What is a Serial Killer A serial killer

What is a Serial Killer? • A serial killer is a person who murders more than four people, one at a time, using the same modus operandi each time over a period of weeks, months or years. – Serial killers are different from mass murderers in that killings are one after another instead of all at one time. – Usually, but not always, the killer has no prior acquaintance with the victims and chooses randomly or by a set group of characteristics (such as gender, hair color, age, resemblance of a relative, etc. )

Profile of a Serial Killer • Unable to hold long-term close relationships (although many have been married or have children, they are usually emotionally distant from their family) • Intelligent and sane • Charismatic • History of a troubled childhood or broken family • History of violent acts, such as cruelty to animals and arson, as a child • White • And MALE

A Different Type of Serial Killer • Female serial killers are vastly in the minority among serial killers comprising only 20% of such murderers in 1997, (although the number of females committing violent crimes is on the rise). • Female serial killers also follow different trends and fit different profiles than the vast majority of male serial killers.

Differences Between Men and women Serial Killers MEN WOMEN Tend to stalk victims Victims are strangers Tend to kill relatives, friends, or dependants Violent murders – shoot, stab, strangle, batter, or rape victims More passive – poison is common (80% of female serial killers use it) Kill for sexual pleasure 50% of the time Kill for profit (75%), control (13%), revenge(12%) Kill for months, at most four years Kill for six to eight years, sometimes decades.

Types of Female Serial Killers Black Widow Team Killer Angel of Death Sexual Predator Revenge Killer Profit Killer

Black Widow • Most victims are relatives, especially husbands, lovers or children, although other personal relationships, friends and relatives may be victims as well • Usually profit from life insurance and live off the money they collect from each victim • Usually kill approximately 6 -8 victims over 1015 years • Preferred weapon: poison

Examples of Black Widow Killers • Diana Lumbrera: – suffocated her 6 children and blamed hospital when they could not revive them • Lydia Trueblood – Poisoned five husbands, one in-law and one child with arsenic – Disguised the murders as typhoid. • Margie Velma Barfield – 53 years old and a grandmother – Killed seven husbands and her mother – Burned her victims to death in their beds, disguising their deaths as accidents created by smoking in bed

Team Killer • About 33% (the plurality) of female serial killers fit this category • Kill with a partner, usually male though sometimes a sister or close female friend – Would not initiate serial killing on own, but given prompting from partner is equally involved in murders. • Killings usually sexual in nature • Usually kill approximately 9 -15 victims over 1 -2 years • Preferred weapon: guns, knives, etc.

Examples of Team Killers • Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez – Placed personal ads to attract women to Raymond, whom they could then con out of their money – If victims caught on, they would beat them to death – Over 20 victims (Martha also showed signs of a revenge killer, killing the women if they and Raymond became too close) • Charlene and Gerald Gallego – Raped, tortured and buried alive over 20 teenage girls – Charlene agreed to help Gerald after he convinced her that it would cure is impotence to have virgins

Angels of Death • Work in hospitals and nursing homes where death is not unusual • Exhilarated by their own power over life and death – Often bring victims to the brink of death and “cure” them when no one else know how. Eventually most victims are killed. • Often difficult to arrest and convict because to prove murder over a natural death is often difficult and requires a large amount of statistical proof. On the other hand they are likely to brag about their murders • Often suffer from Munchausen's by proxy syndrome or a God Complex • Usually kill approximately 8 victims over 1 -2 years • Preferred weapon: available medication that mirrors natural diseases and maladies.

Examples of Angels of Death • Genene Jones – Nurse who worked with terminally ill children in clinics all over Texas – Killed between 11 and 46 infants by injecting digoxin into them and than pretending to try to save them – Continued killing even while under investigation • Beverly Allitt – Killed four children – Attempted to murder at least 20 others by injecting them with insulin

Sexual Predator • Extremely rare, in fact only one in US history, though others in other countries. • Geographically mobile • 30’s or middle aged • Driven by sexual fantasies of killing • Usually kill approximately 6 victims over 3 years

Example of a Sexual Predator • Aileen Carol Wuornos – Only known American woman to fit this description – Prostitute, all victims were clients – Declaring the situation abusive, Wuornos would shoot or stab her clients during sex – Unclear if completely driven by sexual pleasure as she also obtained a profit and had a lesbian lover

Revenge Killers • Rare among female, repeat offenders (women who kill for revenge usually do so once in a crime of passion). • Obsession driven, often involve love, hate or jealousy • Victims usually family members or representative of a group that the killer believes to be offensive in some way • Generally show remorse after arrest • Usually kill approximately 3 -4 victims over 2 years

Examples of Revenge Killers • Ellen Etheridge – Jealous of the attention that her husband paid to her four step children (his biological children) – Used arsenic to poison all four children. She poisoned two at the same time, then the other two a few months later • Martha Ann Johnson – Killed her children to obtain revenge against her husband. She suffocated a child each time they had an argument. • Martha Wise (“Lady Borgia of America”) – Poisoned family members and a pastor, and burnt down a church to eliminate barriers to marrying a man of whom her family did not approve. – Claimed the devil made her do it

Profit Killer • Kill for money or profit • Different from Black Widow killers because they are hired as opposed to choosing their own victims • Essentially “hit women” • Dispassionate • Most intelligent type of female serial killer • Usually kill approximately 10 -25 victims over 10 years

Example of a Profit Killer • Madame Popova – Russian hit woman – Hired herself out to women to kill their cruel or abusive husbands – Killed over 300 men • Anna Marie Hahn – Conned 25 elderly men under her care out of their money before killing them after which she continued to collect their social security checks

Other types • Question of Sanity – This category includes women who do not understand the effect of their actions. The women previously mentioned all had clear knowledge of their own actions • Questionable motives – women who’s motive to not fit into any of the prescribed categories or possibly do not even know their own motives • Unsolved Crimes – Crimes likely committed by women but the criminal is unknown

Conclusion Female serial killers are an uncommon group. However, once they begin, they kill over a greater amount of time, and frequently go undetected longer.

References • • Multiple Homicide: Patterns of Serial and Mass Murder, by James Alan Fox; Jack Levin, Crime and Justice © 1998 The University of Chicago Press Corporal Evidence: Representations of Aileen Wuornos, by Miriam Basilio Art Journal © 1996 College Art Association, Inc. Published by College Art Association Lack Widows: Veiled In Their Own Web Of Darknes, By Joseph Geringer, © 2007 Courtroom Television Network LLC. All Rights Reserved. Bureau of Justice Statistics: Special Report: Women Offenders, by Laurence A. Greenfeld and Tracy L. Snell, 1999 The Legal Side: Nurses Accused of Murder, by Beatrice Croft Yorker The American Journal of Nursing © 1988 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. Female Serial Killers by Dr. Tom O’Connor, 2006 http: //faculty. ncwc. edu/toconnor/428 lect 11. htm Forensics Science class, taught by Ms. Villani