Artwork by Aamir Khan
KARACHI: When we think of violent crimes or murders, we often associate them with male killers. A shady looking man who stalks you in the middle of the night or chases you down a dark street is what our nightmares are made of. We never suspect women to be able to carry out violent crimes which makes it even more scarier when they do. These women, young and old, have committed some of the worst crimes in history and the worst part is, you would never suspect them. Here are some of the most shocking stories of female murderers!
Mary Bell
Kids are the last people you would suspect of murdering anyone, including other kids, right? Then why is an 11 year old included on the list of some of the most disturbing female murderers?
Mary Bell grew up with quite a terrible family background. Her mother never wanted her and her family suspected that her mother had tried to kill her on several occasions. As Bell grew up, her mother who was a prostitute, began to offer her off to her clients. Bell’s father wasn’t any better. Absent for most of the part, when he was around, he was a violent alcoholic.
As Mary grew up, she showed signs of extreme violence towards other kids which had put her on the police’s radar. Just a day shy of her 11th birthday, Mary had murdered a four year old boy. Though at the time, no one really suspected her. The next day, Mary and her friend Norma vandalized a nursery and left notes that claimed responsibility for the murder, one of which read, “WE did murder martain brown fuckof you bastard.” They even taunted the young boy’s mother over a phone call before his funeral.
Two months later, a three year old boy went missing and he was last seen playing with Mary and Norma. This crime was much more violent than the last with the coroner reporting not only was the boy strangled, he had multiple puncture wounds on his body and his genitals were party mutilated.
The police questioned both the girls who were evasive and told various different stories but eventually, Norma confessed to the police that Mary Bell was responsible for both crimes making Bell one of the youngest female murderers in history!
Karla Homolka
We’ve all heard of sibling rivalry but what happens when that rivalry turns deadly?
Karla Homolka and her husband Paul Bernardo seemed like the perfect couple, so much so that they were dubbed as the Ken and Barbie killers. And they started their violent spree right at home. Paul had expressed his interest in Karla’s 15-year-old sister Tammy and to prove her love for her then boyfriend, Karla went along with drugging her sister unconscious so that Paul could have his way with her. But their plan failed and so they tried again a few months later. This time, Karla drugged her sister with an anesthetic and while Paul was assaulting Tammy, she reacted to the drug and died. The two managed to cover their tracks and were never linked to the crime.
But that just spurred the two on. Together, they violently assaulted and ended up murdering three young girls. Their crimes were violent and more shockingly enough the two videotaped themselves committing the crimes which would eventually be their downfall.
Naturally, this was no match made in heaven and the marriage fell apart when Paul violently attacked Karla. By then, Paul was already known to the police who suspected him of being a serial rapist. Once the DNA turned their suspicions into fact, an investigation was launched into Paul which unraveled all his crimes including the ones Karla partook in.
Unfortunately, despite how heinous Karla’s part in all the crimes were, she was offered a plea bargain which Canadians began referring to as the “deal with the devil” and only served twelve years for her crimes.
Gypsy Rose Blanchard
Gypsy Rose Blanchard might have earned a place on our list of female murderers but her story is one riddled with shock and heartache.
For as long as anyone could remember, Dee Dee Blanchard claimed that her daughter Gypsy was unwell. It started off with her having sleep apnea as a baby to having leukemia and muscular dystrophy for which she required a wheelchair and feeding tube. Gypsy also went through multiple surgeries, including procedures on her eyes and removal of her salivary glands. When Gypsy’s teeth rotted either because of the cocktail of medicines or her missing salivary glands or neglect, they were pulled out. But every time Gypsy was medically tested for the conditions, they would either be inconclusive or have contradictory results and Dee Dee would stop seeing any doctors who questioned her daughter’s condition. While on the surface Dee Dee was a devoted mother who dedicated her life to her daughter and the two would receive benefits that included charity-sponsored visits to concerts and Disney World, but lurking under the surface was a dark side to the two no one knew.
By the time Gypsy was 19, she had had enough. The truth was, Gypsy was never sick. She could walk and didn’t need a feeding tube and her mother was suspected of suffering from Munchausen syndrome (a mental condition in which a person repeatedly seeks medical attention for another person for symptoms that are falsified, exaggerated, or deliberately induced). Her first attempt at escaping was unsuccessful but the second attempt was failproof. Gypsy had convinced an online boyfriend to help her escape by killing her mother and running away and that is what they did. Gypsy even took to social media to make an alarming post which read, “That bitch is dead!” She later explained she made the posts because she wanted her mother’s body to be discovered.
Eventually, Gypsy and her boyfriend were caught and Gypsy was sentenced to ten years in prison. But many people had questions. If Gypsy wasn’t sick, why didn’t she confide in anyone? If she could walk, why didn’t she escape when she had the chance? Gypsy’s defense was that she was too scared to speak up and had been conditioned to believe that no one would believe her.
Elizabeth Báthory
Who said female murderers are only a modern problem? Some can be traced back to the 1500s and those women were the absolute worst!
Elizabeth Bathroy was a Hungarian Countess and is one of Europe’s most ruthless murderers ever with a whooping 650 murder count! To add to her long list of issues is also the fact that she was believed to be a vampire! She would, with the help of her servants, torture and kill teenage peasant girls. She would then either eat chunks of their flesh or bathe in their virginal blood in hopes it would grant her eternal youth.
It took a while before authorities were alerted about suspicious deaths and disappearances and an investigation was launched. While the official count was 80, it is suspected that Bathroy killed over 650 girls. Her servants bore the punishment and were convicted while Bathroy was condemned to spend the rest of her life in her castle.
