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Black Widows: Female Serial Killers

This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UNCG chapter.

It’s spooky season everybody, which means there are haunted houses and scary movies galore. We go to haunted houses and watch scary movies to feel adrenaline and to be scared in a fun sort of way. Well today folks we are not talking about the fun kind of scary! I’m talking serial killers, specifically female. If you look at statistics it’s much more likely for a serial killer to be a man, but here is a list of some gruesome female killers!

 

Aileen Wuornos

Our girl Aileen was a prostitute and between 1989-90 she decided to kill 7 of her johns, or basically the men who were paying her for services. She said that all her killings were self defense because they had tried to rape her. She was caught because she got into a minor traffic accident in one of her victim’s cars and she was executed in 2002.

 

Jane Topin

Jane was a nurse back in the 1800s and she racked up dozens of victims between 1885 and when she was captured in 1900. She said killing aroused her and was found insane and therefore not guilty of her crimes.

 

Juana Barraza

She was known as the old lady killer, and for good reason. In the 1990s she killed as many as 49 elderly women. She was convicted of 11 of those murders and was sentenced to 750 years in prison. Fun fact: Juana was also a professional wrestler.

 

Dagmar Overbye

She killed 25 children in horrible ways, such as drowning or burning, between 1913 and 1920. She worked as a caretaker for children born out of wedlock. One of the victims was her own child and she was sentenced to death.

 

Lavinia Fisher

She is said to be the first female serial killer in the United States. Lavinia and her husband would kill men who came to their hotel and take any cash or valuables. They were convicted and hanged in 1820. The couple who kills together stays together!

 

We don’t hear about serial killers very often anymore, but they could still be out there and they just haven’t been caught, so everyone stay safe and have a great spooky season!

 

Hi i'm Maggie and I am a sophomore studying human development and family studies. a few things about moi is I really love cows, they're majestic, i am a vegetarian, and I like singing really badly all the time.