Men may rule the head count in history's most notorious crimes, but women have the monopoly when it comes to fascinating and colourful back stories.
Females may make up a smaller percentage of total criminal activity, but some of the most horrific crimes have been committed by women. From infanticide, murdering husbands to robbing banks, these women have become famous for all the wrong reasons.
Lizzie Borden was the top suspect in the gruesome 1892 murders of her father and stepmother in Fall River, Massachusetts. On August 4, 1892, Lizzie found her dead father slumped on a couch and bloodied from multiple crushing blows to his skull and his left eyeball split in half. The Borden’s maid, Bridget Sullivan, was lying down in her room when the murders occurred and were called down by Lizzie when she discovered her father’s body. Her stepmother, Abby Borden, was found dead in the guest bedroom from similar hatchet blows to the head. Lizzie was arrested and taken to jail following the murders. During her murder trial, Lizzie’s stories were inconsistent and suspicious, and much of the incriminating evidence was overlooked. Despite the fact that police found a hatchet with a broken handle in the basement, and knew that Lizzie had attempted to buy prussic acid and even burned one of her dresses days after the murders, Lizzie was acquitted. The maid even provided key testimony at the trials, claiming that Lizzie never mourned the loss of her parents. However, no one else was ever arrested or tried for the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden.
Bonnie Parker, of Bonnie and Clyde fame, went on a two-year rampage with her lover across the States during the Great Depression, in a revolutionary tale of fatal attraction and violence that would forever resonate in the public consciousness. Waitress Bonnie met Clyde Chestnut Barrow in 1929 and the chemistry was immediate. He has sentenced to jail soon after but escaped in 1930, using a gun Bonnie smuggled into him. Between 1932 and 1934, the pair embarked on an increasingly reckless crime spree of robberies, kidnappings and murders across Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Louisiana, and New Mexico.
Along with the fellow members of their Barrow Gang, they changed cars and jumped borders frequently to elude the "big, bad law" who were "out to get them." But however much they've been romanticised in the public imagination, there's no doubt that the actions of Bonnie and her cohort were brutal and desperate, as they stole money from a host of small grocery stores and petrol stations, and trailed no less than 13 murders in their wake of destruction. They died in as grisly and dramatic style as they lived; in a spray of 130 bullets during a police ambush on May 23, 1934.
Mary Ann Cotton was an English serial killer during the 19th century, who was suspected of killing about 20 people by arsenic poisoning. Cotton took no mercy on her victims, killing her husbands, mother, friend and even her own children. The murder spree began when she married her first husband, William Mowbray. The couple had five children and quickly lost four of them to gastric fever and stomach pains. They had and lost, three more children, and Mary Ann became a widow after her husband died of an intestinal disorder in 1865. Mary Ann collected his insurance and moved on to her next husband. Mary Ann continued the pattern of marrying the husband, give birth to a child, the child dies, then husband dies and she collects the insurance money. By the time she met her fourth and last husband, Frederick Cotton, Mary Ann had lost her mother, friend, three husbands and 11 children all to stomach fevers. After Frederick’s sudden death and the death of the last surviving Cotton boy, Charles Edward, the coroner became suspicious of the cause of death and Mary Ann’s role in the fatalities she had witnessed through the years. When Charles’ body tested positive for arsenic, Mary Ann was arrested and later found guilty for the murders and was hanged.
Known as the Queen of Cocaine, the Black Widow or simply La Madrina, Griselda Blanco bloodied the streets of Miami in a decades-long reign of terror that saw her become one of the most notorious drug lords in the Western hemisphere. Born in Colombia, she first got involved in the drugs trade aged 14. By the time she was 40, she was moving 300 kilos of cocaine a month, had around 20 aliases and had developed a reputation for ruthless brutality even among Colombia's most hardened criminals.
Blanco was queen of bloody revenge attacks and was credited with the dubious honour of inventing the motorcycle ride-by killing in the 70s and 80s. She was responsible for a huge amount of gang-related murders; urban legend has it she left a body count upwards of 250 people in her wake, including at least three of her ex-husbands. In one infamous incident, she pulled out a Uzi submachine gun and killed her husband Alberto Bravo and six bodyguards in a Bogotá nightclub car park, in a row over missing profits from a cartel they built together. She was eventually caught and served 19 years in a US jail for murder and racketeering (having avoided the death sentence on a technicality) before being deported to Colombia. There she reached a sticky end; she was gunned down in the street - ironically, by a killer on a motorcycle - as she left a butcher's shop in 2012. She was clutching $150 worth of meat and a bible at the time of her death.
Genene Jones is a serial killer who killed somewhere between 11 and 46 infants and children while working as a paediatric nurse in San Antonio and Kerrville, Texas. Jones injected children with digoxin, heparin and succinylcholine that caused heart paralysis, breathing complications and often led to death. Her intention was to put children in an emergency state and revive them to receive praise and attention from parents, doctors and the public. However, many children like Chelsea McClellan did not survive the attacks, and their deaths were labelled as SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome. When suspicion rose about the eight children who developed emergency respiratory problems at the paediatric intensive-care unit in Kerrville, and an inordinate number of child deaths at Jones’ previous job at Bexar County Hospital, an investigation ensued. Chelsea McClellan’s body was exhumed and the coroner found succinylcholine in her tissues. Although the evidence was compelling, no one had actually seen Jones inject Chelsea or her other victims. After several organised hearings, the Kerr County grand jury found Jones guilty of one count of murder and several charges for injury to seven children. She was sentenced to 99 years in prison and will receive automatic parole in 2017.
After Griselda Blanco, the most powerful female drug lord in the Americas is Sandra Avila Beltran, or, as she was known in the crime circles, The Queen of The Pacific. Sandra Avila Beltran's career path seemed to have been laid out for her since birth - she was born to a well-established drug world family. Beltran had romantic links with several drug lords and kingpins over several years which helped her rise to the top in the drug world of Mexico. She became a poster girl when pictures of her emerged in chic clothes, high heels and reports of doctors being sneaked into the Mexican jail for her Botox treatments.
Beltran was arrested in 2007 when she was in her early 50s. Beltran was charged in connection with the seizure of nine tonnes of cocaine on a ship bound for the US. She was convicted in 2011, extradited to the US in 2012, repatriated back to Mexico in 2013, and released from prison in February this year.
From July 1963 to October 1965 Myra Hindley and her lover, Ian Bradley carried out a series of horrific murders in Manchester, England. Myra Hindley raped and murdered five children from 1963 to 1965. The victims included children between the ages of 10 and 12. In 1965, Myra Hindley's brother-in-law alerted the police after he witnessed Myra and Ian killing a 17-year-old with an axe.
Even after their conviction, Myra insisted she was innocent and was influenced by Ian Brady. In 1987, she confessed to her involvement in all the rapes and murders. She died in jail in 2002.
Heather Johnson seemed like a normal college student, but she was living a secret life. She’d begun stripping in order to make some fast cash and when her family found out she left. She fully embraced a life of stripping and drugs, and eventually moved in with fellow stripper Ashley Miller.
Always interested in making a few quick bucks, the women began to joke about whether or not they could get away with robbing a bank. Soon, the joke turned into a plan. Johnston knew a bank teller at a local bank of America, and the three of them began to hammer out the details of how the robbery would go down.
The women showed up at the bank wearing their best clothes and designer sunglasses. They slipped their “inside man” a note, which he had instructed them to write. They shoved the money into a bag they’d brought and walked right out of the bank.
When they got home, they split the money and immediately went to the mall. They went to the salon to get highlights. Little did they know their pictures were all over the news. Tips started rolling in and only two days after their sloppy heist, the women, who had been dubbed the “Barbie Bandits,” were in police custody.
The Wild West has many stories about famous outlaws, most of whom are men, but Pearl Hart could ride, shoot, and steal with the best of them. Originally from Canada, Pearl grew up in a life of privilege, attending prestigious boarding schools. As a young woman, she started rebelling against her straight-laced upbringing, hanging out with all sorts of ill-reputed types.
When she went to the World’s Fair in Chicago she fell in love with the Buffalo Bill Wild West show and ran away with a piano player from the show to go to the Wild West. She bounced around aimlessly, doing any job she could manage to make some cash until she ran into a grifter named Joe Boot.
They hatched a plan to rob a stagecoach and they succeeded in the robbery but failed at evading the authorities. A female stagecoach robber was novel in the Wild West and the media went wild. Hart became an overnight sensation and she knew how to play the media. She briefly escaped prison before her trial, but was caught and tried. The trial was one of the first big media trials in the West and Hart remained a superstar.
She was sentenced to five years in prison, but got out after 15 months, claiming that she was pregnant, even though she wasn’t. From there, she capitalised on her fame and joined the Buffalo Bill Wild West show and settled into a relatively normal life.
When we think of powerful gangsters we often think of Al Capone or “Lucky” Luciano. Women gangsters rarely, if ever, come to mind. The truth is that Kate “Ma” Barker organised one of the most notorious gangs of the 1930’s, rivalling any of the male-led organisations of the time.
“Ma” Barker was born as Arizona Clark and when she was young, Jesse James’ gang rode through her town. Witnessing this crime spree sparked Barker’s interest in a life of crime. Her early adult life did nothing to meet that interest. She married a farmer, George Barker, and had four sons. Her sons were notorious troublemakers, but she refused to rebuke them. She allowed them to continue committing petty crimes all throughout their teen and young adult years.
In 1931, her son Fred was let out of jail and he joined forces with another criminal Alvis Karpis. The two joined forces and with “Ma” Barker’s guidance, formed the Barker-Karpis gang. They began committing small time robberies, carried out by the boys, but orchestrated by “Ma” Barker. Things escalated quickly when they shot a town Sheriff. This began a series of kidnappings and murders that were all orchestrated by “Ma” Barker.
FBI agents eventually staked out the house where “Ma” and Fred Barker were hiding out and started a shootout with the gang. Both “Ma” and Fred were killed in the shootout and the days of the Barker-Karpis gang were done.
In February of 1974, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) kidnapped nineteen-year-old college student Patty Hearst. The SLA was a group of radicals who sought to destroy the US government and the capitalist system. Their methods were anything but peaceful. They saw themselves as engaged in a war with the system. They kidnapped Hearst because she was from a powerful and wealthy family and they wanted to attract media attention to their cause.
A few months after the kidnapping, Patty Hearst reemerged as a devoted follower of SLA. She participated in a bank robbery orchestrated by SLA and was seen on bank surveillance footage carrying an assault rifle. She appeared to be a full-fledged member of the revolution.
For months, she led the police on a cross-country chase, committing crimes along the way with her SLA compatriots. The pursuit and the trial were heavily covered by the media. Hearst claimed that she had been beaten and brainwashed by the SLA and was forced to comply with their commands. The jury didn’t buy it and she was sentenced to seven years in prison. She served two years and was later pardoned.For months, she led the police on a cross country chase, committing crimes along the way with her SLA compatriots. The pursuit and the trial were heavily covered by the media. Hearst claimed that she had been beaten and brainwashed by the SLA and was forced to comply with their commands. The jury didn’t buy it and she was sentenced to seven years in prison. She served two years and was later pardoned.
Aileen Wournos shot and killed seven men in Florida while working as a prostitute between 1989 and 1990. Wournos claimed that she killed them in self-defence after they raped, or attempted to rape her. She was convicted of six murders and sentenced to death. Wuornos is known as America's first female serial killer and was executed by lethal injection in 2002. Her story was turned into a movie called Monster in which Wuornos' character was played by Charlize Theron.
Charlotte Corday became an assassin at age 25. The daughter of French nobles, Corday’s allegiance during the French Revolution lay with Girondins—French republican politicians—and the French constitution. She took the conflict into her own hands and set her sights on Jean-Paul Marat, a leader of the French Revolution and enemy of all she stood for. Corday lied her way in to meet with Marat face-to-face and stabbed him to death in his bathtub on July 13, 1793. She was arrested and sent to the guillotine four days later.
Mary Surratt ran a tavern with her husband in Maryland, where they welcomed Confederate soldiers during the American Civil War. When her husband died, Surratt moved to Washington, D.C., and opened a boardinghouse. The boardinghouse became a meeting place for John Wilkes Booth and his fellow conspirators. Surratt herself became entangled in the plot to kill U.S. Pres. Abraham Lincoln. She is thought to have been in regular conversation with Booth about his plans and assisted in concealing the weapons used for the murder at her tavern in Maryland. She was tried and found guilty of conspiracy and became the first woman to be sentenced to death by the United States. She was hanged with the other conspirators on July 7, 1865.
The wife and sister-in-law of dreaded gangster and terrorist Dawood Ibrahim's aide Tiger Memon were actively involved in the 1993 bombings in Mumbai. Over 350 people were killed in the bomb blasts. Their whereabouts are unknown, but some believe they are based in Karachi.
Shashikala Patankar is the woman behind the Meow Meow drug racket in Mumbai. The name is derived from the street name of the drug Mephedrone. Before she became one of the biggest players in the drug market in Mumbai, Patankar was a milk vendor in the city. She started her stint in drugs by dealing in marijuana and brown sugar before Mephedrone. Soon, Patankar made her way up the drug ladder and is believed to have introduced Meow to the city, and went on to become the biggest dealer of Mephedrone in Mumbai . She enjoyed her reign till her arrest in May this year after 12 kilos of Mephedrone were seized from her partner's locker, a police constable.
Diane Downs is infamously known for shooting her three children, killing one, in order to keep her lover who didn’t want kids. Downs told police a fabricated story that a stranger had tried to carjack her, shot her in the arm and shot her three kids near Springfield, Oregon. She then drove to the McKenzie-Willamette Hospital with her children in the back. Her second child, Cheryl, was already dead when they arrived. Downs had been shot in her left forearm, which was later determined to be a self-inflicted wound used to support her carjacking story. Downs rehashed the events to police and was recorded on camera laughing as she described the traumatic details. Her calm behaviour and mannerisms made police very suspicious of Downs’ role in the shooting and murder of her 7-year-old daughter. When police discovered that Downs was involved with Robert Knickerbocker, an Arizona man who did not want children in his life, all signs pointed to Downs as the murderer. Prosecutors strongly believed that Downs attempted to kill all three kids so she could continue her affair with Knickerbocker, but it wasn’t until her oldest daughter, Christie, gave a key testimony that it was, in fact, her mother who shot her and her sisters that the case came to rest. Downs was found guilty on all charges and was sentenced to life in prison, plus 50 years, on June 17, 1984.
Charles Manson and the Manson Family achieved worldwide notoriety with the murder of Sharon Tate, actor and director Roman Polanski's wife, and four other murders. Three women in the Manson Family were convicted for the murders - Susan Atkins, Leslie Van Houten, and Patricia Krenwinkel. Susan Atkins was 21-years-old when she stabbed 8-and-a-half months pregnant Sharon Tate in her home. During the trial, Atkins said, “She told me to spare her. I told her I didn't have any mercy for her.” She also said that Tate's whining got on her nerves. A day later, she was involved in the murder of a couple named Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Atkins was sentenced to death in 1971, which was later commuted to life.
Leslie Van Houten was 19-years-old when she stabbed Rosemary LaBianca 16 times. During the murder trial, Van Houten said she wished she had been there during Sharon Tate's murder. She was also seen giggling during the trial. She was sentenced to life in prison.
22-year-old Patricia Krenwinkel was involved in the Tate and LaBianca murders. After the LaBianca couple was killed, she wrote 'DEATH TO PIGS' in blood on the walls. She was sentenced to death, which was later commuted to life in prison.
