Female serial killers

Bertha Gifford (October 1872 – August 20, 1951) was a farmwife in rural Catawissa, Missouri during the early 1900s who was accused of murdering 17 members of the local community.

Waneta Ethel (Nixon) Hoyt (May 13, 1946 – August 13, 1998) was an American serial killer who was convicted of killing all five of her biological children.

Amelia Elizabeth Dyer (née Hobley; 1837 – 10 June 1896) was one of the most prolific serial-killers in history, murdering infants in her care over a 20-year period in Victorian Britain.

Vera Renczi (dubbed the Black Widow or Chatelaine of Berkerekul), of Romania or Hungary, reportedly confessed to poisoning 35 individuals—including her two husbands, multiple lovers, and her son—with arsenic during the 1920s.

(The native form of this personal name is Ecsedi Báthory Erzsébet. This article uses the Western name order.) Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (Hungarian: Báthory Erzsébet, Romanian: Elisabeta Bathory, Slovak: Alžbeta Bátoriová ; 7 August 1560 – 21 August 1614) was a serial killer from the Báthory family of nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary.

Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite d'Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers (22 July 1630 – 17 July 1676) was a French aristocrat accused of three murders.

Judias "Judy" Buenoano (born Judias Welty, also known as Judias Goodyear, also known as Judias Morris) (April 4, 1943 – March 30, 1998), was a convicted murderer who was executed for the 1971 murder of her husband James Goodyear.

Hilda Nilsson (1876 – 10 August 1917) was a Swedish serial killer from Helsingborg who became known as "the angel maker on Bruks Street".

Margie Velma Barfield (née Margie Velma Bullard) (October 29, 1932 – November 2, 1984) was an American serial killer, convicted of one murder, but she eventually confessed to six murders.

Marie Besnard (15 August 1896 – 14 February 1980), also known as 'The Good Lady of Loudun', was an accused serial poisoner in the mid-20th century.

Jane Toppan aka (Jolly Jane) (1857–1938), born Honora Kelley, was an American serial killer.

Rhonda Bell Thomley Martin (1907 – October 11, 1957) was an American serial killer.

Marybeth Roe Tinning (born September 11, 1942) is an American prisoner serving a sentence of 20 years to life after being convicted of the murder of one of her children.

Aileen Carol Wuornos (February 29, 1956 – October 9, 2002) was an American serial killer who killed seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990 by shooting them at point blank range.

Marie Fikáčková (September 9, 1936 – April 13, 1961) was a Czechoslovak serial killer, convicted for the killing of 2 newborn babies in Sušice in 1960.

Maria Catherina Swanenburg (9 September 1839 in Leiden – 11 April 1915 in Gorinchem) was a Dutch serial killer, who murdered at least 27, and was suspected of killing more than 90 people.

Karla Leanne Homolka (born 4 May 1970), also known as Karla Leanne Teale and Leanne Bordelais, is a convicted Canadian serial killer who, with her husband Paul Bernardo, raped and murdered at least three young women.

Janie Lou Gibbs (December 25, 1932 – February 7, 2010) was an American serial killer from Cordele, Georgia, who killed her three sons, a grandson, and her husband, by poisoning them with rat poison in 1966 and 1967.

Kristen Heather Gilbert (born Kristen Heather Strickland, November 13, 1967) is a former nurse and an American serial killer who was convicted of four murders and two attempted murders of patients admitted to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center (VAMC) in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova (Russian: Дарья Николаевна Салтыкова; née Ivanova, commonly known as Saltychikha) (1730 – December 27, 1801) was a Russian noblewoman, sadist, and serial killer, from Moscow, who became notorious for torturing and killing over 100 of her serfs, mostly women and girls.

Genene Anne Jones (born July 13, 1950) is a former pediatric nurse who killed somewhere between 1 and 46 infants and children in her care.

Anna Marie Hahn (born Filser; July 7, 1906 – December 7, 1938) was a German-born American serial killer.

Elfriede Blauensteiner (22 January 1931 – 18 November 2003), dubbed the "Black Widow", was an Austrian serial killer who murdered at least three victims by poison.

"Sister" Amy Duggan Archer-Gilligan (October 1868 – April 23, 1962) was a Windsor, Connecticut, nursing home proprietor and serial killer.

Marie Noe (born August 23, 1928) is an American serial killer.

Irina Viktorovna Gaidamachuk (Russian: Ирина Викторовна Гайдамачук, born 1972) is a Russian serial killer who killed 17 elderly women in Sverdlovsk Oblast between 2002 and 2010.

Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters is a non-fiction true crime history by Peter Vronsky, a criminal justice historian.