Notorious Female Killers: The Deadliest Women in History

Infamous names like Charles Manson and Jack The Ripper rule the roost when it comes to the heinous world of serial killers. But the fairer – though no less murderous – sex has also produced many ruthless killers over the years, with nursing home workers and prostitutes regularly flipping out and embarking on killing rampages. Here is a bloodstained rundown of the ten most fearsome female serial killers ever to roam the Earth.

Beverley Allitt (1968 – Present)

The English-born Beverley Allitt, a registered nurse by trade, became known as the Angel of Death after she spent a two-weeks period attacking and killing children in the hospital ward where she worked. Allitt claimed four young lives and attempted the murder of nine other victims. She affected them by injecting drugs like insulin into their bodies with the intention of bringing about a cardiac arrest. She was safely locked up in the psyche-ward of Rampton Maximum Security Prison.

Andrea Yates (1964 – Present)

Fitting the template of the schizophrenic serial killer, Andrea Yates took out her psychological issues on her own brood when she drowned all five of her own kids in the family bathtub. Criminologists have suggested that Yates’s actions were prompted by her inability to cope with giving birth to so many children. After taking the life of the last of her kids, Yates called 911 to report the crime. In an interview conducted after she committed the killings she claimed that her kids were forced to perish due to not being “righteous”.

Karla Homolka (1970 – Present)

Representing Canada’s entry into the annals of female serial killer history, Homolka was actually married to another serial killer, Paul Bernardo. Bernardo inspired Homolka to indulge in her dark deeds and taught her the ways of kidnapping, rape and, ultimately, murder. In a particularly odious move, Homolka even drugged and killed her own sister, who was one of three lives she brought to a premature ending.

Amelia Dyer (1836 – 1896)

Victorian England was apparently something of an open playground for female serial killers. Amelia Dyer added her contribution to the country’s murderous tab by taking the lives of kids that she buried on her family’s farm. Dyer was eventually convicted and hung for one murder, but popular rumors at the time suggest that she certainly killed many times over.

Aileen Wuornos (1956 – 2002)

Growing up, Aileen Wuornos experienced incest and gave birth to her first child aged just 13. Two years later, she was asked to leave her grandfather’s home which prompted her to embark on a series of armed robberies. After getting hitched by a geriatric man, while also keeping a lesbian lover on the side, she dabbled with prostitution to pay the bills before reaching a tipping point in her life and taking out eight men who were about to pay her for sexual services. Wuornos was eventually tried and executed, with her troublesome legacy later captured in the film Monster.

Jeanne Weber (1874 – 1910)

Active in France during the turn of the 20th century, Jeanne Weber terrorized the streets of Paris by strangling at least ten children to death. Her first dalliance with invoking death took place when she was asked to babysit for her sister-in-law. Later, the child was found mysteriously dead with only tell-tale bruises around her neck. This inclination for strangulation continued until Weber was declared officially insane. She then hung herself in 1910.

Amy Archer-Gilligan (1873 – 1962)

The Connecticut-based Amy Archer-Gilligan lived until she was 89 years old – during which time she totted up five deaths by poison. Working out of a nursing home, she preyed on the residents, although she also took a lover’s tiff to a very extreme ending by also killing off her second husband. Chillingly, an investigation into the nursing home eventually found that nearly 50 people there had died in suspicious circumstances.

Jane Toppan (1854 – 1938)

Pre-dating Beverly Allitt’s heinous acts, Jane Toppin was a Boston-based nurse who began her life of depravity by drugging patients in order to rape them. She made the game more extreme by bringing her victims to the point of near-death to satiate her own sexual needs. Often, she got the calculations wrong though. By the time of her conviction, she admitted to murdering a whopping 31 people. Unwittingly, at one time her patients started to call her Jolly Jane as a term of appreciative affection.

Rosemary West (1953 – Present)

In tandem with the equally-as-evil Fred West, Rosemary West invited young and impressionable girls off the streets of England and into their home, promising them a bed, food, and a safe sanctuary. Once inside, the West duo proceeded to subject the girls to depraved sex acts before eventually ending their young lives. Officially, she copped to ten murders, but reports and rumors suggest the actual total could be as many as twice that amount.

Belle Sorenson Gunness (1859 – 1908)

The grandiosely monikered Belle Sorenson Gunness carried out her plans to kill over 40 people while living in Chicago. This bloody spree ultimately saw her named The Black Widow. Theorists have claimed that Gunness’s acts were initially inspired by some sort of an insurance scam. She is alleged to have profited from killing her own two daughters, and then her husband. Gunness soon caught a murderous fever. She lured men with love-letters and then stashed their lifeless bodies under the ground of a farm she had purchased with her ill-gotten insurance payout. As a fitting end to the Black Widow’s noir story, Gunness herself was eventually found not just dead but decapitated.