WHEN WOMEN SNAP BY TINA JONES CRIMINAL JUSTICE

WHEN WOMEN SNAP! BY: TINA JONES CRIMINAL JUSTICE

AILEEN WUORNOS

WHAT IS THE DEFINITION OF A SERIAL KILLER ? A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time (a "cooling off period") between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological Gratification. Some sources disregard the "three or more" criteria, and define the term as "a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone" or, including the vital characteristics, a minimum of at least two murders.

THE TRUE MEANING Serial killers are not the same as mass murderers, nor are they spree killers, who commit murders in two or more locations with virtually no break in between.

LAVINIA FISHER : Lavinia Fisher has the dubious distinction of being the first female serial killer in the United States, or at least the first one to grip to the public consciousness and earn the title. Her killings were so long ago, though — she was born c. 1792 and died in 1820 — that records about her youth and origin are lost. She and her husband owned and operated a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, in the early 19 th century, and they gained notoriety when men started disappearing. (Rumors about their methods have grown with time, tossing in details like trap doors and elaborate murders, but the most likely truth is that she would poison male guests, her husband would return later in the night to finish them off, and they’d keep whatever cash or goods the guest had. ) She and her husband were hanged, though reports were that she jumped from the gallows in a technical suicide rather than let the executioner kill her. An appropriately gruesome end.

LAVINIA FISHER:

AILEEN WUORNOS It would be impossible to talk about female serial killers without discussing Aileen Wuornos a Florida-based killer and prostitute who murdered seven johns in 1989 -1990 and whose actions were later chronicled in documentaries and feature films. She had a phenomenally rotten childhood: she was allegedly beaten and raped, and she conceived at 13 after a stranger assaulted her, and she subsequently gave birth and had the baby placed up for adoption. She started turning tricks at 15, when she was kicked out of her house. Her tragic life pretty much spiraled after that. After small crimes and arrests, she kept working the roads as a prostitute, killing her first john, 51 -year-old Richard Mallory, in November 1989 in what she would later claim was self-defense. She killed several more men, and she was eventually caught after getting in a minor accident while driving one of her victim’s cars. She was executed in October 2002.

BELLE GUNNESS Belle Gunness was a strong and brutal woman who tallied more than 40 victims in her day. Born in Norway in 1859, she emigrated to the U. S. and married and settled in Chicago. Her husband some of her children died under sad and mysterious circumstances, and when she began dating again, her suitors — wealthy men drawn in by her charms — started disappearing. She had a hired hand named Ray Lamphere who did some dirty work for her, though she eventually turned him out and even managed to turn authorities onto him as a possible threat. Despite her habit of killing men, she managed to have the final laugh. In April 1908, her home went up in flames, and investigators found the bodies of her children next to a headless corpse under the wreckage. However, the dimensions of the headless body didn’t match Gunness’ actual figure, and she was declared missing. Authorities started digging up her land turning up plenty of corpses.

BELLE GUNNESS

VELMA BARFIELD Velma Barfield has another claim to infamy besides being a serial killer: she was the first woman to be executed in the U. S. after the death penalty was reinstituted in 1977. She was put to death for the murder of Stuart Taylor, her boyfriend; she’d been using his checking account to forge checks and buy prescription pills, and she poisoned his beer to knock him off, though she played at nursing him back to health for a few days. She was caught when an autopsy turned up traces of arsenic. She also confessed to killing her mother in the same manner. All told, she killed five people, but she spent so much time on death row that she found religion and became a devout Christian. Weird but true.

VELMA BARFIELD