Women serial killers not rare breed

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Indi ... 667411.cms




NEW DELHI: A woman serial killer like K D Kempamma alias Mallika, who was nabbed by the Bangalore police on Sunday, is a rarity in India. But several female versions of Alexander Pichushkin, the Russian serial 'chessboard' killer convicted last year, have existed in several countries through the centuries.

Quite a few such murderers have been the subject of films and television serials. But perhaps the highest recall value goes to Michigan-born Aileen Carol Wuornos, who killed seven men while working as a sex-worker and who was put to death via lethal injection in 2002. That's primarily because Hollywood made a movie, 'Monster', based on her life and actress Charlize Theron, playing the lead part, gave an Oscar-winning performance.

Sometimes husband and wife became a ruthless team of serial killers as in the case of Americans Raymond Fernandez and Martha Beck. The two were arrested in 1949. Between 1947-49, the couple killed at least 20 single women and widows. They were the subject of several movies such as The Honeymoon Killers, a film that Matin Scorcese was supposed to direct but didn't, and Lonely Hearts, with Salma Hayek playing Beck and John Travolta as one of the detectives who hunts them down.

Countries such as France, USA, Holland, UK and Hungary have been homes to such infamous killer ladies. The tribe can be traced back to the medieval times. In sheer numerical terms, Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Bathory has the maximum blood on her hands.

According to the web-based encyclopedia, Wikipedia, the 16th century "Blood Countess" and her four alleged collaborators were "accused of torturing and killing hundreds of girls and young women, with one witness saying she had over 600 victims". Reason: To retain her youth by bathing in the blood of virginal victims. Being a countess, she was never tried in court. Bathory was imprisoned in a castle in 1610 and died four years later.

Unlike male serial killers, who often rape and brutally murder their victims, most such women use gentler methods such as poison. Even Kempamma, who was arrested when trying to dispose of the jewellery of her victims, used cyanide as the mode of murder.

Helene Jegado and Christine Malevre are two well-known French women serial killers. Jegado was a domestic maid and is believed to have killed at least 23 people by poisoning them with arsenic in the first half of the 19th century. According to Wikipedia, "the case attracted little attention at the time and was pushed off the front pages by the coup d'itat in Paris." She was guillotined in 1852.

Malhvre's is a much more recent case. The former nurse was arrested in 1998 on suspicion of having killed as many as 30 patients. She initially admitted to some of the killings but maintained that it was only after the patients, all terminally ill, had asked her to do so. Malhvre eventually took back most of her confessions. She was sentenced only to 10 years in prison in 2003.

They also killed for money. Dutch serial murderer Maria Catherina Swanenburg poisoned her victims by misappropriating their insurance money or their inheritance. She even killed her own mother and father. Her kill score was 27 though the number of victims was as high as 90. Many of them survived the poison with chronic health problems. She was sentenced to lifelong imprisonment in 1885 and died in 1915.