Serial killers and other evil actions are generally attributed to men, but these women certainly prove evil deeds are not limited to just one sex. The brutality and horror in the hearts of these women is unbelievably cruel.
1. Velma Barfield: two husbands and two boyfriends died mysteriously with two proving to be arsenic poisoning; confessed to killing three more including her mother
2. Cynthia Coffman: Kidnapped 4 women by ATMs before accomplice James Gregory Marlow strangled them in five weeks in 1986.
3. Carol M. Bundy and Douglas Clark: also known as “The Sunset Strip Killers”; killed at least 7 prostitutes during 1980.
4. Carroll Cole: Murdered a young boy and 6 women, suspected of a further 9 murders.
5. Nannie Doss: also known as “The Giggling Granny” and “The Jolly Black Widow”; serial poisoner who killed 11 family members
6. Martha Beck and Raymond Fernandez: also known as “The Lonely Hearts Killers”; killed at least 3 women and 1 child in the 1940s but suspected in up to 20 murders in New York and Michigan
7. Janie Lou Gibbs: Georgia poisoner who killed five family members
8. Bertha Gifford: found not guilty of three arsenic poisonings by reason of insanity and suspected of 14 other killings, mostly of children, in Missouri
9. Kristen Gilbert: also known as “The Angel of Death”; nurse convicted of killing four by epinephrine injection. Nurse at a Massachusetts Veterans Medical Center who injected male patients with epinephrine, causing heart attacks. Sentenced to life without parole. Believed ti have murdered 70 + people
10. Dana Sue Gray: convicted of murder of three elderly women and attempted murder of a fourth in California
11. Belle Gunness: Norwegian-born murder-for-profit killer who killed her suitors and children in Indiana. She killed her three children and husband, used the insurance money to buy a home, remarried and killed his infant daughter and him as well. She then took out an ad as an eligible widow with property. Each prospective buyer would be killed and robbed. She left the country after 40 separate murders and was never found.
12. Anna Marie Hahn: German-born murder-for-profit killer who poisoned five elderly men; executed in 1938
13. Linda Hazzard: 1908 to 1911? Self-declared doctor and fasting specialist, which she advertised as a panacea for every medical ailment. Up to 40 patients could have died of starvation in her “sanitarium” of Olalla, Washington. Imprisoned for one death in 1912, was paroled in 1915 and continued to practice medicine without a license in New Zealand (1915-1920) and Washington (1920-1935). Died in 1938 while attempting a fasting to cure herself.Attributed to 13 deaths (which she claimed was medical treatment) and was convicted of manslaughter in one death, in which she additionally forged the victim’s will and stole her valuables.
14. Rhonda Belle Martin: Alabama poisoner who murdered six family members; suspected of poisoning at least nine; executed in 1957
15. Tillie Klimek: Chicago woman who poisoned five husbands; sentenced to life imprisonment
16. Genene Jones: Texas pediatric nurse who poisoned infants in her care; convicted of only one murder but suspected of 10 or more others
17. Martha Ann Johnson: convicted of smothering three of her children in Atlanta between 1977 and 1982
18. Shirley Winters: confessed in 2008 to killing 2 children; suspected of killing her two older children in a 1979 fire and suspected in a separate fire that killed 3 children of a friend in 1979.
19. Aileen Wuornos: shot six men dead in Florida; executed in 2002
20. Waneta Hoyt: New York woman who murdered her five children
21. Lydia Sherman: poisoned 4 husbands and 7 children.
22. Kimberly Clark Saenz: killed five patients by using syringes to inject bleach into their dialysis lines.
23.Fusako Shigenobu After a career as a student activist, she volunteered with the PLO before forming the Japanese Red Army. In her attempts to unite Japan under Communist revolution, she became a full-fledged terrorist. She is responsible for orchestrating the 1974 attack on the French embassy in The Hague, and assisting the 1960 hijacking of TWA flight 840. Until her arrest in 2000, she was the most wanted terrorist on Earth.
24. Dorothea Puente: convicted of three killings in Sacramento, California during the 1980s, Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento, California, and cashed the Social Security checks of her elderly and mentally disabled boarders. Those who complained were killed and buried in her yard. Newspapers dubbed her death house landlady.
25. Amy Archer-Gilligan:1910 to 1917 A nursing home proprietor believed to have poisoned as many as 60 patients from her homes and her second husband. Charged with 5 murders originally, this was lowered to just one following her admission of guilt, she was found guilty of second degree murder. Died in a mental hospital in 1962. Poisoned a husband and four of her nursing home’s residents with arsenic or strychnine in Windsor, Connecticut in the 1910s; total could possibly be 48 to 60.
26. Judy Buenoano: poisoned her husband, boyfriend and son with arsenic in the 1970s; drowned the son in 1980 but caught in 1983 after poisoning and car bombing a fiancée
27. Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood: Michigan duo who murdered five elderly nursing home residents in their care and claimed to have killed another
28. Marie Noe: murdered eight of her children between 1949 and 1968
29. Lyda Southard: first and fourth husbands’ ‘typhoid’ deaths due to arsenic; first husband’s brother poisoned and daughter died; two other husbands died of ‘flu’
30. Marybeth Tinning: New York woman who smothered nine of her children to death
31. Jane Toppan: nurse and lust murderer who poisoned at least 31 patients and relatives in Massachusetts up to the turn of the 20th century
32. Mary Ann Cotton When Mary Ann found out that she would receive payouts for death of a family member, she wasted no time. She murdered 21 people via arsenic poisoning, 12 of which were her own children who were normally under the age of 3. She also killed several husbands and even her own mother just to make a quick buck.
33. Leonarda Cianciulli was an Italian woman who killed three women between 1939 and 1940. Although that is a low body count compared to other women on our list, what she did with them was horrifying. Cianciulli used the remains of the bodies to make soaps that she would later bathe with. In addition to soap, she used dried blood from the victims in her tea cakes then would serve them to friends
34. Beverly Allitt Between February and April of 1991, Allitt went on a rampage. She was employed as a State Enrolled Nurse at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in the UK. For no known reason at all, she successfully murdered 4 children, attempted to murder 3 more, and caused serious bodily harm to 6 more. She murdered the children by injecting them with lethal doses of insulin, and also by injecting air bubbles into them. She is currently serving 13 life sentences.
35. Enriqueta Marti This cruel woman preyed on homeless children and would put them into prostitution or murder them and use their remains for ointments that she claimed cured tuberculosis. She was eventually arrested and hung by her prison mates before trial.
36. Wu Zetian This evil Chinese empress put countless people to death for threatening her rule. She even put her own infant daughter to death as well as other family members.
37. Queen Mary l This Catholic queen murdered huge numbers of Protestants in England and was nicknamed Bloody Mary. Hundreds of thousands of Protestants fled England in order to survive until Queen Mary died in 1558.
38. Griselda Blanco This infamous cocaine godmother, who was already kidnapping and murdering children at age 11, ran the cocaine trade with murderous force in New York and Miami before being shot in the head in 2012.
39. Ilse Koch This Nazi wife tortured and killed many Jewish inmates and made lampshades and other household items out of their skin.
40. Irma Grese This Nazi woman tortured and killed Jewish women who were more attractive than herself. She believed she would have a career in the movies once Germany won World War II but instead was hanged for her crimes in 1945.
41. Katherine Knight is known for strangling her husband for falling asleep during sex, slitting a boyfriends dog’s throat right in front of him and most infamously stabbing a man 37 times, decapitating him, hanging his body on a meat hook and attempting to feed his cooked body parts to his children.
42. Elizabeth Bathory Using her political status as a murder hungry housewife in the 16th century, she was responsible for the torture and murder of over 650 women whom would be lured into her castle in hopes of finding a job.
43. Lizzie Borden Accused of murdering her family with an ax, she was one of the first criminal cases to gain nationwide attention. Acquitted after trial, speculation continues to this day — as her guilt is still widely assumed.
44. Maria ‘Chata’ Leon A native of Guerrero, Mexico, and the mother of 13 children, Leon has been arrested at least 14 times since 1985. As the head of The Avenues, Chata ran one of the most dangerous street gangs in the history of Los Angeles. From her fortress home on Drew St, she ran a criminal enterprise based on drugs, murder, and intimidation. Much of the gang’s higher leadership was made up of her children. Read more
44. Myra Hindley Together with her boyfriend, Ian Brady, Hindley was responsible for the rape and murder of five young children between 1962-68. Hindley died in prison in 2002.
46. Dorothea Binz As the SS supervisor at the Ravensbruck concentration camp, her dedication to her work was described by her fellow Nazis as “unyielding.” Known for patrolling the camp with a whip in one hand and a german shepard in the other, inmates reportedly fell silent upon her approach. Her reputation of whipping, beating, and even shooting female inmates earned her the position of supervising the torture bunkers at the camp as well as training guards.
47. Biljana Plavšić As the former president of Republika Srpska, she lead Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Serbian genocides of the 1990s. It was her comments that ethnic cleansing was a “natural thing” and that six million Serbs needed to die, that rallied her republic to perpetrate genocide. After her arrest, she plea bargained with the war crimes tribunal and remained in prison until her release in 2009. She is currently staging a political comeback.
48. Charlene Adelle Gallego with husband Gerald Armond terrorized Sacramento, California between 1978 and 1980. They killed a total of 10 victims, mostly teenagers, whom they kept as sex slaves before killing them. 1984, Gerald Gallego was tried for murder in both California and Nevada. In both instances, Charlene testified against him. In exchange for her testimony, Charlene was not charged in California and she agreed to plead guilty to murder and receive a sentence of sixteen years and eight months in Nevada. Gerald was convicted in both states and was sentenced to death in both states. His death sentence in Nevada was overturned in 1999 and he won the right to a new sentencing hearing, but the new jury also sentenced him to death. Charlene Gallego was released from prison in Nevada in July 1997. Gerald Gallego died of rectal cancer on July 18, 2002 at the Nevada prison system’s medical center.
49. Carol M. Bundy and Douglas Clark : also known as “The Sunset Strip Killers”; killed at least 7 prostitutes during 1980.
50. Melissa Ann Shepherd: known as “The Black Widow” A Canadian woman dubbed the ‘Black Widow’ for her track record of persuading grieving widowers to marry her. Gordon Stewart, 44 (2nd husband) Ran over him with a car. Robert Friedrich (3rd husband) Poisoned him. Alex Strategos Moved in with him emptied back account while poisoning him. Fred Weeks (4th husband) poisoned him.
51. Rose Carina (1939) aka “Kiss Of Death Woman” also involved in the “Widows of the Poison Ring” (arsenic murder-for insurance ring which preyed on almost 100 victims in Philadelphia with 11 other women) and Herman and Paul Petrillo. Rose was known to have had at least five husbands, three of whom died under mysterious circumstances. Her first was Antonio Carbonaro, from whom she was divorced. Her second spouse was Dominick Carina, who died in 1931. Her third husband, prosper Antonio Lesi, died two years later. Pietro Stea, a grocer died three years later of what was then certified as “heart disease’’ and “diabetes”. Stea was her fourth husband.After Stea’s death in the fall of 1934, Rose married Isadore Tropea, now a semi-invalid, suffering from a stomach ailment. All were poisoned with arsenic.
52. Louise Peete: convicted of murdering a man and woman decades apart, four other acquaintances died suspiciously and four husbands committed suicide.
53. Filipina Narciso Ann Arbor Hospital Killer 1975 Poisonings of ten patients at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in 1975. Filipino nurses Filipina Narciso and Leonora Perez were tried for the crimes.
54. Leonora Perez Ann Arbor Hospital Killer 1975 Poisonings of ten patients at the Veteran’s Administration Hospital in 1975. Filipino nurses Filipina Narciso and Leonora Perez were tried for the crimes.
55. Brenda Spenser 16, San Diego California Jan. 29, 1979 – Spenser lived across the street from Grover Cleveland Elementary School with her father. Spencer began shooting from her home at children who were waiting outside for principal Burton Wragg to open the gates. The principal and a custodian were killed. Eight children and a police officer were injured. Spenser was tried as an adult and pled guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon. She is currently in prison serving an indefinite sentence.
56. Patty Cannon birth name may have been Lucretia Patricia Hanly (1759 or 1769-May 11, 1829) was an illegal slave trader and the co-leader of the Cannon-Johnson Gang of Maryland-Delaware. The group operated for about a decade in the early 19th century kidnapping free blacks and fugitive slaves to sell into slavery in the South. The activity became known as the Reverse Underground Railroad. She also killed several slave traders and stole their money. In 1829 Cannon was indicted in Delaware for four murders after the remains of four blacks (including three children) were discovered on property she owned. She confessed to nearly two dozen murders and died in prison while awaiting trial allegedly committing suicide by poison.
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