by Ray Black
ACTING ALONE
Killers of this type are often mature, careful, deliberate, socially adept and highly organised. They usually attack victims in their home or specific place of work. These crimes are commonly committed using a specific weapon like poison, lethal injection or suffocations. The type of killers that fall into this group are:
Black Widow
Angel of Death
Sexual Predator
Revenge
Profit or Crime
ACTING IN PARTNERSHIP
The killers in this group generally tend to be younger, more aggressive and vicious in their attack, more disorganised, and their crime is not normally carefully planned. Also they tend to attack victims in diverse locations and have a tendency to use guns, knives or torture. Killers that fall into this group include:
Team Killer
Question of Sanity
Unexplained
Unsolved
THE BLACK WIDOW
Appropriately named after the eight-legged spider with a fast, lethal and venomous bite, these killers are still around today.
An example of one such fiendish woman is Mary Ann Cotton who was born in northern England in 1822. This evil woman, over the course of twenty years, poisoned many of her children, husbands and people that she either became very familiar with or worked alongside, with arsenic. Cotton was devoted to the church and by the age of nineteen was married and pregnant with her first child. This child was not to live for long, dying from a violent bout of ‘gastric fever’. This was the first of many who suffered the same grisly demise.
Her killing spree lasted for nearly twenty years, and it was not until March 1873 that Mary Ann Cotton was finally brought to justice and hanged for murder.
In the late 1800s very little was known about psychopaths and less still of the female kind.
Not all ‘Black Widows’ are as melodramatic as Mary Ann Cotton, and many never get caught. These women kill mainly for money and often kill their own children as well. Other motives include anger and bewilderment, made worse by being under the influence of drink or drugs. It is believed that up to twenty per cent of babies that die each year from SIDS, or cot death, may have actually been victims at their own mothers’ hands – this is, of course, particularly difficult to prove.
Exclude the movie-made impression that ‘Black Widows’ were models of complete physical beauty, for which reason the victims were drawn to them. In reality most of these cunning women were rather plain and ordinary, but using the right body language and female charm, were able to entice and captivate the attentions of their prey until they had total trust and most importantly, access to their finances. Once she had managed to get her hands on what she wanted – his money – this seductive killer would then dispense with the victim giving herself full control over her victim’s estate. After a period of time the ‘widow’ would change her identity and personality and perhaps move to a new area where she would not be recognised, a new victim would be found and the performance would start all over again.
MOTHERS WHO KILL THEIR OWN CHILDREN
One crime that is more common among women than one would suspect is the mother taking the life of her own flesh and blood – her child. Unfortunately society’s belief that every woman is born a natural ‘mother’ is not always the case, and some may need to be watched closer than others. Why would any mother want to harm her own newborn baby? It is difficult to comprehend that a woman who carries a new life around in her womb for nine months, would be able to take this life away as soon as it starts to breathe on it’s own. But this is a difficult crime to prosecute as murder. There have been many incidents where young mothers hide themselves away, give birth on their own and then kill and dump the newborn in a dustbin, pretending the event had never happened.
Women, however, have been guilty of killing their children for centuries, the motives once being the lack of money to feed or clothe them, or provide any sort of place for them live. It may be that there was no husband or father present and so to prevent herself from being a social outcast, would remove any possible evidence of motherhood. Another factor was that there was not the choice of reliable contraception that is around today, and a woman may have had as many as ten babies in as many years.
Today things are a little different, people are not so heavily victimized if they have a child out of wedlock and the social system now provides better facilities for these women. However this type of barbaric crime still occurs. The reason for most infanticides has now changed and women tend to kill their young so that they can enjoy a less restricted lifestyle. However, horrifying this may sound, these crimes are actually premeditated and well thought out.
This is a most immoral act, killing a completely dependent being who is totally unable to defend itself. Certainly for this reason, it is much easier to kill a young baby than an older child. In the case of Melissa Drexler from New Jersey, who at the age of eighteen, gave birth in a toilet, strangled her newborn, and disposed of the body in a dustbin. After this event, Drexler danced the night away at her senior prom. Being sentenced to fifteen years in prison for aggravated manslaughter, Drexler spent only thirty-seven months behind bars before she was released. There are many similar cases to this one, involving older children as well as young babies.
More often than not, these women who kill their offspring are given sympathy and offered help or a course of treatment. But who is to say that some mothers are just not as naturally nurturing in motherhood as society says they should be. Pleading temporary insanity, being a battered wife, being a victim of abuse or having severe P.M.S. have all been used as grounds for the horrific and murderous behaviour of these women.
When the word killer is uttered, people tend to forget about women and focus more on the men who lurk in shadows and are more directly violent.
Susan Smith
While parked on the gravel boat ramp, Smith considered what she was going to do while Michael aged three and Alex just fourteen months slept in the back of the car.
Susan Leigh was born in the city of Union, South Carolina, on September 26, 1971. Her parents Harry and Linda, were both still young when she was born, and maybe as a result of their inexperience and maturity Susan experienced an unhappy and difficult childhood. Her father was a violent man with a drinking problem, who repeatedly accused Susan’s mother of being unfaithful. Susan had two brothers, Michael and Scotty, Michael was her older half-brother, the result of a previous relationship.
The disturbing homelife had repercussions on all three children, especially Michael, who tried unsuccessfully to hang himself. During Susan’s childhood, Michael was treated on many occasions at residential treatment facilities. At her own school Susan was described as an ‘unusual and sad’ child. When Susan was only six years old, her parents finally got divorced and her father, being totally devastated, started to drink far more heavily. Five weeks after the divorce was made final, on January 15, 1978, Harry Vaughan, aged thirty-seven, committed suicide by shooting himself. This loss left a huge gap in Susan’s life as she worshipped her father. After his death she kept two treasured possessions, her father’s coin collection and a tape recording of his voice.
Her mother, on the other hand, only waited two weeks after the divorce was finalized before getting married again, this time to a man named Beverly Russell. Russell was a businessman, a South Carolina State Republican executive committee man and a member of the advisory board of the Christian Coalition, and the owner of an appliance store in downtown Union. Susan moved, along with the rest of her family, into Russell’s exclusive three bedroom house in the Mount Vernon Estates part of Union.
Susan changed completely after her mother remarried and she started to excel at school, even joining extra maths and Spanish classes. At secondary school she was named president of the Junior Civitan Club. She also joined the Red Cross club, worked with the elderly, and joined in other volunteer work within the community. She was even voted as the ‘friendliest female�
� at Union High School, and Susan was remembered by her classmates as ‘down to earth’ and cheerful’. All this was a very different image than she had projected through her primary school days. Her private life, however, was not so happy. Still being very insecure, she craved male attention, especially that of her stepfather and she competed with her mother for his affections.
One evening, shortly before her sixteenth birthday, Susan was sent to sleep downstairs in the sitting room as one of her stepsisters was staying in her room. While her stepfather sat on the end of the settee, Susan decided to snuggle up to him. Totally unaware of the effect that her behaviour was having on her stepfather, she proceeded to fall asleep. Stimulated by this, her stepfather started to run his hand over her body from her shoulders to her breasts, then placed Susan’s hand on his genitals. Susan who had become aware of what was happening, decided the safest thing to do was to pretend that she was still asleep and hence ignored his gropings.
However, later she filed a complaint against Russell, which was investigated by the South Carolina Department of Social Services and the Union County Sheriff’s office. It was recommended that the family attended counselling sessions, and Susan, her mother, and stepfather made about four or five visits. However, Russell still continued to molest Susan on occasion even after they had completed their counselling session.
Susan’s first job was as a cashier at the Winn-Dixie supermarket, where she was soon promoted to the markets’ book-keeper. While working here she started dating an older, married man and she fell pregnant but the pregnancy was terminated. During this time Susan was also having a relationship with another co-worker. After the abortion, the married man found out that she had been seeing someone else and ended the relationship. Susan became very depressed over the breakup and she tried to kill herself with an overdose. When she was admitted to Spartanburg Medical Centre in November 1988 to recover, it was found that she had tried to commit suicide before, when she was only thirteen. After a month of recovery, Susan returned to her job at Winn-Dixie.
Just before she tried to take her own life, Susan had become friendly with one of the store clerks at work, David Smith. They had become friends at Union High School, where they both attended and when Susan returned to work, David finished with his long-term girlfriend, Christy Jennings, in the hope of starting a relationship with Susan.
David Smith was very pleasant and had very strong work ethics. He started to date Susan in the summer of 1990, then in January 1991 Susan found herself pregnant again. As both David and Susan were against having an abortion they decided to get married. Giving up her idea of attending college, Susan saw marriage as a place of stability and safety.
In many ways the two were very similar, as they were both needy and found comfort in each other. But problems arose because they were from completely different backgrounds, Susan being brought up in the city and David in the country. Because David had no college education and was from a different economic background Susan’s mother and stepfather were far from pleased, and even more so when they heard of the impending marriage and pregnancy.
Shortly before Susan and David were due to be married, Danny, who was David’s younger brother died from complications relating to Crohn’s disease. Susan was adamant she wouldn’t postpone the wedding for the simple reason she didn’t want people to see that she was pregnant on her special day. So at the wedding, David’s parents were still dealing with the loss of their other son.
After the wedding, Susan refused to move to the simple country house that David had found, it was not good enough for her as she had much higher expectations. In the end she moved in with David at his great-grandmother’s house. About three months after they were married, on a visit to her inlaws, Susan found David’s father on the floor of his home. He had attempted to kill himself with an overdose of pills. Apparently, David’s parents’ marriage was falling apart, partly due to the death of their son and the attempted suicide. Because of this, David’s mother, Barbara, left and moved away to South Carolina. David’s father, however, recovered and continued to live in Putnam after being hospitalised and treated for depression. This is where he met his second wife.
Susan continued working at Winn-Dixie until she went into labour and Michael Danny Smith was born on October 10, 1991. After the birth of their son, Susan went part-time at work and enrolled at the University of South Carolina in Union, attending several college courses. With all the responsibilities of a young child, college and work, a lot of tension developed between the couple which put a great amount of stress on their marriage. These tensions were made worse by the fact that David did not get on with Linda, Susan’s mother. Linda was accused, by David, of giving unwelcome advice and opinions on how he and Susan should conduct their marriage and bring up their child. Added stress came from the fact that both still worked at Winn-Dixie where David was now Susan’s boss and gradually things were going from bad to worse.
In November 1992 Susan became pregnant again and they tried hard to reconcile their differences. They had tried separation on several occasions, but, with the financial assistance of Susan’s mother and stepfather, David and Susan tried to patch things up and bought a small ranch-style house in Toney Road, Union.
This second pregnancy was not as easy as the first for Susan, who complained of being ‘fat and ugly’. Things did not improve at home for very long as Susan was miserable and unhappy. David started to feel excluded from Susan’s life and so looked elsewhere for friendship. He started to see fellow employee at Winn-Dixie, Tiffany Moss. Susan became increasingly jealous and would visit him at work, screaming at him while he was talking to women in the store. After a difficult second birth, Alexander Tyler Smith was born on August 5, 1993, by caesarian section. Although they both were devoted parents, three weeks after the birth of their second child, David moved out.
HER INFATUATION
When Susan had fully recovered from the birth of Alex, deciding that she could not work at the same place as her husband and his mistress, she found a job at Conso Products. Here she worked as a book-keeper and in the course of time became the assistant to the executive secretary for the president and CEO of Conso, J. Carey Findlay.
Findlay, was an accountant from North Carolina, who lived in Union. With a group of investors he bought Conso in 1986, then bought out his partners in 1988. Conso became the first publically owned corporation in Union and by the end of 1993 had factories in Canada, Mexico and Great Britain. Susan enjoyed the expensive surroundings that Conso provided, and also loved her work and the responsibility that came with it. She also enjoyed working at Conso for another reason – Tom Findlay – who was one of three sons of J. Carey Findlay. Being young, rich and available, Tom was popular with most of the young women in Union. After graduating from Auburn University, he was in charge of the graphic arts department at Conso, and responsible for designing and producing company brochures.
Susan now had many new friends, and she also started to see Tom Findlay, attending many lunch dates and parties with him. Then, a few months into 1994, Susan and David tried one last attempt to save their marriage. David stopped seeing his girlfriend Tiffany and Susan finished with Tom. However, this did not last for long and by the end of July 1994 Susan asked David for a divorce. He, on the other hand, had wanted the marriage to work as he felt that their two sons needed both their mother and father together. Finally, David moved out in August and rented a two bedroomed place a couple of miles away. In this apartment he provided facilities so that he could have his two boys, Michael and Alex, to stay.
By September both Susan and David were on friendly terms and Susan was once again seeing Tom. At this time Susan was sexually involved with three men, her stepfather Beverly Russell, Tom Findlay and her estranged husband, David. When Susan felt that she had a stable future with Tom Findlay, she filed for a divorce from David on the grounds of adultery.
Findlay, however, had other ideas about the relationship he shared with Susan. He liked her but f
ound her too needy and possessive. He was honest enough to admit to her that he didn’t want to raise a family and in October Susan received a letter from Tom, ending their relationship. In this letter, Tom had expressed how proud he was that Susan was trying to improve herself by attending college and how he thought she was a great person but also how he thought that they were not well suited for each other. He also wrote how her behaviour was inappropriate and that she would have to behave like a nice girl if she was to catch a nice man like himself. Not to be seen fondling and kissing other married men like at a recent hot tub party he had thrown. As well as this, their backgrounds were too dissimilar and he did not want the added responsibility of caring for another man’s two small children.
Susan grew depressed at managing the two young children on her own as well as her college work and she also suffered anxiety when she was on her own in the evening. In an attempt to restore her relationship, she visited Tom at his home and used the story of her sexual relationship with her stepfather to try and gain his sympathy, but this did not gain the right reaction, only one of shock.
It was the morning of October 25, 1994. Susan fed and dressed her two small boys and took them to their day care as usual, before going to work. At lunch time she joined a group of friends from work, which included Tom, at a restaurant in Buffalo. Susan appeared very quiet while the rest of the crowd talked and laughed happily. During lunch Susan asked her supervisor if she could leave work early and when they asked why, Susan explained that she was in love with someone who didn’t love her in return. When questioned further as to whom this person was, she replied ‘Tom Findlay, but it can never be, because of my children’.
Instead of going home as she has requested, Susan stayed at work. Then at about 2.30 in the afternoon Susan called Tom into his office and asked him if he could meet her to talk. She also mentioned that David was threatening to expose some information about her in the divorce proceedings. When Tom asked what this had to do with him, she replied that he was going to accuse her of cheating the IRS and of having an affair with Tom’s father. After hearing this, Tom stated that their intimate relationship would have to end forever, although they could remain friends. Later that afternoon, around 4.30, Susan pursued Tom once again in order to return to him a sweatshirt that she had once borrowed, but he told her to hang onto it.
