True Crime

[Deleted]

Have there been any historical female serial killers? I'm not talking about moms a la Susan Smith (a genre we probably shouldn't talk about here), but real serial killers. I'm thinking something on a larger scale than Lizzie Borden.

What about Vera Renczi? She had married men over to her home and then poisoned them. She kept them preserved in her basement.

And Belle Gunness is a famous serial killer.

ETA: D'Oh! I see Ms. Gunness was already mentioned. Sorry!

[scarlet]

littleediebeale said:

I became fascinated by the Jeffrey McDonald story after reading that book. Apparently, these days, he's waiting for DNA testing to prove he didn't do it. I think he's going to wait a good, long time for anything to exonerate him. I think he's guilty as sin. Oh, and he's got a new wife who actually seems normal and is quite pretty. (Well, as normal as one can be marrying a lifer.)

I read the book, too, and also was 100% convinced of his guilt. 48 Hours devoted an hour to him earlier this year about the whole "he was set up! the government botched the investigation" argument he's been crying about for years. There were a few points I thought were relevant, and no doubt the original police work wasn't perfect (even for 1970 standards), but regardless, I think it happened exactly the way it was theorized: he had an argument with his wife, the older daughter got caught in the middle and was killed, and he had to proceed to kill the younger daughter--and finish off Colette--in order to get away with it.

[sugaree]

mugsy said:

.There was one about a woman who had about 5 or 6 babies die of SIDS. One of her biggest supporter was doctor doing SIDS research, and based mostly on her case, he determined that SIDS had a hereditary factor. This sent parents of SIDS babies into a panic if they had another baby, and many of those babies were put on special breathing monitors for their first year (friends of ours included).
Turns out, of course, that this mother was suffocating her children - they were anywhere from a couple months to almost 2 years old - because she liked the attention she got. Apparently the first death was actually SIDS and that's when she got "hooked" on sympathy. Ugh.

This probably isn't Marybeth Tinnings because she killed eight of her nine kids, and the oldest one was four. Her third child was born sick and died before leaving the hospital. Marybeth then suffocated her toddler and her four-year-old in separate incidents, and went on to bear five more and adopt one. None of whom are with us today. She got away with it for so many years, even in a town the size of Schenectady, N.Y. in part because she was careful to use different doctors, hospitals, and funeral homes. The gossip still grew. People didn't know whether to pity her or take those babies away.

I think MacDonald's guilty. It was highly unlikely that a home invasion would leave a pregnant woman and two small girls dead with multiple stab wounds while the able-bodied grown man has two dainty little nicks.

[Peggy Lane]

Isn't Marybeth Tinnings the same woman? She hid it at first with the different doctors thing, but then her husband insisted they see a specialist who came up with the SIDS gene thing, but when the adopted baby began being rushed to the hospital and then died suspicion really began to rise?

As an Atlanta girl I have to throw in my vote for Mary Phagan. Poor little girl forced to work in a factory at the age of thirteen, raped and murdered, Jewish boss Leo Frank accused, the KKK is reborn, deepseated anger about "Yankee outsiders" building factories in Atlanta rises to the surface, Jewish man is convicted/commuted/lynched, decades later Phagan's boyfriend admits he saw the nightwatchman with her that day, and SEVENTY years later a book is published naming Frank's murderers, which leads to several of my childhood friends realizing that their great- and great-great-grandfathers were involved.

From a socio-economic and historical point of view, the Phagan/Frank case is fascinating. From a true crime point of view, it is fascinating. It does bug me that Phagan is often overlooked because of the tragedy of Leo Frank when the case is discussed academically.

[roobarb]

scarlet said:

littleediebeale said:

I became fascinated by the Jeffrey McDonald story after reading that book. Apparently, these days, he's waiting for DNA testing to prove he didn't do it. I think he's going to wait a good, long time for anything to exonerate him. I think he's guilty as sin. Oh, and he's got a new wife who actually seems normal and is quite pretty. (Well, as normal as one can be marrying a lifer.)

I read the book, too, and also was 100% convinced of his guilt. 48 Hours devoted an hour to him earlier this year about the whole "he was set up! the government botched the investigation" argument he's been crying about for years. There were a few points I thought were relevant, and no doubt the original police work wasn't perfect (even for 1970 standards), but regardless, I think it happened exactly the way it was theorized: he had an argument with his wife, the older daughter got caught in the middle and was killed, and he had to proceed to kill the younger daughter--and finish off Colette--in order to get away with it.

See, I find this really interesting, because I hadn't heard of this case till I read this thread and I did a quick Google search and read the Crime Library entry on this. They seem totally convinced of his innocence. What does this book, or other sources you've seen, say that makes you think he's guilty?

Um. It occurs to me that this sounds like I am demanding explanations for your opinion, which is totally not my intention - I sincerely am really interested to hear a different perspective, since this is all new to me, and the Crime Library entry is fairly one-sided.

[aims]

Well, with the movie coming out and all, plus I read the Crime Library story about him... *Twisted*

Anyone want to talk about Sweeney Todd?


I think the absolute worst Crime Library story I have ever read was 'Girl in a Box'. The way she was 'stored' in a box under the bed was just horrible! I'm a little claustrophobic so I just died when I read that. The rapes and the beatings that she took just make you angry!

[Malle Babbe]

Re: Typhoid Mary

Something to also consider is that some folks are just plain rock stubborn. That, and hers was a time period where a lot of folks had to make do without doctors, and so they rolled their eyes when a doctor told them had a problem that had no symptoms. The thinking was, I've done fine w/o those fancy doctors my whole life, so why should I give them my hard-earned money when I don't even feel sick?

Still doesn't mean that Mary Mallon didn't deserve a smack upside the head.

One of the creepier cases I've read is that of Albert Fish. How a person that shit-gobbling insane was able to slip through polite society blows my mind. Somehow he was able to convince the parents of the little girl he murdered that he could walk her down to a neighbor's house after only just meeting him. Granted, folks were more sheltered back then, but still.

Anyone here hang out at Court TV's CrimeLibrary .com? It's a creepy treasure trove. Reading all of the pre-1950s true crime is an eye-opener with regards to how blasé folks were about things in childrearing and family life that are now obvious factors to us. Have a mean-ass violent drunk dad? Well, these things happen. Have an insane mom who guzzled gin when she was pregnant with you? Well, life's tough for everyone. Have a husband who underwent a violent personality change after a serious head injury and is always moving in oil-drums into the basement that look a bit suspect? Well, pray and be a Good Woman, you'll inspire him to change his ways...

[luciano]

snowberry said:

What about Vera Renczi? She had married men over to her home and then poisoned them. She kept them preserved in her basement.

In COFFINS. I don't understand that! Thirty-two dudes, including her son, in her basement in coffins - there must have been some sort of stacking going on, unless her basement was huge. How did she stack them? How did she even move the damn things around? I'm guessing she didn't have whoever make them come into the basement and be like, "Oh, just place that one on top of the two over there at the corner. Thanks!" Did she stack and then heave the body in? Could she do that if they were above, like, chest level?

Changing subjects: Japan had a cannibal killer named Issei Sagawa who ate this Dutch woman and described it really grossly. It took a while before I could go back to eating tuna and creamy corn is now something that I will never touch. The reaction to his crimes was weird, though - dude wrote restaurant reviews and was a guest speaker in various places due to his crime. Yep, free guy. Just walking the streets like nothin' after he checked his own ass out of a mental institution.

[kostgard]

Changing subjects: Japan had a cannibal killer named Issei Sagawa who ate this Dutch and described it really grossly. It took a while before I could go back to eating tuna and creamy corn is now something that I will never touch. The reaction to his crimes was weird, though - dude wrote restaurant reviews and was a guest speaker in various places due to his crime. Yep, free guy. Just walking the streets like nothin' after he checked his own ass out of a mental institution.

Weird. And totally not right.

This is kinda related (not really a true crime), but there is some guy (whose name I can't remember for the life of me) who decided he was going to sit down and eat himself some human just to see what it was really like and to see if we should be judging cultures that practice cannibalism. He was really super-vague about where the "meat" came from, so who knows what happened there. I think the only thing he mentioned was that it came from a person who wasn't white and he was white, so that kicked up a lot of racial stuff, in addition to the whole cannibalism stuff. He also went into huge amounts of detail about how he prepared it and ate it, most of which my brain has blocked out. I do seem to recall that he said it tasted like veal to him.

[nitenurse]

John Wayne Gacey-- Clowns--whatmore need I say?