Female Serial Killers

by Peter Vronsky

  There are some warning signs for Munchausen syndrome by proxy, but again these can only be seen in context. They are helpful for the physician or health-care worker who can gather and evaluate this kind of information, but for the family it is of less help:

  persistent or recurrent illnesses for which a cause cannot be found; the child continues to be presented in a victim’s role by the mother through “add-on” and newly “remembered” symptoms or details

  discrepancies between history and clinical findings; history given of abuse that should produce physical findings—for example, repeated rape—but a medical exams shows no evidence; factual contradictions in history given—for example, locations that police cannot confirm

  symptoms and signs that do not occur when a child is away from the mother or the child answers negatively about symptoms when away from mother

  a persistent failure of a child to tolerate or respond to medical therapy without clear cause or the child does not respond to psychological therapy

  a parent appears to be less concerned than the physician, sometimes comforting the medical staff, or a child recites allegations or symptoms in a rote manner or is eager to tell his or her story

  repeated hospitalizations and vigorous medical evaluations of mother or child without definitive diagnoses; mother has child repeatedly evaluated for diseases or abuse and is dissatisfied with negative results

  a mother who is constantly at the child’s bedside, insists on staying in the room for child’s therapy interview, excessively praises the staff, becomes overly attached to the staff, or becomes highly involved in the care of other patients

  a mother who welcomes medical tests of her child, even when painful; seems to welcome repeated sexual assault exams and interrogations of child frequent comparisons of the child’s medical problems to those of the mother the complaining mother seems to know more about what allegedly the child feels than the child

  While this is of help to the physician, it does not help the child’s father at home. How much did Mary Beth Tinning’s husband know about what his children were suffering or allegedly suffering while he was away at work in the factory; and even if he did, how many times did he accompany his wife into the physician’s interview and examination? Would he have even been in a position to recognize any lies that she might have been telling the doctor had he been there?

  Kim Iannetta, a Hawaii-based forensic handwriting examiner, looks for indicators of predatory characteristics revealed in people’s handwriting. She has nearly three decades of experience in forensic behavioral profiling through written communication and forensic document examination and has reviewed the handwriting of many female singular and serial killers.259

  When asked what differences she finds in profiling men and women, Iannetta says, “In the broadest sense the range of profiling differences between men and women or women and other women seems to be an element of style as a function of the killer’s personality. That is, their methods of killing could be interpreted as an extension of their very personalities, which could reflect not only who they are but who they wish to be.

  “More specifically, as men and women settle into society’s cultural expectations, their handwritings give us an opportunity to assess their level of comfort or discomfort in their roles. Typically, women still function as the more passive sex, taking on nurturing, caregiving, caretaking, organizing, and administrative responsibilities. As society demands more assertive behavior from men: arrogance, pride, and aggression become more associated with male style. Common to both male and female killers, however, is that level of socio-or psychopathic detachment, which allows them to pursue the ultimate release of their anger, rage, and unfulfilled needs—the killing act itself.

  “The most significant difference between men and women who kill is women’s expert ability to act in a passive-aggressive manner with a carefully crafted persona. Comfortably playing a conventional role and accepted as ‘normal,’ they ‘blend right into’ society. Their goal then becomes easier to attain. This insidious behavior makes them particularly dangerous.

  “Acting out in their conventional roles, some female killers often have a deep hunger for excessive attention. They may habitually invade other people’s space, showing little or no respect for social or personal boundaries. They also tend to be emotionally immature, and like Karla Homolka, may play the role of ‘cute little girl,’ still trying to capture Mommy’s or Daddy’s attention. Like some male killers, they may have repetitive, obsessive sexual thoughts (Karla Homolka and Carol Bundy), which distort their value systems. Readily seen in Christine Falling’s handwriting is a compulsively convoluted thinking style, which twisted her notions of values…

  “The most outstanding difference I see in women who kill, as opposed to men, rests in their ability to fabricate a methodically crafted persona or mask of cultivated charm and seductive, ingratiating behavior. Men seem to be much less interested in role-playing, more drawn to sex in order to dominate, and often to avenge their ‘honor’ and pride.”260

  If women, indeed, have “expert ability to act in a passive-aggressive manner” as Iannetta suggests, then their predatory aggression might be truly invisible until it is too late. Aggressive behavior in men is more overt and easier to track—aggression is often expected and encouraged in men at work, sports, and duty. One judges the male by the nature of his aggression—and against whom he directs it. But when women from whom we expect no aggression at all—never—cloak their aggression entirely, it becomes more difficult to discern what is happening. There is no visible aggression to judge as appropriate or inappropriate as we do with men. We do not see it until it is truly too late.

  We know a number of things about predatory aggression (as opposed to “affective” aggression—a response to being attacked).261 Predatory aggression is a cerebral process. There is little autonomic “fight or flight” arousal in the predatory aggressor. It is a controlled and calm attack, although it could bounce back and forth between affective and predatory once underway in some cases—mostly with sexual offenders.

  There is an absence of emotion. Male serial killers report that they are most emotional—feeling a sense of exhilaration—prior to killing, often during the stalking stage. The killing itself is often committed in an emotionally deadened state.

  Females appear to invest their exhilaration into the murder itself. Genene Jones, Jane Toppan, Aileen Wuornos, for example, were all thrilled by the actual murders. That was their point of exhilaration, not the buildup to it. That is why murder could actually be the female serial killer’s primary signature. The predatory violence is planned and purposeful. Rarely are there “disorganized” female serial killers. Most have a plan and it frequently involves some kind of deception or intimate seduction of the intended victim.

  Predatory aggressors manifest an inflated self-worth—a grandiose perception of their self-importance balanced by a diminished perception of the victim’s worth. Again, this was very evident in the case of Aileen Wuornos and her denigration of her victims as “rapists;” in Dorothea Puente, who perceived her derelict victims as worthless to society; in Jane Toppan, who thought many of her victims were too old to live on; and in the Manson women who saw their victims as wealthy “piggies.”

  There have been attempts to categorize female serial killers as Black Widows, angels of death, cult followers, missionaries, accomplices, vengeance killers, or Munchausen syndrome by proxy killers, etc. But we see that in many cases it is impossible to attribute such a singular motive to any female serial killer:

  Was Aileen Wuornos driven by profit or rage and vengeance for her past abuse?

  Was Jane Toppan a missionary killer, murdering people she felt were too old to live, a vengeance killer, or was she a sadistic sexual killer, deriving pleasure from watching her victims die?

  Was Velma Barfield killing for the meager profit or covering up crimes to save her self-esteem? Was she raging with hormonal imbalance after her hysterectomy or was
she a Munchausen syndrome by proxy killer, seeking attention from her son to whom she was over-attached?

  Was Karla Homolka a compliant victim of her husband’s depraved sadistic fantasies or was she his muse, using him to express her own predatory sexual desires?

  Rarely do we have these kinds of ambiguities in our analysis of male serial killers.

  AFTERWORD

  The only thing we know for sure is that almost all serial killers, male or female, spawn in the cruel pool of their childhood, starting as victims. Every serial killer is the first victim in their own history—little girls and boys who should have been loved, cared for, and nurtured, but were not. It’s not about excusing their horrific acts, but about the place where we could make it stop before it ever becomes—in the child’s heart. If only we could.

  The feminists are right about one thing: We live under a wealthy autocracy of some sort that strives to classify, divide, and rule us. The media and the mall are its henchmen droogs. This nebulous autocracy encourages mass consumption, social and intellectual degradation, and dumb, mindless acquiescence to force and violence. Women are victimized by it, as are equally men and children. There is no special gynocide. There is only democide—the murder of everyone equally. Not only the killing of people, but of ATWA as well—Air Trees Water Animals. Charlie Manson said, “You are either working for ATWA—life—or you’re working for death. Fix it and live or run from it and die.”262

  Manson can seem to make sense because his hillbilly-boy pain was real. It was his acts that were evil. But if Charlie can take truth and make it into a lie, then perhaps we can at least take some of his pain-borne lies and redeem them for the truth. It’s up to us.

  Love each other and never kill for any reason no matter what. Just don’t do it.

  APPENDIX

  SOME KNOWN FEMALE SERIAL KILLERS AND NUMBERS OF POSSIBLE VICTIMS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  BOOKS

  Theodor Adorno, et al., The Authoritarian Personality, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950.

  M.D.S. Ainsworth, et al., Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1978.

  Susan Atkins (cowritten by Bob Slosser), Child of Satan, Child of God, Logos International: 1977.

  Velma Barfield, Woman on Death Row, Nashville, TN: Thomas-Nelson Books, 1985.

  Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989.

  Geoffrey Best, Mid-Victorian Britain 1851–1875, New York: Schocken, 1972.

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  Jerry Bledsoe, Death Sentence, New York: Onyx Books, 1998.

  John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss: Volume 1. Attachment, New York: Basic Books, 1969.

  Ian Brady, The Gates of Janus, Los Angeles: Feral House, 2001.

  Jess Bravin, Squeaky: The Life and Times of Lynette Alice Fromme, New York: St. Martin’s Griffith, 1998.

  Edward M. Brecher, Licit and Illicit Drugs, Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1972.

  Daniel Patrick Brown, The Beautiful Beast, Ventura, CA: Golden West Historical Publications, 1996.

  Daniel Patrick Brown, The Camp Women: The Female Auxiliaries Who Assisted the SS in Running the Nazi Concentration Camp System, Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2002.

  Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, (2nd Edition), New York: HarperPerennial, 1998.

  Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939–March 1942, Lincoln, Nebraska/Jerusalem: University of Nebraska Press/Yad Vashem, 2004.

  Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter, Bantam Books, New York: 1975.

  D. Cameron and E. Frazer, The Lust to Kill: A Feminist Investigation of Sexual Murder, New York: New York University Press, 1987.

  Jane Caputi, The Age of Sex Crime, London: Women’s Press, 1987.

  John Cashman, The LSD Story, Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications, 1966.

  Phyllis Chesler, Patriarchy: Notes of an Expert Witness, Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1994.

  Hervey Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity (5th Edition), privately printed, 1988. http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm

  Joyce Egginton, From Cradle to Grave, New York: Jove Books, 1990.

  Peter Elkind, The Death Shift, New York: Onyx Books, 1989.

  Louise Farr, The Sunset Murders, New York: Pocket Books, 1992.

  Jennifer Furio, Team Killers: A Comparative Study of Collaborative Criminals, New York: Algora, 2001.

  V. Gerbeth, Practical Homicide Investigations, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1996.

  John Gilmore and Ron Kenner, The Garbage People, Los Angeles: AMOK Books, 1995.

  Peter Haining, Sweeney Todd: The Real Story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, London: Robson Books, 2002.

  Lynda Hart, Fatal Women: Lesbian Sexuality and the Mark of Aggression, New York–London: Routledge, 1994.

  Eric W. Hickey, Serial Murders and Their Victims (3rd Edition), Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002.

  Ronald M. Holmes and Stephen T. Holmes, Murder in America, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage Publications: 1994.

  Ronald M. Holmes and Stephen T. Holmes, Serial Murder (2nd Edition), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998.

  Ann Jones, Women Who Kill, New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1981.

  Ann Jones, Next Time She Will Be Dead, New York: Beacon Press, 1994.

  Michael Kater, The Nazi Party, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.

  Michael D. Kelleher and C. L. Kelleher, Murder Most Rare, New York: Dell Books, 1998.

  Dolores Kennedy with Robert Nolin, On a Killing Day, New York: S.P.I. Books, 1994.

  Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, Volker Riess, “Those Were the Days”: The Holocaust As Seen by the Perpetrators and Bystanders, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1991.

  Shelley Klein, The Most Evil Women in History, London: Michael O’Mara Books, 2003.

  Judith Knelman, Twisting in the Wind: The Murderess and the English Press, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.

  Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, New York: HarperCollins, 1986.

  Clara Livsey, The Manson Women, New York: Richard Marek Publishers, 1980.

  J. Reid Maloy, The Psychopathic Mind: Origins, Dynamics, and Treatment (2nd Edition), Northvale, NJ: Aronson, 1992.

  Raymond T. McNally, Dracula Was a Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.

  Kelly Moore and Dan Reed, Deadly Medicine, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1988.

  Belinda Morrissey, When Women Kill: Questions of Agency and Subjectivity, New York–London: Routledge, 2003.

  Joel Norris, Serial Killers, New York: Doubleday (Anchor Books) 1989.

  Jack Olson, The Misbegotten Son: A Serial Killer and His Victims, New York: Island Books, 1993.

  Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away with Murder, Toronto: Random House Canada, 1998.

  Raymond Phillips, Trial of Joseph Kramer and Forty-four Others (The Belsen Trial), London: William Hodge and Company, 1949.

  Otto Pollack, The Criminality of Women, New York: A. S. Barnes, 1961.

  J. Radford and D.E.H. Russell (Eds), Femicide: The Politics of Women Killing, New York: Maxwell MacMillan International, 1992.

  Robert K. Ressler, Ann W. Burgess, John E. Douglas, Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1988.

  Sue Russell, Lethal Intent, New York: Pinnacle Books, 2002.

  Ed Sanders, The Family (Revised and Updated Edition), New York: Signet Books, 1989.

  Harold Schechter, Fatal: The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer, New York: Pocket Books, 2003.

  Lawrence Schiller, The Killing of Sharon Tate, New York: New American Library, 1970.

  Gitta Sereny, Cries Unheard, New York: Henry Holt, 1998.

  Patricia Springer, Blood Rush, Ne
w York: Pinnacle Books, 1994.

  Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, The New Predator: Women Who Kill, Algora, NY: 2000.

  Kerry Segrave, Women Serial and Mass Murderers, London: McFarland & Co, 1992.

  Mark Seltzer, Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture, New York–London: Routledge, 1998.

  Stacey L. Shipley and Bruce A. Arrigo, The Female Homicide Offender, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2004.

  Ervin Staub, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence, Cambridge, MA: University of Harvard Press, 1989.

  Germain Tillion, Ravensbrück, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975.

  Laszlo Turoczy, Ungaria suis cum regibus compendio data, Nagyszombat: 1729.

  Peter Vronsky, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, New York: Berkley, 2004.

  Michael Wagener, Beiträge zur Philosophischen Anthropologie (Articles on Philosophical Anthropology), Vienna: 1796.

  Katherine Watson, Poisoned Lives: English Poisoners and Their Victims, London: Hambledon and London, 2004.

  Emlyn Williams, Beyond Belief, London: Pan Books, 1967.

  Stephen Williams, Karla: A Pact with the Devil, Toronto: Seal Books, 2003.

  Colin Wilson and Donald Seamen, The Serial Killers, London: Virgin Publishing, 1992.

  Patrick Wilson, Murderess: A Study of Women Executed in Britain Since 1843, London: Michael Joseph, 1971.

  Wayne Wilson, Good Murders and Bad Murders: A Consumer’s Guide in the Age of Information, Lanham, NC: University Press of America, 1991.

  William P. Wood, The Bone Garden, New York: Ibooks, 1994.

  ACADEMIC, HISTORICAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND FORENSIC JOURNALS

  Dr. Robert L. Bergman, Head of U.S. Public Health Service for Navajos, Presentation Paper, Annual Conference of the American Psychiatric Association: 1971.