ‘Baby Borgia’ Murders – Warnings by Elders Against Various Poisons Incited Her to Use Them, According to Little Girl’s Confession.” Syracuse Herald (N. Y.), Feb. 5, 1925, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 6 of 14): Los Angeles – In school she has attained the unusual distinction of being the smartest girl in the eighth grade, although she is yet 7.

At home she is feared because of fiendish plotting.

And in jail, this little girl, Asa Thompson, is looked upon as the youngest homicidal maniac ever observed by local scientists.

Precocious, co-operative, the child often helped her guardian. Mrs. Inez Platts, of Hollywood, to prepare meals. Creative, too, she loved to concoct, now and then, a dessert dish; this once she prepared with ant paste and sulphuric acid. It was poison enough, to kill the whole family. Luckily its taste was forewarning.

Foiled, the child flew into a rage of fury, found a razor and tried to slash the baby of the family, Maxine Platts, 5. [error; Maxine Thompson, aged 2]

So the police were called. “I guess I did it because I am so mean,” Alsa explained with childish frankness. But that was not all. There were the Thompson twins who died two years ago in Manitoba, Canada.

“I fed them ground glass,” Alsa confessed. And she told of having caused the death of a Mrs. Price [“Steele,” in other sources], and of having tried to poison eight other people.

What is to be done with the child is not yet determined. Alsa, a very keen child mentally, may be closely guarded for several years, in an attempt to destroy her homicidal tendencies.

The child’s parents are separated.

[“Child Admits Deaths,” The Sheboygen Press (Wi.), Feb. 10, 1925, p. 11]

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FULL TEXT (Article 7 of 14): Los Angeles, Feb. 10. – Alsa Thompson, seven year old confessed poisoner, has taken it all back.

The girl, who has engaged the attention of alienists and juvenile authorities since she had admitted killing a woman and two sisters and a woman who was caring for her, recanted and laid the blame for her remarkable statements on a Hollywood woman who told her, she said, to admit the killings.

Los Angeles authorities are of the opinion that Alsa was in a condition of semi-hypnosis, due to repeated suggestions from her mentor, when she related the details of feeding ground glass to her two smaller sisters and stating she wanted to see them suffer.

The five other attempted poisonings to which Alsa confessed, also are attributed to the same circumstance. Juvenile officers and alienists are inclined to the belief that all that Alsa told is a figment of her imagination, stimulated by the woman who induced her, by repeated suggestion, to hold herself out as a child poisoner.

The woman, who name was not revealed*, is known to authorities, but whether she can be punished for her cruel hoax is doubtful, it was said.

[“Alsa Takes it Back,” syndicated (Universal Service), Rochester Journal and Post Express (N. Y.), Feb. 10, 1925 (afternoon edn.), p. 7]

* Note: The “woman” was apparently Inez Platts, who, on learning of the retraction, threatened legal action, which would explain why this news report would withhold her name.

Note: The first name of Mrs. Platts (or, Platt) is found in only a few sources, such as: [“Child Admits Deaths,” The Sheboygen Press (Wi.), Feb. 10, 1925, p. 11]; [“Girl Confesses Killing Two Sisters – Wholesale Poison Plot Admitted By Child In L. A. – Little Alsa Thompson Is Baffling Authorities in Southland – Used Ground Glass And Deadly Potions – Precocious Youngster Says Woman Also Victim of Her Mania,” syndicated (AP), Bakersfield Californian (Ca.), Feb. 3, 1925, p. 1]

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FULL TEXT (Article 8 of 14): Los Angeles, Feb. 9 —Alsa Thompson, the seven-year-old school girl, who confessed she poisoned three persons, has retracted the entire story.

The child told alienists and doctors at the General hospital here tonight that she was forced to tell her original poison nariatives thiough fear of Mrs. Jess Platts, at whose home she was “boarded out” by her separated parents.

Alsa had a quarrel with Lorraine, Mrs. Platts’ daughter, and afterwards the woman told her she would hurt her if she did not admit the poison attempts, the girl said.

While the alienists who heard Alsa’s retraction do not know whether or not to believe her claim that Mrs. Platts forced her to assume a “baby Borgia” demeanor, they have no doubt that the whole poisoning story was a fabrication.

Mrs Platts was excited and indignant in denying Alsa’s new story. Mrs. Claire Thompson, the girl’s mother, is taking legal steps to have Alsa returned to her.

[“Alsa Thompson States She Was Intimidated - Says Keeper of Home Forced Her to Tell Poisoning Story,” syndicated (United News & Free Press Wire), Manitoba Free Press (Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada), Feb. 10, 1925, p. 1]

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PHOTO CAPTION (Article 9 of 14): Alsa Thompson, 7, now tells Los Angeles police and she was “just fibbing” when she confessed to killing her infant twin sisters, and an elderly woman, and to attempting to poison the family with which she lived. She is being detained for psychopathic tests.

[“Photo Study Of Baby Maniac – ‘Wonder Child’ Held for Psychopathic Tests After Denying Confession,” Appleton Post-Crescent (Wi.), Feb. 12, 1925, p. 1]

***

PHOTO CAPTION: (Article 10 of 14): A tale of death, monstrous and fiendish, tumbled from the lips of this little girl, Alsa Thompson, seven years of age, who confessed in Los Angeles to killing her twin baby sisters by feeding them ground glass. She also confessed to having put ant paste in the food of Miss Nettie Steele, who died two weeks later, and also of planning to poison the Platt family. [Standalone]

[“Calls Herself Slayer,” syndicated, Rock Valley Bee (Io.), Feb. 20, 1925, p. 9]

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FULL TEXT (Article 11 of 14): Miss Alsa Thompson. 7-year-old Los Angeles girl who has startled the world by confessing to the murder of three people, two of them her sisters.

A tale of death, monstrous and fiendish, tumbled from the lips or a little girl, Alsa Thompson. 7 years of age, who confessed to poisoning her twin baby sisters by feeding them ground glass in their breakfast food. She also confessed to having put ant paste in the food of Miss Nettie Steele who died two weeks later, and also planning to poison the Platt family. Her only motive, she claims, was a desire to see her victims suffer.

[“Unbelievable,” syndicated, LeMars Globe-Post (Io.), Feb. 23, 1925, p. 8]

***

FULL TEXT (Article 12 of 14): It was an amazing tale of wickedness that little seven-year-old Alsa Thompson poured into the ears of Los Angeles county officials a few days ago – a tale without parallel in the history of crime.

Unfalteringly, with no trace of remorse or sorrow, smiling now and then, her clear, gray eyes sparkling, this little-more-than-a-baby told how she had fed ground glass to her younger twin sisters so that she might watch them die. She told how she might watch them die. She told how she had poisoned to death Miss Nettie Steele, a woman with whom she had lived after the separation of her mother from her father, by putting ant paste into the grapenuts she was preparing to eat.

“Yes, I killed the twins. And I poisoned Miss Steele,” she said. “Cause I wanted to see ‘em suffer! See ‘em die!”

Incredulously Judge Walter S. Gates, Dr. Edelson Steele and Dr. Morton G. Carter, assistant general superintendent of the General Hospital at Los Angeles, listened as the child rippled on with her simple, straightforward recital. She was led over and over again the ground covered by her story and was cross-questioned minutely – but not once did she deviate in her description of her acts.

And even when she had finished the authorities were still incredulous.

“It can’t be true they said. “Surely, it can’t be true!”

Yet, back at Dauphin, Province of Manitoba, Canada, the bodies of Alsa’s twin sisters lie buried. They suffered greatly before they died, and the local practitioner thought that, maybe, they had typhoid fever, or maybe it was endrogastritis, an intestinal disorder – just the kind of diagnosis an average doctor would make.

They found on the records of Los Angeles General Hospital the name of Miss Steele dead from what was thought to be cancer of the stomach!

And out at No. 1540 ½ McCadden street, Hollywood, the family whom little Alsa confessed to having tried to kill were recovering from some strange illness.

So, little, clear-eyed, innocent-faced Alsa has been taken away by the authorities and placed in the care of the County Lunacy Commission.

Alsa’s discovery came about quite by chance. Her mother had placed her to board with Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Platts at the McCadden street house. One day recently little Lorraine Platts came rushing into the house crying with terror.

“Mama,” she sobbed, “Alsa’s got a razor. She tried to cut my wrists with it, and when I got away she tried to cut Maxine Thompson’s wrists too.”

The astonished Mrs. Platts went to the door and called for Alsa.

“Did you really try to cut Lorraine’s wrists?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” said the child, “of course.”

“But why?” exclaimed Mrs. Platts.

“Well, because the poison I have been putting in the coffee and on the chops doesn’t do anything but make you sick,” was the astounding reply.

Then little Alsa went right on and told Mrs. Platts just what she had been doing. And Mrs. Platts, remembering a burned rag taste of the coffee and an unpalatableness of the chops, and the fact that everyone in the boarding house had been complaining of stomach trouble, sent for the police. And the police, shaking their heads, called in Judge Gates and Doctors Steele and Carter.

It was two years ago, Alsa told them, that she poisoned her twin sisters. Alsa then was only five years old.

“I took a glass jar out of the kitchen and broke it on the walk in front of the house,” she said. “I gathered up the little chips of glass, put them in my apron and brought them back into the kitchen. I put these pieces into the cornflakes, which were in two bowls on the table. When mother came in and ask me if I wanted breakfast, I told her I wasn’t hungry. I knew the glass would kill them because mother told me one day when I was playing with some day when I was playing with some glass it would kill me if I swallowed it.”

“When my sisters were eating breakfast I went out and played. Then I brushed up the rest of the glass on the sidewalk and threw it an alley. My sisters got sick two days after. The doctors thought they had typhoid fever. I heard them crying and it made me feel good all over. But I am sorry now that they died. One of them was so pretty!”

She related minutely how, after her father and mother had separated and she had been brought to Los Angeles and placed with Miss Steele to board, she poisoned her.

“I didn’t like Miss Steele,” she said. “She gave me a licking once. I put ant paste in the grapenuts she was about to eat. The dish was on the table and she was in another room washing one of the children. She had told me that the ant paste was poison and that I would die if I put any of it in my mouth. That is how I knew it would kill her.”

“And when she was sick and in terrible pain, how did you feel?” Judge Gates asked.

“Just like I did when my little sisters were sick,” Alsa replied.

Then she sold of the events preceding the poison attempts in the Platts home where she had more recently lived.

“I got up at night after everyone else was in bed,” she said, “and got acid out of the radio battery. I used a spoon and put it into a can. The next morning when I was alone in the kitchen, I put some of it in the coffee. I didn’t drink any of the coffee because I had put that stuff in it and I thought they’d all die.”

“Mrs. Platts was good to me, but I wanted to see her suffer.”

“They got kind of sick that day – everybody who drank the coffee, but they didn’t die.” Alsa’s voice was eloquent of her disappointment.

So that night after she had gone to bed, she couldn’t sleep. She lay awake picturing over and over the pleasure of seeing the Platts die. And, at last, when she was sure everyone was asleep, Alsa tip-toed downstairs in her little nightgown, quietly lighted a candle, got her bottle of acid and, standing over the stove, poured the stuff on some chops which Mrs. Platts had left in the frying-pan all ready to be warmed up for breakfast. What a picture! That little, clear-eyed, innocent-faced child standing there with the flickering light of the candle playing upon her, and the fingers of death bending her wrist.

She tells it thus:

“So, the next night I got up and got the can with the acid and put some of it on the lamb chops that were in the frying pan on the stove for next morning’s breakfast. Mrs. Platts was in bed when I did this and no one saw me.”

“The next morning, too, I put some more acid in the coffee and some in the mush. I wanted to kill Lou Platts. She is 12 years old and Mrs. Platts’ daughter. I didn’t like her. She had prettier clothes than I did. I wanted to see her suffer.”

“I didn’t eat any of the mush or any of the breakfast at all. They kept asking me why, but I wouldn’t tell.”

The child’s mother, aghast at the tale, refused to believe its truthfulness. She said, however, relative to the twins and Alsa and their former life in Canada:

“They played in a sand-pile back of the home. Several times the twins came into the house with sand about their mouths and I scolded them for it. Now Alsa says she made them eat the sand after she put glass in it. The sickness was a puzzle. The physician in attendance called a consultation but they could make nothing of it. The poor little things were in agony for several weeks. Parts of their stomachs seemed to be coming away on the inside.

“I know that Alsa used to pinch and hurt Maxine. I caught her doing it several times. But that was all. She never tried to poison any of us. I think that this poison mania – if she has one – came to Alsa when the twins arrived. I didn’t have much time to make a fuss over her and she was jealous. She told me so.”

“Then there came the trouble between my husband and myself. We couldn’t get along together and I left him and came to California. I would have liked to have kept the children with me, but I couldn’t do that and work too. So I was compelled to board them out.”

The first poisoning exploit in the Platts family came two weeks after Alsa arrived, according to Mrs. Platts. The victim, this time, was the little two-year-old sister, Maxine Thompson.

“The child was suddenly seized with violent stomach pains,” said Mrs. Platts. “I noticed she was burned about the mouth and thinking she might have got hold of some sort of poison. I gave her the usual antidotes. She was delirious for two days and almost died. I called Dr. L. J. Duff and he treated her but was unable to diagnose her illness. The doctor was particularly puzzled by the way the sickness held on. Later, when Alsa confessed, it all was explained. She admitted she had been placing battery fluid in the cough medicine which the physician had ordered for Maxine.

“About two weeks after this we were all taken ill. Every family has its private ailments and I thought it was just a coincidence that we were all sick at once. Alsa confessed, though, that she poisoned the coffee that day and expected all of us to die.”

“Between that time and now we were quite ill a number of times, but I didn’t become suspicious until about two weeks ago, when she asked me what would happen if she put some ant powder in the canary’s cage. I asked her why.”

“‘I wonder if they would die?’ She said.”

“I told her they probably would. Next day she came to me and said”:

“O, Mrs. Platts, the canaries are sick! What do you suppose is the matter?”

“I found they were drooping and I noticed ant powder around the bottom of the cage. Later, Alsa confessed she had placed the powder there and had expected the birds to die.”

William Kearns, a fireman, friend of the Platts family, told how while he was installing a radio set in the Platts home little Alsa was intensely interested.

“She wanted to know what the fluid was I put into the cell,” he said. “I warned her, thinking it would throw a scare into her and keep her from meddling, that it was sulphuric acid and so poisonous it would kill little girls.”

Dr. Edwin Huntington Williams, alienist and psychologist who examined her, declared that while she is only a child of seven she has the mentality of ten.

“Every child has criminal tendencies,” he continued. “In fact, cruelty is a well-known trait of childhood, but most children are born with a sufficient amount of repression that, under normal conditions and normal environment, they successfully pass through critical part of their lives. That is, they can control themselves against extremes. Like most persons who are highly emotional, Alsa appears apparently calm. There is no doubt that she has quarreled with her victims and that the killings, if true, were carefully planned. The child’s mind goes back to the primitive and she has failed to control the primitive instincts of revenge and cruelty. In other words, the protective wall in her case had a break.”

A few days after being placed under observation in the County Lunacy Commission Alsa apparently repented her frankness and told Dr. E. E. Lauer and Richard S. Kaplan, legal alienists, that she did not poison her sisters and denied that she had poisoned Miss Steele.

“A woman in Hollywood kept telling me I did it,” she said. “She said it so often that, finally, to satisfy her, I said I did. I wanted her to quit bothering me.”

Mrs. Jeane McCracken, parole officer of the Lunacy Commission in whose district charge Alsa now is, does not believe the child killed anyone – despite the supporting evidence. But even if she did, she believes that an environment in which the child will receive the greatest care and love will wipe out the tendencies and make her at last a normal child.

But will it? What security has society at large or those who give little Alsa this love and care that the monstrous cruelty to which she has confessed will not sooner or later break out again and with greater force for being for so long suppressed?

[“Wicked Beyond Her Years – How 7-Year-Old Alsa Revealed Her Killing of Her Twin Sisters and Her attempted Murder of her Playmates ‘Clause I Like to See Things Die,’” The American Weekly (Magazine section of San Antonio Light) (Tx.), Mar. 8, 1925, mag. sec. 3]

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Note: It is not confirmed that is is the same Alsa Thompson, yet the father’s name is consistent as well as residence in Santa Ana.

FULL TEXT (Article 14 of 14): Miss Alsa Thompson, daughter of Mrs. And Mrs. Russell G. Thompson, 1115 West Eighth street, whose marriage to Harry Reid is anticipated as an event of the holidays, was honor guest at a Tea Tuesday afternoon. Miss Mildred Pearson and her mother, Mrs. Leslie Pearson were co-hostesses, entertaining in their home, 1029 West Second street.

Bachelor buttons and breath of heaven were combined in bouquets which carried the blue and white theme of all decorations. Miniature bride and bridegroom figures entered the table where Miss Pearson poured tea to be served with salad, decorated cakes and other dainties.

Miss Thompson was showered with miscellaneous gifts. Miss Charlotte McClausand won a prize in a contest during which guests were required to make as many words as possible from the names of the affianced couple.

Guests of Mrs. Pearson and Miss Pearson in addition to Miss Thompson were Mesdames E. H. Layton, W. H. Thompson, Charles Hill, H. F. McClausand, Joseph Gulledge and the Misses Valerie Demetriou, Charlotte Mock, Betty Lee, Juliane Wolven, Dorothy Van Dusen, Lucille Stoker, Vivian White, Virginia Motley, Charlotte McClausand, Kay Blake, Winifred Brown.

[“Bride-elect Receives Miscellaneous Gifts From Tea Gifts,” Santa Ana Register (Ca.), Nov. 29, 1935, p. 15]

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(Article 14 of 14)

The only reference to the case in a book discovered so far is one which appeared in 1967:

“My contemporaries will recall the case of Alsa Thompson, labelled by the newspapers the Baby Borgia, who poisoned half a dozen people among her friends and relations. She may not have known what the effect of the poison would be …”

[Moses D. Forkosch et al, Essays in Legal History in Honor of Felix Frankfurter, 1966, Bobbs-Merrill, Indianapolis, p. ?]

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FULL TEXT: Los Angeles, Feb. 3 – Seven-year-old Alsa Thompson, who is alleged to have confessed to police last night that she killed her twin sisters in Canada two years ago, tonight shad authorities puzzled over her case despite the belief expressed by her father today that Alsa’s story was merely the product of a vivid imagination.

Russell Thompson, the girl’s father, labelled her statement that she had put ground glass into her sister’s food as utterly absurd. “The twins,” he said, “died when they were about two years old. We had two doctors and a nurse in constant attendance, and they said death was due to intestinal trouble Alsa could not have had anything, to do with that.”

That the twins’ death could not have been due to ground glass was disputed, however, by County Autopsy Surgeon A. F. Wagner. Dr. Wagner ventured no opinion as to the credibility of the girl’s story, but declared that if she had put ground glass in the infants’ food an intestinal disorder might have resulted, which could very easily have been mistaken for one of a variety of intestinal diseases.

Teachers who have had Alsa under their instruction, are inclined to doubt her “confession” on the ground that she is not only bright, but obedient and industrious in school. They said they were puzzled, however, when Alsa s,tuck to her story, and added:

“I just like to see them die, that’s all”

William Kearns, fireman, one of the persons who brought Alsa to the attention of the police told investigators two weeks ago he was a dinner guest at the home where Alsa is boarding and that he was taken sick after eating preserved peaches “that tasted terrible.”

“Afterwards we learned, he said, “that Alsa had put sulphuric acid in the peaches.”

[“Child Admits Killing Twins – Seven Year Old Girl Said to Have Confessed to Poisoning Sisters,” The Oregon Statesman (Portland, Or.), Feb. 4, 1925, p. 1]

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More cases: Serial Killer Girls

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More cases: Youthful Borgias: Girls Who Commit Murder

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[6575-1/20/19]
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