By Jonathon Crystal
They both ensnare you in a trap, Take what they need and kill you mercilessly, They are The Black widows.
There are a variety of female serial killer types, the most infamous being labeled The Black Widows, whose nickname brings to mind the toxic spiders who wipe out their mates when their usefulness is concluded. These women seem to be the perfect housewife, and they want you to believe they are, until they snap. While males typically stalk strangers for the thrill, females more often than not prefer those close to them intimately, family members and people reliant upon them. There is a controversy as what to call these female killers as typically a stranger is the victim however, Black Widows are a category all its own. Whether they should be called serial killers is open to debate. Generally, female murderers do not kill for the same sexual motives that more often than not drive male serial killers. If one does accept a frequently suggested definition that entails sexual motivation and a murderous pursuit for power over another individual as what defines a serial killer, then this is not a suitable term for most female multiple murderers, including Black Widows. The goal here is not to debate terms, but to categorize this unusual class of female criminals into its larger web of females who commit murder more than once.
Despite all their differences, there are three things in common for both female and male killers. One, they have an ability to render normal at the surface when it is necessary for planning and survival purposes and not to attract unwanted attention. Two, they may be sociopaths, but just because you have no empathy doesn’t mean you’ll go on a killing rampage, sociopaths are not insane. Three, as Sociopaths they lack a conscience.
More often than not Females kill for profit or to benefit their selves. Some common examples of this are: Lyda Catherine Ambrose who left a trail of five dead husbands and lovers in her pursuit for insurance policy payoffs. The publicity-seeking widow Elfriede "Sugar" Blauensteiner had two obsessions: Gambling and pharmacy. Her last victim, retired and wealthy answered her personal ad and survived only five weeks. Judias Buenoano hid behind various pseudonyms for years while she went about killing a couple of husbands, a fiancée, and a son for their money. Lydia Trueblood of Pocatello, Iowa, poisoned an offspring, five husbands, and an in-law earlier in the 20th century.
It is not always about killing a husband off for financial gain sometimes the children have to die too. Germany's Maria Velten poisoned two husbands, a lover, an aunt, and even her father during the 1960s and 1970s. Three-quarters of the time, this group of women seemingly kill strictly for profit. They live off life insurance policies, pensions, and other assets gained from "sudden" deaths of close relations husbands, children, grandchildren, stepchildren, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers. Audrey Marie Hilley a White Female killed from 1975-1979 with a total of 4 victims. She was a “Black Widow" poisoner of relatives/others. She received in 1983, a life term for her husband and 20 years for attempted murder of her own daughter.
It is a fact that male multiple murderers do not usually kill for financial gain. Most male serial killers have a deep psychological fantasy that they need to play out. Christiana Evripidou of the University of Virginia found in a 2004 study that the traditional targets of the Black Widow may be changing. "An increase in strangers as victims has occurred in recent years," she says. So although it seems as though the Black Widows may be targeting strangers rather than loved ones and family members more often than in the past, they may still be killing more as a substitute for security rather than just from pure greed and covetousness as many people believe.
Editor's note: this article ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is published as the author wrote it, spelling included, with the manuscript's single block broken into paragraphs and no word changed. The two opening lines are set as an epigraph because that is how they were laid out. One correction matters more than the others because this archive's own data was built to catch it. Lyda Catherine Ambrose and Lydia Trueblood are the same woman. The article lists them as two separate Black Widows, one with five dead husbands and lovers and one from Pocatello. Lyda Trueblood used Ambrose, Southard, Meyer and Whitlock as married and assumed names, and was called Lady Bluebeard. The roster carries her once, under “trueblood-lyda”, and keeps a second stub entry solely to record that it is a duplicate and must not be counted twice. Her convictions amount to one: second degree murder in Idaho in 1921 for the death of Edward Meyer, between one and six deaths attributed. Pocatello is in Idaho, not Iowa. The rest, against the roster. Elfriede Blauensteiner was sentenced to life in Vienna in 1997 and again in 2001 and died on November 18, 2003; three to five deaths are attributed. Judy Buenoano was convicted in 1984 of murdering her son and of attempted murder, and in 1985 of murdering her husband, for which she was sentenced to death; she was executed in Florida's electric chair. Three victims, not “a couple of husbands, a fiancée, and a son”: the fiancé survived a car bombing, which is the attempted murder count. Maria Velten was convicted in 1983 and sentenced to life; five victims. Audrey Marie Hilley has no roster entry here. The study attributed to Christiana Evripidou of the University of Virginia is quoted here from a secondary source and this archive has not seen it.