Carol Anne Davis - Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial Killers

Preface

Why does a young woman lure teenagers into her car then participate in their extensive rape and torture? What makes a nurse lethally inject the healthy babies in her care? Women, statistically, arent a deadly breed -females comprise only two percent of the worlds serial killers. But when the distaff side does commit multiple murders, they can be as cruel and compassionless as the male.

Chapters one to thirteen profile such female serial killers, with each being given her own detailed chapter. Catherine Wood and Gwen Graham share a chapter - but have their early lives separately profiled - as they killed as a team.

Most crime books jump from past to present and back again but Ive worked hard to put events into chronological order so that the reader can see how the woman changes in personality and in criminality as her life unfolds.

The first two profiles are historical ones, notably Anna Zwanziger the mass poisoner who was born in 1760 and Jeanne Weber the strangler who was born in 1875. They show many of the serial killing patterns we see today - the predatory targeting of a victim and a willingness to wait till the coast is clear before offering violence. These cases also show that female serial killers arent a modern phenomenon brought about by video nasties, violent computer games or television.

The other cases are much more contemporary, with the killers mainly active in the eighties. Though America produces many of the killers featured there are also cases from Britain, Australia and Canada plus those previously mentioned which are set respectively in Bavaria and France.

Chapter fourteen examines the classifications that female serial killers fall into - for example, the Profit Killer, the Revenge Killer or the whimsically-named Angel Of Death.

When selecting which female serial killers to profile, I concentrated mainly on the Thrill Killer cases as these are the most fascinating and also the hardest to understand . After all, most of us can empathise with a Profit Killer desiring wealth, even though we personally wouldnt murder for it. Similarly, we can comprehend the motivation of a Revenge Killer, who wreaks suffering and death on her unfortunate foes. But the female Thrill Killer who lures innocent people to hours or even days of suffering is much more difficult for the layperson to fathom, especially when she commits these murders again and again.

Chapter fifteen looks at how these women are often erroneously regarded by the courts as helpless pawns who murdered for love or because they were terrorised into it. It also looks at those rare instances where women are more harshly treated because of their sex.

If these findings seem in part contradictory its because they are - one aspect of a case will depict the woman as the victim of her team killing partner, whilst in another instance shell demonstrate that shes the sadistic one, the one in charge.

All too often, when the evidence is partially contradictory like this, the writer leaves out the facts which dont suit his or her cause. This makes for a simplified read - and it may please the casual reader who can then say oh, she was mad or she was bad or she was a clear victim. But he will be responding to a biased interpretation of the case rather than the truth.

The final chapter looks at theories about why women kill with such brutality and at how we might change our world to make it a non-violent and desirable place.

1 Candle in the wind

The nomadic misery of Anna Maria Zwanziger

Anna was born in Nuremberg in 1760 to a couple named Schonleben who ran an inn. In her formative years she had some security but both of her parents died by the time she was five, leaving her doubly orphaned. The pretty, intelligent child was then foisted on to various relatives.