This hub follows on from my article The 5 Biggest Serial Killers, in which females were not represented. Female Serial killers are relatively rare in occurrence, and intend to murder men for personal gain. In fact, three of the five killers on this list had mainly financial motives. An analysis of all female serial killers from the USA found that victims were normally children, the elderly or spouses. To apply this in context, sexual or sadistic motives are believed to be extremely rare in female killers but are the most common motive for male serial killers. Sometimes it is known for female serial killers to be part of a 'team' with a male serial killer. Anyway, I hope that the article does not give you the chill's too much, and be sure to vote for the scariest killer at the end of the piece!

Erzebet Bathory was a Hungarian countess from the renowned Bathory family. The Bathoryfamily were famous for defending Hungary against the Ottoman Turks. Countess Erzebet Bathory, who lived from 1560 to 1614, is believed to be the biggest female serial killer in history and is remembered as the 'Blood Countess. Her killing spree came to light after her husbands death after she, and four accomplices, began torturing and killing young women and virgin girls. There are often accounts of her bathing in the blood of virgins in order to retain her youth, although these accounts are completely unfounded. The victims were often peasants who were enticed to the castle by the promise of well paid work as maids, other victims were the children of lesser nobility who were sent to the castle to learn etiquette.

Bathory was highly intelligent as a young woman and learned to speak Latin, German and Greek, she was also known for a keen interest in science and astronomy. At the age of 15 she was engaged to Ferenc Nadasdy, a wealthy man, who's wedding gift to Bathory was his Cachtice Castle home together with the Cachtice country house and 17 adjacent villages. Just 3 years after their wedding in 1575 her husband was sent to war and Bathory was ordered to defend the estates and take charge of business affairs. Bathory had a similar role between 1593 and 1606 throughout the Long War, an important task due to previous plundering by the Ottomans. Her husband died during this war in 1604 at the age of 47, probably as a result of injury in battle.

It was between 1602 and 1604 that senior ministers began to complain about atrocities to the court in Vienna and publicly, after rumours had gained momentum about events in the castle. It took Hungarian authorities some time to respond to the events and in 1610 King Matthias assigned the palatine of Hungary, Janos Thurzo, to investigate. Thurzo decided against trialing Bathory and instead kept her under strict house arrest. At the end of 1610 Thurzo went to Cachtice Castle and arrested Bathory and four of her servants. Thurzo and his men found one girl dying and one dead, along with many others locked up and one wounded. King Matthias requested that Bathory be sentenced to death however Thurzo persuaded the king that doing so would negatively affect the nobility. Therefore a trial was postponed indefinitely and Bathory was kept imprisoned. Her four accomplices however were found guilty, with three executed and another imprisoned for life.

Bathory was found dead in her cell in 1614 having never been taken to trial. Estimates about how many Bathory killed differ, with some sources saying the number is as high as 650. Two of her accomplices claimed at trial the figures of 36 and 37 victims, whilst the other two defendants claimed a number of 50 or higher. Many innocent personnel estimated the number of bodies removed from the castle at between 100-200, with another servant claiming that Bathory listed all 650 of her victims in a book. It has been reported that Bathory's diaries are kept in state archives in Budapest, but have never been released by any Hungarian regime due to the horrific nature of the content.

Belle Sorenson Gunness (1859 - 1908?) is believed to be the second biggest female serial killer in history, unlike many serial killers she often had financial motives, collecting life insurance benefits from many of her victims. It is estimated that she killed more than 40 people over several decades. Much mystery surrounds Gunness' early life, although it is often reported that in 1877 aged just 18 she attended a country dance whilst pregnant where she was kicked in the abdomen and lost her unborn child. Accounts state that her personality changed significantly after this tragedy, particularly as the man was charged; apparently as he was rich and influential. She subsequently worked on a farm for three years in order to save money for a trip across the atlantic to America, this followed the lead of her older sister. Her sister was later to state that Belle was "crazy for money".

Gunness married a Norwegian man in Chicago and soon after they opened a confectionery store. The business venture was not a success and within a year the store had burnt down in mysterious circumstances. Belle claimed that a kerosene lamp had exploded and started the fire, however no lamp was ever found but insurance money was paid and the money was used to purchase the couple a home in Austin, Chicago. This home was later to be destroyed, again by a mysterious fire, in 1898; the couple again collected insurance money and purchased another home. Within two years her husband had died, on July 30th 1900, the only day that two life insurance policies on him overlapped. The first doctor to visit him thought he had died as a result of poisoning however the family doctor, who had been treating him for an enlarged heart, decided that the death had been caused by heart failure. She applied for insurance money of $8,500 dollars on the day after his funeral, whilst Sorenson's relatives claimed that Gunness had killed him for the money. She used the money to buy a farm in Indiana and moved there with the couples three daughters, one of whom was adopted. It was later established that Gunness and Sorenson had four offspring together, but that two had died in infancy; suffice to say that those two children were also insured and that it is now believed that they too were poisoned.

Shortly after purchasing the farm in La Porte, Indiana, the property's boathouse and carriage house burnt down. Later Belle was to meet a Norwegian named Peter Gunness who lived in her village (it was at this stage that Belle acquired her famous surname) and they married on April 1st 1902. By this stage Belle was working a lot quicker, and money had clearly gone well and truly to her head, within a week of the ceremony Peter's infant daughter had died whilst in the house alone with Belle. By the end of the same year Peter had a "tragic accident", this time a sausage grinding machine had fallen from a high shelf onto his head, killing him instantly. Peter's death gave Belle yet more money, this time another $3,000, however the local coroner reviewed the case and announced that he had been murdered. Belle's 14 year old daughter Jennie had also been overheard telling a classmate that her mum had killed him with a meat cleaver. Unbelievably, she was acquitted of all charges by the coroners jury, possibly as they sympathised with her hardship as a pregnant lady.

Belle subsequently employed a farm hand called Ray Lamphere in 1906 to help run her farm, in the same year her adopted daughter Jennie fell out of sight, Gunness told curious villagers that Jennie had been sent to a finishing school in Los Angeles. Jennie had in fact been killed and her body was later to be found on Belle's farm. At the same time Gunness placed an ad in the matrimonial columns of all Chicago daily newspapers and those of other cities, she stated that she was a widow who desired to make the acquaintance of a gentleman with equal wealth to join fortunes. The result was a train of suitors, armed with wallets full of cash and deeds to their properties. Each would never be seen again, whilst Belle would deposit regular large sums of money into her bank account.

A turning point came when Belle's farm hand Ray Lamphere became jealous of all the men visiting her, as he was deeply in love with her, he did anything that she asked no matter how gruesome. She fired him in February 1908 before subsequently trying to get him declared insane, an effort which failed. Lamphere presented a significant threat to her now and she told a lawyer that Lamphere presented a threat to her and her children's safety, she also told this lawyer that Lamphere had threatened to burn her house down so she wanted to make a will tht left her entire estate to her three remaining children. After writing the will she went to the bank in La Porte and paid off her mortgage.

Joe Maxon, who had been appointed Ray Lamphere's replacement after his dismissal, awoke in the early hours of April 28th 1908 after smelling smoke in his room. He jumped from his second floor room and ran to town to get help, but by the time it had arrived the farmhouse was nothing but a heap of smouldering ruins. The floors had collapsed and four bodies were found in the cellar, although Belle's body could not be identified as it had no head. Next to this corpse were her three children. Lamphere was arrested for Arson, although he denied the claims, before dozens of people began to score the ruins for evidence. But was Belle Gunness really dead? several neighbours and old friends were called to identify the body, all of whom said that the body was definitely not Gunness. The authorities determined that the body was not that of Belle Gunness and had in fact been a woman 5 inches shorter than her, a subsequent examination of the body found that the woman had in fact been poisoned. Did Belle Gunness in fact stage her own arson?

After Joe Maxon had informed investigators that he had been ordered to fill depressions in the earth on Belle's land, investigators became suspicious. They subsequently began to dig and found the bodies of her adopted daughter Jennie Olson, the bodies of two unidentified children, and the bodies of Ole. B Budsberg, Thomas Lindboe, Henry Gurholdt, Olaf Svenherud and Olaf Lindbloom as well as numerous bodies that could not be identified. In total there were remains of more than 40 men and children buried on her property. Days before Lamphere's death he confessed that he helped to dispose of many bodies for Gunness but never killed himself, he stated that the body found in the fire was definetly not Belle's and that she had made her escape. He stated that she had murdered 42 men by his count and had accumulated more than $250,000, most of which was withdrawn from her account just days before the fire. For several decades there were reported sightings of Gunness across America, as late as 1931 there were sightings of Gunness alive and well in Mississippi. In 1931 a woman known as 'Esther Carlson' was arrested in Los Angeles for the poisoning of a man for money. Two people claimed to recognise the lady as Gunness but 'Carlson' died whilst awaiting her trail and this was never proved.

Mary Ann Cotton (1832 - 1873) was an English serial killer and the third biggest female serial killer of all time. She is believed to have killed 20 people, most of them by arsenic poisoning. Cotton, like Belle Gunness, often killed for financial reasons. After an unhappy childhood, during which her father had fallen to his death down a mineshaft, Mary Ann married William Mowbray in Newcastle-upon-Tyne aged 20. They moved to Plymouth, Devon, where the couple had five children of which four died from gastric fever or stomach pains. They moved back to Newcastle where they had and lost three more children. Her husband died in 1865 of an intestinal disorder, at which point Mary received an insurance payout of £35, equivalent to one and half years of Williams salary.

Shortly after Mowbray's death, Mary Ann moved to County Durham where she entered into a relationship with Joseph Natrass. He was however engaged to another woman and she left Natrass shortly after he became married. She returned to Sunderland, her place of birth, and took up employment as a nurse at Sunderland Infirmary. In order to work she sent her only remaining child, out of 9 born, to live with her mother. One of her patients at the hospital was engineer George Ward, who became husband number 2 when they married in August 1865. George continued to suffer ill health and he died in October 1866, the attending doctor later acknowledged that Ward had been in very poor health however expressed his suprise that his death had been so sudden. Mary Ann once again collected a large insurance payout, just over a year since her first.

A month after Ward's death Cotton was hired as a housekeeper for James Robinson, a shipwright. One month later Robinson's daughter passed away with gastric fever, and he turned to Cotton for comfort; she fell pregnant. Soon after her mother fell very ill and Cotton went to care for her, she died 9 days after Cotton's arrival, having started to feel better but also complaining of stomach pains. Cotton's nine year old daughter was brought to live with her and Robinson but herself began to experience stomach pains and died, as did another two of Robinson's children. All three children were buried in April 1867. Four months later the grieving Robinson married Cotton; shortly before the birth of their new child Mary Isabella. Mary Isabella fell ill with very familiar symptoms and died in March 1868. James however did not fall victim having fallen suspicious of his wife, who had stolen more than £50 that he had told her to bank and run up debts of £60 without his knowledge. She was being insistent that he started a life insurance policy, and promptly threw her out.

Mary Ann became desperate and was living on the streets after being thrown out by Robinson, before a friend named Margaret Cotton introduced her to her brother Frederick. Frederick had lost two of his children and become a widower, with Margaret taking the role of substitute mother for his remaining children but by March 1870 she too had died by a mystery stomach ailment, leaving Mary Ann to console Frederick. Soon Mary Ann was pregnant again, her eleventh pregnancy, and Frederick and Mary Ann married in September 1870. Unbeknown to her new husband, the couple were in fact committing bigamy due to Mary Ann not being divorced from James Robinson. Frederick soon followed his predeccessors to the grave, dying in December 1870 of 'Gastric fever'. Insurance had been taken out against him and, alarmingly, also taken out against the two children. Both of the children died, as did yet another partner of Cotton.

Cotton finally became unstuck when a parish official asked her to help a nurse with smallpox. She complained that the last remaining son of Frederick Cotton was in the way and asked the official if he could be sent to the workhouse. The official, Thomas Riley, said that if the boy went she would have to follow. She replied "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 fine, a healthy boy" so he was shocked when just five days later Mary Cotton told him that the boy had died. Riley went straight to the police and demanded that the doctor delay writing the death certificate pending investigation. Mary Ann's went straight to the insurance office when the boy had died where she learnt that no money would be paid until she could produce a death certificate. The inquest however determined that the boy had died of natural causes, and it was not until the local press had cottoned on that it was discovered that Cotton 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. The body of the boy, the last victim, was subsequently taken up where it was found to contain traces of arsenic. Her trial began on 5th March 1873 and she was hanged from Durham County Gaol on 24th March 1873.

Rosemary West (1953 - Present) is an English serial killer and current inmate at HMP Low Newton in Durham following her conviction for 10 murders in 1995. She was the wife of Fred West, whom she committed the murders with, who killed himself whilst awaiting trial. Fred was known to have carried out 12 murders but Rosemary had no involvement in the first two as she had not met Fred at the time.

Rosemary West (then Letts), like many extreme criminals, had an unhappy childhood. Her mother suffered from depression and Rosemary grew up a moody teenager, performing badly at school. Rosemary's parents split up when she was a teenager, she lived with her mother until 16 and then with her father. Her father was prone violence and would often sexually abuse her. At around the same time she began dating West, although her father disapproved of this relationship, and by 1970 she was pregnant by Fred and caring for his daughter Anne-Marie from a previous relationship. The first signs of a sick mind occured in 1973 when Rosemary and Fred were fined for the indecent assault of Caroline Roberts who escaped the couples home after being attacked and reported them to the police. The West's typical pattern in their offending was to pick up girls from bus stops in the Gloucester area and then imprison them in their home for several days before murdering them.

Rosemary also occasionally worked as a prostitute, sometimes whilst her husband watched. She was frequently pregnant and was the mother of eight children, five of whom were fathered by Fred West and the other three of whom were fathered by West Indian clients. It is reported that Rosemary's father was still visiting her for sex after her fourth child was born in 1977, and would then have sex with Fred West's daughter Anne-Marie. In August 1992 Fred West was arrested after being accused of raping his 13 year old daughter three times, and Rosemary West was arrested for child cruelty. The case against them collapsed in June 1993 after their daughter refused to testify in court. It was this case that brought to light the disappearance of their daughter Heather West, it was this that started the investigation that would expose the full extent of their evil.

Social workers told police that the pair had made jokes about "burying Heather under the patio" and the police obtained a search warrant in February 1994 which allowed them to excavate the garden of their house. They started their search for Heather in the same month, when they found human bones on the second day of the search. West, who was already being held by police, confessed to the murder of Heather (although retracting that confession at one stage) bu tried to absolve Rosemary of any blame. Rosemary was not arrested until April 1994, initially on sex offences but later charged with murder. Further bodies were found and, on 4th March 1994, West admitted that he had carried out nine more murders - including his first wife. Unlike her husband, Rosemary did not confess, instead she was tried at Winchester Crown Court where she was found guilty of 10 murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Aileen Wuornos (1956 - 2002) was an American prostitute who killed seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990, she later claimed that the men had tried to rape her. Wuornos' mother abandoned Aileen and her older brother Keith n 1960, at which point they were adopted by their maternal grandparents. Aileen was known to have engaged in sexual acts with multiple partners from a young age, including her own brother, and at the age of thirteen became pregnant; claiming that the pregnancy was as a result of being raped by an unknown man. She gave birth to the son at a home for unwed mothers in Detroit in 1971. Soon after the birth her grandmother passed away and her grandfather threw Aileen and her brother out of his house, rendering them homeless. It was at this stage, aged 15 years old, that Aileen began working as a prostitute.

Aileen's criminal career started early and she was first arrested on May 27th 1974 in Jefferson County, Colorado, for drunk driving, disorderly conduct and firing a .22 calibre pistol out of that vehicle whilst it was moving. She was later charged with failing to appear for the court date. Aileen hitchhiked to Florida in 1976 where she met and married Lewis Gratz Fell, a 70 year old Yacht club president. Despite a seemingly perfect opportunity for her to straighten herself out, she continued to get into confrontations at a local bar and was eventually sent to jail for assault. Her new husband also had to get a restraining order placed on her as she would assault him with her own cane, after which she returned to Michigan. In the same year she was arrested in Michigan and charged with assault after throwing a cue ball at a bartenders head. Just three days later her older brother Keith died of throat cancer and Aileen was the beneficiary of a $10,000 life insurance payout.

It was to be a while before Aileen had another brush with the law, probably because she was able to live off of the hefty insurance payout, and she was next arrested back in Florida for the armed robbery of a convenience store on May 20th 1981. She was sent to prison but was in just over a year on June 30th 1981. Her frequent and persistant offending was ongoing and on May 1st 1984 she was arrested for attempting to pass forged cheques at a bank in West Keys.

In the following year, 1985, she was named as a suspect in the theft of a gun and ammunition in Pasco County. Aileen's crimes were beginning to get more serious, almost like a series of criminal graduations, and on 4th January 1986 she was arrested in Miami and charged with GTA and resisting arrest; Miami police found a .38 caliber revolver and a large box of ammunition in the stolen car. In the same year Volusia County deputies arrested and detained Wuornos after she was accused of pulling a gun on a male companion (probably a client) and demanding $200. Wuornos was found to be carrying a .22 pistol. Around the same time Aileen met Tyria Moore a hotel maid at a Daytona Gay bar and they moved in with each other, Wuornos supported the couple with her earnings from prostitution. The pair were detained in July 1987 for questioning after they had been accused of assault somebody with a beer bottle.

It was more than two years later that Aileen killed her first victim, a 51 year old electronics store owner named Richard Mallory who's abandoned car was found on 1st December 1989, his body was not found until 13th December in a woods several miles away. He had been shot several times. The next known murder was of 56 year old Dick Humphreys a former police chief on 19th May 1990, whose body was not found until 12th September 1990, he was fully clothed and had been shot six times in the head and torso. Victim number 3 was David Spears, a 43 year old construction worker, whose nude body was found on 1st June 1990; he had also been shot six times. Victim number 4 was Charles Carskaddon, a 40 year old rodeo worker, his body was found on 6th June 1990 - just five days after David Spears' - he had been shot nine times.

Victim number 5 was 65 year old Peter Siems, whose car was found in Orange Springs on 4th July 1990. Aileen and her partner Tyria were identified as the people that had left he car where it was found, although the body of Siems was never found. Wuornos' palm print was found in the car. Victim number 6 was a sausage salesman from Ocala who was reported missing on July 31st 1990 and whose body was found on 4th August 1990 in a wooded area in Marion County; he had been shot twice. After several murders in a very short space of time there was a three month gap until the 7th and last known victim Walter Antonio, aged 62, whose freshly killed nude body was found on 19th November 1990 near to a remote road in Dixie County. He had been shot four times and his car was found five days later in another county.

Wuornos confessed to the killings on January 16th 1991, although claimed that the men had tried to rape her and she had acted in self defence. At several different trials, the last being in February 1993. she was found guilty of the murders of six of her seven victim and received six death penalties; she was not found guilty of the murder of Peter Siems as no body was ever found. Wuornos later admitted that she killed the men in cold blood and would do it again if ever released, she was executed by lethal injection on 9th October 2002. There have since been a number of books and documentaries about Wuornos, most notably the documentaries 'Aileen Wournos: The Selling of a Serial Killer' and 'Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer'. In 2003 Charlize Theron won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of Wuornos in the film 'Monster'.