By Kristina Stancil
It is believed that retired FBI agent and godfather of modern profiling, Robert Ressler coined the term ‘serial killer,’ in the late 1970s. For decades after Ressler and college begin to ‘stare into the abyss,’ hunting for those depraved individuals who prey on their fellow humans the standard definition was that serial killers were predominately white males who ranged in age from 18-45, who killed two or more people in the same manner. If you were to go to the Department of Justice’s brief, edited by Special Agent Robert J. Morton, this definition as changed. Perhaps it is because of Aileen Wuornos, a known prostitute and the most infamous female serial killer.
Even with Wuornos the most well-known, she is by no means the first. Perhaps the reason she is the most prolific is because she does not fit the preconceived notion that a female killer is going to poison or generally not kill in a way that is ‘messy,’ or in a way to draw attention. Even though she was not very big, standing just over 5’4, she preyed on the men who hired her for her ‘company.’ She would shoot and rob them, but she would often claim they tried to rape her. The jury did not buy her claims that all seven men she killed tried to rape her. She would be convicted of six of the murders. She would be the second woman in Florida and the tenth in the United States to be put to death since 1976 when the ban on the death penalty was overturned.
Wuornos did not originate the phenomenon of the female serial killer nor is she the most brutal of the known female serial killers. Female serial killers in the United States do not just murder strangers like Wuornos. Norwegian born serial killer Belle Gunness maybe the most depraved female serial killer in the history of the United States. She had no preferred victim type and she was not like most other female serial killers. She was not an Angel of Mercy preying on patients so she could rush in with a hero complex to try and save them. Her motives were primarily greed.
Gunness was known as “The Black Widow of the Midwest.” She had life insurance policies on both of her husbands, both who died under mysterious circumstances. It is believed that she had two children with her first husband, infants who died from what was diagnosed as intestinal disorders. After her crimes were made public and upon further examination of evidence, it is believed that Gunness poisoned her two infants as well. After the death of her second husband Peter Gunness, and with the help of a part time lover, Ray Lamphere, she began placing lonely hearts ads in the Chicago newspapers to attract potential suitors. Each of these potential suitors disappeared leaving their traveling trunks and coats in her home. After one of her suitors had notified his brother about his trip to meet Gunness, he failed to notify him that he had arrived safely. The brother would contact Gunness to inquire about him, but she had a lie all prepared. Knowing that she was soon to be discovered for her crimes and not trusting Lamphere to keep her secrets, suddenly her house burned down. The body of a decapitated woman and the four remaining children Gunness had with Peter were found in the ashes. Again, Gunness murdered her own children. Lamphere did turn on Gunness and fed the rumor that she faked her own death and the woman in the house was another victim. Shallow graves were found around Gunness pig farm, the remains of what the creatures would not or could not eat. A coroner’s inquiry found what many suspected. The suitors who came to the farm and were never heard from again were murdered. No one truly knows if Gunness died in the 1908 fire or if she was just as intelligent as she was sadistic. Could she have faked her own death, changed her identity, and began killing in a new place?
The most notorious female serial killer, surpassing, any and all known serial killers was Elizabeth Bathory. Known as the Blood Countess, Elizabeth’s quest to stay young by bathing in the blood of young virgins went on for years. Due to her family’s political importance, the serving girls who disappeared after going to work for the countess went unnoticed. The nobility, especially her uncle, the King of Poland could care less about the disappearance of peasants. Due to Elizabeth’s family ties to several different royal blood lines and education that had afforded her in her youth she was often a diplomat and protector of her husband’s people when the Count was away leading his armies at war. This afforded her a status that was unknown to women in the 1600s. After her husband’s death the lesser nobles sought the countess out as a matron to tutor their young daughters in the ways of diplomacy and life at court. The image she presented to her peers was above reproach…. until these lesser noble girls began to disappear. Her husband’s friend Gyorgo Thurzo was entrusted with seeing to the needs of the count’s heirs. Thurzo was politically hungry and was the driving force in bringing Elizabeth’s crimes to light. Thurzo collected witness statements that claimed in the ten or so years as an active killer, she claimed more than 650 victims.
Witness statements also named several of her most trusted servants as being accomplices in her crimes. They either coerced the women to the castle or helped dispose of the bodies. The servants were put to death for their role in the murders. Elizabeth, by way of her station, was spared the penalty of death. She would be confined to her spacious suite of rooms and food passed through a small opening. She would die at the age of 54 and her gravesite is unknown.
Editor's note: this article ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is reproduced as written. Three figures need setting against this archive's record. Aileen Wuornos received six death sentences, one on conviction at trial for the murder of Richard Mallory and five on her own guilty pleas, with a seventh death attributed and never charged; the article's “seven men she killed” and “convicted of six” compress that. Belle Gunness is recorded here at eleven recovered and identified in whole or in part, with sheriff's estimates running past forty that were never established. Elizabeth Bathory is the largest gap in the piece: this archive records thirty seven to fifty one deaths as testified to at the 1611 proceedings, and the figure of 650 comes from a single uncorroborated claim by one witness about a book nobody has produced. Thurzo, who collected that testimony, stood to gain from her fall, and the article notes his ambition without following it through to the number. Bathory was never tried.