Female Serial Murder

1
Female Serial Murder

• Account for 15 of all known serial murderers
• FBI has been slow to acknowledge this
• displays confused image of serial murderers in
  FBI
• thinks of serial murderers as sexual murderers
• yet this eliminates many male serial murderers
• Not taken as seriously as male serial murderers
• nomikers given may be silly
• Giggling Grandma Nannie Doss
• or may reflect false positive motives
• Angel of Mercy

2
Methods and Motives

• Much more likely to target both own family and
  strangers than male serial murderers
• children and elderly prime targets
• Much more likely to choose poison
• choose painful poisons most often
• strychnine, arsenic, antifreeze
• may prolong death over months
• Have longer histories higher body counts
• Appear less likely to be caught overall by police
  than male offenders

3
Females and murder

• Females commit less violent crimes overall
• Results in difficulty viewing females as capable
  of serious crimes
• Females only considered serial killers if they
  fit male profiles
• i.e. Aileen Wournos
• As with other serial murderers, more attention in
  recent decades
• Deaths more often result in financial gain than
  for males
• Usually not exclusive motive for all killings
  however

4
Black Widows

• Common serial murder pattern for females
• Target family and spouses for insurance money or
  inheritance
• May also engage in arson
• Switch families/move easily
• Amy Gilligan (1901-1914)
• runs home for the elderly
• marries and kills 5 elderly men
• also kills 9 elderly women
• Margie Barfied (1969-1978)
• kills 7 husbands and fiances, as well as her own
  mother
• burns some to death in bed
• executed in 1984

5
Belle Gunness

• Late 19th/early 20th century
• Norwegian-American woman
• Very tall/strong
• Early life poorly documented
• Burned down a business and home for insurance
  money
• 1st husband dies in 1900
• Possibly strychnine poisoning, but ruled a heart
  attack
• Belle gets insurance money (2 overlapping
  policies)

6
Belle part 2

• Moves to Indiana with 3-4 children (records not
  good in those days)
• 2 soon die, more insurance money
• Possibly burns another home for insurance money
• Marries Peter Gunness
• His infant daughter soon dies
• He is killed in 1902 in apparent accident
• Inquest found her without fault
• Step-daughter appears to implicate her
• Soon disappears, body later found on property

7
Belle part 3

• Takes on hired hands
• Many disappear
• Advertises for suitors
• Personal - comely widow who owns a large farm in
  one of the finest districts in La Porte County,
  Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a
  gentleman equally well provided, with view of
  joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered
  unless sender is willing to follow answer with
  personal visit. Triflers need not apply
• Suitors arrive with money, most disappear

8
Belle Part 4

• Accuses Ray Lamphere of threatening her
• One victims relative begins asking questions
• House burns down
• 3 children and decapitated woman
• Body too short for Belle and may have died by
  strychnine poisoning
• Lamphere arrested
• Farm searched
• Approximately 40 buried bodies found
• Debate about Belles fate

9
Angels of Death

• Subtype of offender who targets people in there
  care
• May be doctors, nurses, or other health
  professionals
• Viewed as distortion of nurturing role
• seem to enjoy power of life and death
• May find watching death exciting
• Often target the sick
• May use poisons that are hard to detect
• KCl, digoxin, insulin
• Hospitals are VERY reluctant to acknowledge an
  emerging pattern

10
Angels of Death Part 2

• Usually begin careers in early 20s
• Likely to be abusive in romantic relationships
• More likely to brag about crimes (often what gets
  them caught)
• Like most serial murderers, most are probably
  never caught
• May drift from one job to another to avoid
  detection
• Typically are viewed as highly capable workers

11
Terri Rachals

• 24 year old nurse in Georgia
• 1985-86 uses KCL to poison surgical patients
• 6 died
• 9 survived
• No previous history of trouble
• Questioned mental illness
• Convicted, sentenced to 17 years

12
Sexual Predators

• Less common pattern for females than for males
• Many find male partners to assist with physical
  labor of their crimes
• Judith Neeley (1980-1982)
• with husband murders 15 women in South
• tortures victims while raping them
• kills by injections of drain cleaner
• calls police to taunt them
• Often are younger, more impulsive, and appear to
  be more likely to be caught
• Highly brutal in their crimes, enjoy watching
  victims suffer and beg for mercy

13
Gwendolyn Graham, Catherine May Wood (1987)

• Co-workers at Alpine Manor Nursing Home in
  Michigan
• become lesbian lovers
• begin fantasizing about murder
• ultimately begin murdering female patients
• after each engage in frenzied love-making to
  release sexual tension
• once have sex while washing body being prepared
  for burial
• Ultimately relationship ends
• Wood returns to X-husband, tells him about crime
• he then tells authorities
• Wood turns on Graham
• Graham now working with children
• may have had new lover, making Wood jealous
• Graham sentenced to live, Wood to 20-40.

14
Sentencing

• Initial concern about females being over
  sentenced
• Can happen for some status offences
• Chivalric treatment by criminal justice system
• Female offenders less likely to receive death
  sentences
• Receive shorter prison sentences