R.J. Parker: The Serial Killer Compendium

Most serial killers either spend their lives in prison once convicted, or are executed if the death penalty exists in the state that prosecuted them. Of course, there’s always the exception to the rule. For instance, Ed Gein was considered incompetent to stand trial and was sent to a mental facility, but his doctor later determined him to fit. The judge then found him not guilty because of insanity, and in 1984, he died of heart failure in prison.

Peter Woodcock is an example of no cure for a serial killer. He spent thirty-five years in a criminal ward at a psychiatric hospital in Ontario, Canada, after killing three children. Only hours after being released, he killed another psychiatric patient and was immediately sent back to the hospital. He’d been released as he was deemed cured by his psychiatrist, but obviously, even after thirty-five years, he was not cured.

Female Serial Killers

Female serial killers often remain unobserved, hiding in the background, masked by her male equal. Her acts are unusual and uncommon, but never fail. She behaves in a more delicate and precise manner, and is deadly and merciless. The most common of her monstrous crimes have not yet been comprehended. The theory of the female serial killer herself still lies within the specialty of uncertainty. It is time, however, to capture this hushed serial killer and bring her crimes to our attention.

What is the difference between a serial murderer from any other murderer? A murderer is usually defined as someone who takes the life of another person. A serial murderer usually murders more than three people.

Although the time phase within which the killer is performing may be the subject of debate, criminologists and researchers usually agree on a definition of serial murderer as a person who engages in the murdering of three or more people in a period of thirty days or more.

Although this definition is adequate in the identification of a serial murderer, it does not differentiate between male and female perpetrators. There are however, differences between the sexes. The average period of vigorous killing for females is eight years. For males, it is only about four years. Female serial killers seldom torture their victims or commit any violence on their victims’ bodies. Female killers prefer weapons that are difficult to distinguish, such as poison, fatal injections, and induced accidents.

The sort of victims chosen by female serial killers further reveal a dissimilar typology from male serial murders. Male killers, usually acting as sexual predators, tend to mark adult female victims. Female killers, however, seldom choose their prey based on sex, and usually attack victims that are familiar to her, such as children, relatives, and spouses. Sometimes, if she does turn against a stranger, it is usually one who can be conquered easily, such as an older person under her care or even a child.

The average age of the female serial killer’s first victim is fourteen to sixty-four. The typical female serial murderer commences killing after the age of twenty-five. The female serial killer is more multifaceted than the male and is often harder to catch. Since the definition of the serial killer is insufficient in explaining this quiet female killer, classifying her becomes a requirement in fully comprehending both her and the temperament of her crimes.

According to FBI Profiler, Robert K. Ressler, both male and female serial killers may be classified in one of two groupings: the ‘organized’ and the ‘disorganized.’ The organized killer usually exhibits qualities of high intelligence and sociability, a stable employment history, normal sexual functioning, and an outstanding ability of controlling her emotions during the act of murder. On the contrary, the disorganized killer has average intelligence, underdeveloped social skills, a turbulent employment history, and sexual dysfunction.

Although this evaluation might be helpful, it still sheds very little light towards understanding female serial killers. As female and male serial killers have very little in common, making classifications that apply to both sexes rather futile.

Female serial killers usually come under any one of the following categories: Black Widow, Angel of Death, Sexual Predator, Revenge, Profit, Team Killer, Question of Sanity, or Unexplained and Unsolved.

The Black Widows

The Black Widow is one of the most lethal female serial killers, very organized and successful in her killings. A Black Widow is defined as a woman who systematically murders a number of spouses, family members, children, or individuals outside the family with whom she has established a close relationship. She commonly begins her deadly career in her late twenties and may be active for a whole decade before giving rise to any suspicions.

Her crimes are revealed only after the increasing number of deaths around her may no longer be discarded as coincidences. The victims of the Black Widow usually number between six and ten; their ages and sex are generally unimportant. Her methodology ranges between poison, suffocation, strangulation, and shooting, though poison is the most favored of her methods, used 87% of the time.

The Black Widow kills for two motives. The first: profit. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Black Widows are lured into murder by the proceeds of life insurance or the assets of the victim. Usually, a monetary windfall will eventually fall into the possession of the perpetrator after the victim’s death. In fact, it is not uncommon for these women to insure the victims themselves shortly before they execute a crime, thus giving substantial proof of how calculating, methodical, and devious, a female serial killer can be.

Belle Gunness is probably one of the earliest and most notorious Black Widows. Gunness was born in 1859 in Norway as Brynhild Paulsdatter Storset. At the age of twenty-one, already showing signs of her ambitions, she immigrated to the United States and changed her name to Bella.

In 1884, she met Mads Sorenson who was also a Norwegian immigrant. Marrying a year later, Gunness settled into what could be considered an uneventful decade until her love for money – and the lack of it – drove her to extremes in 1896. In that year, she and her husband opened a confectionery shop which was mysteriously destroyed by a fire caused by a kerosene lamp – a lamp that was inexplicably never found. Around that same time, their oldest child, Caroline, suddenly died of what medical personnel believed to be acute colitis.

Insurance profits from both incidents proved sufficient to alleviate the pain of the grieving mother, who used the money to buy a new house. Surprisingly enough, the new house also burned down in 1898, a misfortune that was soon followed by the death of another child, Alex. Gunness received yet another insurance settlement and this time, too, she used the money to buy a new house. In 1900, Mads Sorenson suddenly died of an undiagnosed ailment that exhibited the symptoms of strychnine poisoning.

This unexplained death also passed unobserved, and Gunness used the money from the insurance to buy a farm for her and her three surviving children. Two years later, in 1902, Gunness married another Norwegian immigrant named Peter Gunness. The marriage was short lived; in 1903 Gunness would be a widow again. Peter died when a sausage grinder happened to fall from a shelf and strike him on the head as he was passing underneath.

Shortly after this tragic event, Gunness began to hire local laborers to help her with the farm. Unfortunately, most of them disappeared mysteriously. In 1906, Gunness’ stepdaughter, Jennie Olsen, also disappeared. She was allegedly sent to a school in California. In 1908, the Gunness’ farmhouse was destroyed by a fire of, again, unexplained origin. Investigators searching the house for signs of arson found the bodies of three children and an adult female in the basement. Oddly enough, the woman’s body was decapitated and investigators could not locate the head.