WOMEN SERIAL KILLERS

IN THE 20th CENTURY

SYLVIA PERRINI

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DISCLAIMER

In researching this book, I gathered material from a wide variety of resources, newspapers, academic papers, and other material both on and offline. In many cases, I have referenced actual quotes pertaining to the content throughout. To the best of my knowledge, the material contained is correct. Neither the publisher nor the author will be held liable for incorrect or factual mistakes.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

WOMEN FROM HELL

AMY ARCHER-GILLIGAN

DAGMAR OVERBYE

VERA RENCZI

BERTHA GIFFORD

DAISY LOUISA DEMELKER

LYDIA SOUTHARD

MARIE ALEXANDRIA BECKER

MARTHA  MAREK

ANNA MARIE HAHN------ "

CAROLINE GRILLS

LOUISE  PEETE

MARIE BESNARD

NANNIE DOSS

MARY ELIZABETH WILSON---

RHONDA BELL MARTIN

ANJETTE DONOVAN LYLES

MARIE FIKACKOVA

JANIE LOU GIBBS

VELMA BARFIELD

JUDIAS "JUDY" BUENOANO

DOROTHEA HELEN PUENTE-

ELFRIEDE BLAUENSTEINER

AILEEN WUORNUS-

DANA SUE GRAY

BEVERLY ALLITT

CONCLUSION

OTHER BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR

WOMEN FROM HELL

Despite centuries of horrific acts of cruelty, bloodshed and murder, women are still regarded as the gentle nurturing sex.

In Women Serial Killers of the 20th Century, as in the Women Serial killers of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, I only look at profiles of women who committed their crimes without a male partner involved. In the majority of the cases, all the women committed their crimes solely on their own.

The 20th-century, like the previous centuries, has seen no end of murders by women with poison as their choice of weapon. Furthermore, just like in the previous centuries, the murders have been just as cold and calculating.

Why do women prefer to murder with poison? I’ve come to suspect three reasons:

1.              It avoids physical confrontation.

2.              It is cleaner than the ugly bloodied scenes of guns or knives.

3.              The women serial killers believe it is a method that will allow them to get away with murder.

Those lucky few who have managed to survive an attempted murder by these women have described being poisoned as being equal to being devoured alive.

However, the 20th century has also seen murders committed by women with guns and, in the case of Dana Gray, with physical violence. Dana is a rarity among women serial killers, in both her choice of victim and her hands-on method of using her hands, a cord or rope, and an object with which to batter her victim.

Aileen Wuornos was described in the popular press as the first American woman serial killer. This is totally incorrect. American women serial killers existed long before Aileen Wuornos was even born. Yet, even after all this time, we are left with the same question: what leads a woman to commit serial murder? After much study, I’ve concluded there are several reasons:

1.              The vast majority of serial murders committed by women in the 20th century, as in earlier centuries, have been committed for money and materialistic gain.

2.              Other reasons include a need to overpower either someone who is abusive or someone who is physically stronger.

3.              Attention seeking behavior and personality disorders such as schizophrenia, Münchausen syndrome, and Borderline Personality Disorder to name just a few.

In this book, I examine the profiles of twenty-five women serial killers, all of whom acted alone.

I have not included mothers who solely kill their own children as I believe that is a subject that deserves to be written about entirely separately.

Even leaving those specific types of Women Serial Killers aside, there are still many women who choose to commit murder again, and again, and again…

Welcome to the world of 20th century women serial killers.

AMY ARCHER-GILLIGAN

Amy Duggan Archer-Gilligan, née Duggan, was born in October 1868 in Litchfield, Connecticut. Amy was the eighth child born to James Duggan and Mary Kennedy.

In 1897, Amy married James Archer and in December of 1897, they had a daughter Mary. In 1904, the Archers opened a boarding house, “Sister Amy's Nursing Home for the Elderly", in Newington, Connecticut. They soon built up a reputation as genteel caregivers for the area’s wealthy elderly providing nurturing tonics and nutritional meals, despite neither Amy nor James having any medical qualifications. It was an era when there were no regulations governing nursing homes.

The home was so successful that, within six years, they upgraded to a larger property in nearby Windsor. Shortly after the move in 1910, James Archer died. His death certificate issued by the local coroner, Dr. King, said the cause of death was kidney disease. A few weeks before James’s death, Amy had insured his life, and the day after James funeral, at which she cried profusely and was comforted by Dr. King, she visited the insurance office.

Amy’s care home rates were considered exceptionally reasonable. She would charge $7 per week or a one-time upfront fee of $1,500 for lifetime care. However for Amy’s home, with only fourteen paid beds, to remain profitable, she realized that she needed a constant supply of fresh patients.

Between 1907 and 1910, twelve of Amy’s patients had died. Given the ages of the patients, four deaths per year were not considered suspicious. However, after James’s death, that number began to rise significantly.

The increase in deaths in the summer of 1911 was partly attributed to the unprecedented heat wave that hit the northeastern United States. More than 3,000 deaths had been attributed to this natural disaster. Yet even after the heat wave had finished, the elderly patients in Amy’s home continued to die. Dr. King attributed each death to old age.

In 1913, Amy met and married a rich widower, Michael Gilligan. Soon after the wedding, he changed his will leaving his entire estate to Amy. On the 20th of February in 1914, Michael died after eating one of Amy’s special nutritional dinners. Dr. King gave the cause of death as “natural causes.”

Many of Amy’s patients had no relatives to keep an eye out for them, but one resident, Franklin Andrews, an apparently healthy man, had a sister, Nellie Pierce, who regularly visited him. When he died unexpectedly on May 29, 1914, Nellie became suspicious. The cause of her brother’s death, according to Dr. King was a gastric ulcer. Going through her brother’s papers, Nellie noted that Franklin had just signed an agreement allowing Amy to withdraw a large amount of money. Nellie began watching the obituary column in the local paper and began to feel evermore alarmed by the number of deaths occurring at the home.

Nellie, as her suspicions grew, went to the district attorney’s office and reported her findings. The District Attorney checked the death certificates and seemed satisfied that everything was in order.

Nellie then went to see a journalist at the Hartford Courant and relayed her suspicions to him. He promised to investigate.

The reporter discovered that there had been forty-eight deaths at the home over a five-year period and that shortly before each death, the elderly patient had signed over to Amy large sums of money. Dr. Howard King had signed the death certificates in each case as due to natural causes. The journalist, by consulting with other physicians around Connecticut, learned that an average death toll in a small establishment as Amy’s would be eight to ten over a five-year period, not forty-eight.

The reporter wrote up his story on May 9, 1916, and entitled it “The Murder Factory”.

The story forced the police to investigate. Armed with a search warrant, they raided “Sister Amy's Nursing Home for the Elderly.” In the clinic’s storerooms, the police found large amounts of bottled arsenic. Amy explained that they were to keep the rats under control. The police did not believe her and requested the local judge for permission to exhume some of the patient’s bodies as well as that of Amy’s last husband, Michael Gilligan. Altogether, five bodies were exhumed, and all were found to have died either by arsenic or strychnine poisoning.

Amy Archer-Gilligan

Amy was arrested and charged with five counts of murder. Her trial took place in Hartford, Connecticut in June of 1917. Amy pleaded not guilty. On June 18, 1917, a jury found her guilty. The judge sentenced her to death. Amy appealed and was granted a new trial in 1919 in which she pleaded insanity. Amy’s daughter, Mary, testified that her mother was a morphine addict. In this trial, the jury found Amy guilty of second-degree murder, and she was sentenced to life imprisonment.

It soon became obvious to prison authorities by Amy’s behavior that she was insane, and she was moved to an insane asylum. She died in 1928, at the age of 59 at the Connecticut state insane asylum.

DAGMAR OVERBYE

And Her Kitchen Stove

Dagmar Johanne Amalie Overbye was born on April 23rd 1887 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Dagmar began running a service offering to find homes for illegitimate babies in 1915. For this service, she charged mothers a one-time fee.

However, Dagmar did not make any attempt to find homes for these babies. Once they were in her care, she simply disposed of them by either strangling them or drowning them. She disposed of the corpses in her kitchen stove.

Her crimes were discovered when a young unmarried mother, Karoline Aagesen, placed an advertisement in the newspaper in July of 1920 looking for a family to adopt her new-born daughter. The advertisement was answered by Dagmar who said she would find a loving home for the baby girl. With a heavy heart, Karoline handed over her baby and two hundred Kroner ($34.88) to Dagmar.

The following day, Karoline visited Dagmar to ask for her daughter back. Dagmar told her that she could not recall the address of the family where she had placed the baby. The heart-broken Karoline reported the incident to the police. The police went to Dagmar’s apartment in Copenhagen’s Vesterbro district on Englhavevej.

On searching the apartment, the police discovered baby clothes and charred bones and a baby’s skull in the kitchen stove. In the attic of the apartment, more baby bones and skulls were discovered. Dagmar was arrested.

Dagmar under questioning confessed to killing sixteen babies. At her trial, which became one of the most talked about in Denmark’s history, she was convicted of nine murders.

Dagmar was sentenced to death, but this was later changed to life imprisonment. Dagmar died in prison on May 6, 1929, at the age of forty-two.

The trial caused the laws on childcare in Denmark to be changed.

Although only convicted of nine murders, the authorities believed the number could have been closer to thirty; this number included Dagmar’s own baby.

VERA RENCZI

Obsession

Vera Renczi entered the world to a well off family in Bucharest, Romania in 1903. When Vera was ten years old, the family moved to Berkerekul, a small provincial town in the northeast of the former Yugoslavia.

Many years later, Vera’s childhood friends described her as being overly jealous and extremely possessive. There is a story of Vera as a child having poisoned her dog. When questioned by her father as to why she had poisoned it, she explained that she had heard her father saying that he was giving the dog away as it made too much noise with its barking. And she continued:

“Because I do not want my dog to belong to anybody else. When he leaves me he leaves this world”.

Vera grew into a stunningly beautiful young woman and amazed men with her grace and beauty. By the time she was fifteen, she had engaged in numerable affairs, many with men considerably older than herself. It was as if she had an almost pathological desire for constant male companionship.

When Vera was nineteen, she fell in love with a Bucharest businessman, Karl Schick, who was many years her senior. They married and bought a large house on the outskirts of Berkerekul. They had a son together named Lorenzo. To all neighbors, friends and relatives, Vera appeared as a loving, caring, and affectionate wife. However, while Karl was out at work, Vera imagined him having endless affairs with other women. Her suspicions were invalid and unfounded but to Vera they were frighteningly real. Unable to bear these thoughts, one night in a jealous fit, she added arsenic to Karl’s dinner wine.

Vera told her friends, neighbors, and relatives that Karl had left her. Although they found it odd, they had no reason to disbelieve her. After a year, she announced to her friends, neighbors, and relatives that she had heard that Karl had died in a "traffic accident”.

Vera then met Joseph Renczi, who was nearer her own age than her previous husband. Joseph was an extremely handsome Serbian businessman. They married, and it was not long before Vera was once again plagued by the suspicion that her new husband was involved in extramarital affairs. Unable to stand the thought of ‘her Joseph’ in the arms of another woman, she added arsenic to his dinner wine. Once again, she told friends and relatives that he had deserted her. A year later, she claimed he had sent her a letter saying he would never return.

Vera never remarried but reverted to her previous lifestyle of having a series of lovers. Some of the affairs would be with married men and were carried out clandestinely and others openly. The lovers she took were from all walks of life but were mainly youngish men from out of town.

In the town, she became known as the “Mysterious Huntress”. In the evenings, she would wander into the town and frequent the restaurants and bars on the prowl for a young lover. Some of the men would be seen to stay with her for a few weeks, some less. Inevitably, she would always tell her acquaintances that they had deserted her.

If Vera felt or detected the tiniest suspicion of infidelity, which she inescapably did, the men would receive a glass of Vera’s special dinner wine.

Vera’s downfall came about by her affair in 1925 with a local married Serbian banker, Milorad. His wife had become suspicious and one night followed her husband to Vera’s house. When Milorad did not return home, the wife went to Vera's house and confronted her. Vera denied knowing Milorad. Mrs. Milorad reported his disappearance and her last sighting of him at Vera’s to the police.

The police, meanwhile, were being inundated with enquiries of men who had disappeared and were last seen and heard of as visiting Berkerekul. They decided that a visit to the wealthy widow’s home was in order.

They uncovered more than was expected. In Vera’s large wine cellar, they discovered thirty-two unburied zinc coffins, all neatly placed around the walls. Each coffin held a male corpse, and each was neatly labeled with a name and the age of the victim. In the centre of the cellar was a rocking chair. In Vera’s bedroom, the police found enough arsenic to kill a hundred men.

Vera’s Chateau

Vera Renczi was taken into custody. In front of a stern-faced magistrate, she made a full confession of having poisoned her two husbands and ten-year-old son, as well as all the other young men.

When asked why she had killed her husbands and all the other young men, the extent of her jealousy was revealed. She confessed to knowing that they were all or would in the future be unfaithful. She explained that she was unable to endure the thought of any of them ever holding another woman in their arms after holding her and for that reason they were safer in her cellar.

When questioned as to why she had killed her son, she replied that he had accidentally discovered the coffins in her wine cellar. And that he, too, would one day have grown into a man and held another woman in his arms.

When asked about the rocking chair, she said that she liked to sit and talk to her men knowing she had their undivided attention.

Beautiful Vera Renczi was found guilty on thirty-five counts of murder and remained the rest of her days in prison. In prison, Vera imagined all those she had murdered surrounded her, and the guards would hear her speak to them for hours. Vera died of a brain hemorrhage shortly before the Second World War.

BERTHA GIFFORD

The Angel of Death

Bertha Alice Williams Graham Gifford was born in Grubville, Missouri in 1872. Her parents were early pioneers in eastern Missouri. Bertha’s mother, Matilda Caroline Lee, married her father, William Poindexter Williams, on January 1st of 1859, in Jefferson County, Missouri. They had ten children, but two died in early infancy leaving six boys and two girls. The Williams family was known as one of the area’s most respectable families. The family was a regular attendee at the local fundamentalist church, the Church of God.

Bertha grew up to be an extraordinarily beautiful woman with dark hair and a dark complexion. As a young woman, she loved to dance and was courted by many. In 1894, when Bertha was twenty-two, she married Henry Graham in Hillsboro, Jefferson County, Missouri. They managed a small boarding house on the edge of Hillsboro town and had a daughter together. The marriage, over time, became an unhappy one, and there were rumors that William was seeing a girl on the sly. When Bertha was thirty and still extremely beautiful, she met Eugene Gifford, a handsome, friendly farmer and carpenter, seven years her junior. When they met, Eugene was betrothed to another girl. Shortly after meeting Eugene, Henry Graham became ill and was diagnosed with pneumonia. Bertha nursed him conscientiously, never leaving his bedside. Although Henry was physically strong, he developed what doctors called complications, and he died at the age of 34 suffering from violent, excruciating, stomach cramps.

In 1907, after waiting a respectable amount of time and allowing Eugene to break off his engagement and Bertha to collect her insurance payout on Henry’s death, Bertha and Eugene married. Once married, Bertha and Eugene moved away from Jefferson County to Catawissa, Franklin County, Missouri. Catawissa was an extremely small rural community 39 miles from St. Louis and about 10 miles southwest of the larger and more developed town of Pacific.

Catawissa consisted of not much more than a post office, a church, and a few small stores. Bertha had several relatives by marriage already living in Catawissa. Here, Eugene took up farming, and they lived on a house on Old Bend Road, about one mile from the Meramec River. The people who lived “on the bend” had their own close-knit community separate from the small town of Catawissa. The community was made up of farmers who worked hard and long hours. When Eugene and Bertha moved to the area, the mode of transportation was still by horse and wagon. There were hitching posts and water troughs for horses along the town streets.  T. Dermott, a plumber and owner of a stove and tin ware store on Catawissa St., purchased the first auto truck for his business in March of 1911. By the end of the 1920’s, most businesses bought trucks, but some continued to use horses and wagons into the 1940’s.

Eugene soon became popular in the small, close-knit community and gained a reputation as a skilled worker and good company. Bertha gained a reputation as an exceptionally talented cook and in time as a “Good Samaritan” for her help in caring for ill neighbors. She became known and appreciated as a good country nurse and kind neighbor, always ready to lend a helping hand if someone was sick or injured. She was known to ride or walk for miles to help at the site of an accident or attend to the sick.  In small, rural communities such as ‘the bend’ in the early 1900’s, it was difficult to get medical help in an emergency. The only doctor in the town of Catawissa, Doctor Hemker, had a large area to cover and was frequently difficult to reach. The newspapers at this time were full of advertisements for lotions and potions for self-medication. Bertha made her own concoctions for treating aches, muscle sprains, coughs, and other ailments.

The people who lived on the bend did their main shopping in the small town of Pacific, which was approximately a forty-five minute journey. Like the other residents of “the bend,” Bertha did her main shopping in the town of Pacific. In 1911, Eugene’s widowed mother and young brother, Emilie and James Gibbons, moved in with Eugene and Bertha. In 1913, Emilie became ill with stomach cramps and vomiting and died. Bertha took it upon herself to arrange the funeral. A year later in 1914, thirteen-year-old James died in Bertha’s arms from similar symptoms to his mother’s.

Close neighbors of Bertha’s, George and Margaret Stuhlfelder’s fifteen-month-old son Bernard became ill with pneumonia in February of 1915. Bertha immediately offered her help to the exhausted, distraught parents. She sat selfishly by his bed, or so her neighbors thought, and when complications to his illness started, she stayed for three long nights and days as the small boy’s body writhed around in agony with stomach cramps, before dying in excruciating pain.

One night in 1917, a relative of Eugene’s, Sherman Pounds, arrived drunkenly on the doorstep of Bertha’s and Eugene’s house. Sherman was a large, strong man of fifty-three. He was a widower with five children and on the weekend he liked to drink. Eugene and Bertha helped him in and put him to bed, and Bertha made him a tonic. In the middle of the night, Sherman awoke with terrible stomach cramps and was dead by the morning. The doctor declared the cause of death from drinking.

Eight months later in November, a hired helper of Eugene’s, 52-year-old Jim  Ogle, who was complaining of being ripped off by the Gibbons, became ill with what Doctor Hemker said was malaria. Bertha kindly offered to take charge of all nursing duties. On November 17th, Bertha visited Pacific to stock up on a few items. While there, she called into the pharmacy and complained to the pharmacist, known as “Uncle Jimmy,” that rats were attacking her chickens. He suggested an arsenic based rat poison for which she signed for in the poison register. The following day, Jim became sicker and complained of severe stomach cramps. The doctor was sent for and, after examining Jim, said the stomach pains were a result of the malaria. For three days, Jim suffered agonizing pain before dying on November 20th. Dr. Hemker wrote, “Gastritis” on the certificate as having caused the death.

Five years later in December of 1922, Sherman’s three-year-old granddaughter, Beulah Pounds, was left in Bertha’s care for the afternoon while her mother went Christmas shopping in Pacific. When Beulah’s mother returned to pick her up, her daughter complained of stomach pains. Bertha and the mother decided it would be best to leave Beulah overnight with Bertha. The following morning, Beulah was much sicker and in an enormous amount of pain. Her mother sent for the doctor, but Beulah was dead before he arrived. Bertha described Beulah’s symptoms to him, and Dr. Hemker wrote out a death certificate listing the cause of death as gastritis. Beulah was buried on January 5, 1923.

It was one local funeral Bertha failed to attend, and Bertha loved funerals. Bertha was fuming because Beulah’s aunt had suggested a post-mortem should be done on Beulah. The aunt was unhappy, as her father Sherman had similarly died in Bertha’s house from severe stomach pains. However, because the doctor didn’t think anything was amiss and the parents thinking it would cost too much money, failed to perform an autopsy.

Six years almost to the day that George and Margaret Stuhlfelder’s son Bernard had died, Margaret, their two-year-old daughter, became ill with pneumonia. They sent for Dr. Hemker who prescribed medication for her. Then Bertha arrived to help. She was dressed in a white apron and carried her bag of tonics. She told Margaret that she thought the baby looked terribly ill and did not think she would recover. Nevertheless, Bertha sat by the baby’s bed. Two days later Margaret started vomiting, and three days later Margaret died in agony.

In March of 1923, George and Margaret’s daughter Irene, seven-years-old, became ill with stomach pains. Once again, the Stuhlfelder’s called the doctor who prescribed stomach medication. This appeared to ease her pain and then Bertha called by to help nurse her. Shortly after Bertha’s arrival, Irene began to vomit and a few days later, she died in agony. The doctor filled out the death certificate clearly thinking there was nothing amiss.

Another local family, George and Ethel Schamel, were also friends of the Giffords. George frequently helped Elmer out on the farm. The family had intended to leave Catawissa and move to St Louis in April of 1923 but after only three weeks in St Louis, they returned to Catawissa. Two years later in June of 1925, Ethel at the age of 33, became ill, and Bertha nursed her, but Ethel died. Eight weeks later Lloyd, George and Ethel’s son, who was just nine-years-old, died of gastritis while sleeping over at Bertha’s house. This death was followed eight weeks later by the brother Elmer’s death, at the age of seven, also from gastritis who Bertha had also helped nurse. Barely a month later, George Schamel’s sister, Leona, became ill and started vomiting. Bertha nursed her. Leona died in October at the age of thirty-seven. Doctor Hemker had signed all of the deaths certificated as gastroenteritis.

LLYOD’s DEATH CERTIFICATE

ELMER’S DEATH CERTIFICATE

It was after the Schamel boys’ deaths, Lloyd and Elmer that people began to talk. The deaths had happened almost one after the other in such a short time, and both the Schamel boys had been so healthy and full of life.

Maybe people had thought Bertha’s presence at so many deathbeds was odd before but had never voiced it. Now, it began to be discussed openly, as was the fact that Bertha enjoyed reading about murders and accidents in the newspapers and enjoyed talking about them.

All of this was going on against the backdrop of prohibition. Many of the country folk had stills in their barns and were wary of the authorities and attracting attention. Eugene Gifford had a large whisky still in one of his barns and a friend of his, Gus, would sell the whisky in the nearby towns of Pacific, Catawissa, and neighboring areas. Eugene and Gus had some kind of squabble over the proceeds, and Bertha was so mad at Gus she chased him with a butcher’s knife.

A short while later in 1926, Gus’s mother became ill and Bertha, forgetting the fight, offered to nurse her. Gus’s mother died.

One evening on May 15th, 1927, Edward Brinley, an alcoholic, ex-butcher from Pacific, who was now working for Eugene as a farmhand, collapsed in a drunken stupor in front of Bertha’s front door. Eugene found him and helped Edward into bed. In the morning, Bertha gave him some of her homemade lemonade. A few hours later, he developed chronic stomach pains and died in agony in the afternoon. Doctor Hemker, feeling nervous with all the gossip about Bertha in the vicinity, decided to consult with another doctor from Pacific as to the cause of death. It would seem they could not agree as two different diagnoses were written on the death certificate.

No post-mortem was called for. Bertha called the undertaker and organized the funeral.

This latest death caused all the talk about Bertha to start up again, only this time it became much more widespread and reached the ears of Frank Jenny, a young up-and-coming prosecuting attorney. Six months following the death of Edward, a grand jury of Franklin County began investigations into the rumors and deaths surrounding Bertha.

Bertha Gifford was furious. How dare they think such things about her when all she had done was tried to help people? Bertha threatened to sue for libel anyone who uttered a bad word against her. Eugene was also enraged that people should say such things against his Bertha and, normally placid, he would hurl abuse at anyone he suspected of gossiping about Bertha being a killer. If it was a strategy, it worked. People, who had been scheduled to give evidence in front of the Grand Jury, lost their tongues. The Grand Jury was unwilling to indict Bertha as they felt there was insufficient evidence.

This led to many believing that the Gifford’s had friends in high places that had put a stop to the investigation. However, Frank Jenny, the young, ambitious prosecutor, was a Rottweiler and was not going to give up. Just months later, he was equipped with the record books of poisons bought from two pharmacists in Pacific that showed Bertha had been buying abnormal amounts of arsenic since 1911, “For rats,” she had written next to her numerous signatures, and with witnesses that were now eager to talk, he tried again.

When the second investigation began, Bertha and Eugene left Catawissa and moved to Eureka, Missouri. The story before long became plastered across newspapers all over the US. As the news circulated, Frank Jenny’s office began to receive phone calls and letters from people claiming their relatives or friends had passed away while being attended by Bertha. Soon the official number of questionable deaths climbed from nine up to seventeen.

On August 23, 1928, the jury returned an indictment charging Bertha Gifford with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Edward Brinley and Elmer Schamel.

On August 25th, 1928, Police Detective Andrew McDonnell arrested Bertha in Eureka. Chief McDonnell drove Bertha to the station in Union and gently questioned her. Over a cup of tea, they talked about a range of things. Bertha began talking about all the gossip about her and the story that she had killed the little girl Beulah with arsenic. She thoroughly denied giving arsenic to Beulah but said she had given it to Elmer and Lloyd Schamel and also Edward Brinley, just to help ease their pain. Later on in the conversation, she admitted to Andrew McDonnell that she may have given arsenic to one or two others. Chief Andrew McDonnell wrote out her confession. Bertha was then driven to jail in Union.

The following day the newspapers printed her confession, and Bertha was mortified. She hysterically denied the confession and said the statement was a pack of lies. Eugene gave statements to the reporters saying that his wife was frightened and agitated, and that is why she had confessed.

Eugene hired a top lawyer, James Booth, who pleaded not guilty to the court on Bertha Gifford’s behalf.

In September of 1928, the corpses of Edward Brinley and Elmer and Lloyd Schamel were exhumed. In their bodies, significant amounts of arsenic were found.

The health commissioner of the state made a statement criticizing the doctor in Catawissa. In the statement, he declared that,

Bertha’s trial began in the courthouse of Union on November 19th of 1928. It was a prominent newspaper story and made headlines around the country. A murder trial was a significant event: something to look forward to, and something worth gossip and speculation.

NEWSPAPERS HAD A FIELD DAY

Reporters and crowds of people filled the courtroom and corridors, and those who could not fit in the courtroom lined the steps outside waiting to hear details. Bertha’s name was on everyone’s lips. Surprise was registered as a story of her beauty in her younger days was revealed, for the Bertha that appeared in the courtroom on that cold November day was anything but beautiful. The newspapers described Bertha as thick and heavyset, with a weather-beaten, furrowed face and eyes that were dead.

Rumors as to her behavior in jail wove through the crowd like Chinese whispers. There were tales of Bertha hiding under a blanket in her jail cell in the day and at night, wearing a blood red robe as she paced up and down howling like a werewolf or clutching the bars at the window and hurling curses out the window. The whispers continued with tales of how Bertha would only eat ice cream and that she refused to talk to anyone except Eugene and would do so only if dressed in a pristine white nurse's uniform.

During the four-day trial, both the prosecution and defense agreed on one thing: that Bertha Gifford was insane. The prosecution argued for her to be locked up for life, while the defense wanted the possibility of release if she recovered.

The jury took just three hours to reach their decision that Bertha Gifford had murdered Edward Brinley and the Schamel brothers while insane and remained insane. The judge sentenced her to a life of confinement in the mentally insane unit of the State Hospital in Farmington, Missouri.

Although Bertha was only tried and convicted for three murders, the true number during 1909-1927 is believed to be at least seventeen.

Bertha Gifford died on August 20, 1951. She had spent close to twenty-three years in Farmington. After her death, Eugene had her body taken to Pacific for a private funeral at the cemetery in Morse Mill. The grave is unmarked.

The trial, in the end, revealed very little; just a great many unanswered questions. How had Bertha walked free among her neighbors for so many years and killed so many? Why, after so many deaths, had the doctor just signed every certificate without a post-mortem with the same woman present at every death? What about Eugene? What did he know?

Eugene remained living in Eureka. He died in 1957 and any answers to any questions he took with him.

DAISY LOUISA DEMELKER

Bad News in Johannesburg

Daisy Louisa DeMelker was born Daisy Hancorn-Smith on June 1, 1886 in Seven Fountains, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Her father was a British Army officer. In 1907, Daisy trained as a nurse at the Berea Nursing Home in Durban and became engaged to a young man named Bert Fuller. On the day of their wedding, Bert became ill and died from a fever. Daisy was at his bedside and was left £100 ($149.30). Daisy, in 1909, moved to Johannesburg where she met and married William Cowle, a plumber. They had five children together; three of the children died of natural causes and the fourth child’s death was unexplained. Only one son, Cecil, survived. In January of 1923, after thirteen years of marriage, William became suddenly and violently ill and died screaming in pain. The doctor cited the cause as a brain hemorrhage. Daisy received £1,700 ($2,538.10) from his life insurance policy.

Three years later in 1926, Daisy met and married Robert Sproat, another plumber. After only four months of marriage, Robert awoke from an after lunch nap trembling and sweating. As the day progressed into evening his symptoms worsened, and he died screaming in pain. Daisy received a generous inheritance of over £4000 ($5,972) and £560 ($836.08) paid from his pension fund. Alfred Sproat, Robert’s brother, suspected Daisy of having murdered his brother.

In 1930, Daisy met a wealthy entrepreneur, Sydney Clarence de Melker, a widower. They married in January 1931.  In March of 1932, Daisy’s nineteen-year-old son Cecil died. He became ill at work after drinking coffee from a thermos flask, which Daisy had prepared for him. Cecil’s friend, James Webster, who’d had a sip of the coffee, also became seriously ill but recovered. A postmortem gave the cause of Cecil’s death as cerebral malaria. On April 1st, Daisy received £100 ($149.30) from Cecil’s life insurance policy.

When Alfred Sproat heard about Cecil’s death, he felt seriously alarmed and was concerned for the welfare of Daisy’s new husband Sydney. He took it upon himself to report his suspicions to the Johannesburg police. The police took Alfred’s suspicions seriously and started an immediate investigation. On the 15th of April 1932, the bodies of Daisy’s previous two husbands Robert and William and her son Cecil were exhumed, and their bodies examined via autopsies. The bones and several organs in each corpse showed traces of strychnine poisoning.

Continuing with their investigation, the police learned that Daisy had traveled out of town in March of 1932 to a chemist and had bought arsenic under her second married name, Sproat, claiming that she needed it to put a sick cat out of its misery.

Daisy de Melker was arrested and charged with three murders. The trial lasted thirty days and became a media sensation. She was convicted of murdering her son, but the prosecution failed to prove the charges of poisoning her husbands.

The motive for killing her son was never fully established.

Daisy de Melker, at the age of forty-six, was condemned to death by hanging. The hanging took place at Pretoria Central Prison on December 30, 1932. Daisy de Melker was the second woman to have been hanged in South Africa and was South Africa’s first executed serial murderer.

LYDIA SOUTHARD

Lydia Anna Mae Southard, née Trueblood, entered the world on October 16th 1892, in the little town of Keytesville, Missouri. In 1906, the family relocated to Twin Falls, Idaho.

Twin Falls, 1908

On March 17, 1912 when Lydia was twenty, she married Robert Dooley. In 1914, Lydia gave birth to a daughter named Lorraine. They lived on a ranch near Twin Falls with Robert’s brother Ed. In August of 1915, Ed Dooley unexpectedly died, and the cause of his death was attributed to ptomaine poisoning. Lydia had told the doctor that he had eaten salmon from a can that had been standing around open for some time.

Lydia and Robert received $2,000 on Ed’s life insurance policy.  On October 12, 1915, Robert Dooley became ill and died. His death was attributed to typhoid fever. Lydia, through her tears, said Robert had insisted on drinking water from a cistern next to the barn. She also expressed fears to her neighbors that her daughter would, too, die of typhoid. Lydia collected $2,500 on Robert’s life insurance policy.

In June of 1917, Lydia married a man by the name of William G. McHaffle. Shortly after the wedding, Lorraine, Lydia’s three-year-old daughter, became sick and died of typhoid. Following this death, Lydia and William moved to Montana. Twelve months later on October 1st, 1918, William suddenly fell sick of what was suspected to be the flu and died. The death certificate stated the cause of death as being diphtheria and influenza. This time, much to Lydia’s fury, she could not collect the $5,000 life insurance money because William had let the policy lapse.

In March of 1919, Lydia married Harlen C. Lewis, and they moved into a house in Billings, Montana. In July of 1919, Harlen became sick and died of a "flu bug". Lydia collected a $10,000 life insurance policy. Following the death of Lewis, Lydia returned to Twin Falls. In August of 1920, she married Edward F. Meyer, her fourth husband. A month after the marriage, Edward suddenly fell ill with typhoid and died. This time, the insurance company demanded an autopsy. The autopsy showed a typhoid virus in his bloodstream, so the matter was laid to rest. However, Lydia decided to leave the area without collecting the $12,000 life insurance money.

A chemist, Earl Dooley, and a relation of Lydia’s first husband Robert, began to wonder about the number of deaths surrounding Lydia. He discussed the subject with another chemist and a local doctor. Together, the three men called upon Frank Stephan, the local Twin Falls prosecutor, and reported their suspicions. Frank Stephan agreed that the number of deaths warranted an investigation. He called in the local deputy sheriff, Virgil Ormsby, to help. Their first port of call was the Life Insurance Company of Idaho State. Here, Virgil Ormsby discovered that all three of Lydia's husbands had life insurance policies in which Lydia was the sole beneficiary. Now that the prosecutor had a motive, he ordered the exhumation of Lydia’s husbands, her daughter, and her brother in law.

On April 2, 1921, the examining pathologist discovered traces of arsenic in some of the bodies while the other bodies were well preserved, which was indicative of arsenic poisoning. It was also discovered that Lydia had a habit of buying massive amounts of flypaper. Frank Stephan and Virgil Ormsby believed, from talking to neighbors and ranch hands, that Lydia boiled the arsenic out of the flypaper and used that mixture to murder her victims.

An arrest warrant was issued for Lydia on April 22, 1922, but Lydia was nowhere to be found.

Deputy Ormsby, by this time, was so immersed in the case he was damned if he was going to let Lydia get away. He traced her first to Boise, then San Francisco, and then to Los Angeles where he learned that she had married a fifth husband.  Husband number five was a navy chief petty officer, Vincent Paul Southard; they met at a dance hall and married almost immediately. When Vincent was transferred from California to Honolulu, he took his new wife Lydia along with him.

A warrant was wired to Captain Arthur McDuffie in Honolulu who promptly, much to her new husband’s shock, arrested Lydia. Vincent Paul Southard would not believe the alleged charges against his new wife and vowed to stand by her side and pay her legal costs to prove her innocence.

A media circus began as the story leaked out. In one newspaper story, Vincent admitted to a reporter that Lydia had persuaded him to take out a $10,000 life insurance policy, which he thought, given his profession and the fact they intended to start a family, a sensible action to take.

Deputy Ormsby arrived in Honolulu on May 24, 1921. He escorted Lydia back to Idaho on June 7, 1922.

Lydia went to trial on September 26th in front of Judge William Babcock, charged with one murder. Lydia denied the charges, but the jury thought otherwise and after twenty-three hours' deliberation found Lydia guilty of second-degree murder. Judge William Babcock sentenced her to the state penitentiary at Idaho State Penitentiary in Boise for a term of ten years to life.

The Idaho State Prison was a tough place to serve a sentence. Its walls were high, and it was hot in summer and bitterly cold in the winter. However, over the next few years, Lydia became a model prisoner and charmed the guards and all who encountered her. The prison guards allotted her a piece of land to cultivate a rose garden and supplied her with the equipment and trellises to grow her roses. Over time, she became friendly in particular with another prisoner, David C. Minton, who was released from prison at the end of April in 1931.

Idaho State Prison

On the night of May 13, 1931, Lydia escaped from her cell through a bar she had loosened weeks earlier. She climbed out of her window and then, with the aid of her rose trellises, scaled the prison walls to a waiting car driven by David Minton.

The escaping couple made their way to Denver, Colorado.  The police launched a nationwide search for the pair. Lydia managed to find work as a housekeeper for a Mr. Harry Whitlock, a widower who had advertised in the local Denver paper. Before long, Harry Whitlock had proposed to her and Lydia accepted and became his wife in March of 1932.

On July 2, 1932, the police found and arrested an embittered David Minton. The police extradited him back to Idaho to face trial for aiding and abetting in Lydia’s escape. With the information he provided, the police were soon able to trace Lydia. David was sentenced to one to five years for helping her escape.

Lydia was re-arrested at the end of August in 1932 and returned to the Idaho State Penitentiary. Her new husband, appalled by his wife’s history, promptly divorced her.

Lydia, back in the penitentiary, charmed the new governor George F. Rudd. He granted her many favors. He allowed Lydia to visit her sick mother outside of the penitentiary unguarded. He took her for drives and all-day outings at a nearby resort and allowed Lydia to attend the cinema in Boise. When news of this was reported in the local papers, Thomas as warden of Idaho State Penitentiary, resigned.

Lydia was finally released from prison on October 3, 1941 at the age of forty-nine. At first, she went to live with her sister in Nyssa, Oregon before returning to Twin Falls. Here, she met and married Hal Shaw. Two years after the marriage, he disappeared and was never seen again. Lydia then went to live in Salt Lake City, Utah. On February 5, 1958 while walking home from the grocery store, at the age of sixty-six, she died from a heart attack.

She was buried at Sunset Memorial Park cemetery in Twin Falls under the name Anna E. Shaw.

MARIE ALEXANDRIA BECKER

Fashion-Minded Murderess

Marie Alexandrina Becker was born as Marie Alexandrina Petitjean. She was born into a working class family in Liege, Belgium on July 14th, 1879. She grew up to be an exceptionally beautiful woman who had many admirers. When she was thirty-three, she married Charles Becker, a cabinet-maker. For twenty years, she appeared content with her life as a homely housewife and part time book-keeper for her father-in-law’s sawmill. However, her life changed dramatically at the age of fifty-three when out shopping for vegetables in Liege market.

Lambert Bayer, a forty-six-year-old known womanizer, swept her off her feet. Marie became besotted with him and could think of no one or anything else. Lambert unlocked dark passions in Marie that she had no idea existed. These desires overcame her common sense and self-control.  She grew to hate her husband and, to rid herself of Charles, poisoned him with a lethal dose of Digitalis: a heart medicine made from the foxglove plant that has several sinister nicknames such as Dead Man’s Bells and Witches’ Gloves.

With Charles out of the way, she married Lambert but tired of him within two years. However, with her ease of success at disposing of Charles, she knew how to deal with Lambert. Lambert died, and she inherited all that he had.

With the money from her two dead husbands, Marie was a moderately wealthy woman. She opened a dress shop in a fashionable town square that offered couture and formal women's wear. She catered to wealthy older women who inhabited the social circles in which she aspired to belong.

Place du Marché Lieges

With a steely determination, she set out to enjoy her newly found freedom. Suddenly Marie, who had always dressed demurely, began dressing in a gaudy manner and using an extravagant amount of make-up. Marie, since her affair with Lambert, had developed an insatiable sexual appetite. She developed a love of dancing and spent her evenings in nightclubs dancing wildly with men half her age. Her friends and acquaintances were scandalized by her new sexual liberation. Marie loved her new life.

Unfortunately, as she was to discover, her new lifestyle was expensive to maintain, and her bank account was running low. The dress shop was a success, but the income it generated was not enough to maintain her new extravagances. Marie needed a way to raise more money; she was ruthlessly determined not to give up her new, fun life.

Through her shop, she had befriended several of Liege’s Grande Dames and to a few, she had become their personal dressmaker and fashion adviser. Marie would find herself invited to soirees and teas in grand houses. When invited to a house for a private fashion conference with an elderly client, Marie would surreptitiously slip into the woman’s drink a deadly dose of Digitalis, and, while the poor woman was gasping for air and clutching her pounding chest, Marie would coolly help herself to jewelry, money, and any other valuables she could fit into her ample-sized work bag.

Between March 1935 and September 1936, Marie killed ten wealthy women and somehow managed to avoid suspicion. After each murder, she would attend the funeral dressed in black and put on an impressive show of grief and sorrow, occasionally going so far as to kneel at the graveside and weep hysterically.

Marie’s downfall came one evening in October of 1936 when out with a girlfriend. Her friend confided in Marie that her husband was irritating her so much she wished that he were dead. Marie, maybe because of alcohol, said that she could give her some powder that would do the job and leave no trace.

Her friend, realizing that Marie was deadly serious and remembering Marie’s two dead husbands, was appalled and reported her to the police the following day. The police had, in fact, by this time received a couple of anonymous letters accusing Marie of being responsible for poisoning two elderly women.

Investigations began and before long the police, with search warrant in hand, paid a visit to Marie’s house. In her house, they discovered clothes and large amounts of jewelry that had belonged to the women who had died. In Marie’s handbag, they discovered a small green bottle that contained Digitalis.

Marie was arrested and taken into custody. The investigation continued, and the bodies of her dead husbands and her wealthy women customers’ bodies were exhumed.

During the post-mortem, all of the bodies showed death by Digitalis.

During her interrogation, she allegedly boasted about the murders. Of one victim, Madame Lambert, Marie described her as having "looked like an angel choked with sauerkraut” and of another, Madame Castradot, she described as "dying beautifully, lying flat on her back”.

Marie Alexandrina Becker

Marie Alexandrina Becker was sentenced to life imprisonment. It was to be yet another change of lifestyle but one with no men, jewels, or money. Marie died in prison sometime during World War II.

Although Marie was charged with ten murders, many believe the number may have been twice that amount.

MARTHA  MAREK

The Devil in Petticoats.

Martha Marek née Lowenstein was born in Vienna in 1904 to unknown parents. She was adopted and brought up by a poor couple. Martha grew into a dazzlingly beautiful young woman. At the age of sixteen, she found herself a job working in a dress shop. One day in 1919, an owner of a department store, Moritz Fritsch, came into the shop and was immediately captivated by Martha’s charm, style, and beauty.

He invited her to become his ward, and she soon became his mistress. He dressed her in the finest clothes and sent her to the best London finishing school. They holidayed together in France and England. Unknown to Moritz, Martha had a lover, Emil Marek, a handsome trainee engineer.

In 1920, Moritz Fritsch died leaving his house and some money to Martha, although not as much as Martha had expected. Moritz’s ex-wife and relatives accused Martha of having poisoned him. The authorities were not convinced and refused permission to have the body exhumed.

Martha married Emil Marek. By 1924, Martha and Emil were experiencing severe financial problems. Martha took out a $30,000 insurance policy on Emil against him having an accident. The two of them conspired to make a claim. This involved Martha hacking off Emil’s leg, just below the knee, with an axe. This task was harder than she thought, and it took Martha three attempts to sever the leg. They claimed that the accident happened when Emil was chopping down a tree.

Martha and Emil

However, the insurance company’s examining doctor found that the amputation had taken three distinct blows, and Martha and Emil were charged with fraud. The case was eventually dismissed, and they received a small amount of compensation but not the amount they had hoped for. They immigrated for a short while to North Africa before returning to Vienna. Martha and Emil had two children together, a daughter Ingeborg and a son Peter.

Martha Marek

In 1932, Emil died. The cause of death was recorded as being tuberculosis. Martha was left with a market stall and two small children. Three-year-old Ingeborg died a few months after Emil. Martha took a job as a housekeeper for an aunt, Suzanne Lowenstein, and had her son boarded out. Shortly after starting work for her aunt, Suzanne died. Martha inherited her estate.

Martha then began to take in carefully chosen lodgers. Frau Kittenburger and her son moved into her house. Martha insured Frau Kittenburger’s life for $1,000. Frau Kittenburger died shortly afterwards. Frau Kittenburger’s son was deeply suspicious of his mother’s death and made his feelings known to the police.

The police, after making some investigations, ordered an exhumation of the bodies of Emil Marek, Ingeborg Marek, Suzanne Lowenstein, and Frau Kittenburger. They were all found to have been poisoned with a rare metallic poison, thallium. Martha’s son Peter, whose life she had recently insured, was also found to be slowly dying from the same poison. It was only speedy hospitalization that saved his life.

Thallium is a similar element to lead, which, when mixed together, is poisonous. Thallium is so toxic that it is easily absorbed through the skin and handling its compounds without protective gloves can easily lead to loss of the fingernails. The symptoms of Thallium poisoning are lethargy, numbness, tingling hands and feet, tremor, slurred speech, debility, and hair loss. The poisoning can lead to cardiovascular collapse, delirium, convulsions, paralysis, and coma resulting in death in as little as one or two days.

Martha was arrested and charged with four counts of murder. The press of the day dubbed Martha as the “Devil in Petticoats”. Martha denied all four charges. The prosecutor at her trial, Otto Wotowa, described Martha as a “human cobra who richly deserves the gallows”. Martha was found guilty of all four charges and sentenced to death by Adolf Hitler’s newly re-introduced guillotine.

The Nazi Guillotine

Martha Marek was executed by State Executioner Johann Reichhart on December 6th 1938 at the age of thirty-four. She was the first woman executed in Austria since 1900.

ANNA MARIE HAHN

"the beautiful blonde killer"

Anna Marie Hahn, née Filser, was born on July 7th, 1906 in Fussen, Bavaria, Germany. Her father, George Filser, was a cabinet-maker and furniture manufacturer. Anna was the youngest of twelve children, nine of whom were boys. As the youngest she was spoiled, which led to disciplinary problems in her teen years. She would constantly sneak out of the parental home and go to parties and miss school. For a short time, Anna was sent to live with her older sister Katti in Holland, her parents hoping this might curb her ways. When she returned to Bavaria, she became pregnant by an Italian doctor. Her parents were scandalized and shortly after, a baby boy named Oscar, was born. Her parents, while keeping their grandson, sent Anna to stay with an aunt and uncle in Cincinnati, Ohio in the United States of America.

Anna arrived in Cincinnati in 1929 at the age of twenty-three. In 1930, she met and married a telegraph operator, Philip Hahn, another German immigrant. Anna and Philip returned briefly to Bavaria to collect Oscar before returning to Cincinnati as a family. Anna and Philip opened two delicatessen stores, but Anna disliked running the stores as she found the work to be too much of a drudge. Anna insured the businesses and, shortly afterwards, one of the stores burned down, and Anna collected the insurance money.

Two fires in their home, both of which were covered by an insurance company, followed. The insurance payouts may well have been the turning point in Anna’s life. Anna began to pester her husband Philip to take out a life insurance policy. He refused for what reason we do not know. Shortly after his refusal, Philip became ill, and Anna refused to take him to the hospital. Philip’s mother, against Anna’s protestations, had Philip removed to the hospital where he survived his inexplicable illness. Upon his release, Philip and Anna separated.

With Philip gone, Anna, despite having no experience, set herself up as a nurse for elderly German patients. Ernst Kohler became Anna’s first client in the autumn of 1932. He became exceedingly fond of Anna and made out a new will in her favor. Once he had done this, he rapidly became ill and died on May 6, 1933. Anna quickly cremated his body and, for reasons unknown, kept his ashes on her mantelpiece.

Anna, in February of 1936, began caring for 72-year-old Albert Parker. She persuaded him to lend her $4,000, a large amount of money in the 1930’s. For this, she wrote him an I.O.U. Albert died on March 27, 1936. The I.O.U was never honored.

In 1937, Anna began visiting a seventy-eight-year-old Jacob Wagner, a retired gardener. Anna told him that she was a long lost niece of his. Jacob wasn’t convinced but enjoyed her company to such an extent that he went along with it. He died suddenly on June 3, 1937. His friends and neighbors were shocked by his sudden death. The coroner’s report listed his cause of death as heart disease. In his will, he left $17,000 to his "beloved niece" Anna Hahn. After the funeral, a concerned and suspicious friend asked the police to investigate the death and exhume Jacob’s body. This, after later events that unfolded, the police eventually did.

From Jacob, Anna moved on to care for a Mr. George Gsellman. He died on July 6 1937, shortly after Anna had begun visiting him. Anna received $15,000 from George for her service before his death. Friends and neighbors were extremely concerned about George’s death, informed the police of their suspicions, and asked for George’s body to be exhumed. Again, this was not done until much later.

At the same time that she was caring for George Gsellman, Anna had started a relationship with a 67-year-old George Obendoerfer. Anna, George Obendoerfer, and Anna’s son Oscar, all travelled to Colorado Springs for a vacation and booked into the Park Hotel. This was to be Anna’s undoing. On the train traveling to Colorado Springs, George had begun to feel unwell. On arrival at the hotel, Anna put George to bed and made off with all his valuables. George, at some point, alerted the hotel staff of his illness and the theft of his valuables. He was transferred to the local hospital. Meanwhile, the hotel made a report to the police about the theft.

When George died in agony in the hospital on August 1, 1937, the doctors, during the autopsy, discovered high levels of arsenic in his body. They immediately alerted the police. It did not take the police long to link the murder and robbery together. Anna had signed the hotel registry in her name, and the hotel staff gave a clear description of Anna and her son. The police then visited the local pawnshops, and a woman and a boy fitting the description of Anna and her son, were reported to have visited several shops attempting to pawn a considerable amount of diamonds.

The police gathered from the hotel staff that Anna was from Cincinnati. The hospital confirmed that George Obendoerfer was also from Cincinnati. The Colorado police contacted the Cincinnati police for assistance.

The Cincinnati police checked their files and only then began to take more seriously the reports they had about the deaths of the elderly gentlemen and Anna Hahn. They found that Anna Hahn had returned from Colorado. Following a request from the Colorado authorities for Anna’s extradition to Colorado Springs for theft, the Cincinnati police arrested Anna. Upon questioning, she denied knowing George Obendoerfer; however, when confronted with her signing of the hotel registry, she claimed that they had just met on the train. The police were skeptical and began an intense investigation. The bodies of Jacob Wagner and George Gsellman were exhumed.

Jacob Wagner’s autopsy showed death from a large quantity of arsenic and George Gsellman from a large dose of Croton oil. Croton oil was a general remedy used at the beginning of the 20th century to treat bowel problems and other illnesses. Taken in large doses, it causes extreme burning pain in the abdomen, throat, and mouth, along with diarrhea and vomiting, eventually causing an intensely painful death. In East of Eden, a novel by John Steinbeck, Kate uses Croton oil to slowly kill Faye so she can inherit Faye’s whorehouse.

The press soon latched onto the story of the “32-year-old buxom Bavarian woman who fed a number of her elderly lovers an ‘aphrodisiac’ that turned out to be arsenic”.. They labeled her as “the beautiful blonde killer". Although most of the stories were highly exaggerated and sensational, they attracted the attention of a George Heis.

Sixty-two-year-old George Heis contacted the police and told them of his near escape with Anna. He told investigators that he had met Anna a year earlier and that they had got along well. George said that he had become suspicious of Anna when he became violently sick after drinking a glass of beer she had poured for him and that he’d never felt in good health since.

The investigators then heard from Philip Hahn, Anna’s husband. He handed to the investigator’s a bottle of Croton oil he had taken away from Anna when the two were together. Philip had suspected that the cause of his mysterious illness that had caused him to be hospitalized was Anna trying to poison him. “I kept meaning to take it to the police,” he said in an interview with the press in September of 1937.

On August 10, 1937, the Cincinnati police charged Anna with the murder of Jacob Wagner. Anna Hahn’s trial began on October 11, 1937, at the Hamilton County Courthouse in front of Judge Bell and lasted four weeks.

Hamilton County Courthouse

The jury consisted of eleven women and one man. Anna pleaded not guilty. The prosecution claimed that Anna had murdered Jacob Wagner for his money and estate and that greed was her motive. The prosecution paraded through the court a large number of witnesses, which included hospital staff who described in graphic detail Jacob Wagner’s last torturous days. A pathologist testified that Jacob Wagner had easily enough arsenic in his body to kill at least four men.

In addition, a handwriting specialist testified that Jacob’s will was a forgery. He also testified that the handwriting belonged to Anna. Judge Bell allowed the prosecution to introduce evidence connected to other poisoning cases of Anna’s. This was allowed to illustrate Anna’s homicidal personality. George Heis was called to give his account of Anna and his ensuing illness. Anna sat throughout all the testimony supremely composed, always dressing neatly, and wearing only a discrete amount of make-up.

The defense had little to offer beyond Anna’s claims of innocence. On October 29, 1937, the jury took just two hours to return with their verdict. Anna sat calmly, as she had throughout the trial, as the jury foreman read out the jury’s decision. The jury found Anna guilty of the murder of Jacob Wagner and recommended that no mercy be shown towards her.

Anna was led away to the cells to await sentencing on November 10th. Anna was confident she would escape the electric chair as no woman had ever been executed in the state of Ohio. What Anna failed to realize was that when the jury recommended no mercy, it meant that the judge had no choice but to sentence her to death.

Anna Marie Hahn prison photo

On November 10th Anna was brought back to court, and Judge Bell asked Anna if she had anything she wished to say to the court. Anna simply replied, “I’m innocent, Your Honor”.. After a moment of silence, Judge Bell sentenced her.

Anna, on December 1, 1937, was taken to the Ohio State Penitentiary. Her lawyers made appeal after appeal against the death penalty. On March 10th, Anna was still alive and firmly believed that the appeals would eventually spare her. The appeal finally reached the US Supreme Court, which refused to stop her execution.

Anna then appealed directly to the Governor of Ohio, Martin Davey, but he refused to intervene in the court's decision. Anna’s execution was scheduled for December 7, 1938.

The day before the execution took place, Anna wrote four letters which she gave to her lawyers.

On the day of the execution, Anna dressed in a tan colored flowered silk robe, blue cotton pajamas, black shoes, and tan silk stockings rolled down to her ankles. The right leg of her pajamas was cut, and a small patch of hair on the back of her head was shaved off, so electrodes could be attached to her skin. Anna was in such an emotional state, she barely noticed what the prison officials were doing to her. When the prison authorities arrived to escort her to the death chamber, she could barely walk. On entering the execution room and seeing the electric chair, Anna fainted. Officials revived her with ammonia and carried her to the chair, to which they strapped her. All the time she was crying and pleading for help.

Ohio State Penitentiary electric chair

No one replied to Anna; the officials just hastily fastened the electrodes to her skin and then placed a black mask over her head. Anna continued to cry and haltingly recited the Lord's Prayer. Then Anna abruptly stopped praying; her hands clenched and her body arched straining against the straps that held her. Her body began jerking and convulsing while the electric current raced through her body. Anna Hahn was pronounced dead at 8:13:30 pm on December 7th, 1938.

One of the letters Anna wrote the day before her execution was her confession to the murders of the four men. This she sold to a newspaper in exchange for her son to receive a quality education.

Anna’s son, twelve-year-old Oscar, was placed with a foster family somewhere in the Midwest. The newspaper kept its promise to Anna and never revealed Oscar’s whereabouts and paid for his education.

CAROLINE GRILLS

A cure for boredom?

Caroline Grills née Mickelson was born in 1890 in Balmain, Sydney, Australia to George (a seaman) and Mary Mickelson. On the 22nd of April 1908, Caroline, at the age of eighteen, married Richard William Grills, a real-estate agent. When Caroline’s mother Mary died, her father remarried a woman called Christina.

During their marriage, Caroline and Richard had five sons and a daughter. Caroline seemed happy and content with life. She had a wide circle of friends and a large extended ever-growing family as her children grew, married, and had children of their own. Caroline was known affectionately as Aunty Carrie. All who knew her liked Caroline; she had a happy-go-lucky character and a smile almost invariably on her face. Physically, Caroline was small, barely just over four feet tall (1.22 meters,) plump, fair-haired, had a fresh complexion, and wore thick-rimmed glasses. She was a typical fifties house-proud housewife who enjoyed cooking, baking, and helping out with her grand-children.

When her house became overrun with rats, she immediately set about eliminating them by buying a large quantity of “Thallrat”. Caroline discovered that she rather enjoyed watching the rats writhe around in agony before finally dying. It increased the smile on her face.

In 1948, when Caroline was fifty-eight, her father died. In his will, he left his house on 13 Gerrish Street in the Sydney suburb of Gladesville to Caroline, with the stipulation that Caroline’s step-mother, Christina Mickelson, enjoy a life-long tenancy. In short, this meant that Caroline was unable to occupy the house until after Christina’s death. Although Christina was in her eighties, for her age, she was in excellent health. To Caroline’s annoyance, it did not look as if she would be able to move into the house any time soon.

Caroline began frequently visiting Christina, telling other relatives that she worried about Christina living alone. On every visit, she would be laden down with homemade cakes and would make her stepmother endless cups of tea. To friends and relatives, Caroline appeared totally selfless in her caring and concern. Within a few short months, Christina’s health began to fail, her hair began to fall out, her eyesight began to fail, and she eventually died. Because of Christina’s age, no one was suspicious as to her cause of death. Immediately after the funeral, Caroline and Richard moved into the house.

Caroline, as she had with the rats, had rather enjoyed watching Christina suffer and die. It relieved her boredom and gave her a strange sense of power. She began visiting a relative of her husband’s, an Angelina Thomas. Angelina had a cottage in Leura in the Blue Mountains, which Richard was to inherit upon her death. Once again, armed with home-made cakes and biscuits, Caroline would drop in on Angelina and make her endless cups of tea. It was not too long before Angelina’s health began to fail, with her hair falling out, her eyesight deteriorating, and her eventual death. Like Christina, because of Angelina’s age, no one was suspicious.

Caroline now found herself with a rather comfortable life: a smart house in Sydney’s suburbs and a weekend retreat in the mountains. Nevertheless, despite the large family of children, grandchildren, in-laws, nephews, and nieces, Caroline was bored.

In the summer of 1949, Caroline and Richard joined John Lundberg, Richard’s brother- in-law, and his sister Evelyn for a few days break in Woy Woy, a Central Coast resort. This was a resort people visited for the clean air, the bush, the sun, and for general relaxation.  While there John, a fit healthy man in his early sixties, became ill. Upon his return home, his condition steadily worsened. Carline would pop over to the house daily bringing homemade treats and making endless cups of tea. However, John became weaker, his sight became poor, his hair began to fall out, he became mentally confused, and he eventually died in October of 1949.

When Caroline’s boredom struck again, she chose to lavish her attention on her dead brother’s wife, Mary Anne Mickelson. When Mary Anne became ill, Caroline took it upon herself to visit daily with homemade treats of casseroles and soups to help keep up Mary Anne’s strength. These she would patiently spoon-feed to the weakening Mary Anne, as well as make Mary Anne plenty of warm, comforting cups of tea. The rest of the family looked on with admiration at Caroline’s seemingly un-endless selflessness. Mary Anne, in the months before her death in February of 1950, became bedridden, bald, and blind.

When Caroline’s boredom next kicked in, she chose as her next victim the newly widowed Evelyn Lundberg, her husband Richard’s sister. Evelyn lived on Great Buckingham Street in Redfern, an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Evelyn’s married daughter Christine and husband John Downey, a tram driver, lived across the street from her. Frequently, Caroline, Richard, Evelyn, Christine, and John would get together to play cards. Evelyn began to feel ill and was alarmed at the fact that many of her symptoms were the same from which her husband John had suffered. Weekly, her condition began to deteriorate, and she began to suffer from cramps in her legs, loss of her eyesight, and loss of hair. Caroline visited Evelyn daily, taking with her plenty of homemade treats and made her endless cups of tea. With the loss of her eyesight, Evelyn also experienced acute depression. Her daughter Christine had her mother hospitalized; here, she began to show slow signs of recovery.

When Evelyn was in the hospital, both Christine and John began to feel unwell. Aunt Carrie began to visit them daily, seemingly concerned for their welfare. In September of 1952, as John and Christine began to lose their hair and their eyesight worsened, they heard on the radio about a murder case where a woman, Yvonne Fletcher, had killed two of her husbands with rat poison. As John and Christine listened, chills ran up their spines as they realized they were suffering the same symptoms as those being discussed on the radio.

The following day, John and Christine reported their suspicions to the police. The police said they needed evidence and asked the Downey’s to bring them samples of the food that had Caroline supplied. This they did but all the tests proved negative.

On April 13, 1953, when Evelyn was home from the hospital, Caroline as normal came to visit. Christine offered to make the tea, and Caroline offered to carry a cup out to Evelyn who was sitting on the porch, still barely able to walk and blind. It was then that John saw Caroline remove something from the pocket of her dress and drop it into Evelyn’s cup. John managed, without Caroline noticing, to swap Evelyn’s cup for his. He poured the contents into a sealed jar and delivered it to the police. The police analyst confirmed that the tea had a deadly dose of the poison thallium.

Thallium is fatal to humans in doses as small as one gram. Its salts are colorless, odorless, tasteless, and soluble in water. It attacks the nervous system, lungs, heart, kidneys, and liver. The symptoms of thallium poisoning include hair loss, muscular cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea. Poisoning by thallium can be treated if it is identified within six hours of ingestion.

On May 11, 1953, the police arrived at Caroline’s house in Gladsville and arrested Caroline for the attempted murder of Mrs. Evelyn Lundberg, her sister-in-law, and Evelyn’s daughter Mrs. Christine Downey. As the police investigated further, they charged Caroline Grills with four murders and another attempted murder.

Police found traces of thallium in the pocket of the dress Caroline had worn on the day she had attempted to give Evelyn the cup of tea containing the fatal dose.

Caroline went on trial in Sydney’s Central Criminal Court at the beginning of October of 1953 at the age of sixty-three. She pleaded not guilty and argued that she, “helped to live, not kill.”

Her defense team told the jury, “that she was a woman of excellent character who went around helping people and never visited her friends empty handed.”

The prosecution had an exceptionally strong case and a line of convincing witnesses. The main witness was Evelyn Lundberg who entered the court hobbling and tapping a white walking stick with her eyes unseeing.

Caroline’s behavior in court did little to help her case. Throughout the trial, she sat looking matronly, smiling all the while. She appeared to find the court proceedings amusing and continuously laughed and joked with the guards to such an extent that her defense team reprimanded her and advised her not to laugh in court.

On October 15, 1953, the jury took just twelve minutes to find her guilty of attempted murder. The Judge, who referred to Caroline’s ‘motiveless malignancy,’ agreed whole-heartedly with their decision and sentenced Caroline Grills to death.

Caroline appealed. In April of 1954, the appeal was dismissed by the Court of Criminal Appeal, but her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. She was incarcerated at the State Reformatory for Women at Long Bay Jail.

While in prison, she became extremely popular with the other inmates who affectionately called her “Auntie Thally”.”. In October of 1960, she was rushed to the Prince Henry Hospital, where she died from peritonitis on  October 6, 1960.

It is not known where she was buried.

LOUISE  PEETE

Not Always a Lady

Lofie Louise Peete née Preslar was born on September 20, 1880 in Louisiana in the little town of Bienville. Louise’s family was wealthy, and she received a good education until her expulsion from school for ‘inappropriate behavior.’ Jewelry, which belonged to several of the other schoolgirls, was discovered in her bedside locker.  Louise had developed a taste for expensive jewelry at a young age. Shortly after the expulsion from school, her mother died and her father’s newspaper publishing business went into decline.

In 1903, at the age of sixteen, Louise married a traveling salesman, Henry Bosle. When he discovered Louise sleeping with another man in their marital bed, he committed suicide. Following Henry’s death, Louise, at the age of twenty, moved to Boston and began working as a high-class prostitute. She supplemented her income by stealing from her clients. When her thieving was discovered, she scampered off to Texas and settled in Waco. Here, she met a flamboyant character Joe Appel, a wealthy oilman who decorated his gaudy shirts with diamond buttons and wore diamond studded rings and diamond belt buckles.

A week after meeting Joe, his body was found with a gunshot wound to his head and his diamonds gone. Louise came under suspicion and was hauled in front of a grand jury. Under questioning, Louise admitted that she had shot Joe but convinced the jury, with her charm, looks, and courteous manners that she had simply defended herself from rape.

In 1913, Louise met and married Harry Faurote, a hotel clerk. Like her first husband, he committed suicide after finding her with another man. Louise’s third husband was Richard Peete, the owner of an automobile agency. They married in Denver in 1915 and had a daughter together. Louise soon tired of domestic life, so she left her husband and daughter and moved to Los Angeles. Here she met another oil baron, Jacob C. Denton, a widower. Louise moved into his house. Louise, despite already being married, was hoping for marriage; however, Jacob wasn’t. On May 30th 1920, Jacob disappeared. To neighbors and friends inquiring after him, Louise would say he was away on business or that he was in the hospital after having to have his arm amputated. Jacob’s lawyer felt decidedly uneasy and told Louise he needed to contact Jacob urgently. Louise retreated to her husband and daughter in Denver.

Jacob’s lawyer voiced his suspicions to the police and a search of Jacob’s house was conducted.

Jacob’s murdered corpse was found buried in the cellar of the house. He had been shot in the back with his feet and hands tied. The district attorney and Jacob’s lawyer both felt that Louise was responsible. The problem they faced was how to get Louise back to California. As it turned out, it was simple.

Two detectives travelled to Denver and broke the news to her that Jacob Denton's corpse had been discovered. They asked her to come with them back to Los Angeles, flattering her into believing that her help would rapidly lead them to the killer. They at no time let on that they believed Louise was the murderer. Unsuspecting, Louise boarded the train with the detectives and once back in Los Angeles was arrested for the murder of Jacob Denton.

Louise was found guilty of first-degree murder. The judge sentenced her to life in prison at San Quentin, California. Louise served eighteen years before being paroled. While she was in prison, her husband Richard committed suicide.

San Quentin Women’s Prison Quarters

Each year that Louise was in prison, she made an application for parole and each year her request was rejected. Louise was a model prisoner and never any trouble. In early 1939, she applied again. A member of the parole board spoke to a journalist, Caroline Walker, who had covered Louise’s trial in depth and mentioned that they were thinking of paroling Louise.

Caroline Walker reputedly warned the board member that Louise was “far too dangerous for freedom. That Louise had spent her entire life lying, stealing, and committing violence and that if she was freed, it would be a tragedy for someone”.

On April 11th 1939, Louise Peete stepped out of prison after serving eighteen years for murder. To the waiting reporters she declared; "Now I owe the world nothing”.

As a parolee, strict tabs were kept on Louise, and whoever was employing her had to send in monthly reports to Louise’s parole officer.

When Louise was released from prison, she secured herself work as a housekeeper to Jessie Marcy. Not long after taking up her post, Jessie died. Louise then went to work for Emily Dwight Latham, a woman who had been influential in obtaining Louise’s parole. Emily died shortly after Louis began working for her. Both Jessie’s and Emily’s deaths were attributed to natural causes.

Louise then became a housekeeper in the home of Arthur and Margaret Logan. They lived in Pacific Palisades, an affluent area of Los Angeles. Margaret’s husband Arthur was mentally ailing, and Margaret, a busy real-estate broker, needed help. Margaret was fully aware of Louise’s background and believed in her innocence. Margaret Logan was one among many who liked and trusted Louise. Margaret found her charming, sweet, and believable. While working for the Logan’s, Louise met and married elderly bank manager, Lee Borden Judson, in May of 1944. He was her fourth husband.

During her time with Margaret, Louise told her that she was to receive a large amount of money from real estate investments she had in Denver, and she would like to invest it in Margaret’s business. In believing her, Margaret Logan heavily invested in property speculation and lent Louise money. Louise, apart from lying to Margaret, also began practicing Margaret’s signature.

On May 29th of 1944, Margaret realized that the story of the real estate was false and also discovered Louise had forged her signature on a check. Margaret confronted her. Louise, realizing she might be sent back to prison, took a gun and shot Margaret in the back. The shot did not kill her and so Louise finished her off by bashing her on the head. Louise then dug a hole in the garden, under the shade of an avocado tree, and buried her.

Louise told the feeble-minded Arthur that Margaret was in the hospital and forbidden to receive any visitors. Louise then informed one of Arthur’s doctors that Arthur had gone crazy one night and had smashed his wife in the face and bitten her viciously on the neck and nose. She stressed to the doctors that Arthur was impossible for two women to handle. She said that Margaret was so traumatized by the events that she had gone away for a while to recover. The same story was relayed to friends and neighbors. On June 5th, by court order, Arthur was forcibly taken to the State Hospital for the insane in Patton. He died within six months on December 6. Arthur died a lonely man, bitterly thinking his wife had betrayed him and callously locked him away.

Louise and the innocent Lee Judson took up residence in the Logan’s house.

Not long after Arthur Logan’s death, an astute parole officer noticed discrepancies in the signatures on Louise’s parole reports. She pointed it out to her boss, and it became obvious to all concerned that Louise herself was signing the reports; that, alone, was a violation in her parole conditions. The matter was handed over to Fred Howser, the District Attorney; he remembered the previous case against Louise Peete and re-read her files. A discreet investigation began.

Upon talking to neighbors and friends of the Logans, it was revealed that neither Arthur nor Margaret had been seen for several months. Fred Howser chillingly realized that he was, in all probability, investigating another murder case.

On the cold and foggy evening of December 20th, 1944, the police raided the Logan house where Louise and Lee were living. The house and garden were thoroughly searched and under the shade of an avocado tree, they unearthed the murdered body of Margaret Logan.

Louise and Lee were both arrested on suspicion of murder.  On January 12th, 1945, the charges against Lee Judson were dropped.  The following day, he went to the top of a thirteen-floor office building in Los Angeles and leapt to his death; another victim of Louise.

Louise Peete 1947

Louise came to trial before Judge Harold B. Landreth and a jury of eleven women and one man. Her defense admitted that she had buried Margaret Logan’s body. However, she denied killing Margaret claiming that Arthur, in an insane state, had battered and shot Margaret Logan to death. Louise explained her actions to the court by saying, that because of her previous record she felt that her only solution was to bury the body herself and have Arthur removed to an insane asylum, for his own protection and for that of others.

On May 28th 1945, the jury took just three hours to reach their verdict of murder in the first degree. There was no recommendation for mercy.

On June 1, 1945, Judge Harold Landreth sentenced Louise to death in San Quentin’s gas chamber.

Louise appealed, but all the appeals failed. Until the end, she maintained her innocence saying, “I have never killed or even harmed a human being. “

On April 11th of 1947, Louise Peete, at the age of sixty-six, was executed in San Quentin's gas chamber. As she said goodbye to the prison matron and her fellow prisoners, Louise is reported to have said, “Don't be troubled, my dears. Death is merely an eventuality in all our lives”. To the reporters attending her execution, she declared, “The governor is a gentleman - and no gentleman could send a lady to her death”.

Gentleman or not, the Governor did.

San Quentin Gas Chamber

San Quentin's warden, Clinton Duffy, later said of Louisa Peete that she projected,

“an air of innocent sweetness which masked a heart of ice”.

Louise is buried at the Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. Louise’s daughter Betty travelled to LA in April of 1947 to visit her mother one last time.

On April 11th, 1947, Louise Peete, at the age of sixty-six, was executed in San Quentin's gas chamber. Louise Peete was one of only four women to be executed in California.

According to Betty’s children, their mother believed in Louise’s innocence until the day she died in Oregon at the age of 76.

MARIE BESNARD

Crime Doesn’t Pay?

Marie Joséphine Philippine Besnard, née Davaillaud, was born on August 15th, 1896 in Loudun, France, close to the Loire valley. Her father, Pierre Eugène, and mother, Marie-Louise, adored Marie, having lost two sons before she was born. Her father was a wealthy but frugal farmer. Marie was brought up as a Catholic and received her education at a convent school. Her classmates remembered her as being immoral, spiteful, and mean and for being wild with boys. Marie was also remembered for lying and stealing.

Marie married Auguste Antigny, her cousin two years her senior, in 1920. Her mother was the sister of Auguste’s father, and they had known each other all their lives. Her parents had not allowed her to date him until she was eighteen, and they were not given consent to marry until she was twenty-four. Auguste was diagnosed with tuberculosis shortly before the wedding. Tuberculosis, in the 1920’s, was an incurable, untreatable disease, but Marie said she was in love and wanted to marry him. The marriage lasted until his death on July 21st, 1927 when Marie was thirty. The cause of death was officially noted as tuberculosis. When Auguste died in Marie’s arms, she was reported to have sobbed uncontrollably.

In 1929, Marie married Léon Besnard, the owner of a rope shop in Loudon. Léon, although only just making an adequate living, belonged to an extremely wealthy family. Léon and Marie lived a modest life but dreamed of better times when they might inherit wealth. Two wealthy great aunts of Léon’s died in 1938 and 1940 and left their estates to León’s parents. Marie and Leon invited the parents, who were aging, to come and live with them. Shortly after moving in with Marie and Leon, Léon’s father died after consuming poisoned mushrooms. Léon’s mother, Marie-Louise Besnard at the age of 68, died three months later from pneumonia. Léon and his sister, Lucie, age forty-five, inherited the parents' estate. Lucie, not many months after her mother's death, apparently killed herself on March 27, 1941, and Léon then inherited the entire estate.

Around this time, on May 14, 1940, Marie and Léon’s bank account increased yet more after Pierre Eugène, Marie's father, passed away from what was suspected to be a cerebral hemorrhage. However, all this wealth appeared not to be enough for Marie and Léon for they then invited an affluent childless couple, the Rivets, to be houseguests. Touissaint and Blanche Rivets soon became attached to the Besnards, especially Marie, thankful for her hospitality. Monsieur Rivet passed away from pneumonia on July 14th, 1940, and Blanche Rivet followed the following year. Blanche became ill with nausea and convulsions and died on December 27th, 1941. Touissaint and Blanche had made Marie their sole beneficiary. The Davaillaud’s family, the Besnard’s family, and friends were dropping like flies.

Although Marie and Léon Besnard had experienced an unusual number of deaths amongst their family and friends in such a short time frame, few people in the town suspected anything. It was simply considered bad luck. This began to change when an elderly, wealthy cousin of Marie’s, Pauline Bodineau at the age of 88, who was living with Marie and Léon, died on July 1st, 1945. Marie claimed Pauline had mistakenly eaten a dish of lye (caustic soda) thinking it was a desert. Talk and suspicion in Loudon began. On July 9th, 1945, another elderly, wealthy cousin of Marie’s, Virginie Lalleron at the age of 83, who was also living in the house died in an identical manner to Pauline. Now the town’s suspicions became highly aroused. Marie was the only beneficiary of both of the cousins. Despite the suspicions of friends and neighbors as ‘something being not quite right’, nothing was done, and no criminal inquiry took place.

Marie-Louise, Marie's mother, died on January 16th of 1946 and left her entire estate to Marie. Marie and Léon were now exceedingly wealthy. They owned an inn, a cafe, six houses, as well as several stud farms.

Then Marie discovered that her husband was conducting an affair with Louise Pintou, the local Postmaster. In retaliation, she began an affair with a German man, a handsome ex-prisoner of war. However, Marie was not going to let Léon get off that lightly with his infidelity and she saw as his betrayal.

Léon confided in Louise Pintou that he thought Marie would attempt to poison him. He asked Louise to insist on an autopsy if he died. Louise promised she would. Léon Besnard died at home on October 25th of 1947, apparently of kidney failure.

Louise Pintou kept her word and sent a letter to the local public prosecutor telling him of Léon’s fears and suspicions. She also discussed the matter with her customers at the town’s post office. Marie was in control of all the money, which was a great deal, and felt powerful. When she heard the town chatter, she went door-to-door threatening the gossips with their lives. Louise Pintou had her house broken into, and every present Léon had given to Louise was destroyed or stolen. Two close friends of Louise’s, who had also contacted the public prosecutor, were forced to leave the town in fear of their lives after arsonists had burned down their homes.

The local prosecutor was by now receiving so many complaints about Marie, he passed the case on to an investigating magistrate. Léon’s body was ordered to be exhumed. It was exhumed on the 11th of May in 1949. The pathologist reported that Léon’s body showed that significant amounts of arsenic had been ingested.

Marie was arrested for the suspected murder of Léon and held in the local jail while the investigation continued.  Here Marie, incarcerated as she was, attempted damage control. However, three informers reported Marie to the police saying that Marie had tried to hire them to “get rid” of Louise Pintou and her friends, the Massip brothers.

The investigative magistrate ordered twelve more bodies to be exhumed: these were Pierre Eugène Davaillaud, Marie-Louise Davaillaud, Léon’s parents, Auguste Antigny, Lucie Bestard, Toussaint Rivet, Blanche Rivet, Pauline Bodineau, Virginie Lalleron, and Léon’s two great aunts.

Auguste Antigny’s body contained 6 mg arsenic.

Léon Besnard's body contained 19.45 mg of arsenic.

Marie-Louise Besnard’s, née Gouin’s (68-years-old), body contained 60mg of arsenic.

Lucie Bodin’s, née Besnard’s, body contained 30 mg of arsenic.

Pierre Eugène Davaillaud’s body contained 36 mg of arsenic.

Monsieur Toussaint Rivet’s body contained 18 mg of arsenic.

Madame Blanche Rivet’s body contained 30 mg of arsenic.

Pauline Bodineau’s body contained 48 mg of arsenic.

Virginie Lalleron‘s body contained 20 mg of arsenic.

Léon’s great aunt’s body (86-years-old) contained 35 mg of arsenic.

Léon’s great aunt’s body (92-years-old) contained traces of arsenic.

Marie-Louise Davaillaud’s body contained 48 mg of arsenic

Marie was charged with thirteen counts of murder. Her trial began in February of 1952. Marie, being an extremely wealthy woman, hired the best legal team of French lawyers money could buy. Marie’s team of lawyers demanded new tests to confirm that all of the victims had been slain with arsenic, which was central to the prosecution’s case. The prosecution had difficulty in defending the results of their exhumation examinations against the battery of highly paid experts the defense team produced. Even though witnesses testified of her attempts to threaten and murder witnesses and female acquaintances testified that Marie had said, “Arsenic was a better alternative to divorce”, the trial ended in a mistrial. The judges ordered new tests to be performed. Marie remained in prison in "preventative detention" until the next trial.

A second trial was held in March of 1954. This time around, Marie was only charged with six murders, as the physical evidence of five of the bodies had deteriorated to such an extent that no reliable tests could be performed on them. This case also led to a mistrial, as none of the forensic experts could agree on their findings. This time, Marie was released on bail.

The third trial took place seven years later on November 20, 1961. At this trial, the prosecution again charged Marie with thirteen murders. In this trial, Marie’s brilliant defense team had learned that the cemetery grounds where the bodies had been buried were fertilized with a product containing arsenic. This evidence meant that the prosecutor and his team would have to prove that the arsenic in the corpses had not been introduced after burial, an impossible task at that time.

Marie Besnard, despite arsenic having been found in thirteen bodies whose deaths enhanced her wealth, her attempts to threaten and murder witnesses, and female acquaintances relating during the trial that Marie had said, “Arsenic was a better alternative to divorce”, was acquitted on December 12, 1961.

Marie Besnard died in 1980 and is unlikely to have uttered the words, “crime doesn’t pay”.

NANNIE DOSS

The Giggling Granny

Nannie Doss was born Nancy Hazle on Nov. 4, 1905, in Blue Mountain, Alabama, to poor farming parents James Hazle and his wife Lou. She soon became known as Nannie after her birth.  Nannie was the eldest of five siblings; she had three sisters and one brother. James Hazle, her father, was a farmer and a control freak; the children and their mother lived in fear of him.

Life was hard and by the age of five, Nannie had learned to cut wood, plough the fields, dig the farm free of weeds, scrub pots and pans, and clean the house. School was, despite the two-mile walk, almost a treat from the drudgery of the farm, but her schooling was far from regular because if her father needed her help on the farm that was his first priority. Consequently, Nannie never learned to read or write particularly well, and her education stopped entirely after the sixth grade.

An event, that Nannie later claimed had an enormous impact on her life, happened when she was seven. On her first ever trip away from the farm, and her first train ride to visit family in the south of Alabama, the train suddenly braked. Nannie, propelled out of her seat, smashed her head against a metal bar. In an interview many years later with Life magazine, she claimed that from that point on she suffered from blackouts, severe headaches, and depression.

While her father was an abusive dictator, Nannies’ mother Lou was a gentle, caring woman. To escape the hardship of her life, Lou subscribed to various romantic story magazines and as Nannie slipped into her teenage years she would devour her mother’s magazines. Nannie would sit and daydream of the day when she would be swept off her feet by a tall, dark, handsome stranger and whisked away into the sunset.

Nannie’s and her sister’s teenage years became an extension of their miserable years as children. Their father forbade them from having friends, wearing makeup, or dressing prettily. While the other teenagers in the hamlet were out enjoying barn dances, church organized social events, or sitting in the local coffee bars, the Hazle sisters sat miserably at home.

Nannie, in 1921 at the age of sixteen, began work in a linen factory and spent any spare money on romance stories. This is also when she first began having social interaction with boys. The boys took to her: her hair and eyes were dark, her giggle infectious, and she gave them want they wanted: sex.

A handsome, curly-haired boy, Charley Braggs, in particular liked Nannie and they soon began dating. Charley even met the approval of Dictator James. James approved of Charley because of the way he cared for his mother; to him it showed decent old-fashioned respect for ones elders. Within four months of beginning to date, Nannie and Charley were married. For Nannie, who may have seen the marriage as an escape route from her father, now had to contend with her over-ruling, manipulative mother-in law and a husband who turned out to be an abusive, womanizing drunk.

Nannie’s and Charley’s first child was born in 1923. This birth was quickly followed by three more.  Nannies’ dreams of love and romance seemed a long way away. Her life was as full of drudgery as her childhood had been. Nannie began drinking and smoking heavily and when Charley was out, she, too, took to going to the local bars and having her own adulterous affairs.

In 1927, Nannie and Charley’s two middle children died from what doctors said was food poisoning. Charley was suspicious as to who had poisoned the food. He left the house and town with their oldest daughter Melvina. Nannie was left alone with her hated mother-in-law, her youngest child Florine, and the insurance money from the deaths of her two children. Shortly after Charley had left her, the dreaded mother-in-law died. A year later, in late summer 1928, Charley returned home with a new girlfriend and Melvina; he wanted a divorce. Nannie moved back to her parent’s home with her daughters Melvina and Florine.

Yet again Nannie was under the roof of her dictator father. In the evenings, Nannie and her mother would bury their heads in their romance magazines but then Nannie began going through the section entitled lonely hearts and began to answer the advertisements. Maybe here she would find her life of romance.

She heard back from a Frank Harrelson, a factory worker, who lived in nearby Jacksonville. The black and white photo he sent Nannie reminded her of Clark Gable. In return, Nannie baked him a cake and had it delivered to him along with an alluring photo of herself. They agreed to meet and before long, Frank proposed marriage and Nannie happily accepted. In 1929 they married, and Nannie and her two daughters left her parents’ house and moved in with Frank in Jacksonville.

The honeymoon period for Nannie did not last long. Her tall, good-looking husband turned out to be a drunk, whose favorite occupation seemed to be engaging in bar brawls for which he had once been jailed. Despite her disappointment in her husband, she stayed and suffered his drunken abuse of her.

Melvina and Florian grew up in this dysfunctional home and both eventually married. In 1943, Melvina had a son, and Nannie became a grandma. In 1945, Melvina had another child. This time her labor was long and hard, and she sent her husband Mosie Haynes to fetch Nannie to be at her side. Nannie behaved as an exemplary mother; she sat all night by her bedside mopping Melvina’s sweating brow. Finally, Melvina gave birth to a baby girl. An hour later, the baby had died. The doctors were puzzled and could not account for the baby’s death.

For the distraught Melvina, as if losing her baby was not enough, she was troubled by what she wasn’t sure was a nightmare or real. As she had drifted in and out of sleep after giving birth, she thought she saw her mother stick a pin into the baby’s tender head. When she told her younger sister Florian and her husband Moses her ‘dream’, they exclaimed in unison that they had seen Nannie playing with a pin in her hands while she had sat at Melvina’s bedside. However, the idea of Nannie causing the death of the baby was far too shocking for any of them to consider taking it seriously.

On July 7, 1945, Nannie babysat for Melvina’s son Robert. That night, Robert died. The family doctor cited asphyxia from undisclosed causes. Nannie collected $500 on the boy’s life insurance policy that she had recently taken out without her daughter’s knowledge. Nannie acted as the heartbroken granny sobbing and wailing as the tiny coffin was silently lowered into the grave.

In August of 1945, the Second World War ended and on September 15, 1945, Frank went out drinking and celebrating with friends of his who had returned home. That night when he returned home, he abused and raped Nannie. She`d had enough. The following evening after supper and a dessert of prunes, thirty-eight -year-old Frank died in excruciating pain.

For a while after the death of Frank, not much is known of Nannie. It’s thought that she journeyed around the United States for a while before turning up in 1947 in North Carolina. She had answered a lonely-hearts advertisement placed by Arlie Lanning, a laborer. Nannie and Arlie married just two days after the meeting. It was to be another disappointment for the romance-seeking widow. Arlie, like her last husband Frank, was also a drunk, although not an abusive one; he was also a womanizer and had a poor reputation in the town. Whenever Arlie went on a drinking binge Nannie would pack her suitcases and leave, telling neighbors she was off to visit relatives; sometimes she would be gone for months.

Nannie was popular in Lexington. Her friends and neighbors saw her as a perfect wife. From her kitchen there was always a delightful smell of baking, and the house and garden were always spick and span. She still enjoyed reading her romantic stories but now her favorite occupation was watching television and smoking her favorite cigarettes, Camel. Nannie was also a regular churchgoer and helped organize church social events. Many of her acquaintances felt sorry for Nannie for having such a drunk, womanizer for a husband, and the only reason Arlie was tolerated at social events was because of the cheerful, kind-hearted Nannie. In February of 1950, Arlie suddenly became ill with dizziness, sweating, and vomiting. He died two days later in excruciating pain. Given his lifestyle, no one was surprised, and an autopsy was not performed.

At the funeral, Nannie epitomized the heart-broken widow explaining to her neighbors through tears that:

Arlie left his house to his sister, but it burned down before she could claim it. The television, however, was saved as while the house was burning down, Nannie was on her way to the television repair shop. Nannie moved in with Arlie’s mother.  The elderly mother passed away in her sleep while in Nannie’s care. When the check from the insurance company arrived for the burnt house, as Arlie’s widow, Nannie was able to claim it. With the check in hand and the television on the backseat of her car, Nannie left Lexington never to return.

She made her way to her sister Dovie. Her sister was bedridden with cancer and with Nannie’s arrival, her condition soon worsened. Dovie died on June 30th in her sleep.

With her sister dead, Nannie settled into her house, set about perusing her ads again, and discovered the Diamond Circle Club. This singles club cost $15 a year in membership. All members received a monthly newsletter with the newest members added monthly. Through this club, she made contact with a recently retired businessman, Richard Morton, from Emporia, Kansas. He fit Nannie’s romantic dream: he was a tall, dark, handsome, half American Indian, with piercing eyes. While he dated her, he bought her presents of jewelry and other trinkets as well as clothes. Nannie and Richard married in October of 1952, and she moved into his house in Emporia. Nannie’s romantic dream was soon shattered.

Richard Morton was not a drunkard like her previous two husbands, but he was a liar. He was swimming in debt and, to make matters worse, he was also a womanizer and had a long-standing girlfriend he wasn`t going to give up. Nannie realized she had made a colossal mistake but not as deadly a mistake as Richard had. Nannie realized he had to go. Then her mother Lou showed up.

Nannie’s father James had died, and her elderly mother invited herself to visit Nannie. Within a short time of arriving at Nannie’s and Richard’s house, Lou complained of severe stomach cramps and died in January of 1953. Three months after her mother died, Richard, also complaining of severe stomach pains, died.

And no one – doctors, family, friends, or neighbors – asked questions.

As soon as Nannie had realized her mistake in marrying Richard, she had begun her perusal of the lonely-hearts ad columns again. Two months before Richard’s death, she began a pen pal correspondence with fifty nine -year-old Samuel Doss from Tulsa, Oklahoma. With Richard in the ground and the insurance check in the bank, Nannie traveled to Tulsa. Samuel Doss, on meeting Nannie, fell deeply in love and immediately proposed to Nannie. To Samuel, Nannie seemed to be homely, cheerful, and an accomplished cook. They married in June of 1953.

Nannie was attracted to Samuel, as he seemed so different from all of her previous husbands. He had a steady job as a state highway inspector. He didn’t drink or womanize. He was a straight, church going conservative man. His flaw, as Nannie discovered, was that he was seriously set in his ways. Bedtime was at 9.30 pm; he did not approve of Nanny’s romance stories, viewing them as a painful waste of money. He disapproved of her television viewing and kept tight control of the household spending. Nannie found him frustratingly tedious and irritating remarkably quickly. She persuaded Samuel to take out two life insurance policies.

In September, after a well-cooked supper by his wife, Samuel complained of stomach pains and called in his doctor. The doctor admitted Samuel to the hospital and diagnosed him with a serious digestive infection. They kept him for twenty-three days before releasing him on October 5th. For his first supper home, Nannie cooked a delicious roast pork dinner followed by her specialty of stewed prune dessert. Before midnight, Samuel was dead.

Samuel’s doctor was aghast and spoke to Dr. Schwelbein, the doctor who had examined Samuel prior to releasing him from the hospital. They concluded his death did not make any sense, and an autopsy was ordered. The pathologist performing the autopsy discovered enough arsenic in Samuel’s body to kill twelve horses.

Nannie was the immediate suspect and promptly arrested. The police were astounded by her reaction to being arrested: she giggled and she continued to giggle throughout her police interrogations. In between her giggles, Nannie admitted to murdering four husbands, her sister, her mother, her grandson, and Arlie’s mother.

It was not long before the media nicknamed her "The Giggling Granny" and "The Jolly Widow”.

Groups of psychiatrists were called in to examine her; their conclusion was that she was mentally sane. Her trial was set for June 2nd, 1955, in the Criminal Court of Tulsa, Oklahoma. On May 17th, she pleaded guilty to the murder of Samuel Doss, the only murder that had taken place in Oklahoma. Judge Elmer Adams, after a brief hearing, sentenced her to life imprisonment.

The case made great media copy as the public were baffled and intrigued as to how this overweight, short sighted, graying, motherly looking figure could have killed so many for so long. Nannie loved the media attention and would pose smiling and giggling for photographs and gave lengthy interviews, when allowed, as if a movie star.

Nannie died in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary of leukemia on June 2, 1965.

MARY ELIZABETH WILSON

The Merry Widow of Windy Nook

Mary Elizabeth Wilson was born in Hebburn, South Tyneside, England in 1893. As a teenager, she got a job in service with the Knowles family. She cultivated a friendship with the son, John Knowles, and married him in 1912.

Mary and John moved to a house in Windy Nook, Gateshead. At some point in the marriage, Mary began an affair with a John Russell who eventually moved in to the house with them as a lodger. In 1955, John Knowles, after forty-three years of marriage, died. Five months after her husband’s death, Mary married her lover John Russell. In early 1957, John died. The local doctor attributed both husbands’ deaths to natural causes. In both cases, Mary inherited everything.

In June of 1957 at the age of sixty-four, Mary married wealthy Oliver Leonard, an estate agent, in a registry office in Jarrow. Twelve days after the marriage, Oliver became ill and died the following day. The local doctor pronounced heart failure as the cause. Mary again inherited everything.

Mary then married husband number four, Ernest Wilson, another wealthy man. At the wedding reception, Mary joked to her friends that the left over cakes could be saved and used at the funeral. Just a few days after the wedding, Ernest became sick and died. The doctor attributed the death to "Cardiac Failure”. During Ernest’s funeral, Mary joked to the undertaker that with the amount of trade she had given to him she should have a discount. Her morbid humor and general cheerful demeanor gave rise to gossip and the nickname the ‘Merry Widow of Windy Nook’.

The local constabulary became suspicious, as Mary seemed to be chalking up a lot of dead husbands. The police ordered the exhumations of the bodies of Oliver and Ernest. The pathologist concluded that phosphorous poisoning, a toxic condition caused by ingesting white or yellow phosphorus, occasionally found in rat poisons and certain fertilizers, had killed both men.

Mary was arrested and charged with two murders. Her defense was that both Oliver and Ernest took sexual stimulation pills that contained phosphorous. The jury was not convinced and found Mary guilty of murder. The judge sentenced her to death. Because of her age, her death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in London’s Holloway women’s prison. She died there four years later at the age of seventy.

The bodies of her earlier two husbands, John Knowles and John Russell, were also exhumed, and the pathologist reached the same conclusion: that of phosphorous poisoning. However, it was considered pointless to have a second trial.

RHONDA BELL MARTIN

A plot full of poison.

Rhonda Bell Martin was born in 1907 in Alabama. Not much is known about her early life beyond the fact that her father deserted the family when she was 12-years-old. Her first marriage was when she was just fifteen and ended in divorce when she was nineteen. At twenty-one-years-old, she married a man by the name of George Garrett. Together, he and Rhonda had five children. He died when Rhonda poisoned him. She gained a small amount on an insurance policy, which barely covered the funeral expenses. Rhonda married for the third time to Talmadge J. Gipson, but the marriage lasted only a few months.

Rhonda, without divorcing husband number three, met and married her fourth husband, Claude Martin. Claude had a son Bud, and after Claude’s death in 1951, Bud became Rhonda’s lover and eventually her fifth husband.

When Bud became ill, doctors discovered arsenic in his body and suspected he was being poisoned. They called in the police. Bud survived but remained a paraplegic for the rest of his life. When the police began to investigate, they looked at all the other deaths surrounding Rhonda. They exhumed Claude Martin’s corpse and discovered in his body large amounts of arsenic.

Rhonda was arrested in March of 1956. Under questioning, she admitted to murdering three of her five dead children, her mother, and two ex-husbands. They were all buried next to each other in the same cemetery. The police then exhumed all the bodies, and newspapers nationwide followed the case with ever-increasing sensationalist headlines such as, “About the chain-smoking Montgomery waitress” and “The plot full of poison.”

At her trial, the prosecution alleged that the murders were committed to collect insurance payouts. The payouts that Rhonda received, however, were only minimal and barely covered death and burial costs. In the case of Claude Martin, they suggested that she wanted him out of the way so she could pursue his son Roland, or Bud, as Rhonda called him. Rhonda pleaded insanity. A psychiatrist for the defense testified that in his opinion Rhonda suffered from schizophrenia and was not responsible for her actions. The prosecution psychiatrists, on the other hand, said they could find nothing wrong with her.

The jury found Rhonda guilty of the murder of Claude Martin at the age of fifty-one. The judge sentenced her to death in Alabama’s electric chair. Her lawyers appealed, but all appeals were denied.

On October 11th, 1957, Rhonda enjoyed a last meal of mashed potatoes and a hamburger, followed by cinnamon rolls and coffee. Rhonda then walked to the death chamber dressed in a black and white dress and black shoes. On each hand was a wedding ring: one for her deceased husband Claude Martin, and one for her paraplegic husband Roland Martin, who she still professed to love.

As the clock struck midnight, Rhonda was strapped down into the chair. The authorities asked Rhonda if she had anything she wished to say. In answer, her head shook silently, and the switch was turned on. A few minutes later, as her body jerked with the jolt of the electricity racing through it, the authorities pronounced she was dead.

Rhonda Bell Martin

ANJETTE DONOVAN LYLES

A Charming Lady

Anjette Donovan was born on the 23rd of August in 1925 in Macon, Georgia. Her parents, Jetta and William Donovan, operated and owned a produce company. Anjette had two older brothers and grew up into an exceedingly pretty girl, with a particularly charming personality that captivated people and enabled her to manipulate people at her will.

In 1947 when Anjette was twenty-two, she married Ben Lyles Jr. at the Mulberry Street Methodist Church. Ben, who had recently left the army, was the owner of Lyle’s Restaurant in downtown Macon; a restaurant that had been opened by his now deceased father.

Ben and Anjette moved into the Biltmore apartments on Poplar Street. They were within walking distance of her parent’s house on Lamar Street: a large, rambling, old house with a large front porch and tree-shaded garden and also within walking distance of Lyle’s Restaurant. They had two daughters together: Marcia, born in 1948, and Carla, born in 1951.

At the beginning of 1951, Ben began drinking heavily and staying out late gambling.  Anjette began having to work at the restaurant as Ben slipped deeper and deeper into alcoholism. Anjette enjoyed running the restaurant and was extremely successful at dealing with and attracting clients. As Ben’s health began to decline and without consulting his wife, he sold the restaurant in June of 1951. Anjette was furious and never forgave him. Ben’s health continued to deteriorate, and the doctor’s warned him to stop drinking.

In December, Ben began suffering from nosebleeds. On January 23rd, he was admitted to Macon hospital moaning in pain and bleeding profusely from his mouth and nose. His legs and arms were swollen, and he was vomiting frequently, puzzling the physicians at Macon Hospital. He died on the 25th of January in 1952. On his death certificate, the cause of death was attributed to encephalitis. Ben was buried next to his father in Cochran, a small town about forty miles to the southeast of Macon. Ben’s mother Julia was inconsolable, and Anjette showed no emotion.

Ben had a G. I. life insurance policy from which Anjette received $9,300 and two other policies from which she received $3,000. Much of this money went towards the funeral and other to debts Ben had built up.

Anjette moved with her two small children back in with her parents. She secured herself work as a bookkeeper at another local restaurant, The Bell House, and learned all she could about running a restaurant. She worked hard and saved every penny that she possibly could.

In April of 1955, Anjette had saved enough money to buy back the restaurant she believed Ben had stolen from her and re-launched it as ‘Anjette's’. The restaurant quickly became one of the most popular in town, serving classic Southern dishes. It was frequented by attorneys, judges, civic leaders, and businessmen who were attracted not just by the food but also by the attractive, buxom, brown eyed, young widow with soft, dark hair, sparkling eyes, and a flirtatious, charismatic personality. Frequently, Anjette would be rumored to be having liaisons with various men in the community.

Segregation and racism in 1950’s Georgia was part of life. Black and white people would sometimes be required to attend separate schools, eat separately, and use separate public toilets, train carriages, buses, park benches, and water fountains. In Anjette’s restaurant, she had three black cooks and several waitresses who were all white. There were different washrooms for the white and black employees at Anjette's, and the cooks were never to enter the public areas of the restaurant. However, despite these social restrictions, Anjette became close friends with one of the cooks, Rosemary Reynolds. Although they never socialized in public together, they would spend hours in the kitchen gossiping and laughing. From Rosemary, Anjette learned much about African-American life, customs, and traditions.

In the spring of 1955, Anjette began dating 26-year-old Joe Neal Gabbert, a six foot tall pilot for the company Capitol Airways. On the 24th of June in 1955, they surprised friends and relatives by getting married in Carlsbad, New Mexico. On their return to Macon, Joe moved into Anjette’s house. In October, Joe was admitted to the hospital for a minor wrist operation. The day following the surgery, Joe developed a raging temperature and an intensely painful rash developed all over his body. The doctors were unable to explain it and moved him to the Veterans Hospital in Dublin, Georgia. He died in agony on the 2nd of December in 1955.

With the money Anjette received from Joe’s life insurance, Anjette purchased a house and a new, flashy, white Cadillac. Within a couple of months, Anjette started dating another pilot, Bob Franks, much to the condemnation of members of the Macon community. Although Anjette was particularly fond of Bob Franks, she was not the only woman he was seeing.

Through her friendship with her cook Rosemary, she learned of ‘hoodoo’, a traditional folk magic practiced by some African-Americans. The aim of ‘hoodoo’ is to allow people to improve their daily lives by accessing supernatural forces. It was also used to improve relationships, luck, wealth, health, and other problems one encounters. As in other folk traditions, much use is made of herbs, roots, minerals, candles, oils, and incense.

Anjette was superstitious and burned different colored candles: white for peace, green for luck and money, red for love, and burned a black candle in an attempt to break up a friendship Bob Franks was conducting with another woman. The restaurant staff would often find Anjette burning candles and talking to the flames.

Despite the death of her first husband Ben, Anjette remained close to her mother-in-law Julia Lyles. Julia was lonely and moved in with Anjette and her granddaughters and would help Anjette at the restaurant and look after the children. In August of 1957, Julia became ill with vomiting and severe edema. On August 28th, 1957, Julia was admitted to the hospital. Anjette visited her daily, taking Julia her favorite foods from the restaurant and earning respect from hospital staff for her dedication to and caring of her ex-mother-in-law. The doctors were unable to diagnose Julia’s illness, and she became progressively worse. She died on the 29th of September, 1957. Anjette had her buried next to her husband and son. Anjette produced Julia’s will, which left most of her estate to Anjette and her daughters.

On Sunday, March 2nd, 1958, Anjette’s nine-year-old daughter, Marcia, became ill with a high temperature and vomiting. Marcia was taken to the hospital on March 5th and occupied the same room as her father Ben Lyles, step-father Joe Gabbert, and her grandmother Julia Lyles had previously occupied before their deaths. Doctors were mystified by Marcia’s illness. Her mother would visit her daily, bringing homemade lemonade from the restaurant. The staff from the restaurant and school friends also visited. Anjette became convinced that Marcia was going to die, no matter how many doctors or friends reassured her that she was young and getting the best help possible. For a while, Marcia did improve but then her condition weakened again.

In early March, the local coroner, Lester Chapman, received an anonymous phone call that told him that Marcia Lyles was going to die. It did not take long for the coroner to learn that Anjette Lyles’ daughter was in the hospital. He made a phone call to Marcia’s doctor who told him that Marcia was making a slow recovery. Lester Chapman then put the anonymous phone call down to mischief making.

A week later, Nora Bagley, Julia Lyle’s sister who lived in Cochran, Georgia, received an anonymous letter which read, “Please come at once. She’s getting the same dose as the others. Please come at once”. Nora didn’t understand what it meant. A few days later, a second anonymous letter arrived on Nora’s doorstep and this time mentioned Marcia by name. Nora consulted with a few other relatives, and they decided to travel to see the sheriff in Macon. The meeting between the sheriff, the coroner, Lester Chapman, Nora Bagley, and others concluded that the letters and phone call were just from someone trying to stir up trouble.

Back at the hospital, Marcia’s health began to deteriorate again. A bluish, mottled discoloration spread over her body, and she experienced frequent vomiting. She also began to experience terrifying hallucinations where she would imagine there were insects crawling all over her body. She would scream at the nurses and her visitors “to get them off her,” as she thrashed around uncontrollably trying to slap them off her body. The doctors kept Marcia heavily sedated in an effort to calm her.

The mystified doctors called in an expert internist, Dr. Ireland, for help. He spent many hours reading her chart and finally forbade Marcia’s visitors from bringing her any food or drinks except those provided by the hospital.

In the evening of April 4, 1958, Anjette, her mother, Jetta Donovan, and her sister-in-law, Alice Donovan, sat by Marcia’s bed as Marcia took her last breath. Marcia, just three months before her tenth birthday, was dead.

Anjette buried Marcia dressed in her Sunday best with a Bible and a doll. She was buried next to relatives at the Coleman Chapel, Wadley, in eastern Georgia.

The County coroner, Lester Chapman, on hearing of Marcia’s death, was still unsettled by the anonymous phone call and letters Nora Bagley had received. He asked the medical examiner, Dr. Léonard Campbell, to perform an autopsy on Marcia. Dr. Campbell took samples of Marcia's organs and sent them to the Atlanta State Crime Lab. Their findings reported that Marcia had died due to multiple doses of arsenic.

Rumors and gossip about Anjette murdering her daughter began to trickle throughout Macon. Many began speculating that she had murdered her mother-in-law and her two husbands, as well. Anjette, on learning of the gossip, produced a letter she claimed was written by her mother-in-law, Julia Lyles, which read, “I am the cause of my son’s death and my own”. Anjette also visited doctors and told them that Carla and Marcia had been seen playing doctors and nurses with Terro ant poison.

The County coroner, Lester Chapman, ordered the bodies of Ben Lyles, Julia Lyles, and Joe Gabbert to be exhumed. Autopsies performed on their bodies found that all had died from arsenic poisoning.

On the 6th of May in 1958, Anjette, at the age of thirty-three, was arrested. She was charged with four counts of murder. The police searched her home and found several boxes of Terro ant poison, which contained arsenic. They also took into evidence various items they described as "voodoo paraphernalia". These items were various colored candles, powders, potions, herbs, roots, and written spells. The popular press from around the world paid a great deal of attention to the abundance of voodoo supplies.

Anjette’s trial began in the beginning of October, 1958 in front of Judge Long. A jury of twelve men was selected. Journalists from Europe and America descended on the Bibb County Court. Large crowds stood outside the courthouse hoping to get a peek at Anjette, whom the newspapers described as the "glamorous, platinum-haired widow”.

The prosecution alleged that Anjette had murdered her victims out of hatred and greed and had benefited financially by $50,000. The State claimed that their evidence would show:

(1) Each of the victims had an exceptionally close relationship to the defendant.

(2) Each of them died from arsenic poisoning.

(3) The defendant was the only close, personal, attendant to all four victims.

(4) The defendant showed little or no grief for any one of her victims, even though each was exceedingly close to her.

(5) The defendant collected a considerable amount of money from the death of each victim.

(6) The burials of all were similar in that each was lavishly done by the defendant.

(7) All victims were carried to the same hospital, at which place they were attended by the defendant.

(8) The defendant expressed a strong dislike for each of the victims either before or after his or her death.

(9) The defendant predicted the death of all of the victims except Ben Lyles.

To prove their case, the prosecution had fifty-one witnesses. These included restaurant employees, witnesses from the hospital, and expert witnesses.  The only defense witness was Anjette.

One restaurant waitress swore that she had heard Anjette say about her daughter Marcia, “I’m going to kill the little Lyles-looking son of a bitch if it is the last thing I ever do”. The husband of the waitress said he had also heard Anjette say the same thing. Other restaurant employees stated that Anjette had said of her mother-in-law Julia, “The old devil! I hate her. I wish she was dead”.

Other employees testified to seeing Anjette place something in a glass of buttermilk which she took to Julia in the hospital. Others witnessed the same behavior with lemonade which was taken to Marcia in hospital.

A nurse testified that Anjette brought some homemade lemon juice to Marcia who became violently ill immediately after drinking it. Other nurses described how when Marcia was suffering from her terrible hallucinations, Anjette “acted as though it was hilarious. She laughed”.

The jury looked at Anjette with horror and loathing as this testimony was given.

The Sheriff’s office produced a piece of paper taken from Anjette’s office where the name Julia Lyles had been repeatedly written, as in an attempt to perfect a signature. A handwriting expert testified that Julia’s signature on the funeral note and her will were forged.

Throughout the parade of witnesses’ the prosecution produced, Anjette made detailed notes of their testimony.

At the end of the prosecution’s case, Anjette, looking sincere and serious, took to the witness stand and gave an unsworn statement. This prevented a cross examination by the prosecution. She was dressed in a black, long sleeved dress with her hair tidily pinned up against her head. In her hand, she clutched her pages of notes. She addressed the jury, “Gentlemen of the jury, I have not killed anyone”. She then went through point by point all the witness’s testimony against her. She addressed the jury about her belief in magic, herbs, and her use of candles, assuring them there was nothing sinister in her beliefs. To explain her laughing at Marcia’s dreadful hallucinations, Anjette said, “When I get upset, I laugh. I cannot help it. I have done it all my life. Instead of crying, I laugh”.

She finished up by declaring, “I loved Marcia. I did not kill my child. I have not given any child poison. I did not kill Ben, Julia Lyles, or Buddy. I hope that you will believe me when I say that because it is the truth”.

When Anjette returned to the defense table, she collapsed into her mother Jetta’s arms and for the first since the trial had begun, she cried.

There followed the closing arguments by the prosecution and their appeal to the jury to find Anjette guilty as she deserved to die. The defense then followed with their closing arguments and plea to the jury to find Anjette innocent of all charges.

The judge then gave the jury their instructions: they had, he said, three choices: 1.) to find Anjette guilty without mercy, 2.) to find her guilty with mercy or 3.) to find her not guilty. He explained that a guilty verdict without mercy would result in the death penalty for Anjette.

The all-male jury took only an hour to deliver their guilty without recommendation for mercy verdict. Minutes later, Judge Long sentenced Anjette to death on December the 5th in Georgia’s electric chair. Anjette was the first white woman sentenced to death in Georgia. Anjette received the verdict calmly. The only visible reaction was she bit her lip and her skin reddened slightly.

Her lawyers immediately appealed, and a series of court hearings followed. Eventually, Anjette’s lawyers successfully won an insanity plea. A Sanity Commission diagnosed her with chronic paranoid schizophrenia. In Georgia, it was against the law to execute an insane person. It was a catch-twenty-two situation because if she recovered her sanity, she would be executed. As she confided to a friend who visited her, “They think I’m crazy as hell, and I’m going to let them keep thinking it because if they don’t, they’re going to fry my ass!”

Anjette was confined to Milledgeville State Hospital for the insane. Here, she spent close to twenty years before dying of natural causes on December 4, 1977, at the age of fifty-two. She was buried next to her daughter Marcia.

MARIE FIKACKOVA

SILENT BABIES

Marie Fikáčková was born to poor German parents on September 9th, 1936 in Sušice, a beautiful, historic city in Czechoslovakia.

In 1945 when World War II ended, many Germans living in Czechoslovakia suffered from Czech hostilities towards them. Marie’s family was one of them. Her father was a violent alcoholic who hated the Czechs with a passion. Neither was she close to her mother with whom she often quarreled. Her one brother was mentally handicapped. Despite Marie’s dysfunctional home life, she did well at school. In 1955, she successfully passed the Secondary Medical Service School examinations in Klatovy. She then found work as a nurse at the Sušice National Health Centre. In 1957, Marie was transferred to the Obstetrics department. Marie was liked and respected by her colleagues for being amiable and industrious and within a short amount of time was being considered for promotion to Head Nurse. There was, however, one insurmountable problem for Marie: much as she enjoyed her work in the maternity ward, she had an almost complete intolerance to the crying of new born babies. Many women take to babies easily, knowing how to hold the baby in a relaxed manner that soothes the fretful newborn. Marie was not such a woman.

On February 23rd, 1960, two newborn baby girls died on the maternity ward of the Sušice National Health Centre. During the autopsies of the babies, it was found that both infants had numerous broken bones in their arms along with head trauma, which had caused their deaths.

The authorities began to interview all of the staff involved in the care and delivery of the babies. On February 28th, 1960, twenty-four-year-old Marie was interviewed. The interview turned into a six hour interrogation as the authorities became uneasy at Marie’s answers to various questions.

During the interview, she claimed that as a child she was tortured by her mentally ill brother and abused by her father. At midnight, after six hours of questioning, Marie finally admitted to killing the baby girls.

She said,

To Marie, it was a solution to child quieting: when using 'pressure point therapy' the baby never cried again. In explanation, she claimed that the crying babies affected her concentration, she hated crying babies, they put her off her work, and she was intent on getting a promotion. She said she would even hit her own child if it cried very often. Luckily, she didn’t have one. She claimed that she only felt this way when she was menstruating. Marie confessed in the interrogation to having murdered ten newborn babies since 1957. The hospital and the authorities kept quiet about Marie’s confessions to the other killings.

At her trial, she was charged with only two murders as there was no evidence to the other killings she had claimed to have committed. At her trial, a number of people testified to her explosive personality. Neighbor’s testified that she terrorized her mentally handicapped brother regularly and that she possessed a violent streak.

On October 6th, 1960, Marie Fikáčková was sentenced to death by hanging. Her lawyer appealed the sentence twice but on each occasion, the appeals were denied.

The execution took place early in the morning of April 13th, 1961 in Pankrác prison.

Marie Fikáčková’s trial and execution were kept secret in communist-occupied Czechoslovakia, the government not wishing its citizens or foreigners to know that under their regime such crimes occurred.

Following the collapse of the communist government in 1996, many secret files were uncovered, one of which was Marie Fikáčková’s. TV Nova, the Czech commercial television station, broadcast the story on January 4th, 2007.

JANIE LOU GIBBS

THERE’S NOTHING LIKE MUM’S COOKING.

Janie Lou Gibbs was born on December 25, 1932, in Cordele, Georgia, known as the Watermelon Capital of the World. In 1948, at the age of sixteen, Janie married Marvin Gibbs, a farmer. She appeared in all intents and purposes to be the perfect wife, mother, and avid Christian Fundamentalist church attendee. Janie also ran the local day-care center and was popular with the mothers and children. In 1965, Marvin at the age of 38 and her husband of eighteen years, was taken ill after eating a lovingly prepared family meal. He collapsed at home and was rushed to the hospital emergency department where he was pronounced dead upon arrival. The doctors attributed the cause of death to a previously undiagnosed liver disease.

Marvin’s sudden death caused shock among the local church goers, and there was considerable support and sympathy for the young widow and her three children. Janie was so appreciative of the support she received from the church members that she bequeathed 10% of the insurance money from Marvin’s death to the church.

Tragedy struck again a year later when Janie’s thirteen-year-old son Marvin, Jr., appeared to have inherited the same liver disease that had afflicted his father. He, too, collapsed suffering from severe cramps shortly after having eaten one of his mother’s home cooked meals and died. Yet again, the church community was a tower of strength for Janie in this family tragedy, and Janie thankful to the church for their support, once again gave 10% of the insurance money to the church congregation.

However, just a few months later, Janie’s sixteen-year-old son Lester became ill, suffering from headaches and dizzy spells. He was discovered dead at home in January of 1967. The doctors at the hospital attributed his death to hepatitis. Once again, the church, in disbelief at the number of tragedies befalling the young widow, rallied around in support. Janie appeared broken hearted and crushed by all that she had endured over the past two years. She told the church congregation that without their support, she could never have coped and once again gave a percentage of the insurance payout to the church.

One piece of happy news for Janie in 1967 was that her son Roger’s young wife was pregnant. In August, the church was delighted to see Janie smiling again as she held her young grandson Raymond in her arms. But before the end of October, both her grandson Raymond and his father Roger, her son, were dead.

The doctors were mystified by the baby’s death. He had been a healthy strong child. An autopsy failed to find anything wrong. In Roger’s case, it seemed as if his kidneys had just stopped functioning. The doctors were suspicious and called the law enforcement agency. Another autopsy was performed on Roger, and arsenic poisoning was detected. The police then disinterred the other dead members of the Gibbs family and similar results were found.

Janie Lou Gibbs was arrested on Christmas Eve of 1967. In court, she admitted poisoning her family with rat poison. Her lawyers pleaded insanity. In February of 1968, she was declared clinically insane and sent to the state mental hospital. In May of 1974, she was declared well enough to stand trial. In May of 1976, Janie was convicted of murdering her family with poison. The judge gave her life for each member of her family. In 1999, Janie, at the age of sixty-six, was released from prison on parole into the custody of her brother on medical grounds. She was suffering from advanced Parkinson's disease. Janie Lou Gibbs died on February 7, 2010, at the age of seventy- eight.

VELMA BARFIELD

GATEWAY TO HEAVEN

Early Life

Velma Barfield (née Bullard) was born on October 29th, 1932 in rural South Carolina. Velma was the second born of nine children and the eldest daughter born to Presbyterians Murphy and Lillie Bullard. Murphy Bullard was an impoverished, small, tobacco and cotton farmer. The house that Velma was born into was a small, wooden, unpainted house with no running water or electricity. As the Great Depression tightened its grip around the country, Murphy Bullard found it harder and harder to make a living from the farm as crop prices fell by about 60%. He gave up the farm and took a job in a saw-mill. When the saw-mill laid Murphy off, he moved his family into his parents’ home in Fayetteville, North Carolina and found work in a textile mill.

Murphy Bullard, Velma’s father, was an authoritarian. He was the undisputed ruler of his family, and Velma’s mother was the compliant, docile wife. Murphy was a big drinking man, was easily angered, and didn’t hold back from taking the strap to the children if they annoyed him or disobeyed him. Lila, Velma’s mother, never argued or tried to stop Murphy from hitting the children, fearful that he would turn on her.

In 1939, when Velma was seven years old, she began attending the local elementary school with her older brother Olive. Her teachers found her smart, and she received excellent grades. Velma at first loved school as it was an escape from her crowded, volatile home life, but that soon wore off as she was picked upon by her class mates for always being dressed in hand-me-downs. They also made fun of the contents of her lunch-box, which consisted of cornbread and a slice of ham. This affected Velma so much that she would hide from the other children while she ate her lunch.

Velma hated the poverty she and her family lived in and began stealing change from her father’s pockets to enable her to buy candies from the store opposite the school like the other kids. Then, from an elderly neighbor, she stole $80. This enraged her father so much, he took the strap to her and beat her black and blue. She was never known to steal as a child again.

With nine children to support, life in the Bullard family was tough. With so many children, Velma’s mother was often ill and as Velma grew older her mother demanded more and more help of Velma with the house and with the smaller children.

Although Murphy Bullard was tyrannical, he also loved his children and in particular Velma, much to Olive’s, her brother, jealousy. Although money was short, Murphy Bullard would take them out on excursions and teach them to swim and fish in the nearby rivers. He also taught them all to play baseball and would organize games for his children and their friends.

Twice each summer, Velma would be sent to a Presbyterian Bible School.

When Velma was thirteen, the family moved to Robeson County, and Velma enrolled at Parkton Public School. Although no longer achieving the high grades she had enjoyed when younger, Velma did excel at basketball and was chosen to play on the school team. When her mother gave birth to twins, she made Velma quit the team as she needed Velma’s help at home. Velma deeply resented this but did as she was told.

When she was fifteen, Velma began seeing a boy from school, Thomas Burke, who was a year older than she. He was a tall, thin, dark haired boy, and they got along together well. Murphy Bullard forbade them to see each other out of school until she was sixteen, so the young couple had to limit their time together to the playground.

When they did begin to date, it was under strict guidelines set down by her father.

First Marriage

Thomas proposed to hazel-eyed Velma when she was seventeen, and she accepted. Her father was furious but despite her father’s rage, she stood up to him and married Thomas in 1949. They both left high school, and Thomas took work anywhere he could: in a cotton mill, as a farm laborer, and as a delivery truck driver.

Velma gave birth to her first-born son, Ronald Thomas, on December 15th, 1951. She delighted in being a mother and was probably for the first time in her life genuinely happy. On September 3rd, 1953, Velma had her second child, a daughter they named Kim. Thomas and Velma, although poor with only the basics in life, were content. When the children began school, Velma returned to work at a textile plant to bolster the family income. Velma had the night shift. Apart from working, she was also extremely active in the children’s school life. She took an active part in all school activities, was always one of the first to volunteer for chaperoning on school trips, and was an active member of the PTA. She was one of the most popular moms at the school with the children and teachers seeing her as being fun and a terrific sport. Velma was also committed to teaching Ronald and Kim Christian values and regularly escorted them to a Baptist church.

In 1963, Velma’s life changed. She started to have medical problems and underwent a hysterectomy. The operation was successful physically. For many women having a hysterectomy is emotionally difficult, especially when the hysterectomy is carried out during the childbearing years as Velma’s was. Her hormones changed which led to mood swings, hot flashes, temper tantrums, nervousness, and night sweats.

Velma worried that she was less feminine since she could no longer have children even though she and Thomas had not wanted more than two children. She did not want to be a replica of her worn out mother. Following the operation, she was also in a lot of pain especially in the lower back. One of the most common complaints after a hysterectomy is pain. The majority of women following the surgery are given prescription-strength painkillers to help lessen the discomfort and in a short period of time they can then take over-the-counter pain relievers, if needed. Velma found that the over-the-counter painkillers were not strong enough.

With the change in his wife, Thomas began to spend more time out of the house. He joined the United States Junior Chamber more commonly known as the Jaycees. The Jaycees is a private organization that was established in the 1920s to provide opportunities for young men to develop personal and leadership skills through service to others.

Velma resented these meetings as she was left alone in the evenings with the children, and when Thomas began going for drinks with the other men after the meetings finished Velma was furious. Velma was a teetotaler and saw alcohol as the devil’s drink.

When he returned home, noisy arguments would occur and tensions in the house were taut. When Thomas had a car accident in 1965 and suffered a concussion, Velma was convinced it was due to driving after drinking. Thomas vehemently denied the accusation and said he had fallen asleep at the wheel because of tiredness. Unfortunately, as a result of the concussion, he suffered from severe headaches from then on. This caused Thomas to drink more to ease the pain. The tension in the house increased leading to Velma being hospitalized from stress. In the hospital, she was treated with valium. With her already suffering from addiction to painkillers, she also became addicted to valium.

When Velma returned home, she signed up with a few different doctors to collect her prescription drugs. None of the doctors were aware she was seeing other doctors, and so Velma began taking a variety of medications that were not meant to be mixed with each other.

In 1967, Thomas was arrested for drunk driving which led to him losing his driver’s license and, therefore, his job as a delivery driver for Pepsi-Cola. Velma was livid, and Thomas was devastated. He felt ashamed and depressed which had the effect of making him drink more. The children, Ronnie and Kim, no longer felt comfortable inviting their friends to the house because of their father’s drinking and their parents’ arguments. Thomas eventually secured another job at a nearby mill and would get a lift to work with a neighbor.

Not only were the children worried about their father’s drinking but they, as well as Thomas, were concerned about Velma’s pill taking. Sometimes, she would be exceedingly groggy, and her words were slurred as if she was drunk.

In April of 1969, while Velma and the children were out and Thomas was comatose in a chair, the house caught fire. The fire brigade arrived and took Thomas to hospital where he died of smoke inhalation. On learning of her husband’s death, Velma collapsed. Just a few months later, the house burned down again and was destroyed. This time, the house was insured, and Velma and the children moved in with her parents, Murphy and Lillie, while they waited for the insurance check.

Just a few months later, Velma sat intensely proud at her son, Ronnie’s, graduation ceremony. He, having achieved the honor of being the salutatorian, delivered the opening speech of the ceremony. A salutatorian is an American honor given to a graduating student with the second highest academic rank. For his speech, Ronnie gave public praise to his mother and credited Velma for any exceptional qualities he possessed.

Second Marriage

Not too many months after Thomas died; Velma met a widower Jennings Barfield. Jennings had lost his wife around the time that Thomas had died and so when they met they were both feeling fairly lonely. Jennings had taken early retirement due to his health. He suffered from emphysema, diabetes, as well as heart disease. Velma and Jennings married in a church on August 23rd, 1970.

The marriage soon ran into difficulties when Jennings discovered his new wife’s addiction to prescription drugs. Shortly after the wedding, Jennings returned home one day to discover Velma in a semi-conscious state. He took her to the hospital where he was told she had overdosed. Following this, Velma promised Jennings she would cut down in her use of pills but within weeks after leaving the hospital it happened again, and Jennings once again had to take Velma to the emergency department.

Jennings realized he had made a colossal mistake in marrying Velma but before he could divorce her, he died on March 22nd, 1971 from what was attributed to heart complications.

Less than a year after her marriage, Velma was a widow again and seemed inconsolable.

Widowhood

Velma continued taking her pills trying to keep the depression she felt at bay. A sympathetic manager at Belks department store gave her a job. Adding to her depression was her son Ronnie’s draft into the US army who had ordered him to report to Fort Jackson in South Carolina. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and the nation’s youth were being sent to fight a war in a country most had never heard of and for reasons they didn’t fully comprehend.

Velma finally got the sack from her job because of her obvious drug addiction and to top it all off, her house burned down again. Velma was practically hysterical wanting to know why all these dreadful things kept happening to her. Once more, Velma and her daughter moved back in with her parents’, Murphy and Lillie. Shortly after moving back in, her father was diagnosed with lung cancer and died at the age of sixty-one.

In March of 1972, Velma forged a prescription and was arrested. She pled guilty and received a fine and a suspended sentence. Life with her mother was not going well. Her mother was demanding and was constantly complaining about Velma’s pill taking. The two women seemed to quarrel incessantly. Her daughter Kim, meanwhile, had married her boyfriend Dennis and had moved into a trailer home.

Ronnie had been discharged from the army and had married.

In the summer of 1974, Velma’s mother, Lillian, became ill with severe nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting and was hospitalized. The doctor’s put the cause down to a virus, and Lillian returned home.

About two months after this incident, a man who Velma had been dating died in a car accident. He had made Velma the beneficiary of his life insurance, and she received $5,000.

Meanwhile, just before Christmas, Lillian was fretting about a letter she had received from a finance company informing her that a loan was overdue on her car. She had not taken out a loan on her car and was mystified as to why she had received the letter. Her youngest son told her not to worry; it was most probably a bureaucratic mistake.

On December 30th, 1974, just after a large family Christmas, Lillian became ill with the same symptoms she had displayed earlier in the year. Only this time, they were considerably more severe, and she was in agonizing pain. Olive, Velma’s older brother, called for an ambulance, and Velma accompanied her mother to Fayetteville’s Cape Fear Valley Hospital. Lillian died two hours after arriving at the hospital. An autopsy was performed after obtaining permission from the family including Velma, but the doctors were unable to diagnose Lillian’s fatal illness. No toxicological screenings were carried out.

In 1975, Velma was arrested for writing fraudulent checks. The judge sentenced her to prison for six months, but she served only three. When she was released, she stayed with her daughter Kim whilst looking for work. Velma was still heavily addicted to pills which concerned Kim greatly; she visited Velma's doctors urging them to stop prescribing pills for her mother, all to no avail.

In 1976, Velma got a job looking after an elderly couple, Montgomery and Dollie Edwards, in their comfortable, brick, ranch house in Lumberton. The Edwards’ agreed to pay Velma $75 a week, in addition to room and board. Montgomery was an incontinent bedridden ninety-four-year-old. Both of his legs had been amputated, and he was blind. Dollie was eighty-four and a cancer survivor who was in far better shape than her husband. Velma, still a regular church goer, began attending the First Pentecostal Church near the Edwards’ house. During Velma’s stay at the Edwards’ house, she met Dollie’s nephew, Stuart Taylor, on several occasions. He told Velma he was in the midst of a divorce.

Montgomery died in January of 1977, and Velma stayed on to help Dollie. The two women began to argue. Dollie complaining that Velma was neglecting things around the house. Velma would retort that Dollie was a demanding nag. In February, Dollie became ill with the identical symptoms as Velma’s mother had: vomiting, diarrhea, and excruciating pains. When Dollie’s stepson, Preston Edwards, stopped by to visit on February 26th, he was appalled at her condition and telephoned for an ambulance. She was taken to the emergency room, treated, and then sent back home. The following day, she became ill again and on the 29th of February she was taken back to the hospital and died.

Velma was once again homeless and out of work. She soon, however, found herself a new caretaking job. This job was also with an elderly couple, John Henry Lee who was eighty, and his seventy-six-year-old wife, Record. John Henry and Record lived in a rural area in a brick house just outside Lumberton, North Carolina known as the halfway point between Florida and New York. This was convenient for Velma as her son Ronnie Burke, now twenty-six-years-old, his wife, and three-year-old son lived in a duplex on the outskirts of Lumberton.

The Lee’s paid Velma $50 a week, room and board and allowed Velma to have Sunday and Wednesday evenings free to attend church services. Record had recently broken her leg and was the one in need of help from Velma. While looking after Record, Velma began forging Record’s signature on checks. When John discovered that someone had been forging Record’s signature, neither he nor Record could think of who would do such a thing. He wanted to call in the police.

But then in April of 1977, John became ill. He was suffering from acute stomach pains accompanied by diarrhea and vomiting. Velma nursed him and as his condition worsened she called an ambulance. After a few days in hospital, he began to recover and returned home on May 2nd. The doctors diagnosed a virus.

Within days of returning home, John became ill again suffering from the same symptoms. His daughters and Record were immensely grateful for the amount of care Velma was giving to John, but his health continued to deteriorate and, once again, Velma called for an ambulance. John died in the hospital on June 4th from what the doctors diagnosed as "a severe stomach virus.”

Velma attended the funeral offering comfort to Record’s and John’s daughters.

A New Love!

While working for the Lee’s, Velma had started seeing on a regular basis Rowland Stuart Taylor, the nephew of her previous employer Dollie Edwards. Following John Lee’s death, Velma moved in with Rowland in the autumn of 1977.

Rowland was a big, healthy, fifty-six-year-old widower and tobacco farmer. He lived in a large, steeple-topped, white farmhouse in St. Pauls and had two grown up children: Billy and Alice. Within a short amount of time Velma, as she had done with her previous employees, began to forge checks on Rowland’s account to pay for her addiction to prescription pills. Velma lived in constant fear that Rowland would find out. When she thought he had become suspicious, shortly before they set out to attend a revival meeting in Fayetteville where the respected evangelist Rex Humbard was giving a talk, she mixed rat poison containing arsenic into his beer.

During the meeting, Rowland began to feel ill and left the meeting hall clutching his stomach in agony. Velma followed him, helped Rowland into the truck, and drove him home. During the night, Rowland was in too much pain to sleep. The following morning, Velma phoned Rowland’s pregnant daughter, Alice, to tell her of her father’s illness. During the conversation, they both concurred that it was probably just the flu.

Rowland’s condition worsened throughout the day and finally Velma drove him to Southeastern General Hospital in Lumberton. Here, Rowland’s children Billy and Alice joined them. The doctor on duty diagnosed gastritis, prescribed some medicine, and told Velma she could take Rowland home that night.

Back home over the next couple of day’s Rowland appeared to be getting better, much to Billy and Alice’s relief. He had started sitting up in bed, and his stomach pains were easing but then all of a sudden he took a turn for the worse. He was raked with agonizing pain and was incessantly vomiting and suffering from diarrhea. Velma called for an ambulance and alerted Billy and Alice. Within an hour of arriving at the hospital, on February 3rd, 1978, Rowland was dead.

The doctor’s were puzzled by Rowland’s death and asked permission from Billy and Alice to hold an autopsy. Billy and Alice agreed.

Velma and her son Ronnie sat with Rowland’s grieving family at his funeral. Velma sat comforting Alice and tried consoling her by saying, “He’s in a far better place now.”

Velma, following Rowland’s death, moved in with an elderly citizen, Mamie Warwick, who in exchange for help around the house allowed Velma to live rent-free.

Meanwhile, the Lumberton Police had received an anonymous tip-off that Velma had poisoned Rowland and others, as well. The police began an investigation. They first contacted the hospital and asked to be kept informed of the results of the autopsy. They then began looking into Velma’s background.

The autopsy tests were finally completed, and the conclusion was that the cause of Rowland’s Taylor's death was arsenic poisoning.

Velma Barfield was arrested for Rowland’s Taylor's murder. During questioning, she admitted to murdering her mother Lillian Bullard and two people she cared for: Dollie Edwards and John Henry Lee. She denied murdering Rowland saying she only “meant to make him sick.”

For Velma’s children, especially Ronnie, it was a terrible shock. Their mother, who had clothed and fed them, bandaged their cuts, wiped their runny noses, helped them so much with her support when they had been at school, and had conscientiously escorted them to church, and taught them right from wrong was the poisoner of four people.

The case was quickly picked up by the newspapers and TV stations, and a media circus began adding to the agony of Velma’s children.

Trial

Velma’s trial was booked to take place at the Robeson County Court, North Carolina but because of all the pretrial publicity, it was moved to an adjoining county. The trial began in the autumn of 1978, in Elizabethtown, North Carolina. She was being tried solely for the first degree murder of Rowland Stewart Taylor.

The prosecutor, Joe Britt, had become known as the “world’s deadliest prosecutor." He was a passionate advocate of the death penalty. During a seventeen month period in which he had prosecuted thirteen murder trials, he had won the death penalty in all; a record in court circles which attracted Newsweek to write an article about him. He was determined to win the death sentence for Velma, as well.

Velma's lawyer, Bob Jacobson, had never before tried a capital punishment penalty case. He had the difficult task of trying to get a lesser charge for Velma of second-degree murder and then the death sentence would not be an issue. The defense claimed that Velma had only meant to make Rowland ill so she would buy time to repay the funds she had stolen from him without him realizing she had done so and that her thinking was badly impaired by her long-term addiction to prescription drugs.

The prosecutor argued to the judge that because the information about her other victims was crucial to showing her intent in the case of Rowland Taylor, it should be admitted as evidence. The defense argued that this was prejudicial as Velma was being tried solely for Taylor’s death. The Judge, Henry A. McKinnon, decided that the evidence connecting Velma Barfield to the deaths of Dottie Edwards, John Lee, and Lillie Bullard, her mother, should be admitted.

As soon as the Judge made this, ruling Bob Jacobson knew Velma and he were in trouble, and he made the decision to let Velma take the stand to explain her muddled thought process to the court. Under direct examination from him, she explained that she had put poison in Rowland’s drinks to make him ill, but she had not intended him to die. Velma said she didn’t tell the doctors at the hospital about the poison as she was frightened of being sent back to prison. Bob Jacobson also brought up her substantial use of a large variety of prescription drugs. Velma did not deny forging checks. She explained that she did this because of her addiction to drugs which she could not afford on her own earnings.

Bob Jacobson also called medical witnesses to court to testify that the combination of drugs Velma was taking was extremely dangerous and would deeply have impaired her thinking.

The prosecutor, Joe Britt, had no hesitation in being brutal with Velma. He was determined that the jury would see her as a heartless, cold killer who pretended to be a pious Christian and a sweet little old lady. His strategy worked, and he demolished Velma’s attempts at remaining composed. Her arrogance, anger, and lack of remorse showed during cross-examination. Velma argued that it was old age, not her poison, which had killed everyone.

What truly put the nail in Velma’s coffin was at the end of the closing speech by Joe Britt, Velma pretended to clap silently. Joe Britt was delighted with her gesture. He felt that it showed her sarcasm and contempt for the court and that Velma had in that action signed her own capital sentence. Throughout her trial, Velma had continued to be prescribed prescription drugs.

The jury found Velma guilty of murder in the first degree of Rowland Taylor in less than an hour of deliberations. Later that day, a sentencing hearing was held before the same jury to determine if Velma’s sentence on the murder conviction would be death or life imprisonment. The jury recommended that Velma be sentenced to death on the grounds that the murder of Rowland Taylor:

(1) Was committed for pecuniary gain.

(2) Was committed to hinder the enforcement of the law.

(3) Was especially heinous, atrocious, and cruel.

Judge McKinnon upheld the Jury’s decision and sentenced Velma, at the age of forty-seven, to death to be carried out on 02/03/1979.

Death Row

When Velma was sentenced, she was the only female in North Carolina awaiting execution. She was placed in the Correctional Center for Women in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the section kept for inmates with mental problems and prisoners thought to be escape risks. Her first days in the prison she spent going through severe drug withdrawal. Velma suffered all the normal symptoms such as loss of appetite, cold sweats, nausea, splitting headaches, and insomnia. The doctor treating her gave her a combination of anti-anxiety and anti-depressant medications and over the course of a year he weaned her off of those.

Velma, as much as she possibly could, made her prison cell as comfortable as possible with photographs of her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, and decorations that she would crochet. Her two children visited as often as they could and occasionally brought her grandchildren with them when Velma would give hen dolls she had crocheted for them.

Velma, during her time on death row, became a born again Christian. Her radio was normally switched to receive Christian programs. She also vehemently expressed remorse for the years the prescription drugs had blurred her judgment. Her newly found conversion was met with skepticism by the relatives of her victims and by many others, in particular the prosecutor Joe Britt.

Many people, however, were impressed by Velma’s declaration that, for the first time in her life, she had properly found God. A Pentecostal minister, Tommy Fuquay, thought that Velma was a true, devout Christian. The famous evangelists Billy Graham along with his wife Ruth believed Velma Barfield was a real sister in Jesus. Ruth Graham corresponded frequently with Velma through letters in the mail.

Appeals are automatic in death sentences, and Velma’s appeals carried on for the next six years through various courts to spare her life. Several appeals were filed and turned down; several execution dates were set and avoided. While all the legal wrangling was going on Velma found a calling in her restricted life by aiding other prisoners. Velma was shocked to find out how many prisoners were illiterate and would write letters for them. Letter writing for herself and others consumed much of Velma’s time. She wrote to her family and to supporters she had never met. Special prison rules were applied to Velma due to her death sentence status. She was not meant to have contact with other prisoners. The prison authorities, however, frequently ignored this rule as they found Velma was a positive and beneficial influence on the other female prisoners. She led Bible classes and counseled troubled female prisoners; a skill, both she and the prison authorities, realized in which she was exceptionally proficient.

One of the many stay’s of execution over six years.

Velma, also with a pastor, worked on her autobiography, Woman on Death Row.

Finally, as her appeals were running out, all having being denied, Velma wrote to Governor Jim Hunt. She argued that her born-again Christian faith should be considered as a mitigating factor for commuting her sentence to life in prison. Governor Hunt denied her requests for clemency, unimpressed by her religious conversion.

Velma during one of her last media interviews

Execution

Velma’s new execution date was scheduled for the 2nd of November in 1984 at 2.00 a.m. at the Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C. four days after her fifty-second birthday. She spoke on the phone the day before her death to close family and friends, which included Billy Graham and his daughter Anne Graham Lotz, who told her to think of it as the “gateway to heaven.” She also received final visits from family and told them that, ''when I go into that gas chamber at 2 a.m., it's my gateway to heaven.''

Velma refused her last meal and only asked a guard for Cheeze Doodles and a Coca-Cola.

Velma was allowed to choose between two methods of execution: lethal injection or lethal gas. She chose injection.

In her cell, Velma took a final communion. She was then prepared for her death. She was made to wear an adult diaper before she was allowed to dress in clothes of her choice. She chose to wear pretty pink pajamas with embroidered flowers, which covered her gentle, rounded figure. When dressed, she checked her hair in the mirror.

Guards then took her to a preparation room where she was asked if she had anything to say. She did. Velma wanted to apologize for all the hurt that she had caused and to thank everybody who had supported her for the past six years. She thanked her family for standing by her, and her lawyers and the prison department for their kindness.

She was then asked to lie down on an operating trolley (gurney) to which she was secured with straps and ankle and wrist restraints. A stethoscope and heart monitor were then taped to her chest.

North Carolina Execution Chamber

Needles connected to IV leads were inserted into her arms, and a saline drip was started before the guards wheeled Velma into the execution chamber shortly before 2.00 a.m.

Inside the confines of the prison walls, the other inmates began banging on the Plexiglas windows of their cells. Outside the prison walls, crowds gathered. Supporters of Velma’s and opponents of the death penalty held lighted candles while humming Velma’s best-loved hymn “Amazing Grace,” while those supporting the death penalty were in a jovial mood, waving their placards in the air that contained slogans such as, “Velma’s going to hell,” and, “Good-Bye Velma and good-riddance,” and they chanted against the gently, humming of “Amazing Grace:” “Die, die bitch, die, die bitch!”

Some of the protestors outside the prison

In the execution chamber, three syringes were attached to each of the IV lines into Velma, and these were operated by three volunteers. One of the IV lines was a dummy so that none of the three volunteers could claim he had actually killed her. Velma first received medication to make her sleep, followed by a poison, pancuronium bromide, to stop her heart.

As she lay on her death bed, she was asked to start counting backwards from one hundred. Velma obeyed until her voice sank slurring into muteness. On November 2nd, 1984, at 2:15 a.m., Velma Barfield was pronounced dead. Velma was the first woman to be executed in America since 1962 and the first woman to be executed since the re-introduction of the death penalty in 1976. She was also the first woman to be executed by lethal injection.

Following the execution, Velma’s body was taken away by a waiting ambulance for burial. She was buried next to her first husband and father of her children in the Parkton Cemetery, Parkton Robeson County, North Carolina. At the funeral, her son Ronnie broke down, cried, and begged her forgiveness for not having done more to save her.

JUDIAS "JUDY" BUENOANO

The Black Widow

Judy Buenoano was born as Judias Welty on April 4th 1943, in Quanah, a small town two-hundred miles northwest of Dallas, Texas. Her father was an itinerant farm worker and her mother, after whom she was named, died of TB when she was just two-years-old. Following the tragic death of her mother, the family disintegrated. Her two older siblings were adopted, and Judy and her baby brother Robert spent their early years with various relatives and foster families in Oklahoma and Texas.

Many years later, Judy told a federal judge that she was physically abused in some homes and sexually abused in others. At the age of ten, she returned home to her father in Roswell, New Mexico and his new wife. Life with her father and new wife was hard. She claimed that they beat her, burned her with cigarettes, used her for slave labor around the house, and starved her.

In 1957, at the age of fourteen, her anger at her treatment exploded. She threw burning hot oil on two of her stepbrothers, badly scalded them, and physically attacked her father and stepmother with any object she could put her hands on.

She was sent to prison for sixty days. At the end of the sixty days rather than return home, she instead chose a girl’s reformatory school in Albuquerque. Here, she stayed until her graduation in 1959, at the age of sixteen.

In 1960, she was living back in Roswell using the name Anna Schultz and found work as a nursing assistant. In March of 1961, when she was seventeen, she became pregnant and had an illegitimate son she named Michael.

A few months later, she met James Goodyear, an air force sergeant. They married on January 21st, 1962, and James formally adopted Michael. Four years after the wedding, on January 16th, 1966, they had a son James, Jr. Their first daughter, Kimberly, was born in 1967. By this time, the family had moved to Orlando, Florida. Here, Judias opened a Child Care Center called Conway Acres. James, as an air force officer, was often away from home. This included a year long stint in Vietnam. Judias had taken out three life insurance policies out on James in the event of anything happening to him. On his return from Vietnam, James became ill and was taken to the Orlando U.S. Naval Hospital. He passed away on September 15th, 1971 from symptoms doctors never quite identified. Judias waited for five days before cashing in his life insurance policies.

Later on in the year, their family home in Orlando caught fire, and Judias received $90,000 in fire insurance. Following the fire, Judias moved the family to the historic beach city of Pensacola in northwest Florida. Here, the 5ft 7in tall, hazel-eyed and brown haired widow began dating Bobby Joe Morris.

Her first-born son Michael began to be a problem. At school, he scored low in school IQ tests and was troublesome. Judias had him fostered.

Bobby Joe was originally from Trinidad, Colorado, and moved back there in 1977 inviting Judias and her children to live there with him. Shortly before she moved to Trinidad to be with Bobby Joe, her home in Pensacola caught fire. She collected the fire insurance money and moved the family to Colorado in time for Christmas, after having removed Michael from foster care.

Judias, Michael, James, and Kimberly settled into Bobby Joe’s house. On January 4th, 1978, Bobby Joe suddenly became ill and was taken to San Rafael Hospital. The doctors at the hospital were unable to explain his sudden, inexplicable illness, and he was released home on January 21st. On January 23rd, during a family meal, Bobby Joe collapsed at the dinner table and an ambulance was called which rushed him back to the San Rafael Hospital. He passed away on January 28th. The doctors attributed his death to metabolic acidosis and cardiac arrest.

In February of 1978, Judias cashed in three life insurance policies on Bobby Joe.

Judias, following Bobby Joe’s funeral, changed her and the children’s surnames to Buenoano, which in Spanish means Goodyear. She then moved the family back to Pensacola settling into the suburb of Gulf Breeze, one of the most popular areas in Pensacola which is surrounded by water on three sides.

Michael continued to be a problem for Judias. In his sophomore year, he dropped out of high school and then in June of 1979 joined the army. Michael underwent basic training and was then assigned to Ft. Benning, Georgia.

After Michael’s basic training was finished, he went to stay with his mother before going to Fort Benning on November 6th. When he arrived at Fort Benning, at the age of nineteen, he was found shortly after arrival to be showing signs of base metal poisoning. The military doctors found seven times the normal amount of arsenic in Michael’s body. Doctors were at a loss to explain the presence of arsenic nor were they able to undo its destructive action.

He was sent to Walter Reed Hospital for three months for physical therapy treatment and then sent to a Veterans' Hospital in Tampa for occupational rehabilitation and physical therapy. A degeneration of nerves had left Michael with no muscle or nerve function below his elbows and knees. Michael could neither use his hands nor walk.

On May 12, 1980, Michael was transferred to his mother’s care to continue his treatment in Pensacola. His doctor, Dr. Barry, warned Judias and Michael that he might never regain proper function of his legs and arms. Judias and Michael were also warned that if he were to go boating safety provisions should be put in place, as he would be unable to save himself if an accident occurred.

Michael left the hospital wearing leg braces that weighed 3 1/2 pounds each and to enable him to hold onto objects, a Robbins hook was placed on his right arm weighing two pounds.

The day after Michael’s home coming, Judias took her fourteen-year-old son James and Michael out on a canoe on the East River in Santa Rosa County. In the middle of the canoe, Judias had placed a folding camp chair for Michel to sit wearing his leg braces, Robbins hook, and leather shoes. The canoe capsized. In a statement, Judias claimed that a snake had fallen into the canoe and while she was trying to deal with the snake, the canoe overturned. In the overturning of the canoe, James hit his head and became unconscious. Judias managed to rescue James from under the over-turned canoe but was unable to rescue Michael as his body, with the weight of the braces, was too heavy.

A fisherman, Ricky Hicks, who phoned the sheriff’s office, rescued Judias and James from the river. The sheriff and recue divers arrived on the scene and eventually recovered Michael’s brace-laden body.

Judias received $20,000 from her son’s army life insurance and two other amounts from other life insurance policies she had taken out on Michael.

Following Michael’s funeral, Judias opened a beauty parlor in Gulf Breeze. She also began dating a businessman, John Gentry. In October of 1982, John and Judias became engaged and at Judias insistence took out $50,000 life insurance policies on one another. Without John’s knowledge, Judias upped John’s policy to the much higher value of $500,000. In December of 1982, Judias began giving John vitamin pills. On December 16th, John was admitted to the hospital suffering from dizziness and vomiting. He remained in the hospital for twelve days.

The following June, Judias told John she was expecting his child. She asked him to drive to the liquor store to buy some champagne so they could celebrate the good news. John never made it to the liquor store. John got into his car, turned the ignition key, and a bomb exploded.

Ambulances rushed the seriously injured John to the hospital where surgeons succeeded in saving his life.

The police began investigating the car bombing. During their investigation, they learned about the life insurance policies. They also learned that Judias had been telling friends since November of 1982 that John had a terminal illness, that she had recently booked a world cruise for her two children and herself, and that she was not pregnant.

When doctors finally allowed the police to question John, they informed him of these things. John was horrified to discover these truths, and it made him think of the vitamin pills Judias had been feeding to him the previous December. He told the police about the pills, and they had them analyzed. They were found to contain arsenic.

The police obtained a search warrant and searched Judias’ house. Here, they found the tape and wire that matched what remained of the bomb found in John's car. Judias was arrested for the attempted murder of John Gentry. Her lawyer managed to get her out on bail while awaiting trial.

The police then exhumed the bodies of her first husband James Goodyear and her son Michael Goodyear. The police also alerted the police department in Trinidad, Colorado, who exhumed the body of Bobby Joe Morris. All three bodies were found to contain traces of arsenic.

On the eleventh of January in 1984, Judias was arrested again: this time for the murder of her son Michael and for grand theft of life insurance.

The murder trial for Michael’s death began on March 22nd. The prosecution alleged that she took her partially paralyzed 19-year-old son up the river in a canoe and pushed him out with 15 pounds of braces on his legs and without a life jacket. The jury found Judias to be guilty on all counts.

On June 6th, 1984, Judias was sentenced to life imprisonment with no parole prospects for twenty-five years.

On October 15th, 1984, Judias went on trial for the attempted murder of John Gentry II. The trial lasted three days, and the jury took less than two hours to find her guilty. The judge sentenced her to twelve years.

On October 22nd, 1985, Judias stood trial for the murder of her husband James Goodyear. The trial lasted a week and ended with the jury finding her guilty.

On November 16th, 1985, Judias stood with chains around her waist, wrists, and ankles and sobbed to Judge Emerson Thompson Jr., ''I didn't ever kill anybody, Judge Thompson. I ask the court to spare my life. I just ask you for mercy''.

Judge Thompson followed the majority recommendation of the jury that Judias die for the unlawful murder of James Goodyear. He said to Judias, ''On the day designated, the death warrant authorizing the execution shall be read to you immediately before execution, and you shall then be electrocuted until you are dead. May God have mercy on your immortal soul''.

In the rare chance that she would be freed, the Colorado authorities were ready to prosecute her for the killing of Bobby Morris.

Throughout all three trials, Judias proclaimed her innocence.

Following her sentencing, Judias was transferred to Death Row at the Broward Correctional Center. Here in a 6ft x 9ft x 9.5ft cell, she spent the next thirteen years proclaiming her innocence and appealing her sentence. Prisoners on death row are allowed visitors every weekend between 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. They are escorted everywhere in handcuffs and counted at least once an hour. They are allowed cigarettes, snacks, black and white televisions, and radios in their cells. The death row prisoners are kept in their cells almost 24 hours a day and only allowed out for showers, exercise, medical reasons, social visits, legal visits, or authority granted media interviews. They are all dressed in orange t-shirts and blue pants. It is a brutal regime. Judias spent her time crocheting baby clothes and blankets and maintaining her innocence.

Judias’ execution date was finally set for March 30th, 1998 at 7.00 a.m. Judias had said of the electric chair that it was, "barbaric.... It belongs in Frankenstein's laboratory”.

Judias’ final appeal was turned down on March 29th, 1998, and Lawton Chiles, the state Governor, signed her death warrant.

All executions in the state of Florida are conducted at the Penitentiary in Starke. Before the year 2000, all executions were by the electric chair. Prisoners built the three-legged oak chair in 1923. On May 4th, 1990, during the execution of Jesse Tafero, smoke and foot-long flames spurted from his head.

A similar scene happened in March of 1997, when a prisoner, Pedro Medina, was electrocuted. During this electrocution, smoke and a foot long high flame erupted from the headpiece atop of Pedro’s head, and the death chamber was filled with smoke. Pedro Medina’s body was also mutilated by the electrocution. Florida state officials were forced to examine whether using the electric chair was a cruel and unusual punishment. Later, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the chair was not a cruel or unusual punishment.

Judias was the next inmate scheduled to be electrocuted in the chair after Pedro Medina.

Judias’s daughter, Kimberly, who was sixteen when her mother was arrested, begged Florida lawmakers to allow her mother to be executed by lethal injection instead of the chair.  She said, "I'm fixing to watch my mom die in the electric chair. People have burned alive in it. I don't want to see her burned alive in it. I accept the punishment that she has to die, but we can choose a better way for her to die”.

Kimberly Buenoano's, then 30 and a married mother, believed her mother to be innocent. She said, "I love her letters. They cheer me up”.

Judias’s son James said; “My mother has always taken care of and looked after people. She's not angry. She's ready to die. She would rather die than spend the rest of her life in prison”.

James, like his sister, believed his mother was innocent in all cases. He felt that she was a victim of overzealous prosecutors, an unjust system, and incompetent lawyers.

A few days before her execution, after her move to Starke, Judias gave a televised interview in which she said; "I would like to clear the record for my grandson. I would like for him to know that his grandmother was not a murderer. I have eternal security, and I know that when I die I will go straight to heaven, and I will see Jesus. I'm ready to go home."

Judias also said that she wanted to be remembered as a good mother. She adamantly maintained her son's drowning was an accident.

Judias spent her last day alive with her children Kimberly and James, a few other relatives, religious advisers, and legal advisers.

The following morning at 4:30 a.m., Judias showered and got dressed. A spot on her head was then shaved to allow the highest electrical conductivity and to ensure that her hair would not catch alight during the electrocution. For her last meal, she ordered asparagus, broccoli, hot tea, and strawberries.

Judias, at the age of 54, at 7:00 a.m. barely able to walk due to fear, entered the execution chamber. The guards strapped Judias’s frail looking body down into the chair with eight leather straps. Electrodes were fitted to her head and to the calves of her leg each containing a moistened sponge to minimize any burning of the flesh. When asked if she had something final to say, she simply stated “No, sir”. Judias squeezed her eyes tightly shut and did not look at the forty-six witnesses through the glass partition. The guards placed a mask made of leather over her head and face, and the electrocution began. Five minutes later, as smoke arose from her bare right leg, officials pronounced her dead.

DOROTHEA HELEN PUENTE-

SOCIAL WORKER’S SAVIOR!!

Dorothea Helen Puente, nee Gray, was born in Redlands, California on January 9th, 1929. Her parents Jesse James Gray and Trudy Mae Yates were cotton pickers, and Dorothea was their sixth child. Her father became terminally ill shortly after her birth and was in and out of hospital. Trudy Yates turned to drink and prostitution.

For the children, it was a living nightmare. Her father would suffer from serious suicidal depression and would threaten to kill himself in front of the children. In 1937, when Dorothea was eight years old, her father died of tuberculosis, and the mother’s drinking spiraled out of control. She would often disappear for days leaving the children to fend for themselves. Social Services finally intervened in February of 1938. Dorothea and two other siblings were sent to an orphanage, the Church of Christ Home in Ontario, California until relatives from Fresno, California, took her in. While at the orphanage, Dorothea was sexually abused. They lived at the orphanage until Dorothea’s eldest brother James and his wife Louise took them to live with them. In 1938, her mother died in a motorcycle accident.

When she was older, Dorothea lied about her childhood, saying that she was one of three children who were born and raised in Mexico. She lied rather than admit the truth of her appalling childhood, and lying became second nature to her. She claimed at one point in her life that she had been an American prisoner of war during the Second World War, had survived the infamous Bataan Death March (at the age of 13), and had witnessed the Hiroshima bombing. She also had claimed to others that the Swedish ambassador was her brother and that Rita Hayworth, the Hollywood actress, was a close acquaintance. These were just a few of the many fabrications she made up about her life.

In 1945 when Dorothea was sixteen and a particularly attractive girl, she married twenty-two-year-old Fred McFaul, a soldier who had just returned from the Philippines. The marriage produced two daughters. One daughter went to live with Fred’s mother, and the other she had adopted. In 1948, Dorothea had a miscarriage. Shortly after this, her husband, much to her humiliation, left her. Fred had become weary of Dorothea’s constant lies and fabrications and her expensive tastes in clothes and silk stockings. Rather than admit the truth, Dorothea lied to friends and family that he had died of a heart attack.

Dorothea, now single, attempted to forge checks to help fund her expensive taste in clothes and silk stockings. This career move was not a success as she was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison. After six months, she was paroled, became pregnant by a man she hardly knew, and gave birth to a daughter whom she gave up for adoption. In 1952, Dorothea married Axel Johanson, a Swedish merchant seaman. This was the beginning of a turbulent 14-year marriage. Axel would be away at sea for long periods of time and on many occasions when he came home he would find other men residing with Dorothea. Axel and his wife would then fight, separate, and then make up in a pattern that lasted throughout their marriage.

In 1960, Dorothea was arrested for prostitution in a downtown, seedy, Sacramento house of ill repute and was sentenced to 90 days in the Sacramento County Jail. Following her release, she was arrested for vagrancy and sentenced to another 90 days in jail. Following her release from her second 90 days Dorothea found work as a nurse's aide, caring for disabled and elderly people in private homes.

In 1966, Dorothea divorced Axel Johansen. On February 23, 1968 when Dorothea was thirty-nine, she married a man nineteen years her junior, Roberto Puente. The marriage barely lasted two years. Following the marriage, she began operating "The Samaritans,” a half-way house for alcoholics. Dorothea was married for the fourth and last time in 1976, at the age of 47, to Pedro Angel Montalvo, one of her tenants. Pedro was a 51-year-old laborer from Puerto Rico. This marriage lasted only a few months. He soon became unhappy with Dorothea’s spending and incessant lying. They had married in Reno, Nevada; on the wedding certificate, she had written her father’s name down as Jesus Sahagun and her mother’s maiden name as Puente. Dorothea had told him that she was a Mexican doctor and that she owned property in Mexico. After a month, he walked out on her but like her earlier marriage to Axel Johanson, they would argue, separate, and make up, a pattern that continued even after the divorce. The halfway house closed down after she accrued a $10,000 debt on the business and was found to have forged thirty-four checks she had taken from her alcoholic tenants. Dorothea was sentenced to five years probation. The judge also ruled that she should receive counseling; one psychiatrist who examined Dorothea thought that she was schizophrenic and in his opinion a "highly disturbed woman." While on probation, she continued to commit the same fraud by spending time in local bars looking for older men who were receiving benefits. She would then forge their signatures and steal their money. On occasion, she would drug their drinks and fleece them for what she possibly could.

Dorothea took over a three-story, spacious, 16-bedroom care home at 2100 F Street in Sacramento, California. The neighborhood had, at one time, been the fashionable area of the state capital. Just two blocks away stood the former governor's enormous mansion. Since then, the area had depreciated and many of the once-fine and luxurious homes were now flophouses or boarded up. Here, Dorothea took in elderly and mentally disabled boarders and stole their social security checks. Sometimes she had as many as 30 boarders. Dorothea projected to her neighbors’ an air of respectability and of a hard-working landlady. Her house was clean with well-polished floors and efficiently well run.

In late 1981, when Dorothy dressed to the nines and in her high heel shoes, dropped into one of her regular watering-holes the “Round Corner” she befriended Harold Munroe and his wife Ruth. During the course of the ensuing conversation, Ruth told Dorothea that she was seeking employment. Dorothea inquired whether she might be interested in investing in a restaurant with her. Dorothea explained that the owner of the “Round Corner” wanted to rent out the restaurant part of his bar at lunchtimes. Dorothea had said she wanted to take it over but needed a partner who could drive, as she didn’t. Ruth was excited and at the age of sixty-one said she wanted a new challenge. After hours of discussion, they agreed to go into business. Dorothea would run the kitchen, and Ruth would take care of handling supplies and transportation. Ruth withdrew the funds for her share of the partnership and handed it over to Dorothea.

Dorothea worked hard in the restaurant every day at lunchtime but within a short amount of time told Ruth that more funding was needed. Ruth handed over thousands of dollars to Dorothea. Ruth was distracted from the business as her husband Harold had become seriously ill. Early in 1982, Harold was diagnosed with terminal cancer and was confined to a hospital. Dorothea generously offered to let Ruth come and stay in her boarding house for free rather than fret at home on her own. Ruth leapt at the offer and on April 11th, 1982, with the help of her son’s, moved into Dorothea’s house. Just two weeks later, Ruth Monroe became sick with a mysterious illness. Her children came to visit her and were aghast at her appearance. Dorothea reassured them that she would take excellent care of their mother, telling them that she used to be a nurse. Then Dorothea, on the morning of April the 28th, phoned them to tell them their mother had died. The coroner’s report put the cause of death as an overdose of codeine and acetaminophen and judged the death a suicide.

The children were upset and could not believe their mother would commit suicide. They became even more suspicious when they discovered that Ruth’s bank accounts had been emptied and that a large quantity of her jewelry was missing.

Meanwhile, Dorothea’s other illegal activities had caught up with her and, in 1982, she was convicted of three counts of theft and sentenced to five years in the California Institution for Women at Frontera. One elderly man related to the court how she had drugged him, then ransacked his home, stealing his valuables, as he observed so stupefied he was unable to move or speak.

When Ruth’s children read of Dorothea’s arrest, they contacted the police and requested that they investigate their mother’s death. The investigation went nowhere, and the file, much to the frustration of Ruth Munroe’s children, just gathered dust.

While in prison, Dorothea started a correspondence with Everson Gillmouth, a seventy-seven-year-old man from Oregon. After serving three years, she was released on parole in 1985. Part of her parole conditions were that she was forbidden to have contact with the elderly and prohibited from handling government payments of any description that were issued to others. On her release, Everson was sitting outside the prison in a red 1980 Ford pickup truck waiting for her. He had left Oregon, telling his sister that he was going to marry Dorothea, and he had even gone so far as to make Dorothea a signatory on his bank account.

Everson drove Dorothea to 1426 F Street, a blue and white two-story house. This was a house owned by Ricardo Ordorica, who she had become friends with when she ran her large boarding house. Ricardo and his wife visited Dorothea in prison and offered her the top apartment in his house on her release.

Dorothea and Everson moved into the apartment. Before long, Ricardo and his wife and children moved out of the first story into larger accommodations. Dorothea then took over renting the entire house. She began to renovate the first story to rent out to boarders. In November of 1985, she hired an ex-felon, Ismael Florez, from a halfway house to install some wood paneling in the apartment. Dorothea paid him $800 and gave him a red 1980 Ford pickup which she said her ex-boyfriend from Los Angeles no longer needed. Dorothea also requested that Ismael make her a 6 feet by 3 feet by 2 feet box for storage. A week later, Dorothea called Ismael and asked him to help her deliver the heavy and nailed-shut box to a storage depot. Dorothea sat beside Ismael in the truck and issued directions. As they were driving along in Sutter County, by the side of the Sacramento River, Dorothea told Ismael to pull over and unload the box “of junk,” as she called it on the river bank in an unauthorized household dumping site. The box sat there on the riverbank until early1986, when it was eventually found by a fisherman. Upon opening the box, it was found to contain a rotting corpse which was subsequently removed to the nearest city morgue. The corpse remained unidentified for three long years.

Once Dorothea had the first story renovated, she set up her boarding business, in complete violation of her parole conditions. She networked and contacted social services to let them know she was willing to take in “difficult boarders,” the ones no one else were willing to take, the ones who needed a room and care. Many boarding houses refused to take people with alcohol problems or the mentally ill and for overworked and underpaid social workers, this could be a nightmare trying to accommodate such people. Within a short period of time, Dorothea had social workers calling on her asking her to house their homeless clients. Dorothea neglected to inform the social workers about her five prior convictions for doping and stealing from the elderly, and the social workers failed to conduct any checks on her.

The social workers who called saw that Dorothea had a fresh, clean house and didn’t mind taking in the “difficult ones.” She appeared to be a respectable woman in her late fifties, but who looked closer to seventy, with her white hair and print dresses and apron. The house seemed homely, and there were always delightful aromas of homemade smells emanating from the kitchen. The garden was neat and well-tended with a vegetable patch. The boarders, for a fee of $350 a month, lived downstairs in their own private rooms equipped with televisions and were provided with two hot meals a day: breakfast and dinner. They were only allowed to venture upstairs to Dorothea’s quarters for meals.

The fact that her apartment was separate from the boarders is probably why the parole officers that checked on Dorothea failed to realize what she was up to. When they called, she charmed them and made them cups of tea and homemade cakes, and it looked as if she was living in a small two bed-roomed apartment by herself.

To her neighbors, she seemed like a harmless, hard-working widow and small-time socialite. She attended church regularly in smartly tailored clothes and helped out at various charitable events. She was a supporter of the Mexican-American youth association and the police officers’ association.

Every day, Dorothea would rise at five in the morning and at the first light, she would be watering and sweeping her garden. She would have a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and pancakes on the table for her boarders at six. If any of the boarders needed medication, she would ensure they took it. She would meticulously jot down her boarders’ appointments with doctors, dentists, and social workers and made sure they kept their appointments. For the social workers, she seemed like a godsend. Dorothea served dinner at 4.30 sharp. The other rules that Dorothea was extremely strict about was that no one was permitted to touch or use the phone or handle the mail except her; and woe betide anyone who did. It was then the tenants would see the other side of their kind landlady: one with a gruesome temper, and she would threaten to throw them out on the street. The other rule Dorothea was extremely strict about was drinking on the premises. While she had a well-stocked drink cabinet for herself in her apartment, drinking by the boarders on the premises was strictly prohibited.

In the evenings, Dorothea would dress up in her expensive clothes, high-heels, and perfume and visit various bars in the city such as the “Round Corner” or “Harry’s Lounge.” In the various bars, the bar staff and other customers thought she was a widow, even though all four of her ex-husbands were alive. Some people thought Dorothea was a retired doctor, others a nurse even though she had never had any kind of medical training. Her favorite drink was a vodka and grapefruit juice, and she frequently had many people surrounding her listening to her stories, like being in the movies with Rita Hayworth. The landlady at Harry’s would listen in amusement to the number of outlandish tales Dorothea would come up with but saw no harm in it. Harry’s Lounge was a particular favorite of Dorothea’s as it was next door to a Center for Senior Citizens who would often drop into the bar. Dorothea would befriend them, buy them plenty of drinks, and question them about their financial situation. If she liked what she heard about their income, she would offer them an invite to move into her lodging house.

In February of 1988, a volunteer social worker, Judy Moise, brought Dorothea a schizophrenic named Bert Montoya, having had the house highly recommended to her by other social workers. Judy was particularly fond of Bert and had worked long and hard to get his papers and social security payments sorted out. Judy’s own son was a schizophrenic, and she had a lot of time for Bert who she felt was a gentle, good man but like many mental health patients was being let down by society. Dorothea’s well-run establishment and her equally apparent concern for Bert impressed her. Dorothea agreed to accept Bert even though his payments from the social security had not yet begun. On her weekly visits to Bert, Judy was pleased to note that Bert’s physical and mental health seemed to be improving under Dorothea’s care. Over time, her visits to Bert’s became less as other more pressing cases took over her time.

During the spring of 1988, Dorothea had some significant landscaping work done in her garden. To her neighbors’ annoyance, she had now done this two years running, and they had to contend with the noise and dust it entailed. To add to this inconvenience, a dreadful smell began to hover over the house: a thick, sickly sweet odor. Dorothea explained to the neighbors that the sewer pipes were acting up and that there were dead rats under the floor boards. Neighbors complained to public health officials who, on a visit, could find no explanation for the putrid smell. As the weeks passed, the smell gradually lessened.

It was the beginning of October in 1988 before Judy found time to call in at Dorothea’s and visit Bert. To her shock, Dorothea told Judy she’d taken him on a visit to Mexico to visit her family, and Bert had decided to stay on for another week. Throughout October, Dorothea repeatedly told Judy he‘d be back next week. At the beginning of November, Dorothea told Judy that Bert had come back and was now staying with relatives in Utah. Every instinct in Judy’s body told her Dorothea was lying. Bert had never mentioned having relatives to her.

Judy visited the police department and reported Bert as missing. She badgered the police to launch an investigation into his disappearance, never for a minute suspecting the awful truth as to what had actually happened to the mentally ill man she had entrusted into Dorothea’s care.Early in the morning of November 11th, 1988 Detectives John Cabrera, Jim Wilson, and Terry Brown called in on Dorothea at the neat, lace-curtained house at 1426 F Street. A grandmotherly, small figure with ice-blue eyes and white hair opened the door to the detectives. The detectives explained they were seeking help in locating a Bert Montoya. Dorothea said he had left a few days ago to stay with relatives in Utah. They asked if they could enter the house. Dorothea politely asked them in and offered the detectives some candy. They declined. The detectives looked out onto the garden and complimented her on it. Dorothea seemed pleased, and they all stepped outside. One of the detectives noticed some freshly dug earth and asked permission from Dorothy to dig. She consented, and the detectives went to their car and returned with shovels. After an hour of digging, they unearthed what resembled a badly decomposed human body. Dorothea appeared shocked and agitated at the find. The detectives called for reinforcements. A forensic team, coroner office officials, and a work unit with heavy digging equipment arrived at the property.

With all the commotion and police cars in the street, it was not long before onlookers gathered outside the house, quickly followed by the media.

As the police teams began to drill their way through a wedge of concrete and prepare to excavate under it, Dorothea casually strolled into the garden and approached Detective Cabrera. She wore a cherry red coat and on her feet wore purple pumps. In her hands was a pink umbrella. She inquired of the detective whether she was under arrest. He told her that she was not. Dorothea then asked for permission to go to the Clarion Hotel, just a couple of blocks away, to get a cup of coffee. Detective Cabrera said that was fine and escorted Dorothea through the crowds of curious onlookers and media before he returned to the grim yard work.

By the time the detectives noticed that the fragile-looking, white-haired, colorfully dressed landlady hadn't returned from her cup of coffee, more than four hours had elapsed and seven bodies had been found buried in the garden: seven social misfits who had booked into Dorothea’s boarding house on the advice of social services and had never booked out alive.

During the search of Dorothea’s apartment, a note was found in which Dorothea had written the first initial of each of the bodies found in the garden and beside the initial she had written the amount she was collecting from their Social Security and disability checks. Dorothea was earning around $5,000 a month from her dead boarders.

As more and more bodies were carried out of the house in body bags, the media frenzy grew enormous with every news agency looking for a unique angle. Dorothea, meanwhile, had called a taxi from the Clarion hotel and made her way to another bar a long way across town. Seated discreetly in a darkened corner, she downed several vodkas before taking another taxi to Stockton. Here she caught a greyhound bus to LA. Dorothea had plenty to think about on the six-hour trip to Los Angeles. She had on her $3000 in cash and a fervent desire to reinvent her life.

On arrival in LA, she booked into a cheap $25-a-night, nondescript, downtown motel. After two days, she ventured out to a nearby bar, the ‘Monte Carlo,’ and ordered a vodka and orange. Sitting on his own at the bar was fifty-nine-year-old retired wood-worker, Charles Willgues, enjoying an afternoon beer. Dorothea went to join him and sat on the bar stool beside him. She made herself known to Charles by the name Donna Johansson. She told him that she was a widow from Sacramento and that her husband had died the month previously. She told Charles that with her beloved husband gone, she could no longer bear to be in Sacramento with all the memories and so had moved to LA to begin anew. She said that she had not had a very enjoyable start in LA. The taxi driver who had left her at the motel had disappeared with her luggage containing all her worldly possessions and the heels on her shoes, she said indicating her purple shoes and flashing him an ankle, were broken. Charles, feeling sympathy for the widow, offered to take her shoes across the road to a shoe repair shop. When Charles returned to the bar with the repaired shoes, they carried on chatting. Charles felt that he knew the woman, she seemed strangely familiar and so in a way he felt comfortable with her and slightly attracted. Before long, Dorothea questioned him as to how much money he received from the government every month, He truthfully replied that he received $574 a month.

Afternoon drinks turned into a chicken dinner at a nearby fast food chain. Over dinner, Dorothea startled Charles by suggesting they should live together. She said she was an excellent cook and as they were two lonesome people on their own, they would be pleasant company for each other.

Charles said he thought they might need a bit more time to get to know each other and quickly changed the subject. After they had finished eating, they bade each other “goodnight,” after arranging to meet and go shopping on the following day to replace essential items for Dorothea the taxi driver had stolen.

As Charles wandered back to his downtown apartment, he wondered about the woman he had met. Why did she feel so familiar to him? As he wondered this he walked past a newsstand and there staring at him on the front-page of a newspaper was the face of the woman he had just spent the last few hours with. A sudden chill ran down his spine. Back at his apartment, he phoned a local television station and told them his story. The TV station phoned the police.

Later that same night at around 10.45 p.m. the LA police descended on the cheap downtown motel where Dorothea was holed up and placed her under arrest. The Local TV station filmed it all. On the flight returning to Sacramento, Dorothea told a reporter that she had never killed anyone, but she did cash their checks.

TRIAL

Dorothy Puente’s trial for the murder of nine people did not begin until February of 1993, four years after her arrest. Dorothea had pleaded not guilty to nine counts of murder on March 31st, 1989. The court case was continually dogged by delays and changes of the prosecuting team and the defense’s desire for a change in venue from Sacramento. In Sacramento, due to the extreme publicity the case had aroused, they thought it would be difficult to get a fair trial. The trial venue was moved to Monterey County two hundred miles south. Here, the media converged in February of 1993 on the courthouse en masse.

One would think that the prosecution having dug up the remains of seven corpses in Dorothea’s garden would have a straightforward murder case, but the decomposed remains of the bodies were a formidable problem for the forensic team. They could not prove a cause of death except in the case of Ruth Munroe. Ruth Monroe had died from a codeine overdose and had been prescribed codeine by her own doctor even though she was allergic to it.

The other significant problem for the prosecution was that with over 150 witnesses, not one could testify that they had seen Dorothea kill anyone or bury anyone. The only consistency was that all the bodies buried in the garden were found to have traces of Dalmane, a prescription strength sleeping pill that can be deadly when taken with the wrong combination of medication. Everson Gillmouth’s body, the one found in the box by the Sacramento River, in the toxicology examination showed no signs of Dalmane or any other drug.

Without a cause of death, could the prosecution prove murder?

The Defense argued that if you can’t show how the victims died, it’s impossible to determine unlawful killing. The defense was intent on proving death by natural causes, and the prosecution was intent on proving murder.

The Prosecutor, Mr. John O'Mara, opened the case with a blunt and simple accusation: Dorothea Puente killed her tenants and Everson Gilmouth with Dalmane to steal and cash their checks from the government and that she murdered her friend and business partner Ruth Munroe for financial gain. He went on to allege that over the course of time, she had stolen more than $58,000 from her victims.

Dorothea sat in the courtroom between her attorneys, looking much older than her sixty-four years: a frail little old lady, with skin paler than ivory, white hair neatly lacquered, and a shawl wrapped around her shoulders covering a flowered print dress.

Dorothea’s attorney´s opening statement described her as a compassionate woman who generously cared for society´s cast offs who had nowhere else to go. He claimed that the money from her boarders barely covered Dorothea and her operating costs. She may have stolen funds to cover costs, he suggested, but that did not make her a murderer. The defense argued that her tenants had died of natural causes and that Dorothea did not call the authorities because she did not want to be sent to prison for violating her parole conditions by associating with elderly individuals.

The trial lasted for five months, one hundred and fifty-three witnesses were called, one hundred pieces of evidence were submitted, and a scaled size replica of Dorothea’s house and garden sat on a table in the middle of the courtroom resembling a doll’s house that had been misplaced.

Probably one of the most damaging pieces of evidence provided by the prosecution was a video-tape the police had made of an interview with Dorothea. The video showed her blatantly lying to police. It also showed her claiming to have a bad heart, was unable to lift anything heavy, and, therefore, “couldn’t drag a body anyplace.” However, an ex-tenant, Robert French, testified that he had seen Dorothea lifting 95-pound sacks of concrete in the front yard to move them to the shelter. The concrete, the prosecution alleged, was later used to cover some of the gravesites.

Another boarder testified that he had complained to Dorothea about a stench “like death” pervading the house just days after Fink’s disappeared; Dorothea had told him that it was a problem with the sewer.

By the time the jury was sent out on July 15, 1993 to decide on Dorothea’s fate, the trial had lasted five months. The jury essentially had to decide whether Dorothea was a benevolent, unbalanced woman or a scheming, conning, murderous, old witch. On August 2nd, the jury informed the judge that they were deadlocked on all counts. The Judge sent them out again with some advice on how to break the deadlock. The jury returned on August the 25th with the news that they had reached a verdict on three counts but still remained deadlocked on six counts. It had become the longest murder trial deliberation in Californian history.

The jury had found Dorothea Puente guilty of first-degree murder of Dorothy Miller and Benjamin Fink and second-degree murder of Leona Carpenter. The judge ruled a mistrial on the other six counts. Dorothea, whiter than ever, displayed no emotion whatsoever when the verdict was read out to the court.

On Oct 7th, 1993, the judge once again sent the jury out to determine if Dorothea should receive the death sentence or life in prison with no parole. The defense paraded numerous witnesses through the court pleading with the jury to spare Dorothea’s life, saying how she had helped them. The jury was deadlocked, and Dorothy was given life in prison with no parole.

On Dec. 10, 1993, Dorothea Puente, at the age of sixty-four, was sent to Central California Women's Facility near Chowchilla for life with no possibility of parole.

Dorothea Puente died at the age of eighty-two from natural causes in prison on March 27th, 2011.

ELFRIEDE BLAUENSTEINER

The Insatiable Gambler

Elfriede Blauensteiner was born to impoverished parents in Vienna, Austria on January 22nd of 1931. Her ambition, since her poverty-ridden childhood, was to become rich. This she did not achieve until 1986, when she was in her fifties.

Elfriede’s stepfather, Otto Reinl, in 1986 was a 78-year-old diabetic. Elfriede offered to care for him and invited Otto to move into her home. Otto happily moved into Elfriede’s and her husband Rudolf’s home, grateful to be looked after. Elfriede made sure he took his diabetic medicine, Euglucon, every day. This was medicine prescribed to Otto to bring down the sugar level in his blood. Elfriede soon began to experiment with the medicine by increasing his dosage slowly day by day and noting the effects on Otto. Otto would frequently lose consciousness due to low blood sugar levels caused by the increased medication. Then one day Otto died, leaving all his possessions to Elfriede. An autopsy was performed, but nobody tested the amounts of Euglucon or insulin in his body. Elfriede learned two things from this experience: 1.) that excessive amounts of Euglucon administered over a long period could be fatal and 2.) that Euglucon amounts are not tested during an autopsy.

At Otto’s funeral, Elfriede played the distraught grieving stepdaughter and for the first time in her life, Elfriede had a little money.

Elfriede then took a long hard look at her husband Rudolf and decided it was time to be free of him. Not to arouse suspicion, she carefully began spiking his drinks with tiny amounts of Euglucon. Eventually, he was admitted to the hospital with low sugar levels. Once Rudolf was discharged from the hospital and back home, the procedure was repeated. Neighbors and friends soon accepted that Rudolf was a sick man. Over the course of a few years, Rudolf slipped into comas thirteen times. When he died, at the age of fifty-two in August of 1992, nobody was surprised by his premature death. Elfriede had his body cremated and buried his ashes next to her stepfather’s. His life, of course, Elfriede had well insured.

Elfriede, as a new widow, discovered a passion for gambling and began to be seen regularly at the roulette tables of Baden and the Esterhazy Palace in Vienna. She began dressing in furs and sporting expensive jewelry and enjoying life as a wealthy Grande Dame. Elfriede also realized that her newly acquired lifestyle would require more funds.

A wealthy, lonely, 84-year-old neighbor, Mrs. Fransizka Köberl, attracted Elfriede’s attention. Elfriede befriended Fransizka and before long invited her to live with her so she could care for her. Fransizka was so grateful that she made a new will in Elfriede’s favor. Elfriede then began administering Euglucon in the old woman’s coffee. In 1992, Franziska Koeberl died leaving Elfriede the equivalent of €170,000 ($221,080).

Spurred on by her successes, Elfriede, in 1994, began placing ads in the lonely hearts column of newspapers. Through one of her advertisements, Elfriede met Friedrich Döcker. Friedrich was a wealthy retired man of sixty-four and within three days of meeting, they were married. Barely a year after the wedding, on July 11th of 1995, Friedrich died. Elfriede inherited a house worth €300,000 ($390,142). Four days before Friedrich died, Elfriede had placed another ad in the newspaper saying:  “A widow, faithful spouse, and a nurse looking for a peaceful aging with a well-off widower.”

Alois Pichler, a retired former post office director, was a lonely widower and wealthy man at the age of seventy-seven when he answered Elfriede’s advertisement in 1995. Alois Pichler, although elderly, had no serious health problems; that is, until he answered the advertisement and employed Elfriede Blauensteiner as his caregiver. In October of 1995, Elfriede moved in to Alois’s house and within days, she became not only his nurse but also his lover. Two weeks later, there was an ambulance at the door. Alois was diagnosed in the hospital as having a low blood sugar level problem. Elfriede promised Alois that she would care for him and help make him better with her nursing skills. She also attempted to persuade him to make out his will in her favor.

One of the reasons Elfriede had selected Alois, out of the eighty men who had answered her advertisement, was that he was well-off and appeared to have no relatives except his 91-year-old nun sister. When Alois would not co-operate with changing his will in her favor, she solicited the help of a bent lawyer, Harold Schmidt, to draw up a false will.

When Alois was discharged from the hospital back to her care, Elfriede returned to her “medicinal treatment of him” and to speed proceedings along added Anafranil, an antidepressant. In November of 1995, when Alois was exhausted and drained, Elfriede and Harold Schmidt made Alois sign the false will. They then left him in a cold bath with all the windows open even though it was snowing outside. Elfriede and Harold then went to the Casino, and Alois died from a heart attack while Elfriede and Harold were drinking champagne and gambling.

At Alois’s funeral, Elfriede dressed elegantly, placed a red rose matching the color of her lipstick on the coffin, and cried profusely. However, what Elfriede had not realized was that Alois had written a real will and had a nephew to whom he had bequeathed everything he owned. The nephew reported his suspicions of the false will to the police, and an autopsy of Alois’s body was ordered. The autopsy showed up a fatal dose of "Anafranil" and traces of "Euglucon”., a  medicine that had never been prescribed for Alois.

Elfriede Blauensteiner was arrested on suspicion of murdering Alois Pichler by administrating the drugs Euglucon and Anaframil. While under questioning, Elfriede confessed to the police that she had committed five murders. Later, she withdrew the confession. When questioned by journalists she said, "I confessed because the police questioned me for so long. I would have confessed to anything”.

On February 10th of 1997, in the town of Krems, thirty miles west of Vienna, Elfriede with her lawyer, Harold Schmidt, went on trial for the murder of Alois Pichler. For the trial, the matronly sixty-six-year-old, bespectacled Elfriede dressed in an elegant beige suit and carried a golden crucifix. On entering the courtroom, she raised the crucifix in the air and declared, "My hands are clean. I've nothing to hide," and smiled at the milling reporters. Throughout the trial, Elfriede reveled in the media attention, laughing and waving to the journalists as if she were a Hollywood superstar.

Elfreide and Harold Schmidt pleaded not guilty. The jury thought otherwise and found Elfriede Blauensteiner guilty of the first-degree murder of Alois Pichler. Harold Schmidt was found guilty of falsifying the will and aiding Elfriede. On March 7, 1997, the judge sentenced Elfreide to life in prison -- the maximum sentence possible. Harold Schmidt was sentenced to seven years.

According to a police officer leading the investigation, Elfreide had shown no remorse and indeed had even told an officer at the initial interrogation, when she had confessed to the five murders, that all her victims had deserved to die.

Meanwhile in Vienna, the police were investigating the other deaths surrounding Elfriede Blauensteiner. The body of Franziska Koeberl, the 84-year-old woman Elfriede had befriended, was exhumed. After forensic tests, it was confirmed that she had died from Euglucon poisoning. Friedrich Döcker’s body, Elfriede’s second husband, was also exhumed, and the results were the same.

In 2001, Elfriede Blauensteiner was tried for the murder of Franziska Koeberl and Friedrich Döcker. Again, Elfriede courted the press and gave interviews and dressed smartly and elegantly. When asked by journalists if she had killed, she answered, "I would never kill. I believe in my innocence”. Elfriede told journalists that she enjoyed nursing older men and that it was merely a coincidence some of those she cared for had died. In another interview, she proclaimed "Death is only the beginning of eternal life”.

Elfriede Blauensteiner reveling in media attention

When asked how she was coping with life in prison Elfriede said, “Life is worth living everywhere, even in prison. In prison, you get everything you desire”. She said that she got up early every day at seven then took a shower and had breakfast of coffee, bread, butter, jam, and a boiled egg.  Later, she said, she would play table tennis or exercise in the fitness center and then spend her time writing her memoirs and romantic novels.

During the second trial, the prosecution alleged that Elfriede killed for greed and to finance her gambling addiction. They said that she had visited the Esterhazy Palace in Vienna one thousand six hundred times in the span of three years and spent an estimated $1,600,000.

Esterhazy Palace

The jury took just over an hour to find Elfriede Blauensteiner guilty of killing Friedrich Döcker and Franziska Koeberl.

Senior Austrian detectives believed she was responsible for far more deaths than she was ever tried for. They said, "She's as cold as ice. She has played with the lives of at least six people and possibly up to a dozen”.

After the trial, Elfriede was returned to Schwarzau prison where she spent the rest of her life. She died on the 18th of November in 2003 from a brain tumor. Her memoirs or romance novels, if she even wrote them, were never published.

AILEEN WUORNUS-

DAMSEL FOR SALE

Introduction

Aileen Carol Wuornos was born on February 29th, 1956 and is probably one of the most notorious women serial killers of our time. Much has been written about Aileen; some of what has been written is true, and some of it is wrong.

What makes her stand out from most other women serial killers is that Aileen killed with a gun, and her victims were strangers. The majority of women serial killers normally use poison and their victims are usually (but not always) acquaintances or family members.

Early Days

Aileen was born to Diane Pittman, nee Wuornos, and Leo Dale Pittman in Rochester, Michigan. Diane Wuornos had eloped and married Leo Pittman when she was fifteen-years-old on June 3rd, 1954. Her parents had not approved of Leo. In February of 1955, Diane had a son named Keith. In June of 1955, Diane became pregnant for the second time with Aileen. By this time, Dianne was deathly afraid of her husband Leo. Just months before Aileen was born, he was arrested and imprisoned for raping and attempting to murder a young girl of seven. Diane divorced him shortly before Aileen was born.

The Author Terry Manners says of Leo Pittman, in his book Deadlier than the Male:

Leo Pitman

Leo, who never met Aileen, was thought to be a schizophrenic and hung himself in 1969 while in prison.

In January of 1960, Diane, unable to and not wanting to cope with two children on her own dumped five-year-old Keith and four-year-old Aileen on her parents, Britta and Lauri Wuornos, in Troy, twenty-four miles north of Detroit, Michigan.

Four-year-old Aileen

Six-year-old Keith

The Wuornos family had immigrated to the US from Finland. Their house was an unattractive, one-story, ranch-style home, situated among a cluster of trees on Cadmus Street, in a neighborhood of dirt roads. Lauri worked at the Ford auto plant in Detroit. Lauri and Britta formally adopted the children on the 18th of March in 1960 and changed their surname to Wuornos. They raised the children alongside their own: Barry and Lori. The children only found out their true identities when Keith was thirteen and Aileen twelve. They were both emotionally disturbed and distraught at the revelation.

The Wuornos Home

When Aileen was six, while playing with her brother Keith and firelighters, she became badly burned and received permanent scarring to her face. Aileen, as a child, suffered from violent temper tantrums that would come seemingly out of nowhere.

Lauri Wuornos

According to Aileen, her grandfather, Lauri, abused her sexually and physically from an exceptionally young age and whipped her with a willow branch right up to the time he kicked her out of his house, and her grandmother, Britta, was an abusive alcoholic. The young Aileen quickly learned to blank out any emotions. During her time at junior high school, Aileen began showing signs of poor hearing and vision problems. The school recorded her IQ as 81, which is in the range of low dull-normal. The school wanted Aileen to receive counseling and tried to improve her behavior by giving her a mild tranquilizer to control her fits of temper.

Blonde, brown-eyed Aileen was sexually promiscuous at a young age. By the age of ten, she and her brother Keith, who was her closest companion, experimented sexually with each other. Aileen was a happy and willing participant in these activities. Aileen’s attention then moved on, and she would sneak out of her parent’s house and make her way to a meeting spot the neighborhood kids called “the pits.” Here, at the age of only eleven and having just entered puberty, Aileen exchanged sex with the older students at Troy High School for cigarettes, drugs, and money. The boys treated Aileen with no respect and would call her names and ignore her in public. One of her friends from the “pit days” was Dawn Botkins, who ended up being the one true friend Aileen ever had. Dawn’s older brother was the best friend of Aileen’s brother Keith. When she was fourteen, Aileen found herself pregnant. She claimed an older man raped her. It is speculated now that a man in the neighborhood, known as “the chief,” may have been the culprit.

The Chief

Her grandparents sent her to a home for unmarried mothers in Detroit. Here, she gave birth on the 23rd of March in 1971 to a baby boy who was immediately given up for adoption. Aileen was resentful for years afterwards that she had never even been allowed to embrace her son before he was taken from her forever.

When Aileen returned home, she dropped out of school and spent her days hanging around the streets, drinking, and taking drugs. It was the time of the ending of the Vietnam War, and drugs such as marijuana, LSD, mescaline, and assorted pills were easily accessible. Her favorite music was Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and the Moody Blues. In July of 1971, her grandmother Britta died of liver failure. Aileen’s grandfather, no longer able to cope with Aileen or her brother, threw them out of the house. Aileen, now fifteen, took to prostitution to support herself through a bitterly cold winter in Michigan. She spent many nights sleeping rough in the woods in the snow near her home with a local cross dressing teenage transvestite. Other nights she would sleep in old abandoned cars and on, occasion, in a friend’s house. Occasionally, she would get lucky, and a client in exchange for sex would put her up for the night in a sleazy motel but for most of the time, it would be the woods. Troy’s climate during the summer is warm with temperatures tending to be in the 80s but during the winter it becomes extremely cold. She described this period of her life as a living hell. One wonders where the social workers where or why the close-knit community of Troy were allowing a fifteen-year-old child to live like this. This was supposedly a modern democracy, a caring Christian society, and not a third world country.

After two years of living like this, she eventually began hitch-hiking around the country, supporting herself with petty crime and prostitution, trying to find a place to call home. She didn’t dress like a prostitute in high heels or leather skirts but wore more casual attire such as jeans or shorts and T-shirts. In Aileen’s mind, prostitution was the best that she could do, that is what she was adept at, and that’s what she could earn a living at.

Hitchhiking and Prostitution

When she was seventeen and hitching, she stumbled across a headless, limbless body of a woman. An image, she said, that constantly haunted her as she plied her trade along the United States highways. Treated as criminals in the United States, prostitutes if they disappear are far less likely than other people to be searched for by law enforcement officers, making them a favored target of predators.

On May 27th, 1974, Aileen was jailed in Jefferson County, Colorado for drunken driving, disorderly conduct, and firing a .22-caliber pistol from a vehicle.

Following her release from jail, Aileen, now twenty, hitchhiked down to Florida, seeking some warmth. Here, she was picked up by sixty-nine-year-old Lewis Gratz Fell, a blue blood Philadelphian wealthy yacht club president. Lewis fell head over heels in love with the young, strawberry haired, brown-eyed, buxom, 5’4’’ Aileen and proposed to her. He placed an announcement of their nuptials in the local newspaper society pages. They married in March of 1976; the marriage did not last long as Aileen, unable to restrain her temper, continually got into drunken fights in Lewis’s local bar and demanded money off him. Aileen also hit Lewis with his walking stick, which led him to take out a restraining order against her and to have the marriage annulled on July 21st of 1976.

Aileen and Lewis

Aileen’s temper would be aroused even in supermarkets if she thought people were looking at her in a certain way. She would become extremely angry and start shouting, “What are you looking at me for?” Her irritability, sudden anger, and suspicion are typical symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia.

In Antrim County, on July 14, 1976, Aileen was arrested for disturbing the peace and assaulting a bartender by throwing a cue ball at his head. She was fined $105. Aileen’s brother Keith died of throat cancer on July 17th, 1976. Aileen hitchhiked back to Michigan for his funeral. Aileen received $10,000 from his life insurance policy and rapidly squandered the money; this included buying an expensive car that she trashed shortly after taking possession of it.

Aileen eventually returned to Florida continuing her life as a prostitute and petty criminal. At the age of twenty-two, unable to endure her life anymore, she took a .22 caliber pistol and shot herself in the abdomen. She told doctors at the hospital that it was not the first time she had attempted suicide. She recovered from the gunshot wound but received minimal psychiatric counseling.

In May of 1981 in Edgewater, Florida, she was arrested for armed robbery at a minimart, dressed only in a bikini. She was sentenced to three years in prison. She had stolen $35 and two packets of cigarettes. Aileen spent her time in jail reading the bible and complained of being locked up with lesbians. She was released in June of 1983 and made her way down to Key West, where she was arrested in a bank for trying to pass a forged check.

There followed a series of other offenses; some committed in her name and some in the name of Lori Grody, her aunt, whose ID she had stolen. Some of these offenses involved firearms.

In Miami on January 4th, 1986 Aileen was arrested and charged in her own name for stealing a car and resisting arrest. In the car, the arresting officers found a box of ammunition and a .38-caliber revolver. Aileen skipped bail, took on a new alias, Susan Blahovec, and moved to Daytona Beach, Florida an area popular with bikers, Hells Angels, holiday-makers, and the retired. It was here in a gay bar called Zodiac that she met 24-year-old lesbian motel maid Tyria Moore. After meeting, they left the bar together and spent the entire weekend in bed.

Tyria was a hefty,big-boned,jovial, freckled faced, red head who was often mistaken for a man. She grew up in the small Christian town of Cadiz, Ohio. Her father was a well-respected brick mason and carpenter. She had three brothers and one sister. Her parents were far from happy with their daughter’s lesbianism, and she left the restraints of Cadiz and moved to Florida.

Tyria

Aileen and Tyria began an intense and volatile relationship. Tyria quit her job, and Aileen supported them both on her prostitution earnings. It was the anchor Aileen had been searching for all her life. Aileen and Tyria had a nomadic lifestyle. They moved from one dingy apartment or seedy motel to another and on occasion slept in an old disused barn. Aileen fell for Tyria hard, probably more than anyone else she had ever cared for in her miserable life. Although Tyria appeared tougher and more butch, Aileen referred to her as her wife.

In July of 1987, the Daytona Beach police held Aileen and Tyria for questioning about a bar brawl in which they were accused of assault for attacking a man with a beer bottle. In March of 1988, Aileen, using the alias Cammie Greene, accused a bus driver in Daytona Beach of assault. Tyria was named as a witness in the police report.

In July of 1988, in Daytona Beach, Aileen (under the "Susan Blahovec" alias) and Tyria were accused by their landlord of vandalizing their apartment. By 1989, Aileen, according to Tyria, rarely traveled without a loaded .22 caliber gun telling Tyria that she carried the gun for self-protection. In the United States gun culture, .22 caliber guns are not particularly powerful and are typically used for self-defense.

Her job was dangerous, she explained to Tyria, and in the past, she had been maced, beaten, and raped by customers. Prostitution was a dangerous profession. In the United States, it’s estimated that the murder rate for female prostitutes is 204 per 100,000, making it the riskiest profession for women in the United States.

A recent study on 130 prostitutes in San Francisco found that 82% had been physically assaulted, 83% had been threatened with a weapon, and 68% had been raped by clients.

Frequently, murdered bodies of prostitutes are found around the United States without arousing serious attention.

Aileen’s earnings as a prostitute were never great and with the ravages of age, alcohol, and drugs, they dwindled even further. The lack of funds began to put a strain on their relationship. Tyria occasionally took jobs as a motel cleaner but didn’t like working and would complain to Aileen. This would make Aileen constantly worried that Tyria would leave her if she was unable to support her financially. For the first time in her life, she had found love and did not want to lose it. Aileen mainly worked as a prostitute along the highways of Central Florida. In the first week of December, Aileen left Tyria for a few days to work. When she returned home, intoxicated with alcohol, to the motel in Volusia County in which they were presently living, she, according to Tyria, told her that she had shot a man dead earlier and robbed him blind. Tyria never reported this to the police but stayed with Aileen not caring where or how Aileen brought the money home.

On December 13th, 1989 two teenage boys out riding their bikes found a wrapped dead body along a dirt road close to Interstate 95 in Florida. Fingerprints identified him as fifty-one-year-old Richard Mallory, the owner of an electronics store in Clearwater, Florida. He had been murdered with three gunshots from a .22 pistol.

Richard Mallory

On June 1, 1990, a naked man’s body was found in the woods of Citrus County, Florida. A used condom was lying near his body. He was identified as David Spears, a forty-three-year-old construction worker. He had been shot six times with a .22 pistol.

David Spears

On June 6th, 1990, a badly decomposed naked man’s body was discovered lying near Interstate 75. Nine bullets were found in his body from a .22 pistol. He was later identified as Charles Carskaddon, age forty.

Charles Carskaddon,

On July 4th, 1990, a Pontiac Sunbird car belonging to a missing man, retired merchant seaman, Peter Siems, age sixty-five, was found crashed and abandoned near Orange Springs, Florida. An eyewitness had seen two drunken women abandoning it. When the police examined it, there were bloodstains in t he interior, the license plate was missing, and Aileen’s finger-prints were on a door-handle.

Peter Siems

On August 4th, the body of sausage salesman, Troy Burress, age 50, was found in a wooded area near State Road 19 in Marion County, Florida. He had been shot twice with a .22 pistol.

Troy Burress

On September 12th, the body of Dick Humphreys, an investigator specializing in injured and abused children, was discovered in Marion County. He had been shot seven times with a.22 pistol.

Dick Humphreys

On November 19th, the almost naked body of Walter Jeno Antonio, a trucker and Police Reservist age sixty-two, was found in Dixie County, Florida on a remote road. He had been shot four times with a .22 gun.

Walter Jeno Antonio

It did not take too long for the police in the various Florida Counties to realize that they were dealing with a multiple killer. As more and more leads and forensic tests results came in, they realized they were searching for a female killer maybe even two. The names that constantly kept recurring were Tyria Moore, Aileen Wuornos, and her various aliases.

In November of 1990, the police asked the media for help. The police drew up composite sketches of two women they were seeking in relation to a series of murders. Reuters published the story about the men’s slayings on Florida Highways with the police sketches. Newspapers throughout Florida published the report.

Newspaper headlines screamed:

ANGELS OF DEATH

“Eight Men Dead And Police Ask Why?”

Tyria, on seeing the reports fled, to her sister’s house in Pittston, Pennsylvania telling Aileen that she was just going to visit for Thanksgiving. She was terrified she would be arrested with Aileen. Tyria failed to return.

Aileen wrote to Tyria, "You’re my left and right arm, my breath, I'd die for you."

Aileen had never murdered before she met Tyria and never committed any more murders after Tyria left.

For a short time after Tyria left, she had a brief affair with a man named Dick Mills, who later sold his story to the now disgraced British tabloid “The news of the World.” The headline read:

MY SEX ROMPS WITH KINKY MAN KILLER

He later said the story was widely inaccurate but admitted that he did have a brief affair with Aileen, as they were two lost souls. During their time together, he saw no indications that she was a “man-hater,” as the press portrayed her.

More leads were fed to the police who urgently began hunting Aileen and Tyria on January 5th, 1991. Their rootless life style did not help in the search but eventually two undercover drug detectives known as "Drums" and "Bucket" discovered Aileen on January 8th at a Port Orange Pub. They held off arresting her to see if she would take them to Tyria. They followed her to another bar, the Last Resort, a biker bar in Harbor Oaks, Volusia County. In this bar, she passed out on an old car seat. It was to be her last night of freedom.

The Last Resort Bar

Serial Killer?

The following day, January 9th, 1991, the police made the decision to detain Aileen on an outstanding warrant for Lori Grody, one of Aileen’s aliases.’ They arrested her on the steps outside the Last Resort. They made no allusion to her of the murders, as at that time they had no Tyria Moore or murder weapon.

The police then located Tyria Moore at her sister’s home in Pennsylvania. Two Florida detectives, Bruce Munster of Marion County and Jerry Thompson of Citrus County, flew to Pennsylvania to confront her. Tyria, when confronted by the detectives, was clearly frightened as she was read her rights.

Tyria denied vehemently that she had anything to do with the murders. In her statement to the police, she claimed that Aileen had admitted to the murder of Richard Mallory on the day it had happened. She claimed she was shocked and begged Aileen not to tell her anything else; she did not want to know. Tyria claimed in her statement that she suspected that Aileen had killed more than one man because she returned home with cars and various other items that did not belong to her. She says she begged Aileen not to tell her anything as she did not want to be an accomplice to her crimes. She claimed to be scared of Aileen.

The detectives explained to Tyria that as she had knowingly used stolen cars and money and knew about one or more murder victims, they could arrest her as Aileen’s co-conspirator and accessory. They instead offered Tyria a deal: if she could elicit a confession out of Aileen and become a prosecution witness, they would give her prosecutorial immunity.

Tyria agreed to the detectives’ offer, and the following day returned to Florida with them. The police department housed her in a Daytona motel and had her make contact, under their supervision, with Aileen in jail.

Tyria first made contact with Aileen on the taped jail phone on January 14th, 1991. She told Aileen that she was scared because the police were questioning her family about the two of them, and she was petrified the Florida highway murders would be blamed on her. Aileen, still unaware that the police suspected her of the murders, tried to reassure Tyria that there was nothing to worry about.

“I’m only here for that concealed weapons charge in ‘86 and a traffic ticket,” she assured Tyria.

The taped phone calls from Tyria to Aileen in jail continued, with Tyria breaking down and begging Aileen to clear her name. Aileen continued to try and reassure Tyria that she had nothing to worry about. Aileen said of the police sketches of them that had appeared in the newspapers,

“I tell you what, man, I wasn’t one of those little suspects. I think somebody at work -- where you worked at -- said something that it looked like us. And it isn’t us, see? It’s a case of mistaken identity.”

Tyria continued to call and beg Aileen to clear her name. Throughout the phone calls during those three days, Aileen constantly told Tyria how much she loved and missed her. Tyria never once said she loved Aileen.

Finally, on January 16th, 1991, Aileen, who listed her occupation as a "professional call girl,” made the decision to protect her lover, no matter what the cost to herself. A three hour videotaped confession, in which Aileen was dressed in an orange prison jumpsuit, was made to the police. In the video tape, Aileen smoking heavily, sometimes laughing, sometimes crying, confessed that she had shot the men in self defense as the men had attempted to rape or violently abuse her and that Tyria was entirely blameless. Throughout the confession, her public defender, Michael O’Neil, repeatedly reminded Aileen of her rights. He tried to convince her not to make any statements, not to give any confession about anything, and that it was her right to remain silent. He strongly advised her to exercise that right. However, no matter what he said, she chose to ignore all of his advice.

Aileen when first charged.

In her confession she said, “I just wish I never would’ve done this shit. I wish I never woulda got that gun. I wish to god I never was a hooker. And I wish I never woulda done what I did. I still have to say to myself, I still say that it was in self-defense. Because most of ‘em either were gonna start to beat me up or were gonna screw me in the ass,--and they’d get rough with me, so I’d fight ‘em. And then I’d –as I’d get away from ‘em, I’d run to the front of the car or jump over the seat or whatever, grab my gun and just start shootin’.”

According to O’Neil, her total focus was on protecting the love of her life Tyria, and she showed no concern for herself and her own fate.

Shortly after her confession, the police found a lockup Aileen had rented under one of her aliases, Cammie Marsh Greene. It contained the possessions of the dead men.

When the police released the confession to the media, Aileen became a national celebrity, and her face became plastered all over the local and national media. A plethora of book and movie deals were offered to detectives, lawyers, relatives, Tyria, and Aileen herself. A filmmaker, Jackie Giroux, secured the film rights to Aileen’s story. Aileen and her then attorney, Russell Armstrong, signed the contract.

Aileen initially thought that she might make millions of dollars from her story until she learned that the state of Florida had a law prohibiting criminals from profiting from their crimes.

The Gun used to fire the shots

While, in prison, Aileen received a letter from a "born-again" Christian Arlene Pralle. Arlene was a small, doe-eyed, forty-odd-year-old woman who managed a horse boarding and breeding business near Ocala in Marion County, Florida, where she also bred wolves. Arlene believed that wolves represented a significant part of one’s spiritual life. In her letter to Aileen, she claimed that Jesus had instructed her to write to her. Included in her letter was her home telephone number which Aileen made a collect call to on January 30th, 1991.

Arlene Pralle

Aileen, alone and friendless, was easy prey for a woman such as Arlene, and the two women became “friends” or at least that is what Aileen believed. Arlene began visiting Aileen in Volusia County Jail once a week and talked to her every evening on the telephone. Arlene became a thorn in Aileen’s defense lawyer’s side. Tricia Jenkins, one of the defense team, said many times Aileen would not co-operate with them unless they also attended to Arlene’s needs.

Throughout 1991, Arlene would appear on TV and radio talk shows and give interviews to the tabloid press or to anyone else for money. Aileen believed her “friend” was trying to help her and was unaware, for a while, that she was making money from the interviews she gave. To a Vanity Fair reporter, Arlene said her and Aileen’s relationship was soul binding and that they were like Jonathan and David in the bible.

“It’s as though part of me is trapped in jail with her. We always know what the other is feeling and thinking.”

In a radio interview, Arlene claimed that, “if the world could know the real Aileen Wuornos, there is not a jury that would convict her”.

Arlene and her husband adopted Aileen legally on November 22nd, 1991. Arlene claimed that God had told her to. To reporters Arlene said, “We don't talk about the case, but in my heart I know that Aileen is not a serial killer. She has a heart of gold, and she cares about other people more than herself. God has brought us together."

Aileen believed that she would be acquitted, and after the trial she was planning to go home to her ‘mother’ Arlene and help her with the horses and wolves.

On January 14th, 1992, Aileen Wuornos went on trial in Daytona Beach for the cold bloodied murder of Richard Mallory. Aileen pleaded not guilty, and her defense was that he had attempted to rape her and in self-defense she had shot him as she feared for her life. Normally, in criminal trials, previous wrongful acts are inadmissible. However, in Florida because of the ‘Williams Rule’ the prosecuting attorneys were allowed to introduce evidence related to Aileen’s other crimes to demonstrate a pattern of criminal activity. The witnesses and evidence piled against her were extremely damaging. In particular that of her former lover Tyria Moore who recounted Aileen returning home and in a relaxed manner stating, as they watched the television, "I killed a man today,” and at no time Tyria said did she make any mention of, or had any noticeable indications of, an attack. During her testimony, Tyria refused to make eye contact with Aileen.

Tyria giving evidence

Aileen was understandably gutted and frequently wiped tears from her eyes as Tyria’s testimony buried her. This was the love of her life for which she had taken 100% responsibility for the crimes to save Tyria from any responsibility for the murders. The prosecution painted a picture of Richard Mallory as an upstanding member of society.

Against her public defender’s advice, Aileen took to the witness stand. The defense team was worried that because of Aileen’s inability to remain calm, she would become her own worst enemy.

Aileen giving evidence

On the stand, Aileen testified that she shot Richard Mallory to save herself after he had violently raped her. She gave a graphic account of the pain and humiliation she had suffered at the hands of Richard Mallory. The prosecuting attorney, John Tanner, on cross-examination, destroyed any shred of credibility Aileen might have had. He brought up inconsistencies and lies she had given in her statements to the police detectives. During the cross-examination, Aileen became angry and agitated, giving the jury a glimpse of the violent mood swings that had plagued Aileen throughout her life. Her lawyers constantly advised Aileen not to answer questions and twenty-five times she invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. Aileen was the only witness for the defense. Sitting in the courtroom, Arlene Pralle prayed continually and at other times sobbed.

Judge Uriel Blount sent the jury out to consider their verdict on January 27th. Less than two hours later, the jury returned with their verdict. They had found Aileen guilty of murder in the first-degree. As the jurors left the courtroom, Aileen angrily yelled at them, “I’m innocent! I was raped! Scumbags of America! I hope you all get raped in the ass!"

The following day, the court convened for the penalty phase of Aileen’s trial.

Expert psychiatric witnesses for the defense stated under oath that Aileen was mentally unstable and suffered from antisocial personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. Aileen’s lawyers argued that her appalling childhood had damaged and ruined her as they pleaded to the jury to spare Aileen’s life. The state’s expert psychologist, Dr George Barnard, also diagnosed Aileen as suffering from Borderline Personality disorder.

However, for the jury, Aileen’s anger and cursing from the day before was still fresh in their minds. The jurors unanimously recommended that the Judge hand Aileen the death penalty. Four days later, on the 31st of January in 1992 Judge Blount sentenced Aileen to death by electrocution. Aileen was just thirty-six-years-old.

Aileen was visibly shocked and distraught by the jury’s verdict. On the way out of the court on her way to death row, she said to waiting journalists, “I was raped, I was tortured, and they had the steering wheel, pictures of the steering wheel. It had scratches on it, it was broken. It is proof that I was tied to that steering wheel. I cannot believe that this has happened.”

Outside the courtroom, Arlene Pralle told reporters that the verdict "gives rapists an open door, an encouragement, to kill prostitutes and get away with it."

Death Row

The British documentary film-maker Nick Broomfield paid Arlene in excess of $10,000 to arrange an interview with Aileen following the trial. At the same time, Arlene was telling Aileen that her public defender lawyers were, along with everyone else involved in the case, the attorneys, the detectives, and, especially, Tyria Moore were all attempting to profit from her story. Arlene said she would arrange paid interviews for Aileen and then Aileen could hire a private lawyer.

Arlene persuaded Aileen to fire her public defender legal team and appoint a new lawyer, Steven Glazer. Arlene had hired Stephen Glazer to handle the adoption of Aileen. Stephen Glazer was a bizarre character who had been a struggling musician before becoming a lawyer. He claimed he had been abused by his parents and had created an imaginary friend, Lowther, to keep him company as a child. As an adult, he had built a replica of his imaginary friend, which resembled a dead, murdered corpse with a scar across his forehead. He said he used him for company and as a deterrent to keep drug addicts away from his house.

Stephen Glazer and ‘friend’

He was hired to defend Aileen in her next murder trial of Dick Humphreys, Troy Burress, and David Spears despite having no experience in death penalty cases. Aileen was extremely lonely and devoid of human contact as she wiled her time away in death row. Arlene persuaded her that her best course of action would be to drop her not guilty plea and to admit to the murders of the three men. Aileen, with lack of advice from elsewhere and still suffering from the betrayal of her lover Tyria Moore, agreed perhaps thinking that in doing this, the court would show her mercy, and she would be spared the death penalty.

On her way to this trial, as she was led to the prison van, she gave no indication to reporters that she was going to change her plea. She only talked to them about having sacked her public defender and had hired a private lawyer, Stephen Glazer.

On March 31st, Stephen Glazer, within seconds of being appointed her new lawyer, stunned the court by changing Aileen’s plea from not guilty to one of ‘no contest.’

Stephen Glazer

He made no attempt at having her death sentence reduced or any kind of plea bargain. Even notorious serial killer Ted Bundy was offered a plea agreement. The “no contest” plea is used as a guilty plea but without a plea agreement, it meant that she was eligible for the death penalty in each case.

Aileen made a rambling statement to the court and Judge Thomas Sawaya in which she said, “She was sorry her acts of self defense had ended up in court like this, but she took full responsibility for her actions, it was them or me………I am prepared to die if you say it is necessary.”

At this point, she paused and seemed confused, not looking sure if she meant this or if it was indeed wise to say this.

On May 15th, 1992, Judge Thomas Sawaya, handed Aileen three more death sentences. In video-tapes of the sentencing, it would seem by Aileen’s reaction that this was not what she was expecting.

She thanked the judge and declared, “I’ll be up in heaven while you all rot in hell.”

She turned and snarled at the Assistant State Attorney that she hoped his “wife and children get raped in the ass!”

To the judge, she gave an obscene gesture and muttered, “Motherfucker.”

Stephen Glazer informed the court that Aileen’s automatic appeal should be handled by the public defender’s office.

Following this court appearance Aileen sunk into a deep depression. She refused to communicate with Stephen Glazer or Arlene. The British journalist Nick Broomfield asked Stephen Glazer why he had allowed Aileen to submit a “no contest” plea. He said he had done so because, he claimed, Aileen wanted to die. Yet until 2001, Aileen continued to appeal her death sentence, claiming self-defense.

Stephen Glazer told Nick Bloomfield, that although he did not feel comfortable, he would be there with Aileen as they strapped her into the electric chair as Aileen had asked him to be there. He would be there as her friend and lawyer, and he would give her the advice that Woody Allen, in the movie “Take the Money and Run,” in which Allen had played the lawyer, Virgil Stockwell, gave to his client about to be executed in the chair, “Don’t sit down.” Stephen Glazer then burst into raucous laughter.

Other lawyers were appalled at Stephen Glazer’s behavior and whispered amongst themselves that he was unfit to defend her and was helping propel Aileen into the electric chair. Tricia Jenkins, Chief Assistant Public Defender, who had handled Aileen’s first trial, said that Steven Glazer had told her “he was taking the case because he needed the media exposure."

In June of 1992, again under Stephen Glazer’s advice, Aileen pleaded guilty to the murder of Charles Carskaddon. In November of 1992, Aileen received her fifth death sentence for Charles Carskaddon’s murder.

Aileen realized too late that Arlene Pralle had only befriended her for financial gain and Stephen Glazer for the promotion of his law firm the media publicity gave him. Aileen had discovered that Arlene was going to start a museum with letters and drawings she had sent her. Aileen told Nick Broomfield in a video-taped interview that Arlene and Stephen Glazer had advised her of ways to kill herself in prison. She said she didn’t see such advice as “very motherly or lawyerly.”

In a letter to her childhood friend Dawn, Aileen wrote, “As her and Steve conned me to “WAIVE OFF” all remaining trials.”

When Arlene was asked why she had advised Aileen to enter the no-contest plea, she remarked, “The state has a death sentence so, golly, in a few years she could be with Jesus. Why not go for it?”

Dateline’s NBC reporter, Michele Gillen, discovered in November of 1992 that Richard Mallory, Aileen’s first victim, had spent ten years in prison in Maryland for violent rape. During Aileen’s first trial when she had taken the witness stand and described the violent rape she had undergone by Richard Mallory, the prosecution denied that there was any evidence to substantiate Aileen’s claims of rape or any history of sexual crimes by Richard Mallory. Trish Jenkins, Aileen’s public defender lawyer, was heavily criticized for failing to bring this to the court’s attention. Many believe that it was Mallory’s violent rape of Aileen that started her off on her spree of murders.

In November of 1992, during the Charles Carskaddon post-trial hearing, Aileen’s public defender defense team tried to introduce the newly discovered evidence against Richard Mallory into court. The lawyers thought that the jurors would have seen Aileen’s case differently had they been aware of this fact. The judge refused to allow this evidence to be admitted into the post-trial proceedings and denied Aileen’s request for a retrial. Aileen, during all this time, was locked up 23-hours-a-day in a spartan 6-foot-by-8-foot prison cell rarely seeing anyone except prison guards and devoid of human touch.

Death Row Cell

Aileen spent her time reading the Bible and drawing scenic pictures with her blue ink pen. She also spent her time corresponding with her old school friend Dawn Botkins, to whom she would sometimes write four letters a day.

Aileen’s Art Work

In February of 1993, Aileen pleaded guilty to the murder of Walter Jeno Antonio. Aileen told the court at the sentencing hearing that she wished to waive her right to present mitigating evidence and her right to be present. She said that she already had five death sentences and didn’t want to waste tax payer’s money. Aileen also made the observation that male serial killers normally only received about two death sentences and the number she was receiving was due to a media and political circus. She said she no longer cared and simply wished to return to her cell on death row.

When the sentencing date arrived, Aileen was brought to the court. The defense lawyers presented a letter from Dr. Harry Krop, a psychiatrist, stating that Aileen was incompetent and delusional. The court then ordered Aileen for another evaluation by psychiatrists Dr. Joel Epstein and Dr. Donald DeBeato. They declared that Aileen suffered from a personality disorder but was competent. The court decided Aileen was mentally competent enough to proceed.

At the sentencing, Aileen complained profanely and vehemently about mistreatment. The court threatened to bind and gag her unless she remained silent; she was, however, permitted to address the court. In her statement, Aileen again asserted she had acted purely in self-defense. The court rejected Aileen’s claim of self-defense, and she received her sixth death sentence.

Aileen’s lawyers continued to fight through appeals for her life. In 1996, the US Supreme Court denied her appeal. In 1989, the US Supreme Court ruled that it was not unconstitutional to execute the mentally impaired.

In 2000, Aileen’s new public defender attorney, Joseph Hobson, and an investigator, Kari Anderson, who both believed that Aileen had been let down completely by the entire legal system launched a new appeal for a new trial. They based the appeal on Stephen Glazer’s incompetence as a lawyer in a death penalty case. Moreover, the fact that, as was filmed in Nick Broomfield’s excellent documentary, “The Selling of a Serial Killer,” Stephen Glazer would smoke as many as seven marijuana joints before giving Aileen legal advice. Joseph Hobson also accused Stephen Glazer of financially profiting from the media for arranging interviews with Aileen.

In support of his appeals, Joseph Hobson entered a seventy-four page deposition Stephen Glazer had given the previous year.

In the deposition, Stephen Glazer admits smoking marijuana, both recently and in 1992, and admitted he was filmed smoking marijuana and had told Nick Broomfield’s that the journey from his office to Aileen Wuornos' South Florida prison was a "seven-joint ride."

Stephen Glazer further admitted that he told Aileen Wuornos that all she had to do if she wished to appeal was point out that he, Glazer, had a conflict of interest while representing her as he negotiated cash payments for media interviews while Aileen’s' case was major news.

During, this trial, many of Aileen’s childhood friends and acquaintances from Troy were called to give evidence about her childhood in an attempt to have her removed from death row; Evidence and mitigating circumstances that should rightly have happened in her first trial, along with the evidence of Richard Mallory’s violent, sexual history. Some of the men, who had hung around with Aileen in “the pits” as boys, testified albeit uncomfortably, how they had used her for sex and had been cruel to her; others testified how her grandfather had savagely beat her with a black belt. Aileen, in an extraordinary move that effectively sabotaged her own defense, attempted to get their evidence banned.

Their testimony was ignored and, unbelievably, Steven Glazer was found to be competent as a lawyer. Judge Cobb said, in his summing up, that Aileen Wuornos' happiness with her odd choice for a defense attorney in Stephen Glazer was of no concern to the court.

In 2001, at the age of forty-five, Aileen was still languishing in a Florida death row cell when she requested the Florida Supreme Court for permission to fire her lawyers and drop all future appeals. Aileen had simply had enough, feeling that her life on death row was worse than death itself and wanted to die.

Aileen wrote to the Florida Supreme Court, “I killed those men and robbed them cold as ice and would gladly do it again. I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again."

In a Court hearing in Daytona Beach in April of 2001 to decide if she should be allowed to take this step, Aileen testified while crying and grabbing tissue after tissue.

"I am a serial killer. I would kill again," and, "If I have to spend life in prison, I will kill. I will kill again." She wanted, she said, no more "legal jabberwocky."

A defense lawyer argued that Aileen was in no state for the court to honor her request. Aileen responded by saying, “I am so sick of hearing this 'she's crazy' stuff. I've been evaluated so many times. I'm competent, sane, and I'm trying to tell the truth. I'm one who seriously hates human life and would kill again. Let’s cut to the chase and get on with an execution. I have hate crawling through my system. Taxpayers' money has been squandered, and the families have suffered enough."

The Florida Supreme Court, after a psychiatric evaluation, agreed to allow her to fire her lawyers and drop all appeals.

Execution

Billy Nolas, a lawyer who helped defend Aileen in 1992 in her first trial, described Aileen as "the most disturbed individual I have represented." He said, “She suffered from borderline personality disorder caused by sexual abuse and neglect as a child. As she has gotten older and older, she has gotten worse and worse." Billy Nolas believed Aileen was too mentally ill to comprehend what dropping her appeals and seeking death would mean.

Meanwhile, Aileen was mentally disintegrating even more. Always paranoid, she now believed the prison employees were conspiring to torture her and force her to suicide.

In July of 2002, Aileen appeared dressed in dark green prison overalls, handcuffed and shackled in Broward Circuit Court complaining of abuse by prison guards at the Broward Correctional Institution in Pembroke Pines. She had written a 25-page report detailing her abuse. Her serious allegations included staff members threatening to rape her and some guards putting dirt, spit, and urine in her food.

Aileen also complained of having handcuffs put on so tightly they bruised her wrists, having her cell door kicked by guards, strip searches, low water pressure so she was unable to shower, mildew on her mattress, cat calling, and general, pure hatred directed towards her.

Aileen with her lawyer Raag Singhal

The Fort Lauderdale lawyer, Raag Singhal, appointed to represent Aileen in her abuse complaint told the court, "What she is saying is, `I'm a volunteer. I want to be executed. If you can't execute me today than ensure that I am treated fairly until I am put to death.'"

Raag Singhal said he was worried Aileen was volunteering for death just to escape the mistreatment.

Outside the court Raag Singhal, when asked by reporters if he thought Aileen was competent, suggested that Aileen’s competency might arise again if the judge rejected her claims of prison abuse.

"If the allegations don't have any truth to them, Aileen's clearly delusional," he said. "She believes what she's written."

He later wrote a letter to the Florida Supreme Court expressing "grave doubts" about Aileen’s mental condition. A member of a Florida Support Group, Dianne Abshire, which gives emotional support to death row inmates in Florida, said Aileen was clearly insane.

The then Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush, issued a stay of execution and ordered another psychiatric evaluation of Aileen. He then lifted it after three psychiatrists concluded after interviewing Aileen for fifteen minutes that she was mentally competent enough to be executed.

In the final count down to Aileen’s execution, the biker bar the Last Resort, where Aileen spent her last night of freedom, had tourists, news crews, and filmmakers visit from around the world. The bar sold black T-shirts with a photo of Aileen and the words, "On a Killing Day." The bar had also adopted a new logo, “Cold Beer and Killer Women."

Aileen, just days before her execution, gave her final media interview to British producer Nick Broomfield, to whom she appeared fond. In the interview, she claimed that her mind was being tortured, and her head crushed by "sonic pressure weapons", as well as other abuses that she said would progressively get worse each time she complained. She also said, “You sabotaged my ass! Society, and the cops, and the system! A raped woman got executed and was used for books and movies and shit!" Her final words in the on-camera interview were "Thanks a lot, society, for railroading my ass."

When Aileen thought the cameras were switched off, she told Nick Broomfield that the murders were, in fact, self-defense, but she could no longer tolerate being on death row.

Later outside the prison, Nick Broomfield said, "My conclusion from the interview is we are executing someone who is mad. Here is someone who has totally lost her mind. She trusts nobody and is stark raving mad. She is multiple people. Every time I met her, she was a different person."

Aileen a couple of day’s before her execution.

It is possible to watch the interview on YouTube and after watching it, virtually impossible to conclude that Aileen was sane. After viewing it, I wondered what one would have to do or say to be found insane!

Dawn Botkins was the last person to visit Aileen before her execution. On leaving her, as the guard opened the door, she said she could not look back as she heard Aileen call to her, “I love you Dawn. See you on the other side.”

Dawn Botkins

Stephen Glazer, who virtually propelled Aileen to her execution when asked by reporters if he was attending the execution, said he had to be in court that day. He then sung, “Oh-ba-di, Oh-ba-da, Oh-ba-ba-di, life goes on,” and chortled with laughter. Then, as an afterthought, told the journalists they could quote him.

Arlene Pralle, her adopted mother, didn’t even know her daughter’s execution date.

For her execution, Aileen asked to be dressed in a black Harley Davidson T-shirt with wings on it, as she believed she had earned her wings, a pair of jeans, boots, and a military belt.

On the day of the execution, she refused the BBQ dinner offered to her along with any religious counsel.

Death Row Chamber

Aileen was allowed to choose lethal injection over the electric chair and was executed by lethal injection at Florida State Prison near Starke, Florida on October 9th, 2002. Thirty-two witnesses watched as an executioner injected deadly chemicals into her body. Her last words to the world were; "Yes, I would just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back, like Independence Day with Jesus. June 6, like the movie. Big mother ship and all, I'll be back, I'll be back."

Aftermath

Following her execution, Aileen’s body was cremated. Her ashes were taken by Dawn Botkins, her old school friend and closest friend in her final years and who had spent some of Aileen’s last hours with her on death row, to her native Michigan and spread her ashes beneath a Walnut tree that Dawn had planted in memory of Aileen. Thank God, for the likes of Dawn, who out of sheer humanity, reached out to Aileen in her years of isolation on Death Row.

Aileen’s life was made into a film Monster (2003) which starred Charlize Thereon and Christina Ricci. The film grossed over $30 million in its first year.

In researching Aileen’s life, I found it impossible not to feel sorry for her. She had been let down by her mother, her grandparents, social services, and virtually everyone she had ever come into contact with. I do not believe she was given a fair trial and that the legal system and society in general completely let her down. I believe that it is highly likely that Aileen, certainly in Richard Mallory’s case, killed in self-defense and that the United States government unjustly murdered an ill, vulnerable, innocent woman.

Aileen was clearly a highly unbalanced character, yet even when she was imprisoned, people continued to abuse her by trying to profit from her disturbed life. To my mind, Aileen’s case demonstrates serious flaws in the criminal justice system, the inhumanity of the death penalty, and the lack of protection for vulnerable members of society.

May Aileen, and the men she shot rest in peace.

DANA SUE GRAY

WHEN GREED TURNS TO MURDER

Dana Sue Gray is an anomaly in the women serial killers I have previously written about.

Female serial killers normally kill their partners, children, or people at a physical distance with poison or guns. Poison, history has shown, has been the favorite choice of the majority of most women serial killers.

Dana is a rarity in her choice of victim and her hands-on method of using her hands, a cord or rope, and an object in which to bludgeon her victim. She would also use more force than was required to kill them. Some people have speculated that Dana liked the excitement and thrill of the physical struggle, much as she loved other thrill sports such as sky-diving and wind-surfing. The spending sprees that she indulged in after her murder jaunts, they have said, were her way of celebrating a successful killing.

Two of Dana’s victims were women who she had a remote family history with and the other two were complete strangers.

Dana Sue Armbrust was born on December 6th, 1957 in California to Russell and Beverly Armbrust. Russell was a hairstylist and Beverly, his fourth wife, a former beauty queen. Beverly was a vain, angry woman and a shopaholic who would often over-spend on her husband’s credit cards. Russell and Beverly divorced when Dana was two-years-old. He’d had enough when he caught his wife having a physical fight with an older woman who’d annoyed her. Dana saw remarkably little of him after that until she was fourteen-years-old.

Dana was not a happy child. At school, she had few friends and would show on occasions an aggressive streak. Her schoolwork was poor, and she was repeatedly suspended for truancy.

Dana was fourteen when her mother, after a long illness, died of breast cancer. She then went to live in affluent Newport with her father, stepmother Geri, Geri's ex-mother-in-law, Norma Davis, and her half-brother’s. She attended Newport Harbor High School.

Geri, before she married Russell Armbrust in 1988, had been married to Bill Davis, Norma’s son who had died. However, Geri had continued to care for her elderly mother-in-law. Dana, living with her father, enjoyed a far more affluent lifestyle than she had with her mother. She also developed an interest in athletics. In 1976, she graduated from high school and started nursing school. Ever since she had seen the way the nurses had cared for her mother during her illness, she’d had a desire to become a nurse.

Dana, at the age of eighteen, was small, just five-foot-two, with long blonde hair, fit, beautiful, and always immaculately groomed. She took up sky diving, which she became accomplished at and began living with her coach Rob, when her step-mother Geri kicked her out after Norma Davis found marijuana in her bedroom. She graduated in 1981 from nursing school and got a job working as a delivery and labor nurse at the Inland Valley Regional Medical Center. By this time, she had split up with Rob and was seeing Chris Dodson, one of her wind-surfing friends. Both Dana and Chris were intense wind-surfers and golfers and would frequently fly to Hawaii where they would take part in tournaments. They dated on and off for several years until Dana took up with a former high school friend and fellow sports devotee Bill Gray, who’d had a crush on Dana since high school. He was a budding business man and musician that owned a variety of businesses under the name of “Graymatter”. Dana and Bill married at a fashionable, up-market winery in Temecula, California in October of 1987, followed by a three-week honeymoon in Hawaii.

Bill and Dana bought a house in Canyon Lake, a gated community that had 12-foot-high walls and 24-hour security on its three entrances. Her father also now lived here as did Norma Davis, who now had her own home in a condominium within the gated community. All the homeowners had a choice between the lake front and the golf course.

Canyon Lake is built around a meandering 18-hole golf course complete with a Country Club Restaurant, bar, and an artificial lake carved from the desert of Riverside County, complete with fjords. All of the homeowners within Canyon Lake had rights and access to the lake for recreational use. There were swimming areas, fishing holes, and beaches. The community also had lighted tennis courts, riding stables, and many other amenities. Luxury cars sat outside the homes while most residents made their way around the community in their golf carts. It was a place for the wealthy to feel safe, pampered, and protected in the desert temperatures of Riverside County just seventy-five miles from the LA metropolis.

Dana had inherited from her mother her shopaholic traits and enjoyment of lavish spending sprees and indulgence in drinking. Soon, Bill and Dana began to argue about money and Dana’s spending. Friends later said that her passion for money was "nuts ... not even normally greedy. Crazy”.

Bill would pull his hair out in exasperation as he pleaded with his wife, to cut back on her spending. However, as another friend later said of her "You could not tell her what to do.... Dana is extremely hyperactive and opinionated”.

When Dana inherited an unexpected legacy of $7,500 from an aunt instead of helping with the mounting debts, she took off on a trip to Europe, leaving Bill behind.

Bill’s father helped the couple out with multiple loans. However, with ever-increasing credit card debts, the couple was forced to take out a second mortgage on the house in Canyon Lake. The quarrels over money between Bill and Dana increased in intensity. Dana began drinking and suffered a miscarriage, her fourth. In early 1993, Dana began an affair with a friend of theirs, Jim Wilkins. She moved out of the Canyon Lake house and moved into Jim’s house on Mission Trail in the area of Wildomar where he lived with Jason, his young son. Dana then filed for a divorce from Bill in June of 1993. In September of 1993, Dana and Bill decided to file for bankruptcy in an attempt to put off foreclosure on their home in Canyon Lake. Meanwhile, unknown to Bill, Dana had taken out a life-insurance policy on him. If Bill died, the amount of the insurance payoff would more than adequately pay off all of the debts.

Dana was fired from the Medical Center on November 24th, 1993 as she was unable to explain missing doses of opiate painkillers and Demerol. Dana consulted a doctor for depression who prescribed her anti-depressants. Dana’s life had begun to spin into a free fall.

In February of 1994, shock and fear ran through the residents of the Canyon Lake community. Elderly eighty-seven-year-old Norma Davis was discovered by her neighbor Alice Williams brutally murdered in her condominium. A fillet knife was stuck in her chest, and a wooden handled utility knife protruded out of her neck.

Norma had been repeatedly stabbed, as if in anger. She had also been strangled with a phone cord with such massive force that she was almost beheaded. A valuable ring was still on her finger.

Detective Joseph Greco was put in charge of the murder investigation of Norma Davis. It was only his second murder investigation.

The detectives investigating the murder found no signs of forced entry into the condominium and were told by neighbors that Norma always kept her door locked. It appeared to the detectives that the murderer knew how to get into the security tight community and into the condominium. This made detectives suspect that it was someone Norma had allowed into her home. No valuable items of any kind were found to be missing. Norma's relatives and friends were questioned at length. No one could think of any enemies Norma might have had. The police had no leads.

To the community residents it reminded them of the 1969 Manson murders: a seemingly random, though bloody, attack.

On February 28th, just two weeks later, sixty-six-year-old June Roberts was found murdered in her Canyon Lake property. It was her birthday. June was found lying on her back on the floor of the den. A heavy, crystal glass, wine decanter had been used to beat her and a telephone wire was used to strangle her. A large diamond ring remained on her finger. As in the case of Norma, there was no evidence of a break-in, neither woman had shown signs of a struggle, neither (as far as could be ascertained) had been significantly robbed, and both women lived alone. Both murders appeared to be motiveless. Detective Joseph Greco suspected that the Roberts’ and Davis’ cases were connected.

The Canyon Lake community was terrified, especially the older women who lived alone. One of the most disturbing thoughts for women living on their own is the idea that someone might break into their homes and rob, hurt, or even kill them.

Russell and Geri Armbrust were also shocked and terrified. They had known both the victims well. Russell, like many of the other residents of the community, kept a loaded gun by him 24 hours a day. Many of the older residents moved in with each other or with relatives. The nearby locksmiths’ trade increased ten-fold.

The Canyon Lake City Council, in an emergency meeting, increased security and an additional police patrol car was added to the area.

The police asked for help or information about anyone seen in the area. They did checks on gardeners, housekeepers, and service personnel working and having access to the community. The police were no nearer to finding a clue until June Roberts’s bank called her family to notify them of massive spending on her credit cards in the Temecula, California area.

The police detectives then began visiting all the establishments where the cards had been used. These ranged from beauty parlors, spas, restaurants, and expensive clothes shops and jewelers. They quickly established that they were seeking a petite blond woman who had recently dyed her hair red and often had with her a five-year-old boy named Jason.

On the 10th of March in 1994, Dorinda Hawkins at the age of fifty seven, was at work in a shop named The Main Street Trading Post in Lake Elsinore. It was a picture framing and antiques shop.

The Main Street Trading Post

In the afternoon, a small blonde woman about thirty-five-years-old entered the shop and began to browse around. As Dorinda stacked some frames away at the back end of the shop, she suddenly felt something around her throat and realized she was being strangled. She struggled and managed to turn around to see the blond woman with eyes of “penetrating, cold-blooded steel” tightening the yellow nylon rope around her neck. Dorinda continued struggling and kicking her attacker until she finally lost consciousness. When Dorinda came around, she called the police and was taken to the hospital for head and neck injuries. She realized that she was extremely lucky, as the attacker had obviously thought she was dead. About $25 was missing from the cash register as well as Dorinda's purse and credit cards.

Dorinda gave the police a full description of the woman, and they made a composite sketch. The following day the story, sketch, and description were in the local newspaper.

Geri Armbrust, the following morning as she drank her coffee and read the newspaper, nearly choked. The description she was reading, and the composite sketch of a woman who was suspected of a brutal assault and attempted murder, was of her step-daughter Dana. She phoned Detective Greco and told him of her suspicion. Dana, she told the detective, had recently dyed her hair red and had a boyfriend with a boy named Jason. She was well-known to Norma Davies and June Roberts.

Composite sketch

Detective Greco applied for a search warrant for Dana's home. He received it late on the morning of March 16th, 1994.

Elsewhere on the morning of March 16th, Julia Whitcombe was worrying that her 87-year-old mother, Dora Beebe, was not answering her phone. It was the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Ernest Beebe, Julia’s father, from cancer; a day Dora always felt depressed. Julia’s mother lived in Sun City on her own in a condominium. Worried, Julia decided to drive round to see her with a friend, Louis Dormand. When they arrived later in the afternoon, they were disturbed to find Dora’s door unlocked. They eventually found Dora’s battered body lying in the fetal position on the floor of the bathroom. There was blood everywhere. She had been bludgeoned to death with a heavy iron and strangled. Her credit card was missing.

Crime scene Dora’s bathroom

Detective Greco, with search warrant in hand, went to the house Dana shared with her boyfriend in Wildomar. In her house, they found a wallet containing $2,000 stashed in the washing machine, along with jewelry, brand new clothing with the labels still on, June Roberts' bank book, credit cards, and keys to her home. They also found keys to the antiques shop where Dorinda was attacked, and Dora Beebe’s credit card was found in Dana’s lingerie drawer: a woman whose murder the detective had only learned about thirty minutes before entering Dana’s house.

Detective Greco arrested Dana for forgery and possession of stolen property, cautioned her about her rights, and then took her in for questioning.

The questioning lasted for several hours. During it, Dana admitted to the use of June Roberts’s credit cards, thereby implicating herself in the February 28th murder. Dana then said she had found the bankbook and credit cards belonging to Dora Beebe. She even admitted to having been in Beebe's house and seeing her body. Dana, however, denied having anything to do with her murder.

When asked why she hadn’t handed the credit cards and bank books she apparently found over to the police, she replied, “I got desperate to buy things. Shopping puts me at rest. I'm lost without it”.

Detective Greco then charged Dana with the murders of June Roberts and Dora Beebe and the attempted murder of Dorinda Hawkins. Dana was detained without bail in the Riverside County Jail. The following day, the police held a press conference announcing her arrest.

Riverside County Jail.

Friends and acquaintances of Dana’s were stunned and shocked; they could not believe Dana as the kind of person who had allegedly assaulted one woman and killed three others. “She was,” they said, “an extremely nice girl”. Others said that Dana had been a good, friendly neighbor while others said that when her life had started to fall apart, she’d become strange and withdrawn.

Dana was not charged with Norma Davis’s death as the police had as yet no direct evidence connecting her to the crime. The newspapers speculated as to whether the DA would seek the death penalty.

On April 8, 1994, Dana pled, through her public defender lawyer, Stuart Sachs, innocent to the charges. On June 23rd, Richard Bentley, the Deputy DA, announced he would be seeking the death penalty due to the brutality of the murders.

Dana’s mug shot

On the lead up to the trial, Dana’s defense lawyer Stuart Sachs employed several psychiatrists. Stuart Sachs believed that Dana, due to the circumstances of her life in 1994, had been acting in a position of decreasing mental function. He wanted to prove to the court that Dana, who had been a respected registered nurse and married to a man with whom she loved, had in a short period of time in 1993 undergone severe stress. Dana had lost her job; her marriage had broken down, she had entered into bankruptcy, she had lost her Canyon Lake house, and she had suffered a miscarriage. A doctor from whom she had sought help, as she had felt suicidal, had prescribed her anti-depressants.

On March 10 1995, as Dana's trial was about to start in the Superior Court of Riverside, Stuart Sachs entered an insanity plea on Dana’s behalf. He told the court the psychological problems Dana had suffered from during the period of time the murders took place were now no longer an issue but at the time, they had caused her behavior.

After Dana changed her plea to evaluate her claim, two psychiatrists were appointed. The defense psychiatrist found her insane and felt that the events that happened prior to the killing spree to be the catalysts for her insanity. Before the killing binge, the defense claimed, she had been abusing alcohol and had given up taking her anti-depressants. During examination by the psychiatrists, Dana admitted that when she had murdered June Roberts, she had left five-year-old Jason in her Cadillac while she went into June’s house. Following the murder, she took Jason out for lunch and on a shopping trip.

The prosecution’s psychiatrist, Dr. Martha Rogers, claimed that Dana was well aware of her actions at the time of the murders. She said that despite being stressed, Dana had planned and prepared for the murders fully aware they were wrong.

While these evaluations were going on, Detective Greco was still looking for evidence linking Dana with Norma Davies’s murder. A gardener in a house across the road from Norma’s condominium had seen Dana wandering around Norma Davis's condo on the day of her murder. However, Detective Greco did not think this statement on its own was sufficient evidence for charging her with murdering Norma.  Nevertheless, he was determined he would find the evidence.

Three and a half years later, Dana’s trial had still not begun and then just before the police charged her with Norma Davies’s murder, Dana changed her plea. She had accepted a prosecution plea agreement On Sept. 8, 1998. Dana, now at the age of forty, pleaded guilty to robbery and the murder of two women and attempted murder of another. In this way, Dana avoided any possibility of the death penalty and the charge of murdering Norma Davies.

Over four years after Dana’s killing spree, on October 16th, 1998, Dana was sentenced. She elected this opportunity to make a statement to the court. The local newspaper reported her as saying, “My life and my career have been focused on healing. It has strayed so far from that purpose; it was so out of character. I'm sorry, and I know that these words will never be enough. I will live with this the rest of my life”. Dana continued by expressing her remorse to Judge Magers saying that she accepted responsibility but thought her judgment at the time of the offenses had been somewhat cloudy.

Judge Magers, on delivering her sentence, said, “It's hard to find words to describe the atrocity in this case. The crimes were horrendous, callous, and despicable”.

He sentenced Dana to life in prison without parole.

Dana lives incarcerated in Chowchilla, in the California Women's Prison, where she will stay until she dies.

California Women's Prison, Chowchilla

The local newspaper, The Press Enterprise, covered the case in detail. One story wrote about Dana’s movements after killing June Roberts. While she was killing June, she had left Jason in the car, telling him that she wouldn’t be long. When she returned to the car, she first took Jason to lunch and then she’d had her hair done. Both her hair and lunch were paid for with June’s credit card. Following this, she bought $695 of clothes and jewelry. People who had encountered her that day described her as happy and cheerful. At the end of the day, she had spent $1,700 on June’s card.

Dana Gray

Just what was it that made this attractive young woman of thirty-six suddenly decide to brutally slaughter old ladies and then go on lavish shopping sprees using their credit cards?

BEVERLY ALLITT

THE CARING NURSE?

Beverley Gail Allitt was born on the 4th of October in 1968, in England as one of four children. As a small child, she appeared happy but as she grew, she began to wear bandages and dressings over wounds she refused to allow anyone to examine. Her parents felt it was all due to attention seeking. As she entered puberty, she became overweight and increasingly sought attention. Beverly also began to show aggressive tendencies. Beverley also complained increasingly of physical pains that had her parents constantly taking her to the hospital with symptoms such as headaches, pains in the gall bladder, uncontrolled vomiting, urinary infections, blurred vision, appendicitis, back pains, and ulcers, to mention just a few. She faked her appendix symptoms so well, she ended up having a perfectly normal, healthy appendix removed. This ended up being extremely slow to heal as Beverly kept picking at the surgical wound. Doctor’s soon began to see her attention-seeking behavior.

After Beverly left school, she began training to become a nurse. During her training, she was frequently sick due to claiming a variety of illnesses. Her fellow students suspected her of odd behavior, such as smearing feces on a wall and in a nursing establishment where she undertook her training, leaving excrement in the fridge. A boyfriend of hers at this time later reported that she was deceptive, manipulative, and violent. Before their relationship had ended, she had claimed a false pregnancy and rape. He thought he was well rid of her. Unsurprisingly, due to her poor attendance; she failed many of her nursing examinations. Despite this, she was given in early 1991, at the age of 23, a six-month contract at the critically understaffed NHS hospital of Grantham and Kesteven, in Lincolnshire. She began work in Ward 4, a children’s ward. When Beverly began working at the hospital, only two properly qualified trained nurses were on the day shift and only one on the night shift.

On February 21st, 1991 Liam Taylor, a seven-month-old baby was placed in Ward Four with a suspected chest infection. Nurse Beverly Alitt reassured his distraught parents that their son was in the best possible place to recover. She persuaded the parents that the best thing they could do for their child was to return home and get some sleep. The following morning when Mr. and Mrs. Taylor returned, Beverly told them that, in the night, Liam had suffered a respiratory problem but was now fine. She told the anxious parents that she would do an extra night’s duty so she personally could keep an eye on their son. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor also decided to sleep that night in the hospital in a room kept for parents of small children.

That night, baby Liam suffered another respiratory complication but came through it to the doctor’s satisfaction. Baby Liam was then alone with only Nurse Beverly Allitt in attendance. Another nurse appeared and noticed that Liam was deathly pale and then red patches surfaced on his little face. Beverly began yelling for an emergency team. The other nurses on duty were perplexed as to why the alarm monitors had not sounded when Liam had stopped breathing. Baby Liam Taylor suffered cardiac arrest. The attending doctors did all they could but even with all of their efforts, Liam suffered massive brain damage. The only thing now keeping the baby alive was the life-support machine that kept his lungs functioning. On the doctor’s advice, because of the severe brain damage, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor agreed to have the life support turned off. Liam’s death was attributed to heart failure. Beverley observed the whole drama before putting on her coat and going home. She returned to work later for her next night shift almost as if nothing had happened.

On March 5th, 1991 Timothy Hardwick, an eleven-year-old boy who suffered from cerebral palsy, was admitted to Ward 4 having had an epileptic fit. Nurse Beverly Allitt was on duty and took over his care. Within a few moments of being left alone with Timothy, she began yelling for help that Timothy was suffering a cardiac arrest. Other hospital staff ran to her aid including the emergency resuscitation team, who on reaching him found he had no pulse and was turning blue. Despite strenuous efforts by the medical team, Timothy died. An autopsy was carried out but failed to provide a clear cause of death and so his death was attributed to epilepsy.

On March 3rd, 1991, Kayley Desmond, a one-year-old little girl, was taken to Ward 4 suffering from an infection of the chest. She appeared to be responding well to treatment until five days later when she was left alone with Nurse Beverly Allitt. Kayley then suffered a cardiac arrest. The emergency team succeeded in reviving her, and she was moved to a Nottingham hospital. Here, during an extensive examination, a doctor found a needle mark under her armpit along with an air bubble close by. The doctor thought it was most likely caused by an accidental injection, and there was no investigation carried out.

On March 20, 1991, Paul Crampton, a five-month-old boy, was admitted to Ward 4 with a bronchial infection that was not considered serious. Just before Paul was discharged, he was left alone with Nurse Beverly Allitt. Within minutes, Beverly was calling for help as the baby boy appeared to be suffering from insulin shock. On three separate occasions, Paul sank into a near-coma. On each occasion, the doctors managed to revive him, but they were puzzled by the fluctuations in his insulin levels. He was sent by ambulance, accompanied by Nurse Beverly Allitt, to the Nottingham hospital where on admission he was again fond to have too high levels of insulin. Paul survived.

The following day, Bradley Gibson, a 5-year-old boy who was in ward 4 suffering from pneumonia, suddenly experienced cardiac arrest. The emergency team of doctors saved him. They then ran some blood tests and were puzzled by his high levels of insulin. Later that night, when alone with Nurse Beverly Allitt, he suffered another cardiac arrest. Yet again, he was revived and then moved to the Nottingham hospital where he recovered. Extraordinarily, with all the unexplained and mystifying health events that all happened in Nurse Beverly Allitt’s presence, no suspicions were aroused.

On March 22nd, 1991, a little two-year-old boy, Yik Hung Chan, who was on ward 4 after having fallen out of a window and fracturing his skull, was left alone with Nurse Beverly Allitt. He began to turn blue and appeared to be having some kind of attack. Beverly called for help, and the boy was revived with oxygen. A few hours later, Yik Hung Chan suffered another similar attack. After reviving him again, he was transferred to the bigger hospital in Nottingham. His symptoms were thought to be due to his fall.

Nurse Beverly Allitt then began to take an interest in two little twin baby girls, Katie and Becky Phillips. They were two-months-old and had been born prematurely and were being kept in the hospital for observation. After being allowed home, Becky Phillips was brought to Ward 4, on April 1st, 1991, suffering from gastroenteritis. On April 3rd, Nurse Beverly Allitt told doctors that she thought Becky was hypoglycemic and cold to the touch. On examination, the doctors found no ailment. Becky Phillips was discharged and sent home with her mother Sue Phillips.

That night, baby Becky cried out with what her parents thought was pain. A doctor visited the house and thought it was a case of colic. The parents slept that night with Becky in their bed where she died during the night. An autopsy was performed, but the pathologists found no obvious cause of death.

Katie Phillips, the surviving twin, was then admitted to Ward 4 as a precaution. Nurse Beverly Allitt assured the distraught mother that she would keep an extra special eye on Katie. Left alone with Beverly, baby Katie stopped breathing. The emergency team were called and managed to revive Katie. Sue Phillips attributed Katie’s life being saved to Beverly. In gratitude, she asked Beverly to be Katie's godmother. Nurse Beverly Allitt graciously accepted the honor, as if she had been a hero.

Two days later, baby Katie suffered another attack which caused her lungs to collapse, and it was with considerable difficulty that the emergency team managed to revive her. Once revived, she was sent to Nottingham hospital. Here, the doctors on examining her discovered that five of her ribs were broken and that she had suffered severe brain damage due to oxygen deprivation.

Four more young victims followed but, fortunately, all were saved by being transferred to Nottingham hospital. The doctors at Nottingham's hospital were beginning to suspect that something was not entirely right at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital.

When a little girl, Claire Peck, a fifteen-month-old asthmatic patient who needed a breathing tube was alone with Nurse Beverly Allitt, she suffered a cardiac arrest. The emergency team managed to revive her. When left alone again with Beverly, she suffered another heart attack from which she died on April 22, 1991.

The autopsy examination showed that Claire Peck had died from natural causes. However, Dr. Nelson Porter, a consultant at the hospital was most unhappy at the high number of heart cases which had occurred over the past eight weeks on Ward 4 and began an investigation. At first, he thought that maybe it was caused by a virus in the ventilation system, but tests proved negative. Dr. Nelson Porter then called for more tests to be carried out on baby Claire. These tests showed abnormally high levels of potassium in the baby’s blood and in her tissues there were traces of Lignocaine, a drug used to treat adults suffering from cardiac arrest and one that is never given to babies. The hospital called in the police.

Superintendent Stuart Clifton was put in charge of the investigation, and it didn’t take too long to find the common thread in all the cases: Nurse Beverly Allitt. Within 3 weeks of starting the investigation, Superintendent Clifton arrested Nurse Beverly Allitt. Beverly strenuously denied any knowledge of the attacks. She said all she did was try and save lives.  Sue Phillips, the twin’s mother, so believed in Beverly that she hired a private investigator to clear Beverly’s name; a decision she must now seriously regret. After several court hearings, Beverly was charged with eleven counts of causing grievous bodily harm, eleven counts of attempted murder, and four counts of murder. Beverly lost a large amount of weight and developed anorexia nervosa while in prison awaiting her trial. She was also examined by psychiatrists sent by the prosecution and defense teams.

Both sets of psychiatrists diagnosed Beverly as suffering from Munchausen syndrome: a form of severe factitious disorder where the sufferer makes up physical symptoms that are either false or self-induced. Sufferers are not malingering; they just want to play the patient role for attention. They also found her to be suffering from Munchausen by Proxy syndrome. This is when the sufferer harms others to gain attention for themselves.

After several delays caused by Beverly’s “illnesses”, Beverly Allitt’s trial started on February 15th, 1993, at Nottingham’s Crown Court. The trial lasted nearly two months and during it, Beverly only attended sixteen days due to her “illnesses”. Beverly was found guilty of all charges. In May of 1993, Beverly was sentenced to thirteen life sentences. The judge, Mr. Justice Latham, told Beverly Allitt that he considered her "a serious danger" to others. He ordered her to be incarcerated at Rampton Hospital, a secure hospital in Nottinghamshire which houses among others those deemed criminally insane. Beverly Allitt has, since her detention, admitted to three of the infant murders and six of the assaults. Her earliest possible parole date is 2032 when she will be sixty-four.

CONCLUSION

As of now, we are only thirteen years into the 21st century and already according to the website The Unknown History of MISANDRY, thirty women serial killers around the world have already been listed.

The Black Widow in the 21st century has changed little. She still manipulates as she smiles in your face and adds poison to your wine, tea, or coffee. The caring nurse and caregiver still enjoys her power of life and death. Even more horrifying is the supposedly loving mother still murders her children.

A former FBI profiler has said that the serial killer's greatest defense is that he/she is virtually unrecognizable by sight, as they tend to look so normal: the kind granny, the devoted nurse, the loyal wife, the devoted mother, or the friendly helpful neighbor. They look like you and I. The other thing that sets them apart is that they are usually not insane but are fully aware of the difference between right and wrong, and that’s what makes them so scary.

Yet, despite the number of women serial killers in history, very little research has been done on them, even to this day and because of this lack of research I feel that many of these female predators will never be caught and will continue to get away with their crimes.

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OTHER BOOKS BY SYLVIA PERRINI

WOMEN SERIAL KILLERS OF THE 17th CENTURY (WOMEN WHO KILL)

ASIN:B00BKPWKG6

This was the century when royal poison scandals sent shockwaves throughout Europe. The scandals so rocked France, that Louis XIV in 1662, passed a law stopping the sale of poisonous substances to people other than professionals, and for all purchasers to be registered.

In this short booklet of approximately 9,300 words, best selling author Sylvia Perrini takes a look at some of the most prolific women poisoners of this century, and a look at one woman, who did not use poison, just torture.

Be prepared to be shocked.

WOMEN MURDERERS OF THE 18th CENTURY (WOMEN WHO KILL)

ASIN:B007B2G0KY

Why do women kill and murder? They are supposed to be the gentler sex, the ones who nurture the babies and support families, keeping the very structure of society in place. Why do some women go wrong? Is it greed, jealousy, power or just plain wickedness?

Women Murderers have been around for centuries. In this short book of approximately 12,500 words best selling author Sylvia Perrini looks at the profiles of eight women who operated in the 18th century.

WOMEN SERIAL KILLERS OF THE19th CENTURY: THE GOLDEN AGE OF POISONS (WOMEN WHO KILL)

ASIN:B00BK9QY2S

The 19th Century is often regarded as the heyday of poisoners. In the beginning to the middle of the nineteenth century, a poisoning panic engrossed the public imagination. In the Times newspaper in England, between 1830 and 1839, fifty-nine cases of murder by poisoning were reported. By the 1840s, the number reported had risen to hundreds. And, of these hundreds of poisonings, sixty percent involved women murderers.

In this fascinating book, best selling author Sylvia Perrini, looks at serial women killers around the world in the 19th Century. Nearly all the cases, but not all, involve poisoning.

OR BUY ALL THREE BOOKS ABOVE INCLUDING THIS ONE IN ONE COLLECTION:

WOMEN SERIAL KILLERS THROUGH TIME Boxed Set (4 in 1)

ASIN; B00C3N7BFY

ISBN-10:1484044266

ISBN-13:978-1484044261

ANGELS OF DEATH; NURSES WHO KILL (WOMEN SERIAL KILLERS)

ASIN:B00946F178

In this book, historian and best selling author Sylvia Perrini looks at some cases of serial killers, all of whom were female nurses. The crimes of these nurses are heinous and shocking.

Luckily, nurses, who murder their patients, are the exception. They are not the rule. However, the number of cases of nurses accused and convicted of murdering patients is rising. It’s almost enough to give you a phobia about going into hospital!!

BABY FARMERS OF THE 19th CENTURY (WOMEN WHO KILL)

ASIN:B00ACPGTFI

ISBN-10: 1484128729

ISBN-13: 978-1484128725

The practice of baby farming came about in late Victorian times. In this era, there was a great social stigma attached to having a child out of marriage and no adequate contraception existed. In this period of time, no child protection services or regulated adoption agencies were in existence.

A number of untrained women offered adoption and fostering services to unmarried mothers who would hand over their baby and a cash payment. The mothers hoped that this payment would find stable, happy homes for their babies. And in the case of weekly payments that they would at some time in the future be able to re-claim their child.

It was, without doubt, one of the most sickening aspects of Victorian times, not only in Britain but also in its colonies as well.

Many of these fostering and adoption agencies were bona fide, but a frightening number were not. They became known as baby farms.

In this short book, best selling author, Sylvia Perrini, introduces us to some of these baby farmers.

FIVE WOMEN SERIAL KILLER PROFILES; Boxed Set

ASIN: B00A9HW3KO

ISBN-10: 149045845X

ISBN-13: 978-1490458458

This is a compilation of best-selling author, Sylvia Perrini’s, five short books of Women Serial Killers.

The profiles contained in this volume are:

DOROTHEA HELEN PUENTE-SOCIAL WORKER’S SAVIOR!!

VELMA BARFIELD- GATEWAY TO HEAVEN

GENENE JONES-CODE BLUE

AILEEN WUORNUS-DAMSEL FOR SALE

KATHLEEN FOLBIGG--UNJUST JUSTICE?

Some of these stories will shock you to the core, and some may make you weep. They may also be bought separately.

I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS: FEMALE RAMPAGE KILLERS (WOMEN WHO KILL)

ASIN:B00CW16O28

ISBN-10: 1489533966

ISBN-13: 978-1489533968

The Famous hit song “I don’t like Mondays” penned by Bob Geldof, was written after the school shootings in San Diego, California, committed by Brenda Spencer. Once she was apprehended and asked why she had done it. Her reply was:

“I don’t like Mondays, do you?”

When one thinks of spree killers or rampage killers, normally one thinks of a male. Men such as the Aurora Colorado Movie Theater James Eagan Holmes, Seung-Hui Cho Virginia Tech Massacre, Columbine school killers Eric David Bennet and Dylan Bennet Klebold, Adam Lanza at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and the 2011 massacre at a summer camp in Norway, by Anders Behring Breivik to name just a few.

Yet, women have also committed these crimes just not in such large numbers as men.

SUGAR N’SPICE: TEEN GIRLS WHO KILL

ASIN: B00DESV62Q

ISBN-10: 149045845X

ISBN-13: 978-1490458458

Murder is horrific whenever it happens and in what ever circumstances. But when a murder is carried out by a young girl, not much more than a child, it is doubly horrific.

What is it that goes wrong in the lives and minds of these girls that grow up to be teenage killers? Girls who ruthlessly murder strangers, young children, parents, and others?"

In this short book of approximately 25,000 words Sylvia Perrini has selected seven murder cases committed by teenage girls. The profiles of the girls covered are;

PAULINE PARKER AND JULIET HULME aka Anne Perry, the well-known author of murder fiction.

BRENDA ANN SPENCER

CHERYL PIERSON

HOLLY HARVEY AND SANDRA KETCHUM

CHELSEA O’MAHONEY

CINDY COLLIER AND SHIRLEY WOLF

ALYSSA BUSTAMANTE

NO, DAD! PLEASE, DON'T! (THE JOHN LIST STORY) (MURDER IN THE FAMILY)

ASIN; B00EI2BA28

On the morning of December the 8th, 1971, New Jersey, and indeed the entire metropolitan New York City area, awoke to lurid newspaper headlines of the horrific massacre of almost an entire family in the affluent community of Westfield, N.J.; a story that both captivated and horrified a nation. The story was quickly picked up around the world.

The face of John List, who had left letters confessing to the crime, stared out at the readers. He was an ordinary, fairly non-descript looking man. The question on everyone’s lips as news broke of the horrific slaughter by a college-educated, seemingly successful accountant, and Sunday school teacher was why? He had murdered his mother, wife and three teenage children.

In this short booklet, of approximately 11,000 words, best selling author, Sylvia Perrini, delves into the events that led to the horrific slaughter of John Lists, mother, wife and three teenage children.

John List managed to evade capture for over 18 years and never expressed remorse for his crimes.

OTHER GOLDMINE GUIDES.COM PUBLICATIONS

SAILING INTO THE ABYSS (TRUE SMUGGLING ADVENTURE) (MARIJUANA SMUGGLING)

BRIDGET LANE

ASIN:B009N1IRSE

ISBN-10: 1480257001

ISBN-13: 978-1480257009

This is a life-changing true story of drugs running across the Pacific. A young girl with a passion for sailing gets approached to transport an illegal cargo from Colombia to the US. She battles with storms, snakes, and interminable days at sea, before finally being intercepted by a Mexican gunboat.

Her subsequent incarceration in Mexico’s most infamous prison, La Mesa, is almost more surprising: the treatment she receives and the people she meets become a transformative experience, as she recounts in this totally compelling personal journey.

WOMEN PIRATES (SCANDALOUS WOMEN)

ANNA MYERS

ASIN:B007KQCBF4

There is an old superstition among sailors that women at sea bring bad luck. Despite this, many women have proved their seafaring skills. When we think of Pirates we have a tendency to think of masculine men. But did you know that the most successful pirate of all time was a woman? Neither the Chinese, British or Portuguese navies could stop her.

In this delightful short book author Anna Myers takes a look at the lives of eight wicked women pirates.

DESERT QUEEN; LADY HESTER STANHOPE (SCANDALOUS WOMEN)

ANNA MYERS

ASIN:B00BAKB4XQ

In this wonderful short book, author Anna Myers looks at the colorful life of the extraordinary bohemian adventuress Lady Hester Stanhope.

Lady Hester lived in England until the age of about 34 when she set off traveling and fell in love with the Middle East. While en route to Egypt she was shipwrecked, and lost all her clothes. Unable to purchase European clothes she adopted a male version of Turkish dress. This, made her a bit of a 'cause celeb' in the Middle East, and also that she rode horseback into Damascus without a veil, an unthinkable thing to do at the time. In fact, many of the things Lady Hester did were unthinkable at the time, which is what made her such a colorful character.

Many of the travels she undertook were exceedingly dangerous, but she appeared fearless. She was the first European woman - and one of the few Europeans to survive the dangerous journey - to enter Palmyra, in the middle of the Syrian desert. The native Bedouins crowned her as “Queen of the Desert”. Hester chose to settle down in Lebanon, where she became a local folk hero, offering shelter to those affected by wars and the battles for supremacy in the region.

When the British Government, under Lord Palmerston, stopped her pension, she died in her home in Djoun, destitute, friendless and alone.

SCANDALOUS LADIES (WICKED WOMEN)

ANNA MYERS

ASIN:B007S9YCIM

Author Anna Myers in this delightful short book, provides a gallery of extraordinary women swindlers, con artists and imposters.Some of the women you may even like and some you will despise.

MARTHE HANAU

‘La Banquière’

POILLON SISTERS

Sisters you would not want to meet on a dark night.

ELIZABETH BIGLEY

The Enterprising Mrs. Chadwick

THÉRÈSE HUMBERT

ANN O’DELIA DISS DEBAR

"One of the most extraordinary fake mediums and mystery swindlers the world has ever known".

ANNA SCHNEIDER

Too Many Husbands Spoil The Broth

ELLEN PECK

Just never wanted to retire!

BERTHA HEYMAN

"One of the smartest confidence women in America"

SARAH RACHEL RUSSELL

‘The Beautician from Hell’

SARAH WILSON

Princess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz sister?

ANNA ANDERSON

Was she Czar Nicolas’s II daughter ?

PRINCESS CARABOO

The greatest actress of all time!

LOVE YOUR LIVER:How to keep your liver healthy (HEALTHY LIVING)

PENNY LANE

ASIN:B0077SP1SO

This book has some great tips for good liver health, delicious liver-friendly recipes and information that will help you get to know one of your most hardworking and vital organs. The liver performs an amazing 500 different functions. It produces bile, essential for breaking down fat for absorption and extracting vitamins A, D, E and K, stores energy from food until it is needed, and aids our natural immunity by releasing chemicals to fight infection.With so many important jobs to do, your liver is robust enough to carry on even when it is damaged - it can even repair itself. But every organ has its limits and the liver is no exception. We must learn to love our liver. Our liver helps us to recover from all our over indulgence’s So learn to give your liver the love it deserves, and this book will help you do so.

FISH AND SEAFOOD FOR LOVE (NATURE’S NATURAL APRODISIACS)

ASIN:B00DKE6TLM

The ancient world believed seafood had aphrodisiac characteristics because, the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, sprang from the foam of the sea on an oyster shell (hence Botticelli's much reproduced painting of the goddess floating on a seashell). The Romans named her Venus.

The sea is one of the major sources of life and Seafood has been seen as the food of love for many centuries. A claim that is not surprising considering it is brimming with minerals such as calcium, zinc, iodine and iron.

In this delightful book of aphrodisiac foods, the author looks at the most popular fishy aphrodisiacs as well as providing some excellent recipes to enjoy them.

Table of Contents

WOMEN FROM HELL

AMY ARCHER-GILLIGAN

DAGMAR OVERBYE

VERA RENCZI

BERTHA GIFFORD

DAISY LOUISA DEMELKER

LYDIA SOUTHARD

MARIE ALEXANDRIA BECKER

MARTHA MAREK

ANNA MARIE HAHN------ "

CAROLINE GRILLS

LOUISE PEETE

MARIE BESNARD

NANNIE DOSS

MARY ELIZABETH WILSON---

RHONDA BELL MARTIN

ANJETTE DONOVAN LYLES

MARIE FIKACKOVA

JANIE LOU GIBBS

VELMA BARFIELD

JUDIAS "JUDY" BUENOANO

DOROTHEA HELEN PUENTE-

ELFRIEDE BLAUENSTEINER

AILEEN WUORNUS-

DANA SUE GRAY

BEVERLY ALLITT

CONCLUSION

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