Women Who Kill: Profiles of Female Serial Killers

Acknowledgements

Researching a book that involves so much suffering and death takes its toll - and there were times when I saw nothing but hatred and weakness in the world. But the many people who gave freely of their time and knowledge helped restore me to a more balanced view.

I’m very grateful to the Rev Peter Timms who agreed to meet me and answer my questions. Peter is a former prison governor and an experienced counsellor. He is also the man who Myra Hindley confessed to about her role in the murders of Keith Bennett and Pauline Reade.

I’d also like to thank Robert Adams, Professor of Human Services Development at the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside for allowing me to
interview
him. Robert has been a prison officer and the deputy and acting governor of a young offenders
institution
. He also spent seven years as the director of a community programme keeping young offenders out of institutions and is the author of the compassionate and detailed book
The Abuses Of Punishment.

It is easier to get detailed information on certain cases if you contact someone in the country where that crime occurred. To this end, thanks are due to true
crime reviewer Lisa DuMond for providing additional information on several of the American cases. Lisa is a science fiction writer and author of the novel
Darkers
,
but here she kept strictly to the facts. Thanks also to Australian policeman Ron McKay for giving me up to date information on the Catherine Birnie case.

Closer to home, thanks to Chameleon TV, the British producers of the Moors Murders programmes, for
providing
videotape and transcripts of this three part series. Thanks also to Channel 5 who aired the series and helped me obtain the information I required.

I’m equally grateful to EPOCH for sending me their materials. If they can help stop adults hitting children then we might grow into a society without violent adults. They are a small charity who deserve to make giant steps.

Finally, my grateful thanks to Allison & Busby’s Publishing Director David Shelley who suggested I write this book.

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, aren’t a deadly breed -females comprise only two percent of the world’s 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 I’ve 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 aren’t 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 wouldn’t 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 it’s because they are - one aspect of a case will depict the woman as the victim of her team killing partner, whilst in another instance she’ll demonstrate that she’s 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 don’t 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.

It was doubtless an unhappy time - we know that, even today, stepchildren are often treated less well than natural children are, with all the attendant problems that abuse or a simple lack of love can bring.

The next five years passed in this way and then ten-year-old Anna was rescued by one of her richer guardians. He ensured that she was well read and educated, and imbued her with a love of good literature that would last the rest of her increasingly harrowing life.

The teenager had some stability during the years of being educated in the merchant’s home but when she was just fifteen he introduced her to a man more than twice her age and insisted she marry him. Her new suitor was an alcoholic solicitor called Zwanziger who was over thirty years old. Anna pleaded with her guardian that she had no feelings for this man, but he was determined and the marriage went ahead.