Female Serial Killers

by Peter Vronsky

  Béla Bodó, “The Poisoning Women of Tiszazug,” Journal of Family History, Vol. 27, No. 1, January 2002.

  Steven J. Boros, M.D., and Larry C. Brubaker, “Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy: Case Accounts,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Washington D.C.: June, 1992.

  Yehoshua R. Buchler, “‘Unworthy Behavior’: The Case of SS Officer Max Taubner,” Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Vol. 17, No. 3, Winter 2003.

  Jane Caputi. “The New Founding Fathers: The Lore and Lure of the Serial Killer in Contemporary Culture,” Journal of American Culture, 13, 1–12, 1990.

  T. Edwards Clark, M.D., The Galaxy, Volume 6, Issue 3, Sept. 1868.

  K. E. Cole, G. Fisher, and S. S. Cole, “Women Who Kill: A Sociopsychological Study,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 19, 1968.

  G. Cote and S. Hodgins, “The Prevalence of Major Mental Disorders Among Homicide Offenders,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, No. 15, (1992).

  S. A. Egger, “A Working Definition of Serial Murder and the Reductions of Linkage Blindness,” Journal of Police Science and Administration, 12: 348–357, 1984.

  K. Feldman, D. Christopher, and K. Opheim, “Munchausen Syndrome/Bulimia by Proxy: Ipecac as a Toxin in Child Abuse,” Child Abuse & Neglect, 13, (1989).

  A. Frodi, J. Macaulay, and P. R. Thome, “Are Women Always Less Aggressive Than Men?” Psychological Bulletin 84 (1977).

  Ilsa M. Glazer and Wahipa Abu Ras, “On Aggression, Human Rights, and Hegemonic Discourse: The Case of a Murder for Family Honor in Israel,” Sex Roles 30:3/4 (February 1994).

  Kathryn A. Hanon, “Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy,” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, Washington, D.C.: December 1991.

  Richard L. Jenkins, “The Psychopath or Antisocial Personality,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, No. 131, (1960).

  Nancy C. Jurik and Russ Winn, “Gender and Homicide: A Comparison of Men and Women Who Kill,” Violence and Victims, 5:4 (1990).

  B. T. Keeney and K. Heide, “Gender Differences in Serial Murderers,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Vol. 9, No. 3, September 1994.

  Robert D. Keppel and Richard Walter, “Profiling Killers: A Revised Classification Model for Understanding Sexual Murder,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 43, No. 4, 1999.

  Rachel MacNair, “Psychological Reverberations for the Killers: Preliminary Historical Evidence for Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress,” Journal of Genocide Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, 2001.

  W.H.J. Martens, “Marcel: A Case Study of a Violent Sexual Psychopath in Remission,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 43(3), 1999.

  Susan McWhinney, “Petit Treason: Crimes Against the Matriarchy,” in Amy Schroder (ed), Critical Condition: Women on the Edge of Violence, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1993.

  Roy Meadow, “Management of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy,” Archives of Disease in Childhood, 60 (1985).

  Roy Meadow, “Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy: The Hinterland of Child Abuse,” Lancet, 2 (1977).

  Roy Meadow, “Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy,” Archives of Disease in Childhood, 57, (1982).

  R. T. Mulder, et al., “Antisocial Women,” Journal of Personality Disorders, No. 8 (1994).

  Alexandra Przyrembel, “Transfixed by an Image: Ilse Koch, the ‘Kommandeuse of Buchenwald,’” German History Vol. 19, No. 3. (2001). K. Ravenscroft, Jr., and J. Hochheiser, Factitious hematuria in a six-year-old girl: A case example of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, Chicago, 1980.

  D. A. Reiger, J. H. Boyd, et al., “One Month Prevalence of Mental Disorders in the United States,” Archives of General Psychiatry, No. 45 (1988). L. N. Robins, Deviant Children Grow Up, Baltimore: Williams & Wilkens, 1966.

  M. Rutter, “Antisocial Behavior: Developmental Psychopathology Perspectives” in D. M. Stoff, J. Breiling, and J.D.D. Maser (Eds), Handbook of Antisocial Behavior, New York: Wiley, 1994.

  M. Sigal, I. Carmel, D. Altmark, and P. Silfen, “Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy: A Psychodynamic Analysis,” Medicine and Law, 7 (1988).

  John M. Steiner, “The SS Yesterday and Today: A Sociopsychological View,” in Joel E. Dimsdale (Ed), Survivors, Victims, and Perpetrators: Essays on the Nazi Holocaust, Washington, D.C.: 1980.

  R. Warner, “The Diagnosis of Antisocial and Hysterical Personality Disorders: An Example of Sex Bias,” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, No. 166 (1978).

  Janet I. Warren and Robert R. Hazelwood, “Relational Patterns Associated With Sexual Sadism: A Study of 20 Wives and Girlfriends,” Journal of Family Violence, Vol. 17, No. 1, March 2002.

  R. A. Wesheit, “Female Homicide Offenders: Trends Over Time in an Institutionalized Population,” Justice Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1984.

  NEWS ARTICLES, GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS, INTERNET SITES, AND OTHER SOURCES

  Amnesty International Execution Alert: February 7, 2000 (http://www.ccadp.org/ bettiealert.htm).

  CBC News, Canada: “B.C. woman waiting for beating death trial arrested for assault,” http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/02/11/ellard_bc040211. html.

  Church of Scientology, GS-C Comm; GS-G; D/G Intell U.S., Compliance Report Re: Manson, Bruce Davis, 22 June 1970—see: http://bernie.cncfamily.com/sc/Manson_Scientology.htm.

  “Information on the Infamous Concentration Camp at Buchenwald,” 14 February 1945, in U.S. vs. Josias Prince zu Waldeck, et al., War Crimes Case No. 12–390 (The Buchenwald Case), War Crimes Office, National Archives and Records Service, 1976, Record Group 153, Records of the Judge Advocate General, National Archives, (Washington, D.C.).

  Los Angeles County case number A-252156, Statement of Charles Manson, November 19, 1970.

  Harland Manchester, “Jane Toppan, Champion Poisoner,” American Mercury, 49: 340–346, March 1940.

  Mind of a Killer CD, Kozel Multimedia, 1995–1998.

  New York Times, October 18, 1948, K. Sitte, Letter to the Editor.

  New York Times, October 22, 1948, “Clay Stands Firm in Ilse Koch Case.”

  New York Times, March 10, 1993, A. Quindlen, “Gynocide.”

  SECONDS, http://web.archive.org/web/19981206222051/ and http://www.sni.net/ central/manson/man/interview1.html, 19 December 1997.

  Bill Trent, “The Girl Who Was Involved in One of North America’s Most Bizarre Mass Murders,” Weekend Magazine, St. Thomas Times Journal, Ontario, Canada, July 24, 1971.

  James Tyson, “Woman’s Pending Execution Revives Death Penalty Furor,” Christian Science Monitor, January 16, 1996.

  United Kingdom Parliamentary Papers, 1850 Volume 45.

  U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics, Female Homicide Offenders 1976–2002, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm.

  ENDNOTE REFERENCES

  INTRODUCTION

  1Eric W. Hickey, Serial Murders and Their Victims (3rd Edition), Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2002, p. 213.

  2Peter Vronsky, Serial Killers: The Method and Madness of Monsters, New York: Berkley, 2004, pp. ix–xix.

  3Hickey, p. 213. (Statistics rounded off.)

  4Michael D. Kelleher and C. L. Kelleher, Murder Most Rare, New York: Dell Books, 1998, pp. 287–288.

  5Hickey, p. 215.

  6A. Frodi, J. Macaulay, and P. R. Thome, “Are Women Always Less Aggressive Than Men?” Psychological Bulletin 84 (1977), pp. 634–660.

  7Hickey, p. 215.

  8U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics, Female Homicide Offenders 1976–2002, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm.

  9Stacey L. Shipley and Bruce A. Arrigo, The Female Homicide Offender, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2004, p. 3.

  10Ann Jones, Women Who Kill, New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1981, p. 14.

  11Susan McWhinney, “Petit Treason: Crimes Against the Matriarchy,” in Amy Schroder (ed.), Critical Condition: Women on the Edge of Violence, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1993, p. 48.


  12Patricia Pearson, When She Was Bad: How and Why Women Get Away With Murder, Toronto: Random House Canada, 1998, p. 229.

  13James Tyson, “Woman’s Pending Execution Revives Death Penalty Furor,” Christian Science Monitor, January 16, 1996, p. 3.

  14Amnesty International Execution Alert: February 7, 2000 (http://www. ccadp.org/bettiealert.htm).

  15http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/smith746.htm.

  16Hickey, p. 224.

  17Nancy C. Jurik and Russ Winn, “Gender and Homicide: A Comparison of Men and Women Who Kill,” Violence and Victims, 5:4 (1990), pp. 227–242.

  18As reported by Patricia Pearson in When She Was Bad, p. 30.

  19D. Cameron and E. Frazer, The Lust to Kill: A Feminist Investigation of Sexual Murder, New York: New York University Press, 1987, p. 1.

  20Jane Caputi, The Age of Sex Crime, London: Women’s Press, 1987, p. 2.

  21Jane Caputi, “The New Founding Fathers: The Lore and Lure of the Serial Killer in Contemporary Culture,” Journal of American Culture, 13, 1–12, 1990, p. 2.

  22Ann Jones, Next Time She Will Be Dead, New York: Beacon Press, 1994, p. 81.

  23Ann Jones, Women Who Kill, p. xviii.

  24Ann Jones, Women Who Kill, pp. 12–13.

  25Quoted in Susan McWhinney, p. 48.

  26Jane Caputi, The Age of Sex Crimes, London: Women’s Press, 1987, p. 8.

  27Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation, Boston: Beacon Press, 1973, p. 194; A. Quindlen, “Gynocide,” New York Times, March 10, 1993, p. A19.

  28Jane Caputi, The Age of Sex Crimes, London: Women’s Press, 1987, p. 2.

  29J. Radford and D.E.H. Russell (eds), Femicide: The Politics of Women Killing, New York: Maxwell MacMillan International, 1992.

  30Lynda Hart, Fatal Women: Lesbian Sexuality and the Mark of Aggression, New York–London: Routledge, 1994, p. 141.

  31See Jane Caputi and J. Radford, for example.

  32See Vronsky, Serial Killers, pp. 23–29 for a detailed treatment of the “5000 victims” myth.

  33Hickey, p. 242.

  34U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Statistics, Female Homicide Offenders 1976–2002, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/gender.htm.

  35Belinda Morrissey, When Women Kill: Questions of Agency and Subjectivity, New York–London: Routledge, 2003. p. 19.

  36McWhinney, p. 50.

  37Lynda Hart, p. xiii.

  38Ronald M. Holmes and Stephen T. Holmes, Murder in America, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994.

  39S. A. Egger, “A Working Definition of Serial Murder and the Reductions of Linkage Blindness,” Journal of Police Science and Administration, 12: 348–357, 1984.

  40V. Gerbeth, Practical Homicide Investigations, Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1996.

  41B. T. Keeney and K. Heide, “Gender Differences in Serial Murderers,” Journal of Interpersonal Violence, Vol. 9, No. 3, September 1994.

  42Helen Morrison, Forensic Psychiatrist, Evaluation Center, Chicago, Mind of a Killer CD, Kozel Multimedia, 1995–1998.

  43Deborah Schurman-Kauflin, The New Predator: Women Who Kill, New York: Algora Publishing, 2000.

  44Ronald M. Holmes and Stephen T. Holmes, Serial Murder (2nd Edition), Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998. pp. 42–44.

  45Vronsky, pp. 258–267.

  46Patricia Springer, Blood Rush, New York: Pinnacle Books, 1994.

  47Robert D. Keppel and Richard Walter, “Profiling Killers: A Revised Classification Model for Understanding Sexual Murder,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, Vol. 43, No. 4, 1999.

  48See Hickey and Kelleher and Kelleher.

  49K. E. Cole, G. Fisher and S. S. Cole, “Women Who Kill: A Sociopsychological Study,” Archives of General Psychiatry, 19, 1968. pp. 1–8.

  50Wayne Wilson, Good Murders and Bad Murders: A Consumer’s Guide in the Age of Information, Lanham, NC: University Press of America, 1991.

  51Kelleher and Kelleher, p. 9.

  52Associated Press, June 1, June 21, 2006.

  53Hickey, p. 221.

  CHAPTER ONE

  54Vronsky, pp. xii–xvi.

  55Robert K. Ressler, Ann W. Burgess, John E. Douglas, Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives, Lexington Books, Lexington, Mass.: 1988, pp. x–xi.

  56Schurman-Kauflin, p. 57.

  57Hickey, p. 139.

  58Hickey, p. 215.

  59Keeney and Heide, p. 389.

  60Hickey, p. 137.

  61Keeney and Heide, p. 389.

  62Schurman-Kauflin, p. 61.

  63Gitta Sereny, Cries Unheard, New York: Henry Holt, 1998, p. 109.

  64Hickey, p. 144.

  65Hickey, p. 221.

  66Hickey, p. 221.

  67Hickey, p. 225.

  68R. A. Wesheit, “Female Homicide Offenders: Trends Over Time in an Institutionalized Population,” Justice Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 4, 1984, p. 478.

  69Hickey, p. 217.

  70Wesheit, p. 478.

  71Keeney and Heide, p. 391.

  72Ressler, et al., Sexual Homicide, pp. 16–19.

  73Patricia Pearson, pp. 17–18.

  74Ilsa M. Glazer and Wahipa Abu Ras, “On Aggression, Human Rights, and Hegemonic Discourse: The Case of a Murder for Family Honor in Israel,” Sex Roles 30:3/4 (February 1994), pp. 269–302.

  75Otto Pollack, The Criminality of Women, New York: A. S. Barnes, 1961.

  76Ressler, et al., Sexual Homicide, p. 34.

  77Ressler, et al., Sexual Homicide, p. 29.

  78Ressler, et al., Sexual Homicide, p. 29.

  79Schurman-Kauflin, p. 87.

  80Schurman-Kauflin, p. 88.

  81For references, see: Martens, W.H.J., “Marcel: A Case Study of a Violent Sexual Psychopath in Remission,” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology, 43(3) 1999, p. 392.

  82Jack Olson, The Misbegotten Son: A Serial Killer and His Victims, New York: Delacorte Press, 1993, pp. 491–505.

  83Joel Norris, Serial Killers, New York: Doubleday (Anchor Books) 1989, pp. 246–247.

  84Daniel M’Naghten’s Case, 8 Eng. Rep. 718, 722 (H.L. 1843).

  85Richard L. Jenkins, “The Psychopath or Antisocial Personality,” Journal of Nervous and Mental Diseases, No. 131 (1960), pp. 318–334.

  86Hervey Cleckley, The Mask of Sanity, (5th Edition), Privately Printed, 1988. p. 191. http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm.

  87American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Quick Reference Guide (4th Edition), American Psychiatric Association, Washington D.C.: 1994, pp. 649–650.

  88Shipley and Arrigo, p. 44.

  89John Bowlby, Attachment and Loss: Volume 1. Attachment, New York: Basic Books, 1969, p. xiii.

  90M.D.S. Ainsworth, et al., Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1978.

  91American Psychiatric Association, p. 118.

  92Shipley and Arrigo, p. 47.

  93D. A. Reiger, J. H. Boyd, et al., “One Month Prevalence of Mental Disorders in the United States,” Archives of General Psychiatry, No. 45, (1988), pp. 977–986.

  94L. N. Robins, Deviant Children Grow Up, Baltimore: Williams & Wilkens, 1966.

  95CBC News, Canada: “B.C. woman waiting for beating death trial arrested for assault” http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2004/02/11/ellard_bc040211.html.

  96R. Warner, “The Diagnosis of Antisocial and Hysterical Personality Disorders: An Example of Sex Bias,” The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, No. 166 (1978), pp. 839–845.

  97R. T. Mulder, et al., “Antisocial Women,” Journal of Personality Disorders, No. 8 (1994), pp. 279–287.

  98M. Rutter, “Antisocial Behavior: Developmental Psychopathology Perspectives” in D. M. Stoff, J. Breiling, and J.D.D. Maser (Eds), Handbook of Antisocial Behavior, New York: Wiley, 1994, pp. 115–123.

  99Shipley and Arrigo, p. 51.

  100R. T. Mulde
r.

  101Shipley and Arrigo, p. 52.

  102G. Cote and S. Hodgins, “The Prevalence of Major Mental Disorders Among Homicide Offenders,” International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, No. 15 (1992), pp. 89–99.

  103Shipley and Arrigo, p. 65.

  104Keppel and Walter, p. 435.

  CHAPTER TWO

  105Vronsky, p. 53.

  106The Bible, Mark 6:21–29.

  107Vronsky, pp. 43–45.

  108See for example, Shelley Klein, The Most Evil Women in History, London: Michael O’Mara Books, 2003.

  109Vronsky, pp. 45–49.

  110Laszlo Turoczy, Ungaria suis cum regibus compendio data, Nagyszombat: 1729.

  111Michael Wagener, Beiträge zur Philosophischen Anthropologie (Articles on Philosophical Anthropology) Vienna: 1796.

  112Raymond T. McNally, Dracula Was a Woman: In Search of the Blood Countess of Transylvania, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1983.

  113McNally, p. 66.

  114State Archives of Hungary, Budapest, Thurzo, F. 28, Nr. 19.

  115State Archives of Hungary, Budapest, Thurzo, F. 28, 2.19.

  116Peter Haining, Sweeney Todd: The Real Story of the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, London: Robson Books, 2002, p. 10–11.

  117T. Edwards Clark, M.D., The Galaxy, Volume 6, Issue 3, Sept. 1868.

  118Geoffrey Best, Mid-Victorian Britain 1851–1875, New York: Schocken, 1972, p. 224.

  119Punch (17), London: 1849, p. 214.

  120Judith Knelman, Twisting in the Wind: The Murderess and the English Press, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998, p. 24.

  121Vronsky, pp. 23–29.

  122Quoted in Knelman, p. 52.

  123Times (London), 21 September 1846, p. 4.

  124Béla Bodó, “The Poisoning Women of Tiszazug,” Journal of Family History, Vol. 27, No. 1, January 2002, pp. 40–69.

  125Quoted in Knelman, p. 67.

  126United Kingdom Parliamentary Papers 1850, Volume 45, pp. 447–463.

  127Katherine Watson, Poisoned Lives: English Poisoners and Their Victims, London: Hambledon and London, 2004, p. 47.

  128Mark Seltzer, Serial Killers: Death and Life in America’s Wound Culture, New York–London: Routlege, 1998, p. 1.

  129Harold Schechter, Fatal: The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer, New York: Pocket Books, 2003, p. 4–5.