Some of the most brutal and prolific female murderers, known as "black widows," use their feminine nature to seduce their victims in some way.
And the deadly Black Widow has a special appeal to crime lovers and horror lovers, so it is still very appropriate to put some of them into the historical context. The article provides a list of high-profile cases of female murderers in the past, and lists their criminal progress, death tolls, and ultimate fate.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="3" > Irene Volnos</h1>
Between 1989 and 1990, Aileen Wuornos killed several men along the Florida and South Georgia Highways, later claiming they tried to rape her (she was a sex worker at the time and used the money she earned to support herself and her boyfriend, Terria Moore). But the fact that she killed her victim and managed to hide the body made the jury believe that her murder was more sinister.
When investigators found her and Moore in one of the victim's cars, leaving fingerprints and palm prints, Irene Volnos' killing career ended.
Moore made a deal with police, which eventually got Irene Volnos on the phone, confessed to all seven murders and took full responsibility.
In a victim case, she was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death in 1992 and executed in 2002.
Death toll: 7
Fate: Injections kill. Her story was the subject of the 2003 film Monsters, played by Charlize Theron (whose performance won an Oscar).
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > Lucrezia Borgia</h1>
Lucrezia Borgia has long been seen as a Renaissance serpentine beauty with poison on her ring, which she used to kill her husband and political opponents. Recently, her image has changed. Historians now largely consider her to be a scapegoat, actually quite likable, especially with her relatives, who were Spanish aristocrats who immigrated to Italy in the 15th century and quickly gained control of the Vatican.
Three-time married Borgia is often a pawn in her father's and brother's plans, and she may be the only woman on this list who has never actually killed anyone (though she has been accused of doing so for centuries).
Death toll: Unknown, possible zero.
Fate: Died on June 24, 1519, at the age of 39.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="16" > Mary Manning</h1>
As a Swiss immigrant to the UK, Manning is on my list of articles not so much because of the scope of her crime (she has only one victim) but because of the sensation she caused by her crime.
Mary had two suitors—a young man of her age, Frederick Manning, and an older gentleman, Patrick O'Connor. In the end, she chose Manning, promising him an inheritance, but she and O'Connor maintained a "friendship" that many believed they had sex with.
Upon learning that Frederick's estate was unlikely to be reached (he may have lied at this point), Mary plotted with him a plan to murder O'Connor and rob them of everything they could find. One night she invited O'Connor to dinner and fired a shot at him in the back of the head. Frederick then killed him with a chisel. Finally they hid his body in a hole that had been dug under the slate in the kitchen beforehand and filled it with quicklime to speed up the decay of the body.
Over the next two days, Mary collected all the valuables and stock vouchers she could find at O'Connor's house. After two of O'Connor's colleagues came to their house to inquire about him, Mary and Frederick fled London. Mary went to Edinburgh, where she was arrested for trying to sell O'Connor's shares.
The couple blamed each other at trial, and eventually both were found guilty and publicly executed in 1849. Their cases were a sensation, with an estimated 50,000 people witnessing their deaths. Charles Dickens was one of them, writing a letter to The Times that paved the way for Britain to abolish public executions.
Death toll: 1
Fate: Publicly hanged with her husband. Mary became the inspiration for the maid Hortons in Dickens's novel Draconia.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="24" > Mary Bisnard</h1>
Marie Bisnard, known in the French media as the "Queen of Poisoning," was eventually charged with 13 counts of murder. Her alleged victims included her husband, father, mother, father-in-law, mother-in-law, two friends and several relatives who had left her inheritance. Her second husband, Leon, reveals to his mistress (he and Mary both have lovers) that he is convinced that Mary is planning to kill him. When he eventually died, Mary soon became a suspect. Lyon's body was tested for arsenic poisoning, several other bodies related to Mary were also exhumed, and the arsenic poisoning test was also positive.
In the past 10 years, Mary has been tried 3 times in French courts. Her first two trials, which were declared null and void, were acquitted the third, although few doubted her crimes.
Death toll: Probably 13
Fate: Died in 1980 as a free woman.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="29" > Tilly Kriek</h1>
According to legend, Tilly Klimek claimed that she had the ability to foresee the imminent death of those around her.
Her prophecies included the death of her first, second, third, and fourth husbands; the deaths of three children in a family that had caused her trouble; the deaths of several nearby dogs; and the imminent death of her fifth husband, Anton, but he was saved in the end because the family found him ill and quickly washed his stomach.
It was later found that his food contained arsenic, and Tilly Klimek was arrested. She confessed to trying to kill him and was eventually sentenced to life in prison.
Number of deaths: 7 (probably more)
Fate: Died in prison in 1936.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="35" > Amy Archer Gilligan</h1>
From 1907 to 1917, Amy Archer-Gilligan ran a nursing home in Connecticut, where many people died. This may not have been suspicious at the time, as medicine was not very advanced at the time.
The first to raise suspicions was the death of two husbands, Amy Archer Gilligan. Her first husband, James Archer, died in 1910, and Amy Archer Gilligan became the beneficiary of his recently purchased life insurance. Her second husband, Michael Gilligan, died just three months after their marriage, leaving Amy Archer Gilligan with a sizable life insurance policy. Then some people close to Amy Archer Gilligan began to become suspicious of her.
Later, a relative of a patient who died in the treatment of Amy Archer Gilligan filed a complaint with the police, who subsequently launched an investigation and carried out several excavations. The bodies of her husband and all the exhumed patients tested positive for arsenic.
However, she was tried on only one count of murder and sentenced to death. She was given a chance to get a new trial, and the death penalty was commuted to life in prison.
Death toll: Perhaps as many as 48
Fate: Died in a mental hospital in 1962. Her story inspired Joseph Kesselring's classic play Poison and the Old Woman.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="42">Belle Gunness</h1>
Born in Norway and formerly known as Brynhild Paulsdatter Storseth, Belle Gunness immigrated to the United States with her sister and eventually married another Norwegian immigrant, Mads Sorenson, in 1884. The couple has four children and runs a candy store in Chicago. A year later, the store went out of business because it paid a policy. In 1900, Sorensen happened to die on the day his two life insurance policies overlapped.
In 1902, Belle Gunness married Peter Gunness, and soon after, mysterious deaths and disappearances surrounded her again. The first to leave was a child from Peter's previous marriage. Soon after, it was Peter herself, and then his adopted daughter Jennie Olsen, who also disappeared after proposing belle Gunness's role in her father's death. Belle Gunness then began writing letters to men through a Lonely Hearts Club, and several men disappeared after visiting her.
In 1908, her house was razed to the ground. Four bodies were found in the basement of the ruins, including peter Gunnes's three children and a beheaded woman who did not fit Belle Gunness's figure. Investigators also found the bodies of six of her suitors, as well as the bodies of two other children unrelated to Belle Gunness. Her hired worker, Ray Lamphere, was arrested and convicted of arson. Before dying in prison, he told a priest he had buried the victim killed by Belle Gunness.
Death toll: at least 15
Fate: Unknown. In her burned-out house, not a single body was identified as Belle, and there has been no news since.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="48">Mary Ann Cotton</h1>
Britain's first recorded serial killer was not Jack the Ripper.
Mary Ann Cotton probably killed 21 people, including 3 husbands, 11 of her 13 children, a lover and her mother. And her weapon is arsenic. Between 1852 and 1872, three of her four husbands, and her 11 children, died of strangely similar stomach problems. Over the years, Cotton avoided suspicion by constantly moving between towns across the UK.
When she told a local official that her stepson Charles Edward was dying, her killing spree was finally over. After the child's death, officials notified the police. An examination of Charles's body revealed traces of arsenic, which led to excavations of the families of Mary's two other deceased. They also have signs of arsenic poisoning. Mary was subsequently arrested, tried, and convicted of the murder of Charles, and hanged for it.
Death toll: 21
Fate: Hanging (1873)
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="54">Leonarda Cianciulli</h1>
Sometimes, the only way to protect your conscripted son from war is to sacrifice and eat human flesh.
When Leonarda Cianciulli learned that her favorite son, Giuseppe, had been drafted into the Italian army for World War II, she didn't know why strange thoughts suddenly popped into her head. She began to believe that protecting him required sacrificing human blood, so she devised a plan to lure three neighbor women to their deaths.
She had only three victims, so what was shocking was not the death toll she caused, but the fact that she made the bodies of her victims into soap and refreshments, which she gave to neighbors and her beloved Giuseppe. In the end, Shianuli was arrested because her sister-in-law, the daughter-in-law of her last victim, became suspicious of the victim's disappearance. As part of the investigation, when the police arrived at Theanuli's home, they suspected that her son had done it. To protect him, she confessed to the murder.
Eventually, Leonardo Chianuli was sentenced to 33 years in prison and 3 years in a psychiatric hospital.
Death toll: 3
Fate: Died in a stroke in 1970.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="61">Betty Lou Beets</h1>
Born into a poor north Carolina family in 1937, Betty Lou Beets married her first husband at the age of 15. She had 6 children and subsequently married 6 times with 5 different men, all accused of abuse and domestic violence.
After Bits divorced her first husband and remarried in 1970, she shot and wounded her second husband. He survived, and although she pleaded guilty in court, he eventually withdrew the charges against her and they remarried. After that failed marriage, Bits tried to drive over her third husband, but he also survived.
Her fourth and fifth husbands, however, were not so lucky. Two years after she reported her fifth husband missing, she was said to have been drunk and bragged about her evil deeds to the man she was dating at the time. Bits' own children then pleaded guilty to authorities, saying they helped cover up the murder. When investigators arrived at Bits's house, they found not only the body of her fifth husband, but also her fourth husband, both buried under an outhouse. Betty Lou Bates fired a shot at them in the back of the head, presumably for their life insurance money.
She denied murdering two men, though she admitted shooting and injuring her second husband. However, the testimony of her children proved her guilt and she was eventually sentenced to death by lethal injection. Bates refused the last meal and confession. Witnesses said she had no remorse on the way to the injection room and "didn't have any expression on her face." ”
Death toll: 2
Fate: Executed by lethal injection on 24 February 2000.