Press contact:
Luke Morrison, luke.morrison@itv.com
, 084488 13038
Picture Publicity contact:
James Hilder, james.hilder@itv.com

Female serial killers have always been something of an anomaly in criminology and a puzzle for law enforcement. It is a popularly held belief that women, being ‘the fairer of the sexes’, are less capable of murder than men. It has been proven, however, that women killers are meticulous, methodical and quiet in committing their crimes and, on average, the time-line of women killers usually spans eight years before they are caught - double that of a male serial killer.
In this six-part factual documentary series, Britain's leading and most visceral crime writer Martina Cole takes an up close and personal look at some of the most significant cases of female serial killers in history. From Myra Hindley to Beverly Allitt ,
Martina will examine the life histories and careers of some of the most notorious female killers – re-examining evidence and providing a comprehensive portrait of the sociological backgrounds that may have helped create these killers.
In fact, one of the most shocking facts about female serial killers is that their victims are not just random strangers, but more often than not people who know their assailant well. Husbands, lovers, dependants, mothers and children - no one is spared. But what is it that drives these women to kill? What is it that makes a mother kill her child, a wife kill her husband? Is there a killer gene? And what about the often-quoted 'male influence' myth?
The cases examined will be both historical and recent. In historical instances Martina
Cole will reopen the history books, question accepted wisdoms and conventions of the times and examine the case within a historical perspective. In modern cases she will meet with the investigating officers, criminal psychologists, colleagues, friends and representatives of the victims. In each episode a tale of intrigue will unfold as
Martina takes us on her journey of discovery, offering some form of understanding of the lives and minds of these wilful women.
Martina will bring her unique take to the stories including relatively recent – and relevant - cases such as Myra Hindley , Beverly Allitt and Rosemary West , alongside historical figures such as Elisabeth Bathory who was responsible for the deaths of over 600 people in 16 th century Hungary; Mary Ann Cotton , Vi ctorian Britain’s most prolific serial killer, and Amelia Dyer , a Victorian Baby Farmer with murder on her mind.
From questioning their sanity to motives of revenge, profit and sheer malice, these women come in all shapes and sizes, backgrounds and nationalities – but all with one thing in common. An urge to kill.
Without sensationalising their crimes, Martina Cole will take the viewers on a journey into the psychological and sociological backdrops that have created some of the world’s most hated criminals.
Although the classification of female serial killers is still in its infancy as criminologists struggle to organise and distinguish the murderous traits of each new killer and to understand the complexities of the female mind, each episode in this series will place its focus on a typology that has been directly associated with specifically female serial killers. The typology includes The Black Widow, The Angel of Death, The
Lustful Hedonist, The Team Killer, The Sexual Sadist and The Profiteer. All of them women. All of them killers.
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Emma Tennant , Controller of ITV3 and CITV added: “Martina Cole’s Lady Killers promises to be a sensitive exploration of the stories behind some of the most notorious female serial killers in history. The literary pedigree that Martina brings to the project will enable the programme to provide an insight into an area of criminology which is often overlooked.
”
Martina Cole’s Lady Killers is a Free @ Last TV Production for ITV3. It was commissioned by Emma Tennant, Controller of ITV3 and CITV. The Executive
Producer is Barry Ryan and Series Producer, Katie Kinnaird, both of Free @ Last
TV.
NOTES TO EDITORS:
Martina Cole’s latest novel, The Business , will be published in hardback by Headline on 16 th
October at £18.99
For further information The Business , contact: louise@lpagepr.co.uk
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I’ve got to be honest, I’ve really enjoyed making Ladykillers , its something I’d never done before, or really considered. When they initially asked me I was very drunk at my book launch and I agreed. But luckily I was working with a fantastic team of people who were very good to me and helped me along. I think the series has come out great and I hope people enjoy it, but for me it’s been a real learning curve. I found myself strangely enjoying it at one point once the nervousness calmed down a bit, so I’d be quite happy to do something like it again. I think the main thing that I’ve learnt over the course of this series is, and this sounds very selfish, but one of the main things that I’ve learnt is actually how to do better research. I’ve looked through the material that’s come to me and it’s clear that our research team has done such a marvellous job. The other thing that I’ve learned is never believe what you read in the papers - there’s always another story or at least another part to it. I think I’ve had a really good insight into serial killing, a much more personal and intimate one than I would have had if I’d of just researched myself.
I had researched quite a few women killers and a lot of murders in general over the years for different projects, but doing it from this standpoint it became very personal.
Sometimes it could be very sad, when you think of someone like Winnie Johnson
[ mother of Keith Bennett, victim of Myra Hindley ] still looking for her son up on the moors after all this time and then you find out that Myra Hindley’s ashes have been scattered up there which I think is even worse, that she’s up there with the victims.
So sometimes it was very poignant, like going to a place where Rose West lived. All the cases were quite poignant, each in their own way, and it really gave me a different insight. I spoke to Caroline [ Owens ] who was one of the people who got away from Rose West and that made it very personal because the person is there and talking about the situation. You could see in her eyes that she was so grateful that she hadn’t died like the others. It really was quite an eye opener in that respect.
I mean God, I remember when we saw the documentation about Edward Evans [ final victim of Myra Hindley & Ian Brady ] and that was so shocking to see what had happened and been done to him. You could actually see that he was a handsome man, and it becomes real. Y ou suddenly realise that that person’s life has been snuffed out; they are never going to marry, they are never going to go on holiday and even silly things, they haven’t even got a pet, they can’t go and get the bus and visit their parents or go and see a friend. So I think that has quite a big impact on you because suddenly you realise that this person is dead and you’ve seen it for yourself.
It was quite emotive making the programme.
I don’t think there’s much different between male and female serial killers. I think women have got away with it for a lot longer. I mean as far as I know the FBI still haven’t got any profile for a female serial killer. For years, and I think it’s still the case now, it was felt that women had to be under the influence of a terrible man to do things like this. I mean personally I think Myra Hindley was an alpha female. I think when you read the transcript of that tape you never hear Brady on there, the only voice you here is Myra Hindley telling that child to s hut up whilst she’s pleading to see her mum. I thin k it’s the same with Rose West; I think that’s why Fred West killed himself and took all the blame. I think Rose was definitely the main person in that situation. It is the same with Beverley Allitt, I think she knew exactly what she was doing. I think it’s sad really, as a feminist, that people still assume that we can’t be as abusive or as wicked as men. It’s a sort of inverted sexism; so many people say “oh how could Myra Hindley have taken those children ” but they are basically saying that they aren’t surprised that Ian Brady did or could. So what are we saying, only men
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are capable? I’ve got a son and I’ve got a daughter and I just think that certain people are wired differently to other people. Wheth er they’re male or female I don’t really think that matters. Without a doubt, I think there should be much more research into why people murder and why there’s so much murder on the streets today.
Sometimes it’s hard to switch off after researching things like this. But the same happens to me when I’m actually at work on my books. Sometimes it can be very hard to calm down, especially when you’ve written a very powerful piece. But of course I’m writing fiction and even that can affect you at times, so sometimes doing this it was quite hard. Some of the sadder things stay with you. I saw the photographs of Leslie Ann Downing [ Fourth victim of Hindley & Brady ] when we were in the archives and I’ve got to admit that stopped me sleeping for a couple of days; seeing her dear little face and knowing what had happened to her. I mean things like that obviously are going to stay with you for a while
When it comes to capital punishment, I think most people’s knee jerk reaction, especially to Myra Hindley, was t hat they felt “yeah, kill these people”. I’ve got to admit that at one point I was very disappointed that she’d just missed getting hung but by the same token, you look back at the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six or Barry George and I think that’s when you realise the death sentence isn’t such a good idea. O nce you do kill someone they can’t come back so I don’t think really I’m an advocate for it, not really. Maybe for some crimes , I don’t know. I think you open up a whole can of worms with issues like this. You reaction is to kill these people but you’ve to make sure that you’ve definitely got the right person. I think very emotive crimes you might really want to see some people hanged. I t’s whether or not they have actually done it or not, I think that’s the big bugbear for me.
I think most people find crime and murder sort of fascinating. In reality there aren’t many programmes without some kind of crime or murder in them at some point.
Personally I love the intrigue of murder; I love the fact that people try and get away with murder, I think that’s what probably fascinates me the most. Most of my books are actually set within the criminal world, so I have a big fascination with why people are criminals, what makes them become criminals and the influence of nurture against nature. I think just like most people, I find the whole crime world something really interesting. My books are the most requested books in the prison system which I take as a compliment because these are the people that I am writing about. I also like to think that I give people who have never been in that world or don’t understand that world an insight into how the other half lives really. I mean I get so many different kinds of people at my book signings who enjoy the books because they are very realistic and they’re very factual and they can associate with them.
Oftentimes with my books I write about the psychology of murder or crime and why people do it. I know my books are very violent but actually I give a very anti-violence message. Anyone in my book who is really evil or bad always gets their comeuppance, unlike real life, people actually get the rough justice in my books. I think actually appeals to a lot of people these days and I think it’s close to a lot of people’s hearts.
I’ve always loved books, I loved books all my life and the only thing I ever wanted as a child was to see my name on the spine of book because I always loved them so much. I just didn’t really think that I would ever see them on the spine of so many books around the world. Even now if I see someone reading a book I still get the same buzz as I did the first time. I think it’s wonderful that millions of people around the world have enjoyed the books so much they want to buy the next one and the next one and the next one.
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Hindley (1942-2002) was born in Crumpsall, Manchester, and raised by her grandmother
Ellen Maybury. She was believed to have been beaten by her alcoholic father, Bob Hindley, a paratrooper in the RAF during World War II, who was also alleged to have been violent towards her mother Nellie. She could write creatively, was quite athletic and was considered a responsible girl and in demand as a babysitter.
At 15, Hindley experienced a significant tragedy. Her close friend Michael Higgins, 13, drowned in a reservoir. Hindley's grief was tinged with guilt owing to the fact that she'd been asked, but had been unable, to go swimming with Higgins that day. A strong swimmer, she believed that she could have saved him had she been with him.
On 16 January 1961, she started work as a typist for a chemical firm called Millward's, also based in Manchester. It was at Millward's that she met Ian Brady, a Scottish-born man four years her senior with a history of violence and a string of burglary convictions, for which he had spent time in borstal during the early 1950s. Brady was the stock clerk, having been with the company since February of 1959. Hindley was immediately attracted to him, but Brady was cool and aloof and steadfastly ignored her for nearly 12 months. During 1961, she kept a diary in which she chronicled her growing infatuation with Brady; it was later discovered by police following their arrest in October 1965.
At the Christmas office party, on 22 December 1961, Brady, his tongue loosened by a few drinks, asked Hindley out. She accepted immediately. That first night he took her to see the war film Judgement at Nuremberg. As the weeks passed, he played her records of National
Socialist marching songs and encouraged her to read some of his favourite books – Mein
Kampf, Crime and Punishment, and the works of the Marquis de Sade. Brady apparently encouraged Hindley to help him with bank robberies (although no known bank robberies committed by the two are recorded), asking her to join a shooting club and purchase firearms for him, since he could not obtain a gun license due to his convictions for violence.
Hindley was also told to learn to drive as Brady needed a get-away driver. She began driving lessons, joined the Cheadle Rifle club, and purchased two guns. Brady convinced Hindley that there was no God, and she stopped going to church. She absorbed his philosophies, adopted his interests, and altered her appearance to suit him, bleaching her hair and wearing
Germanic clothes. She had no qualms about allowing him to take pornographic pictures of her and of the two of them having sex. They intended to crack the pornographic market but failed.
Brady nicknamed her "Hessy" - a double pun on pianist Myra Hess, and the surname of
Hitler's deputy.
By mid-1963, Brady had lost interest in bank robberies and was now intent on becoming a murderer for his own sexual gratification. Together, Brady,and Hindley took part in the abduction, sexual abuse, torture, and murder of five children between July 1963 and October
1965.
Their first victim was 16-year-old Pauline Reade, a neighbour of Hindley's, who disappeared on her way to a dance in the Crumpsall district on 12 July 1963. She got into a car with
Hindley while Brady secretly followed behind on his motorbike. When the van reached
Saddleworth Moor, Hindley stopped the van and got out before asking Pauline to help her find a missing glove in exchange for some records. They were busy "searching" the moors when
Brady pounced upon Pauline and fractured her skull with a shovel. He then raped her before slitting her throat with a knife; her spinal cord was severed and she was almost decapitated.
Brady then buried her body in a grave three feet deep. It was not discovered until 1 July
1987.[1]
On November 23, 1963, Brady and Hindley struck again. This time the victim was 12-year-old
John Kilbride. When he was approached by Hindley at a market in Ashton-under-Lyne,
Kilbride agreed to go with her to help carry some boxes. Brady was sitting in the back of the car. When they reached the moors, he took the child with him while Hindley waited in the car.
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On the moor, Brady subjected John Kilbride to a sexual assault and attempted to slit his throat with a six inch serrated blade, but failed; Brady strangled him with a piece of string
(possibly a shoelace) and buried his body in a shallow grave. His body was found there on 21
October 1965. The body was clothed but the jeans and underpants that he had been wearing were pulled down to mid-thigh and the underpants appeared to be knotted at the back.
The third victim was 12-year-old Keith Bennett who vanished on his way to his grandmother's house in Gorton on June 16, 1964 — four days after his 12th birthday. Keith accepted a lift from Hindley near Stockport Road in Longsight, and she drove to Saddleworth Moor and asked him to help search for a lost glove. Brady then lured Keith into a ravine. There he sexually assaulted the child, and strangled him with a piece of string before burying his body.
Hindley stood above the ravine and watched the murder. Hindley later confessed that she had destroyed the photographs taken at the site of this particular murder, which had been kept at
Brady's workplace at Millwards. Hindley had access to these photographs during the four days between Brady's arrest and her own in October 1965. Despite a renewed search effort in 1987, Keith Bennett's body has never been found. Recently Ian Brady has said that if he is allowed to die he will point out where the boy is buried.
The fourth victim, 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey, was abducted from a fairground in
Ancoats on Boxing Day, 1964, and taken back to Hindley's home at 16 Wardle Brook Avenue, located on an overspill council estate in Hattersley (Hindley and her grandmother had moved there from Myra's childhood home in Gorton only three months earlier). There the girl was undressed and forced to pose for pornographic photographs with a gag in her mouth, and in the last four of them with her hands bound - the last kneeling in an attitude of prayer. Brady took the nine obscene photographs of the girl, and either he or Hindley recorded the scene on a reel-to-reel audio tape.
The sixteen-minute tape contains the voices of Brady and Hindley relentlessly cajoling and threatening the child, who is heard crying, retching, screaming, and begging to be allowed to return home safe to her mother. As with Keith Bennett, Lesley Ann was raped and strangled with a piece of string at some point thereafter. However, during their trial in April 1966, Brady made a telling slip of the tongue while being cross-examined in the witness box, telling the prosecutor that "we all got dressed" after the tape had been made, which suggests that
Hindley was also actively involved in the sexual molestation of the child, and perhaps the physical killing as well. The following morning, Brady and Hindley drove Lesley's body to
Saddleworth Moor where it was buried in a shallow grave.
The fifth and final victim was 17-year-old Edward Evans on October 6, 1965, who was lured to
16 Wardlebrook Avenue and hacked brutally with an axe before dying from strangulation.
Brady claimed that Evans was a homosexual, and on meeting him at Manchester Central
Station invited him back to 16 Wardle Brook Avenue with promises of sexual activity. It remains uncertain whether Evans was actually a homosexual or if Brady was merely trying to make a slur on the young man's character (homosexuality was still illegal in Britain at the time). The crime was witnessed by Myra Hindley's brother-in-law David Smith, who had married Myra's younger sister Maureen in August 1964. Brady and Hindley had apparently staged the murder as part of Smith's initiation into their killing confederacy. The Hindley family had not approved of Maureen's marriage to Smith, since he was known to many in Gorton as a thug and had already acquired several convictions for violent offences in the juvenile courts.
For the past year, Brady had been cultivating a friendship with Smith who was noting in his own diary: "Rape is not a crime, it is a state of mind. Murder is a hobby and a supreme pleasure".
During the murder of Evans, Brady had sprained his ankle in the struggle, so Smith agreed to meet him the following afternoon to help dispose of Evans' body on Saddleworth moor. Smith then promptly left the house and frantically ran home and vomited in the toilet. He woke his sleeping wife and told her of the brutal murder he had just witnessed. Maureen burst into tears and eventually told him that the only thing to do was to call the police. Three hours later at six o'clock on the morning of October 7, David and Maureen carefully made their way to a public phone box on the street below. Before leaving their flat, David armed himself with a screwdriver and a kitchen knife in order to defend the two of them in the event that Brady
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might suddenly appear and confront them. Smith made an emergency services call to the police station in nearby Hyde and related his story to the officer on duty.
Superintendent Bob Talbot arrived to knock on the door of 16 Wardle Brook Avenue while wearing an inconspicuous breadman's coat over his policeman's uniform. Talbot was met by
Hindley, who answered the door, and found Brady inside, lying naked on a divan and writing a note to his employer claiming he had suffered an ankle injury. Talbot explained that he was investigating an act of violence that was reported to have taken place the previous night and proceeded to search the house. When he came to the spare room upstairs, Talbot found the door locked. He demanded the key to the room and after arguing with Hindley for several minutes, Brady eventually told her to comply with the policeman's request.
Upon discovering Evans' body in the polythene bag, Talbot then arrested Brady. During questioning Brady immediately admitted to the murder of Evans. However he insisted David
Smith had also participated in the killing and that Myra had been in no way involved and was unaware of the event. Officers ransacked the house, and found a ticket in her prayer book, which led them to a locker at Manchester Central Station where they found two suitcases packed with incriminating evidence. Myra Hindley was arrested and taken in for questioning.
As well as the photographs and tape recording of Lesley's torture, there was also a notebook in which John Kilbride's name was found as well as a photograph of Hindley with her dog,
Puppet, staring down at what appeared to be a grave on a site on Saddleworth Moor. Based on this new evidence, the bodies of John Kilbride and Lesley Ann Downey were soon recovered, and Brady and Hindley were charged with three counts of murder each.
During the time of the police investigation as well as her subsequent trial, Hindley's demeanor was one of resolute arrogance and defiance. The police detectives, court officials, newspaper reporters and other observers were all impressed that Hindley remained steadfastly loyal to
Brady and she even seemed to share his apparent confidence that she would not be convicted of any crime. She consistently denied any wrongdoing, made repeated efforts to incriminate Smith and exculpate Brady, and even continued to endorse Brady's version of events as her own for nearly five years after the two of them were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment in May 1966.
Without the suitcase evidence, the "Moors" trial might never have taken place. It was recovered only because of the keen observation of a police officer who, while searching the house, had spotted the luggage claim ticket hidden in the spine of Myra's prayer book. In the locker were two suitcases containing pornographic and sadistic materials. These included nine photographs of 10-year-old Lesley Ann Downey, showing her naked, bound and gagged in Myra Hindley's bedroom. The details of the bed seen in some of the pictures established their location and Hindley's fingerprints were present on the surface of the photographs themselves.
The Moors trial was held during two weeks in April 1966 at Chester Assize Crown Court. Both
Brady and Hindley denied some of the murders and tried to blame Smith for them. A police cordon had to hold back crowds from getting at the police cars carrying Brady and Hindley.
Jeers rang out when these cars appeared. On May 6, 1966, Brady was found guilty of the murders of John Kilbride, Lesley Ann Downey, and Edward Evans, and was sentenced to three concurrent terms of life imprisonment since the death penalty had been abolished just 5 months earlier. Hindley was found guilty of the murders of Downey and Evans and given two concurrent life sentences, plus seven years for harbouring Brady knowing that he had murdered John Kilbride.
The judge presiding was Mr. Justice Fenton Atkinson, who called the Moors trial "a truly horrible case" and condemned the accused as "two sadistic killers of the utmost depravity".
He recommended that both Brady and Hindley spend "a very long time" in prison before being considered for parole but did not stipulate a tariff. He also stated his opinion that Brady was
"wicked beyond belief" and there was no reasonable possibility of him ever reforming.
However, he did not think that the same was necessarily true of Hindley "once she is removed from [Brady's] influence".
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Hindley was sent to Holloway prison. Although she and Brady wrote to each other during their first few years in prison, and at one stage were refused a request to marry each other, in May
1972 Hindley broke off all contact with Brady. A year later, Hindley attempted to escape, with the help of Patricia Cairns, a lesbian warder who was said to have fallen in love with her. The attempt was unsuccessful, and Hindley was transferred to Cookham Wood in Kent. In
November 1986 – more than 20 years after the crimes – Brady and Hindley confessed to the murders of Pauline Reade and Keith Bennett, who had both gone missing during the first half of the 1960s. It is thought that the initiative came from Brady, who also confessed to the murders. Shortly afterwards, they returned to the moors, under heavy guard, to help police locate the graves. Pauline Reade's body was discovered the following July. Keith Bennett's has never been found. Brady and Hindley were never charged in connection with the
Reade/Bennett murders, but Home Secretary Leon Brittan increased Hindley's minimum term to 30 years, which would keep her behind bars until at least 1995.
By this time, Hindley claimed to have reformed and maintained that she had acted under the influence of the sadistic Brady. A small group of supporters, led by Lord Longford, who had championed Hindley's cause almost since her conviction, began campaigning for her release.
However, the majority of the British public doubted that Hindley's remorse was genuine.
There were also death threats made to Hindley from both members of the public and relatives of her victims, who vowed to kill her if she was ever released. In July 1990, Home Secretary
David Waddington decided that both Brady and Hindley should never be freed. Four years later, Waddington's successor Michael Howard also said that Hindley must spend the rest of her life behind bars.
In 1994, a Law Lords' ruling stated that life sentence prisoners should be informed of the minimum period they must spend in prison before being considered for parole. This announcement was welcomed by victims' families and backed by the majority of the public, but Hindley challenged the ruling. In December, 1997, November, 1998, and March, 2000, she made appeals to the House of Lords to be released, claiming that she was no longer a danger to the public and that she had been acting under Brady's influence. When the third of these appeals was rejected, she appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. Reports by prison officials and the parole board commented on Hindley's progress during incarceration, suggesting that she was repentant and no longer a danger.
Her hopes of release were given a boost in May of 2002, when the House of Lords ruled that the Home Secretary could no longer overrule the parole board's recommendations concerning release dates. It seemed likely that the Home Secretary would also lose his power to set minimum sentences and that an estimated 270 prisoners, including Hindley, whose minimum terms had been increased by politicians, would be released earlier than expected.
Hindley was also one of about 70 life sentence prisoners who had served longer than their original minimum sentence.
On 15 November 2002, at the age of 60 and after several previous health problems, Hindley died in West Suffolk Hospital after a heart attack. She had spent 37 years in custody. During that time, she had earned an Open University degree and claimed to have returned to Roman
Catholicism, to which she had ostensibly converted at the age of 15. She was Britain's longest-detained female prisoner, and one of just two women (the other being Rose West) to receive whole life sentences. She was given the last rites before she died. Her lawyers told the press that Hindley had been truly sorry for her crimes. She had always portrayed herself as a remorseful sinner but understood that few people were willing to forgive her.
None of Hindley's relatives – not even her elderly mother – were among the dozen or so mourners at her funeral at Cambridge City Crematorium on 20 November. Apart from one woman from nearby Soham – a community that had only recently endured a double child murder – who left a sign reading "Burn in Hell" at the crematorium entrance, the public stayed away from the funeral, which had tight police security. Hindley was cremated, and her ashes scattered at an undisclosed location.
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Amelia Dyer (1829 – June 10, 1896) became notorious as the "baby-farm" murderer of
Victorian England. She was hanged for one murder but was responsible for many more. She was born in a small village near Bristol in 1838, daughter of a master shoemaker, and learned to read and write and had a love of literature and poetry. She trained as a nurse. From a midwife, she learned of a less arduous way of earning a living - providing lodgings in her own home for young women who were pregnant outside of wedlock. If the girl was from a well-off background with parents anxious to keep it secret, it might be as much as £80. And £50 if the father of the child was prepared to contribute in order to keep his involvement quiet.
In 1895, Dyer moved from South Wales to Caversham, Berkshire, accompanied by her associate Jane Smith and her daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Arthur Palmer. She then moved again to Kensington Road, Reading, Berkshire later that year.
Unmarried mothers in Victorian England faced a life of struggle caring for their children while earning enough to survive, in a society where single parenthood and illegitimacy were stigmatised.
One result was the lucrative practice in which "baby farmers" acted as adoption or fostering agents for an up-front f ee from the babies’ mothers. The practice was often exploitative, and it was difficult to trace what had happened to the children involved. Dyer’s preferred practice was to advertise to adopt or nurse a baby in return for a payment up front and adequate clothing for the child. In her advertisements and meetings with clients, she assured them that she was respectable, married (Dyer and her husband had actually separated), and would provide a safe and loving home for the child.
When Evelina Marmon gave birth to an illegitimate daughter Doris, she scanned the papers for offers of adoption. One attractively worded advert caught her eye and she answered it. A few days later she received a reply. The writer seemed a kind, motherly person and she would take Doris for £10. A short while later Amelia Dyer travelled to the Midlands to meet the young mother and child.
On 30 March 1896, a package hooked from the Thames by a bargeman was found to contain the body of a baby girl, later identified as Helena Fry. Detective Constable Anderson of
Reading Borough Police discovered a faintly written name and address on the bag and this evidence eventually led the detective to Dyer's home. She was arrested and charged with murder, and her son-in-law Arthur Palmer was charged as an accessory. During April the
Thames was dragged, and six more bodies were discovered. Doris Marmon was among them, sharing a bag with a baby boy. Each baby had been strangled with white tape, which as she later told the police "was how you could tell it was one of mine".
At the inquest into the deaths in early May, no evidence was found that Mary or Arthur Palmer had acted as Dyer’s accomplices. Arthur Palmer was discharged as the result of the confession written by Amelia Dyer a few days earlier. Once Dyer was imprisoned, prison guards spoke of her character: the chief warder described Dyer as “too oily and submissive for words… her eyes were always watching me. Those glittering eyes of hers stilled into me a strange feeling of disquiet and foreboding.” Prison warders were said to describe her as “old and shrivelled,” with a smell of “ancient marshlands under a strong sun” (England’s Ghostly
Heritage, Terence Whitaker).
On May 22, 1896 Amelia Dyer appeared at the Old Bailey and pleaded guilty to the murder of
Doris Marmon. The only defence she could offer was insanity but this was rejected. It took the jury six minutes to decide her guilt. She was hanged by James Billington at Newgate Prison on Wednesday, 10 June 1896.
No one knows how many more children Amelia Dyer murdered but inquiries from mothers, witnesses and evidence found in Dyer’s homes, including letters and mountains of baby clothes, pointed to many more. Harry Simmons, a young orphan who lived with Dyer said that
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it was his carpet bag dragged from the Thames. He said that since Christmas there had been about 25 children in the Dyer house but he didn't know where any of them were now.
Dyer’s conviction helped to demonstrate the need to convince the House of Commons that greater protection must be in place for foster children, and evidence of this was the six-part expose on negligent baby-farming published by The British Medical Journal and the Infant
Life Protection Act, which both followed Dyer’s conviction.
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Beverley Gail Allitt (born 4 October 1968), dubbed the Angel of Death, was a State Enrolled
Nurse (SEN) who was convicted of killing four children and injuring nine others, in 1991, on the children's ward of Grantham and Kesteven Hospital, Lincolnshire where she worked. She has since become one of Britain's most notorious female serial killers. Her main method of murder was to inject the child with insulin or potassium to cause cardiac arrest. She was sentenced to life imprisonment at her trial in 1993 and is currently being held at Rampton
Secure Hospital.
Allitt was one of four children. She seemed to have a fairly normal childhood, but in her early teens she became overweight and was often moody with her friends, who were now calling her Big Bev. She became very aggressive and lied compulsively. She often complained about different illnesses, headaches, gall bladder problems, she also self harmed to get attention.
She was with a boyfriend of two years who later complained that she was aggressive and deceptive. She pretended she was pregnant and later pretended she had been raped.
Although she had a history of excessive sick leave and had repeatedly failed her nursing exams, she had been granted a temporary six-month position at the understaffed hospital at
Grantham and Kesteven.
Allitt had attacked 13 children in the space of 2 months before she was finally arrested. It was only following the death of Claire Peck did medical staff become suspicious of the number of cardiac arrests on the children's ward and police were called in. It was found that Allitt was the only nurse on duty for all the attacks on the children and she also had access to the drugs.
The police looked at hospital log books and found a pattern of the patients that were checked in, days that they had either died or records showing sudden illnesses, which coincided with
Allitt’s shift patterns. They also looked at a medical history which gave the indication of a very serious personality disorder.
Four of Allitt's victims had died. She was charged with attempted murder and grievous bodily harm in November 1991. On 23 May 1993 she was found guilty on each charge and sentenced to 13 concurrent terms of life imprisonment - to be served at Rampton Secure
Hospital in Nottinghamshire.
Allitt's trial judge recommended she serve a minimum term of 30 years (one of the longest minimum terms ever suggested by a trial judge, High Court judge or politician), which would keep her in prison until at least 2032 and the age of 64, and even then she could only be released if she was no longer considered to be a danger to the public. In August 2006, Allitt launched an appeal on the length of her sentence. On 6 December 2007, the High Court reaffirmed the original sentence and fixed her minimum tariff at 30 years, bringing her possible release date forward to 2022.
Allitt's motives have never been fully explained. According to one theory, Munchausen
Syndrome by Proxy explains her actions. This controversial personality disorder is described as involving a pattern of abuse in which a perpetrator physically falsifies illnesses in someone under their care, in order to attract attention.
Found guilty of killing four children, attempting to kill another three, and causing grievously harm to another six, she was sentenced to life imprisonment. She remains in a secure hospital for the mentally ill.
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Born November 29 th 1953 as Rosemary Letts, she was brought up in a violent household where he father Bill Letts was a strict disciplinarian who would beat his children. At school
Rose was chubby and not very academic dubbed “Dozie Rosie” she would violently retaliate to her bullies. Sexually precocious, her father would forbid her to see boys around her area, so she would look to older men where she would be raped by an older man taking advantage of her naiveté.
Sick of being beaten, her mother Daisie took a fifteen year old Rose and moved in with her other daughter Glenys and her husband. When she met Fred West her father was opposed to the match as Fred was always in trouble with the law.
Aged 16, Rose left to live and take care of Charmaine and Anne-Marie (Fred daughters from his first wife Rena) and Rose gave birth to her own daughter Heather in 1970. Rosemary's erratic temper may have caused her to kill Charmaine while Fred was in prison in 1971, when he was released they buried the body after Fred had removed the fingers and toes. When
Rena came to look for her daughter, she was strangled, her fingers and toes removed and buried in the same area as Fred's first victim Ann McFall.
In 1972 Rose and Fred were married and moved to Cromwell St Gloucester. Both with perverse sexual appetites, Rose would work as a prostitute in the house and Fred would torture and rape young girls. His 8-year-old daughter Anne-Marie was raped by her father while Rose held her down
In late 1972 the couple took in 17-year-old Caroline Owens as a nanny. She was raped.
Owens reported the west to the police who charged them, but the Wests manage to escape with fines when the case came to court in 1973. Rose's son Stephen was born in august of that year.
Over the next five years Linda Gough Lucy Partington Juanita Mott, Therese Siegenthaler
Alison chambers Shirley Robinson and fifteen year old schoolgirls Carol Ann Cooper and
Shirley Hubbard all became victims of the West violent sexual appetite. All were murdered dismembered and buried in Cromwell St.
Rose had more children Louise (born 1978) Barry (1980) Rose Jnr (1982) Lucyanna (1983)
Fred turned his sexual attentions to his daughter Heather. When she told a friend the goings on in the house, Fred killed her, dismembered her and buried her in the garden like the rest.
In 1992 Detective Constable Hazel Savage led an investigation at Cromwell St. Pornography and evidence of child abuse was found. Fred was arrested for child abuse and sodomy of a minor, and Rose arrested for assisting Further investigation was undertaken for the disappearance of Charmaine and Heather but the case collapsed when two key witnesses decided not to testify.
On February 24 th 1994 a warrant was obtained to search the Cromwell Street house. Bodies of two women were discovered, one was suspected of being Shirley Robinson. Fred admitted to these murders, and Rose denied knowledge of Heather ’s death. Fred admitted bodies were also buried in the cellar, and nine more bodies were found. Fred then revealed the whereabouts of his former wife Rena, lover Macfall and daughter Charmaine who were buried away from the Cromwell St house.
Rose tried to distance herself from Fred saying she too was a victim but police were convinced she was involved. On 13 th December 1994 Fred was charged on twelve counts of murder and taken into custody at Winson Green Prison in Birmingham pending trial. In 1 st
January 1995 he hanged himself in prison with knotted bed sheets.
Rose West went on trial on 3 rd October 1995 amid a media frenzy. Witnesses included daughter Anne-Marie and Caroline Owens. On November 22 nd 1995, Rose was found guilty
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on ten separate counts of murder sentenced to a minimum of 25 years imprisonment this sentence was later changed to life without parole.
Rose later launched appeals in 1996 and 2000 saying the media frenzy meant she couldn't get a fair trial and that new evidence may have come to light to clear her. All appeals were rejected and she remains in Winchester Prison. No 25 Cromwell Street was razed to the ground in October 1996 and there is a pathway that leads to the town centre in its place.
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Mary Ann Robson was born in the small English village of Low Moorsley, County Durham in what is now Sunderland in October 1832. Her childhood was an unhappy one. Her parents were both younger than 20 when they married. Her father Michael, a miner, barely managed to keep his family fed; he was ardently religious, a fierce disciplinarian with Mary Ann and her younger brother Robert, and active in the Methodist church’s choir.
When Mary Ann was eight, her parents moved the family to the town of Murton, where she went to a new school and found it difficult to make friends. Soon after the move her father fell
150 feet to his death down a mine shaft at Murton Colliery.
When Mary Ann was 14, her mother remarried. Mary Ann did not like her new stepfather,
Robert Stott, but she liked the things his better wages could buy. At the age of 16 she could stand the discipline of her stepfather no more, so she moved out to become a nurse at
Edward Potter's home in the nearby village of South Hetton. She served there for three years and then returned to her mother's home and trained as a dressmaker. About this time she met a colliery labourer called William Mowbray.
Mary Ann, aged 20, married William Mowbray in Newcastle upon Tyne, and soon they moved to Plymouth, Devon. The couple had five children, four of whom died from gastric fever or stomach pains. William and Mary Ann moved back to the North East and she had another three children, all of whom died. William became a foreman at South Hetton Colliery and then a fireman aboard a steam vessel. He died of an intestinal disorder in January 1865. William's life was insured by the British and Prudential Insurance office and Mary Ann collected a payout of £35 on his death.
Soon after Mowbray's death, Mary Ann moved to County Durham where she struck up a relationship with a Joseph Nattrass. He, however, was engaged to another woman and she left Seaham after Nattrass’s wedding. During this time, one of her two surviving children, a girl of 3½, died. That left her with one child out of the nine she had borne. Nattrass would reappear in Mary Ann's life later.
Mary Ann returned to Sunderland and took up employment at the Sunderland Infirmary,
House of Recovery for the Cure of Contagious Fever, Dispensary and Humane Society. Her remaining child, Isabella, was sent to live with Mary Ann's mother.
At the infirmary, one of her patients was an engineer, George Ward. After an affair, they married in Monkwearmouth. However, George continued to suffer ill health, and died in
October 1866, after a long illness characterised by paralysis and intestinal problems. The attending doctor later gave evidence that Ward was an ailing man but was surprised he had died so suddenly. Once again Mary Ann collected insurance money from the death of her husband.
James Robinson was a shipwright in Sunderland whose wife, Hannah, had recently died.
James hired Mary Ann as a housekeeper in November 1866. One month later, when James's baby died of fever, he turned to his housekeeper for comfort and she became pregnant. Then
Mary Ann's mother, living in County Durham became ill so she immediately went to her. Her mother started getting better but began complaining of stomach pains soon after her daughter arrived. She died aged 54, on the 9th of June, nine days after Mary Ann's appearance.
Mary Ann's daughter Isabella — from the marriage to William Mowbray — was brought back to the Robinson household and soon developed bad stomach pains and died; so did another two of James's children. All three children were buried within two weeks of each other at the end of April 1867.
Four months later, the grieving father and widower married Mary Ann. Their baby — a daughter called Mary Isabella — was born in November. But she became ill with familiar symptoms and died in March 1868.
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James, meanwhile, had became suspicious of his wife's insistence that he insure his life and discovered that she had run up debts of £60 behind his back and had stolen more than £50 that she was supposed to have banked. The last straw was when he found she had been forcing his children to pawn household valuables for her. He threw her out.
Mary Ann was desperate and living on the streets. Then her friend Margaret Cotton introduced her to her brother Frederick, a pitman and recent widower living in
Northumberland, who had lost two of his four children. Margaret had acted as substitute mother for the children, Frederick Jr and Charles, although in late March 1870 she died from an undetermined stomach ailment — leaving Mary Ann to console the grieving Frederick Sr.
Soon she was pregnant again with her eleventh child.
Frederick and Mary Ann were bigamously married in September 1870 and their son Robert was born early in 1871. Soon after, Mary Ann learnt that her former lover, Joseph Nattrass, was no longer married and was living in the nearby village of West Auckland. She rekindled the romance and persuaded her new family to move near him. Frederick followed his predecessors to the grave in December of that year, from “gastric fever”. Insurance had been taken out on his and his son’s lives.
After Fr ederick’s death, Nattrass soon became Mary Ann’s lodger. She gained employment as nurse to an excise officer recovering from smallpox, John Quick-Manning. Soon she became pregnant by him with her twelfth child.
This time, the traditional speedy marriage could not follow: what about the Cotton children and Nattrass? Frederick Jr died in March of 1872 and the infant Charles soon after. Then
Nattrass became ill with gastric fever, and died — just after revising his will in Mary Ann’s favour. The insurance policy Mary Ann had taken out on Charles's life still awaited collection.
And so it would have been, but for a careless conversation.
Mary Ann's downfall came when she was asked by a parish official, Thomas Riley, to help nurse a woman who was ill with smallpox. She complained that the last surviving Cotton boy,
Charles Edward, was in the way and asked Riley if he could be committed to the workhouse.
Riley, who also served as West Auckland's assistant coroner, said she would have to accompany him. She told Riley that the boy was sickly and added: “I won’t be troubled long.
He’ll go like all the rest of the Cottons.” Riley replied: "No, nothing of the kind — he is a fine, healthy boy", and so he was shocked five days later when Mary Ann told him that the lad had died. Riley went to the village police and convinced the doctor to delay writing a death certificate until the circumstances could be investigated.
Mary Ann’s first port of call after Charles’s death was not the doctor’s but the insurance office.
There, she learnt that no money would be paid out until a death certificate was issued. An inquest was held and the jury returned a verdict of natural causes. Mary Ann claimed to have used arrowroot to relieve his illness and said Riley had made the accusations because she had rejected his advances. Then the local newspapers latched on to the story and discovered Mary Ann had moved around northern England and lost three husbands, a lover, a friend, her mother and a dozen children, all of whom had died of stomach fevers.
Rumour turned to suspicion and forensic inquiry. The doctor who tended to Charles had kept samples and they tested positive for arsenic. He went to the police who arrested Mary Ann and ordered the exhumation of Charles’s body. She was charged with his murder — although the trial was delayed until after the delivery of the child by Quick-Manning.
The Times' correspondent reported on 20 May: "After conviction the wretched woman exhibited strong emotion but this gave place in a few hours to her habitual cold, reserved demeanour and while she harbours a strong conviction that the royal clemency will be extended towards her, she staunchly asserts her innocence of the crime that she has been convicted of." Several petitions were presented to the Home Secretary, but to no avail. She was hanged at Durham County Gaol on 24 March, 1873. She died slowly, the hangman having misjudged the drop required for a “clean” execution.
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To understand why Countess Bathory was defined as a vampire, you must first understand what a vampire is. Vampires are believed to be creatures that drain the life source or energy and who can be physical, ghostly or formless. The vampire is known in superstitions for feasting on the blood of others.
One woman managed to live like a vampire, this woman is Countess Elizabeth Bathory.
According to Anthony Masters and other sources, Countess Elizabeth Bathory killed between
300-600 women.
Elizabeth Bathory was born in Hungary in 1560 into a noble family that had lands throughout
Transylvania. She had relatives of high status. Her relatives were princes, a cardinal, a prime minister, and others in high ranks The most famous Bathory was Stephen, King of Poland during the mid 1500’s.
Elizabeth Bathory was promised in marriage to Count Ferencz Nadasdy at the age of 11, she married the 25-year-old count at the age of 15. The Count adopted her surname, and she kept her last name. They both lived in Castle Csjethe, a cold, damp, gloomy castle, unfortunately, Count Nadasdy was always away in a battle and Elizabeth’s life in that castle became uneventful.
Elizabeth decided to add some spice to her life and soon became unfaithful to her husband, in addition she easily found people to entertain her in the occult arts. Her husband didn’t seem to mind and forgave her for being unfaithful.
Elizabeth’s interest in torture began when she realized there were torture devices that were kept in the castle. She watched her husband torture prisoners on these claw-like pincers that when used could rip the flesh in such a way that even the count stopped using it. Elizabeth also became interested in playing with whips. During the 1600’s Count Nadasdy died.
Elizabeth Bathory tortured and killed many peasant women. After her husband died, Elizabeth found many lovers. They were interested in her name and fortune; her husband would be next in line to be king. This blew up Elizabeth’s ego making her believed she was the most beautiful woman. Elizabeth feared that age would take away her beauty.
Infuriated, she struck one of her servant girls so hard that some blood dripped from her face onto Elizabeth’s hand making her believe that the blood that fell on her hand made her skin younger.
She had several accomplices go out and get girls. These peasant girls came believing they were there to work but where tortured and killed instead. Women were hung upside down, while they were still alive and their throats were slit to prepare Elizabeth’s bath, many were put in cages that had spikes within, the victim was squatted in this small cage and if they fell asleep they would be impaled. The Countess of Transylvania got to the point that she drank her victims’ blood but was never completely satisfied with the results (hmm I wonder why).
Someone had th e answer to Elizabeth’s dissatisfaction; her accomplice suggested that she should use better blood, the blood of other noble women. Many of these women were still of a lower status than Elizabeth but she managed to kill at least 40 of them.
Unfortunately for Elizabeth Bathory financial troubles and debts were her ruin. This was one of the reasons she was investigated. The second reason was the killing of the upper class women, therefore, it seems that the investigation took place because of the desire by others to obtain whatever was left of her wealth and her property.
Elizabeth was never sent to trial because of her status but her partners in crime were sentenced to death by burning, while was condemned to be imprisoned within a tower of her own castle, with only a small hole for food and air. Elizabeth Bathory was found dead during
1614, at the age of 54.
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