Who was the first known female serial killer in the US?

Answer 1

Lavinia Fisher was the first female serial killer who killed a known 19 people in the late 19th century. She was to be hanged on 18 February 1820, and once the noose was attached she jumped off the gallows committing suicide instead.

Belle Gunness (1896 - 1908) aka 'Lady Bluebeard' was labeled as a Black Widow (women who kill men in particular.) On a farm outside of Chicago she killed 49 people, including multiple husbands, ranch workers, children she adopted and killed them by poison. She set up a ranch worker to take the fall for it (he died in prison) and she was never brought to justice.

Ellen Etheridge (1912 - 1913) was 22 years old. She married a Texas millionaire and inherited 8 of his children and she killed off three at a time by arsenic poisoning. She served life in prison.

Martha Wise (1924 - 1925) aka 'the Borgia of America' was a 39 year old widow from Ohio. When her family opposed her marrying a younger man she used arsenic to kill three of her family members, but the family became suspicious and reported her to police. She not only admitted to the three murders, but burning down the church because the minister had been reluctant to marry her and her lover. She served life in prison.

Killers who are females are rare or unknown only because they are more cunning and society prefers to see a serial killer as a male. Some have even been known as 'contract killers' and are for hire. Some work with a male partner and, although rare, some will work with a female partner. Some work in groups such as 'Charles Manson Group'. Women are generally more successful at being serial killers (a serial killer is considered one with three or more victims) and are intelligent, resourceful and more careful than the male serial killers. Many kill for money (marrying, murdering their husband and remarrying, thus, 'The Black Widow.'

The best known to the American public was Aileen Wuornos, born Aileen Carol Pittman, executed in 2002 by lethal injection in Florida. She was convicted of murdering six men who had picked her up as a hitchhiker.

Dorothea Puente, a seemingly kindly landlady in California, was accused of murdering nine of her elderly tenants in order to take their pension checks that continued to come to her house. Authorities found six bodies buried in her yard, but she was only convicted of three of the murders. In 1993, she was sentenced to life in prison at age of 64.

There are many more female serial killers that could be named, but the above is to show that these are the female serial killers that were caught and there were more before them and female serial killers are on the rise now. They are more crafty and less likely to be caught.

Lavinia Fisher was not a serial killer. The story of her career is filled with apocryphal legend.''Here are some early cases (from "Female Serial Killers of 19th Century America")

1829 - Martha "Patty" Cannon - Maryland/Delaware state line

1840 - Kinney, Hannah Hanson - Boston & Lowell, Massachusetts

1845 - Mrs. Elizabeth Reed - Lawrenceville, Illinois
1851 - Rachel Clark - Carlisle, Pennsylvania
1851 - Nancy Farrer - Cincinnati, Ohio
1852 - Nancy Hufford - Cumberland, Md., Somerset, Pa.
1857 - Polly Frisch (Hoag) - Alabama, Genessee County, New York
1857 - Elizabeth Routt - Hazel Green, Tennessee
1858 - Lydia Studley - Valley Falls, Rhode Island

1858 - Phebe Westlake (nee Irwin) - Chester, New York

1860 - Mary Jane "Bricktop" Jackson - New Orleans, Louisiana

1860 - Elizabeth P. McCraney - Lancaster, Wisconsin; Medford, Otsego, N. Y.

1865 - Martha Grinder - Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

1869 - "Gardiner, Maine Black Widow Serial Killer" - Gardiner, Maine
1869 - Mrs. Wahle - Jacksonville, Illinois

1869 - Mrs. White - Lafayette Township, Sussex County, New Jersey

Answer 2

Since the question doesn't specify a specific geographic area the Romainian Countess Erszebet Bathory is considered one of the earliest female serial killers, killing as many as 600 young girls from a nearby village in the early 1600's. In America one of the earliest killers would be Lydia Sherman of Derby, CT, who in the 1860's poisoned close to a dozen of her family members.

Aileen Wuornos, arguably the U.S.'s first female serial killer, was put to death on October 9, 2002 in a state prison outside of Starke, Florida. Convicted for the deaths of six men, the "Damsel of Death" was a known prostitute who claimed her middle-aged victims tried to rape her and that she had killed in self-defense.

I have an update. AW was not the first serial killer nor the worse in the us. This was a label the media gave her. In 1906 Belle Gunness placed adds in newspapers to seek company of males. As the adds were corresponded males started dissapearing. She showed male temperament as Aileen did.

Answer 3

We have records of female serial killers dating back to the days of Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed who was born in 1560. But have to know that serial killing has existed since men became a large number. All sociopath illness has been before men became aware of it. So the countess is the first female serial killer I have to offer.

Answer 4

Elizabeth bathory was of one of the first female serial killers and a depraved one at that in the 1500s. She tortured and killed young servant girls.

ANSWER: Look up "Index: Female Serial Killers" and you'll find a large number of female serial killers pre-dating Elizabeth Bathory. Here are the earliest ones from that list:

Before 1600 BC - Queen Ji Xia - China

5th c BC - Parysatis - Persia

316 BC - Queen Olympias - Macedonia

1st c BC - Princess Laodice of Cappadocia - Kingdom of Pontus, Anatolia

42 BC - Anula of Anuradhapura - Sri Lanka

Answer 5

The first American female serial killer would be Delphine LaLaurie born in 1775. She was a wealthy doctor in the early 1800s. In 1834, a fire ravaged the LaLaurie estate and after the firemen put out the flames, they smelled rotting bodies. Pushing open the attic door, they were startled to see dead slaves chained to the walls, a woman with her lips sewn shut, half-dead slaves in cages, a man who received a forced sex change, women without skin, eviscerated slaves, and body parts strewn about the attic.

After that, the whole family moved, never to be seen again. She didn't receive punishment.

Patsy Cannon was executed in the early 1820's in Delaware.

Answer 6

One of the earliest female serial killer was Countess Erszebet Bathory, a Romainian of royal linage who is believed to have killed at least 600 young girls from a nearby village. Bathory, born on August 7, 1560, was finally held accountable at trial in January of 1602. She was found guilty and bannished to the tower in her own castle where she lived out the rest of her years, finally dying on August 21, 1614.

Her excuse for the murders was to bath in the blood of virgins would ensure her youth and beauty indefinately. It is possible that she believed this but there is much evidence that suggests she was a sadist and enjoyed the torture of her victims. It is possible that both are true.

*There may have been earlier female killers of this type but records were not kept as they are today.