For my final passion blog post, I will be discussing Leonarda Cianciulli.

Leonarda Cianciulli was born on April 18, 1894, in Montella, Italy. She had a rough childhood. Cianciulli attempted suicide twice before the age of 18. In 1917, she married a man named Raffaele Pansardi. Leonarda was very superstitious and thought that her mother put a curse on her because she did not approve of the marriage. During her marriage, she got pregnant 17 times. Of these 17 pregnancies, 10 of the children died at young ages, 3 others were miscarriages, and she had 4 surviving children. In 1927, she was put in prison for fraud and upon her release, she and her family moved to Lacedonia, Italy. In 1930, the Irpinia Earthquake happened. This was one of the most destructive earthquakes in history and so many people lost their homes. Cianciulli was one of these people. 

Her story was surrounded by “unluckiness.” Between her mother’s “curse,” her home being destroyed, and the loss of her children, Leonarda quickly realized how bad her life was. Since she was so superstitious, she decided to visit a fortune-teller. This fortune told her, “In your right hand I see prison, In your left, I see a criminal asylum.” Leonarda Cianciulli suffered from clinical depression. However, in the 1930s, there was no therapy or medicines to help, so she resorted to paranoia and superstitions. 

All of these moments in her life led up to the moment when her eldest son announced that he wanted to enlist in the Italian Army. After the loss of most of her children, she became a very protective mother. She would do anything to keep him safe. In her eyes, the only thing that she thought would keep him safe was human sacrifice. No one knows where she got these ideas from, but she murdered three women and turned their remains into soaps and teacakes.

Her first victim was a woman named Faustina Setti. Setti was a spinster who was led into Cianciulli’s house by saying that she had found a husband for Setti. She told Setti to write letters to her family and friends saying that she would be traveling out of the country to visit the man. Setti was drugged and then murdered with an ax. She cut up Setti’s body and shared how she made crunchy teacakes in her statement to the police. She fed these cakes to women who visited, and she and her son also ate them. She had a second victim named Francesca Soavi, who had the same fate as Setti. Her third victim, however, was her last. Virginia Cacioppo was a famous singer in Milan. Cianciulli said she would hire her to work with an impresario in Florence. They met in 1940 when Cianciulli killed her just like her previous two victims. However, instead of just making her into teacakes, she melted down her flesh and turned it into soap. Cacioppo’s sister-in-law saw her enter Cianciullli’s home the night she disappeared, so she immediately reported it to the police. 

She eventually confessed to all three of the murders. Her trial only lasted a few days, and she was sentenced to 33 years in prison, plus another 3 in a criminal asylum. Leonarda Cianciulli died on October 15, 1970, in the criminal asylum at age 79.

Sources:

https://murderpedia.org/female.C/c/cianciulli-leonarda.htm

https://www.ranker.com/list/soap-maker-leonarda-ciancuiulli/jacob-shelton

https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/leonarda-cianciulli-21548.php

Photo Sources In Order:

https://fromtinypennies.com/2019/02/21/leonarda-cianciulli-she-did-it-to-keep-her-family-safe/

https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/her-victims-body-parts-were-turned-into-soap-for-her-children-s-safety-41055fab9bd4

https://medium.com/lessons-from-history/the-serial-killer-who-made-soaps-and-cakes-out-of-the-people-she-killed-e80a5e713b4f

In this week’s blog, I will be discussing Marybeth Tinning. 

Marybeth Roe Tinning was born September 11, 1942, in New York State. Despite her childhood, Tinning had a history of mental health issues from a young age. Her father fought in World War II, and that was a significant part of her youth. Her mother worked and she was often passed from relative to relative. Marybeth had an older brother, and many relatives would often compare them, saying that she was an accident and they only wanted her brother. Tinning was beaten by her father and was locked in a room when she cried. She lacked any sort of positive attention and craved it, which is important to the later story. Marybeth was always angry, but beneath that, she was so unhappy and had several suicide attempts as a child. Her grades were not good enough for her to go to college, even though she wanted to. Tinning longed to feel wanted and have any sort of attention, and when she met Joe Tinning, her dreams came true. Marybeth and Joe met on a blind date and two years later, they were married and had two children, Barbara and Joe Jr. Marybeth’s father passed away shortly after her son was born. His death took a huge toll on Tinning’s mental health. 

To outsiders, Marybeth was a good mother. They thought that it was deeply upsetting that her children kept passing away, one after the other. The couple had a third child, Jennifer, who had complications in the womb and died a week after birth. A few weeks after Jennifer’s death, Joe Jr. a now two-year-old suffered from a seizure. Doctors could not find a cause for this seizure, so they sent him home. Marybeth and Joe returned to the hospital soon after when Joe Jr. fell into cardiac arrest and then died. Their only living child, Barbara, was sent to the hospital for convulsions, which doctors believed was from an extremely rare brain disease. It may seem suspicious that all three of Marybeth’s children died in a row, but no one wanted to say anything to a grieving mother. 

On November 22, 1973, Tinning had a fourth child, Timothy, who was found dead in his crib at one-month-old. She had another son named Nathan, who died in her car while she was driving. Everyone in her town felt so sorry for her, as she had five children who all died at a young age. The couple then adopted a baby named Michael, and everything seemed normal until they gave birth to another daughter, Mary Frances. Mary Frances died with the same conditions as their son, Joe Jr. There was one more son after Mary Frances who also passed away. People thought that Tinning’s children just had a genetic condition that caused them all to die so young, until Michael, their adopted son, passed away suddenly. 

A total of 9 children died in Marybeth’s care. The doctors suspected foul play, but the police played all of them off as having Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). The police eventually got autopsy reports. However, this was still considered circumstantial evidence unless she confessed. At first, she took no responsibility, but she eventually confessed to killing three of the children and said that she had nothing to do with the other ones. She was sentenced to murder in the second degree due to the lack of clarity of the evidence. 

Marybeth Tinning enjoyed the attention she received when each of her children passed, making up for the attention she did not get as a child. In 1987, Tinning was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She and her husband are still married and he believes that she is completely innocent. 

Sources:

https://people.com/crime/9-little-kids-9-strange-deaths-tragedy-seemed-to-follow-marybeth-tinning-then-she-confessed-to-murder/

https://www.grunge.com/670646/where-is-convicted-killer-marybeth-tinning-today/

https://tiegrabber.com/podcasts/all-her-children-the-victims-of-marybeth-tinning/

Photo Sources in Order:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/12503/barbara-ann-tinning

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/544443042438468977/

https://www.shared.com/marybeth-tinning-parole/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marybeth-tinning-mom-killed-daughter-tami-lynne-1985-parole-seventh-try/

In this week’s blog, I will be discussing Judy Buenoano. 

Known as the “black widow,” Judy Buenoano was known for killing people close to her for insurance money. She was born Judias Welty on April 4, 1943, in Quanah, Texas. At the age of four, her mother passed away so she was sent to live with some other family members. She was passed around between family members and ended up living in foster homes for the majority of her childhood. In these foster homes, Judy claimed to be sexually assaulted and abused. With this childhood, she still graduated from a reform school in New Mexico in 1959. 

At the age of 17, she became pregnant. She gave birth to her son Michael in 1961 and later met a man named James Goodyear, who was an Air Force Sergeant. The two got married in 1962 and had two more children, James and Kimberly. The new family moved to Orlando, Florida in the late 1960s to follow Goodyear’s station. James spent time-fighting in the Vietnam War and returned in 1971.

When he returned, he was completely healthy. Over time he started having unknown symptoms and illness and he passed away in September of 1971. Following her husband’s death, Judy collected over $90,000 in insurance and Veterans Administration benefits. 

After her husband’s death, she decided to move to Pensacola, Florida, with her three children. Here she met a man named Bobby Morris and started a relationship with him. Morris moved to Colorado, and Judy and her children moved as well. In Colorado, Morris started to develop the same symptoms that James had, and he died in 1978. 

Judy claimed to be Morris’ “common-law wife” so she collected all of his insurance and moved back to Pensacola. She decided to change her last name to “Buenoano,” a Spanish version of “Goodyear.” 

Her son Michael was now grown and enlisted in the Army. Strangely, he began developing symptoms that both of Judy’s husbands had. Unlike the two men before who died of “heart attacks,” Michael was diagnosed with arsenic poisoning that affected his arms and legs. He needed to wear heavy metal braces on his legs. In 1980, Buenoano decided to take her son on a canoe trip, where the canoe flipped. Judy was able to swim to safety, but her son drowned because of his heavy braces. His death was ruled an accidental drowning, but his mother quietly collected his insurance and benefits. 

She got away with her first three kills but then had a slip-up the next time. After her son’s death, she met a new man named John Gentry. They started a relationship and Judy convinced him to take out life insurance policies on each other. If Gentry passed away, Buenoano would collect $500,000.

Judy initially tried to kill him with “Vitamin C” pills when Gentry got a cold. The pills made him deathly ill, and when he started getting symptoms he went to the hospital. When he was discharged from the hospital and started feeling better, his car mysteriously blew up with him in it. He returned to the hospital and survived. When authorities heard about what happened, they became suspicious of Buenoano.

Investigators dug into her past and it was later revealed that Goodyear, Morris, and her son all died of arsenic poisoning. She was arrested and tried for the attempted murder of Gentry. There was undeniable evidence of these murders, and Judy pled not guilty to all of them. She was given the death penalty in Florida and was the first woman to be executed in Florida since 1848. 

She killed three people in 12 years and was given the nickname “Black Widow” because like black widow spiders, she prayed on her mates and young. She collected over $240,000 in insurance and benefits from her kills. On March 30,1998, she was executed in the electric chair. 

 

Sources: 

https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/famous-murders/judy-buenoano/

https://www.insider.com/most-notorious-female-serial-killers-2018-6#judy-buenoano-2

https://www.flmd.uscourts.gov/black-widow

Photo Sources in Order:

https://thecinemaholic.com/is-judy-buenoano-dead-or-alive/

https://badmarriages.net/judy-buenoano-goodyear/

https://badmarriages.net/judy-buenoano-goodyear/

https://www.flmd.uscourts.gov/black-widow

In this week’s blog, I will be discussing Rosemary West. 

Rosemary West killed ten women and children over 25 years in her home in Gloucester, England. Some say that West was born doomed. She was born on November 29, 1953, in Northam, United Kingdom to Bill and Daisy Letts. Daisy, her mother, was known to be depressed and often was treated with electric shock therapy. Even though it was never tested, many experts say that the electrotherapy damaged Rosemary’s psyche in utero. Bill, Rosemary’s father, was a former Naval Officer and often beat his wife and children. He was schizophrenic, had other psychological issues, and sexually assaulted his kids. During their childhood, Rosemary West molested her own brother when he was 12 years old and also harassed boys in their neighborhood. 

At age 15, Rosemary met a man named Fred West at a bus stop. He was 27 years old at the time and was searching for his stepdaughter Charmaine. Fred and Rosemary married and at age 17, she became a stepmother to 8-year-old Charmaine and Anne Marie. Rosemary West grew a hatred for Charmaine, and she went missing in the summer of 1971. Charmaine’s mother, Rena, came to the house asking about the child, and Rena went missing as well. 

In 1971, the West couple started a killing spree in Gloucester, England. They would offer rides to women walking alone and take them to their house, where they would likely never leave. Rosemary had three biological children, two daughters, and one son. These children would be whipped, beaten, and raped. In 1992, the daughters told a friend that their father was raping them, and confessed what was going on in the house. They were briefly removed from the household  but were too scared to testify in court so they were returned.

In 1987, the couple’s eldest child, Heather, went missing. Rosemary said the 16-year-old went to live her own life, but when abuse allegations started spreading, social workers were told by the other children that they “did not want to end up like Heather.”

In 1994, the police searched the West household. They discovered a cellar filled with bodies. They found the bodies of Charmaine, Heather, and Rena, as well as 8 other bodies. They were both arrested and in the beginning, Fred took the blame for all of the murders, while Rosemary pretended not to know anything. Obviously, that was not the case and both were sentenced to life in prison in 1995. Rosemary West is still alive and is living in New Hall Prison in Wakefield.

Sources:

https://www.city-journal.org/html/horror-story-12312.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-57182844

https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/crime-files/rosemary-west

Photo Sources in Order:

https://www.stayathomemum.com.au/true-crime-series/rosemary-west-a-true-sick-fck-excuse-for-a-mother/

https://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/how-rose-west-became-monster-23745131

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-57182844

https://www.biography.com/crime-figure/rosemary-west

In this week’s blog, I will be discussing Amelia Dyer.

Also known as “The Reading Baby Farmer,” Amelia Dyer would brutally murder babies and use their deaths for personal financial gain for herself. Starting with her childhood, unlike most of the other serial killers that I have covered in this blog, Amelia Dyer grew up in a big, stable family outside of Bristol. She was a natural caretaker and very well-educated. Dyer would spend most of her time reading poetry or literature. When Amelia was 11 years old, her mother passed away due to typhus, and she lost connections with most of her family. She married an older man named George Thomas and had one child with him. Thomas passed away when the baby was only a newborn and Dyer was left to fend for herself. During her marriage with Thomas, Dyer was a midwife and nurse, where she first learned about baby farming. After her husband’s death, she became so desperate for money, she started to display posters around town and in newspapers claiming to be a baby farmer.

Baby farming was extremely popular in 1860s Victorian England. Single mothers who were unable to care for their children could place their babies in the care of a midwife or someone well-off in exchange for money. Most of these baby farmers would find caring homes for the babies or return them to their biological mothers once they were better off. Amelia Dyer had other plans. When mothers would place their children in Amelia’s care, instead of using the payment to feed or take care of the baby, she would kill them and then pocket the money. 

In the 1800s, mothers would often use an opium solution to calm down crying children, but Dyer would overdose the infants with this solution. She would call the coroner and report the deaths, pretending to grieve over their passings. As more deaths started being reported, a doctor became suspicious of the number of deaths happening. He reported her to authorities and she was sentenced to six months in a labor camp, with no murder or manslaughter charges. 

When she was released from the labor camp, she started her baby farming act once again. However, instead of calling the coroner to dispose of the bodies, she started disposing of them herself. Throwing them in a river, hiding them around the town, or burying the bodies, got authority’s attention away from her. If there was a case where the mother wanted her child back and she had already killed the child, she would simply give the mother a different baby. She started becoming more confident and killed the babies in various ways; by strangling or other means of killing. Dyer would move houses and change her name and identity, so the authorities would not target her. 

She was baby farming for almost 30 years. In March of 1896, a man spotted something floating in the Thames River. He found the body of a baby girl wrapped in paper and he notified the police immediately. One of the police officers noticed a name on the corner of the paper. It read Mrs. Thomas, and had an address. The address was Amelia Dyers. However, the address alone could not link her to the crime. The police had set her up. The police had posted an ad claiming to be a young woman looking for a home for her baby. She responded and ended up being ambushed. Her house was searched and they found dressmaker tape that was used to wrap around the infants’ necks, advertisements, letters from mothers asking about their children, and a stench of decomposing bodies. 

 

 

 

 

Dyer was then arrested and admitted to committing only six murders. During her trial, she only pleaded guilty to the baby girl’s death and claimed insanity. On June 10, 1896, Amelia Dyer was executed. Historians estimate that Amelia Dyer committed over 400 infant murders.

Sources:

https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/amelia-dyer/

https://www.thamesvalley.police.uk/police-forces/thames-valley-police/areas/au/about-us/thames-valley-police-museum/the-baby-farmer/

https://murderpedia.org/female.D/d/dyer-amelia.htm

Photo Sources in Order: 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.listennotes.com%2Fpodcasts%2Fon-the-night-of%2Famelia-dyer-misadventures-in-T8ufJZVorHG%2F&psig=AOvVaw1A6YNIJlkOVmXjZM8QTwHb&ust=1666831734155000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CA0QjhxqFwoTCJDt_JzW_PoCFQAAAAAdAAAAABAE

https://www.ranker.com/list/the-deadliest-baby-farmers-in-history/cat-mcauliffe

https://victorian-supersleuth.com/the-detectives-who-caught-amelia-dyer/

https://owlcation.com/humanities/Amelia-Dyer-Victorian-Baby-Killer

https://awnaves.medium.com/victorian-angel-maker-amelia-dyer-murdered-400-children-ca3fb484d184

The next serial killer that I will be covering is Jane Toppan. 

Jane Toppan was born on March 31, 1854, in Boston Massachusetts. Her name given at birth was Honora Kelley. She was the youngest of four children in an unstable Irish Immigrant family. Her mother died when Honora was only one year old. Her father, Peter Kelley tried to raise the children but he was said to have lost his mind and sewed his eyelids shut. It was also reported that he may have abused the kids. After this, she and her sisters Delia and Nellie were sent to Boston’s Female Asylum. This was an orphanage that put little girl’s into adopted homes by the age of 10. They were raised with over one hundred other children. Delia turned to alcoholism and prostitution and Nellie ended up in an insane asylum. Honora on the other hand became an indentured servant for a widow named Ann Toppan. 

At the time, there was a stigma around Irish people, so Ann changed Nora’s name to Jane Toppan and passed her off as a young Italian girl. She went to school and received good grades, but she showed signs of being a sociopath around this time. Jane would make up unbelievable lies about her family. At age 18, the Toppan’s freed her and her service, but she continued to work for the family until Ann passed away in 1876. At age 33, Jane started working in the Cambridge Hospital to train to be a nurse. 

While working as a nursing student she adopted the nickname “Jolly Jane” because of her friendly and outgoing personality. She did not particularly like elderly patients. Toppan thought that they were ultimately useless and killed at least 12 people in her time as a student nurse. She would experiment on the elderly patients with morphine and atropine. After being trained, she got a job at the Massachusetts General Hospital but lost it because the doctors figured out that she was giving out opiates to patients. They thought that it was better if she became a private nurse for wealthy families instead. 

Many of her patients were happy with the care that she provided them, but there were some reports of small items being stolen. Jane became close with her landlord and his wife, but she ended up poisoning them because they had grown old and cranky. Another elderly woman named Mary Mclear was poisoned by Toppan in 1889. Jane even murdered her former foster sister and their housekeeper. There was no suspicion towards Jane until 1901 when she killed the Davis family. Authorities thought it was weird that three members of this family died around the same time, so they performed an autopsy and gathered evidence that Jane committed these murders. 

On October 29, 190, Jane Toppan was arrested. In 1903 she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was admitted to the Taunton Insane Hospital. Toppan confessed to killing over 30 people, but only 11 were actually confirmed. However, with the timeline and the number of patients that Toppan cared for, it is suspected that she committed over 100 murders. Toppan eventually died in the Insane Asylum at age 84 on August 17, 1938.

Sources:

https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/jane-toppan/

https://awnaves.medium.com/jolly-jane-the-story-of-serial-killer-jane-toppan-a582737941c7

https://murderpedia.org/female.T/t/toppan-jane.htm

 

Photo Sources in Order:

https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/jolly-jane-toppan-killer-nurse-obsessed-death/

https://www.ranker.com/list/disturbing-facts-about-jane-toppan/amandasedlakhevener

http://www.hubhistory.com/episodes/episode-7-jane-toppan-nightmare-nurse/

https://wbsm.com/taunton-state-jolly-jane-female-serial-killer/

I’m sure that most of you at some point have heard the rhyme: Lizzie Borden took an ax, and gave her mother forty whacks; When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one. This week my passion blog will be about Lizzie Borden.

Lizzie Andrew Borden was born on July 19, 1860, in Fall River, Massachusetts. She had two older siblings. Lizzie’s middle sibling, Alice, passed away at two years old and her mother, Sarah, passed when Lizzie was very young. Three years after her mother’s death, Lizzie’s father, Andrew, remarried a woman named Abby Durfee Gray. 

Andrew directed several textile mills and owned many properties. Growing up, the oldest Borden sister, Emma, raised Lizzie. The two girls grew up in a very religious household, and her father was very modest about money. Lizzie did not like the way that she was brought up. She was forced to only participate in Church or religious socials and was forced to save up money to sew her own dresses. Money was not an issue in the family, but Andrew did not see the point in living a luxurious life when he had all he could ever want. This drove a wedge between the family.

 

Andrew gifted properties to his wife’s family, but not to his daughters. Emma and Lizzie saw this as wrong on their father’s part. Lizzie’s relationship with Abby became strained and she started only referring to her as Mrs. Borden.

Leading up to the murders, The Borden household was robbed. Many of Abby’s sentimental and expensive items were missing and despite Emma and Lizzie being in the house at the time of the robbery, no one heard anything. Many fights between Lizzie and her father broke out, leading her to resent him. 

On August 4, 1892, the day started just like any other. The family had morning breakfast, and Lizzie did not go. Abby had spent the morning cleaning up the house and between the hours of 9:00 and 10:00am, she was killed. Lizzie’s father returned from his morning walk and Lizzie was heard laughing at the top of the staircase. From where Lizzie was located, she should have been able to see the body of Abby Borden. At 11:00am, Lizzie screamed downstairs to the maid that her father had been killed.

After the police came to investigate, Lizzie’s story contradicted itself but there was not a lot of clear-cut evidence that she committed the murders. Her story was not lining up, and there was extremely suspicious behavior from her. After the funerals of Abby and Andrew, Lizzie was charged with double homicide and was brought to jail. During her testimony and trial, Lizzie’s stories were still contradicting each other. In the jury, the evidence brought was not enough to make a decision that Lizzie had actually committed the murders, so she was acquitted and free to go. It is still a mystery who actually killed Abby and Andrew Borden, but after researching and learning about this case, I believe that Lizzie did murder them. 

Sources:

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/borden-parents-found-dead

https://allthatsinteresting.com/lizzie-borden-murders

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-19th-century-axe-murderer-lizzie-borden-was-found-not-guilty-180972707/

Photo Sources in Order:

https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/archive/2008/02/15/photo-young-lizzie-borden-surfaces/38202383007/

https://www.massmoments.org/moment-details/lizzie-bordens-father-and-stepmother-murdered.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/lizzie-borden-case-images-crime-scene/

https://allthatsinteresting.com/lizzie-borden-murders

https://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-lizzie-borden

The third woman I will be covering is Myra Hindley. 

Myra Hindley was born on July 23, 1942, in Crumpsall, United Kingdom. She lived in the suburbs of Manchester. Unlike the last two women I wrote about, Hindley did not grow up in any sort of traumatic or abusive household. Her father served in World War II, so he was absent for the first three years of her life. Hindley was the oldest child and had no siblings until her father returned from the war. At the age of four, Hindley was sent to live with her grandmother to give her parents space with the new baby. She never returned. Her grandmother was very lenient and often let Myra skip school. She was very intelligent and had an above-average IQ. 

Growing up she had a deep and husky voice, and many considered her to be masculine. Often she was made fun of for her nose and her very aggressive personality. By the age of 18, she had a job working as a secretary in a Merchandising office. There she met a 23-year-old man by the name of Ian Brady. Hindley was love-struck by Brady from the moment she first laid eyes on him. Over time she became obsessive over him. Brady had a strange obsession with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. Myra took it so far as dying her hair and changing her style to wear short skirts, high-heels, and waistcoats to look more German. 

As much as she was in love and obsessed with Brady, she was also terrified of him. He had sick and twisted fantasies that she became wrapped up in. They fantasized about committing bank robberies, but that later turned into fantasizing about committing murder and sex crimes against children.

Their first victim was a 16-year-old girl named Pauline Reade. She was on her way to a disco when she vanished on July 12, 1963. Hindley pretended to lose an article of clothing, such as a glove and asked if Reade could help her find it. She was taken, raped, beaten, and stabbed by Brady. Her body was found over two decades later, still wearing her party dress from that night. 

In December 1964, the couple committed their most monstrous crime. The couple found a little girl, 10 years old, at a fair by herself. Her name was Lesley-Anne Downey. They took her to Hindley’s grandmother’s house where she was gagged and tied up. Brady and Hindley recorded her for 13 minutes as she was begging for her mother, being forced to pose for photos undressed. Brady raped and strangled Downey.

David Smith, Hindley’s brother-in-law, heard Brady beating up one of their other victims with an ax and went to the police the next day to report them. On October 7, both Myra Hindley and Ian Brady were arrested. The police found a suitcase with photographs and audio recordings of Downey’s torture. They searched the area of Saddleworth Moor, where they found two of the five bodies. 

They became known as the “Moors Murderers” and both were sentenced to life in prison. Myra Hindley was labeled “the most evil woman in Britain.” In 1987 she released a full confession of her involvement in the murders. She died of respiratory failure in the hospital on November 15, 2002, after spending 36 years in prison.

Sources:

https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/crime-files/ian-brady/crimes

https://allthatsinteresting.com/myra-hindley-moors-murders

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-moors-murderers-begin-their-killing-spree

Photo Sources in Order:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/moors-murders-myra-hindley-accused-13279304

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1001890/Moors-Murders-Pauline-Reade-necklace-Ian-Brady-Myra Hindley

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8925914/

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-39934966

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/21/moors-murders-the-witness-review-these-heinous-crimes-have-nothing-more-to-teach-us

The next serial killer that I will be covering is Dorothea Puente.

Dorothea Puente was born on January 9, 1929, in Redlands, California. Like Aileen Wuornos, Puente grew up in an unstable household. Her mother was an alcoholic who would frequently abuse her children. Her father died of tuberculosis when she was only 8 years old, and her mother died a year later in a motorcycle accident. After both of her parents had passed away, Dorothea and her six siblings were orphaned and split up into different foster homes. 

At age 16, Puente left the system and became a prostitute. Later, she met a man named Fred McFaul. They married and had two children within their three-year marriage. Dorothea was not a very involved mother, she gave her first daughter to a relative to take care of, and put the second up for adoption. 

McFaul filed for divorce in 1948 and Puente moved to southern California. Her first arrest was for bouncing a check. She served four months in jail and was supposed to face probation, but fled instead. She then moved to San Francisco, where she met her second husband. Their marriage lasted fourteen years. However, she turned to drinking and gambling. Axel Bren Johannsen, her second husband, sent her to a psych ward. 

She had two other marriages that did not last long before she thought herself to be a good caretaker. In the 1970s, she opened her boarding house. The only people Dorothea would take in would be what she called, “tough cases.” These would be elderly people, recovering drug and alcohol addicts, and mentally ill people. Her first boarding house ended up being shut down because she was caught writing her name on her tenant’s benefit checks. 

She was sent to prison again in 1982 for theft and was diagnosed with schizophrenia. With this diagnosis, she still opened up another boarding house. This time, Dorothea took in people who were homeless and had no close relatives or friends, so no one would notice that they started to disappear. In 1988, Puente made a big mistake. She took in a 52-year-old man named Alvaro Montoya. At the time, Puente did not know that an outreach counselor named Judy Moise was watching him and was very curious when he went missing. 

Moise notified the police because she knew that he stayed in Puente’s boarding house. When the police came, an innocent old lady opened the door. She simply told them that Montoya went on vacation and she had another tenant back her up. Little did she know that the tenant slipped the police a note that said she made him lie and that Montoya was not actually on “vacation.” The police searched her house and then dug up her yard, where they found seven bodies. By this time, Puente had already fled.

She went to Los Angeles, California where the police tracked her down. Dorothea Puente made herself out to be a sweet old-lady, grandma-like, but was known as the “Death House Landlady.” She ended up being charged with nine murders. She passed away at age 82 on March 27, 2011, in prison due to natural causes.

Sources: 

https://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/serial-killers/dorothea-puente/

https://murderpedia.org/female.P/p/puente-dorothea.htm

https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/serial-killer/dorothea-puente-serial-killer-landlady

 

Photo Sources in Order:

https://murderousroots.com/episodes/dorotheapuente

https://www.abc10.com/article/news/local/sacramento/sacramento-serial-killer-dorothea-puente/103-64cb8c66-5f2a-49c6-95de-7350aebce6b8

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/documentaries/true-crime/dorothea-puente-worst-roommate-ever/

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/california-serial-killer-dorothea-puente-17318261.php

Aileen Wuornos is the first woman serial killer that I will be covering in these blogs. 

Wuornos was born on February 29, 1956, in Rochester, Michigan, and died on October 9, 2002, in the Florida State Prison. She grew up in a broken home and had an extremely tough childhood. Her parents separated before she was born and her father landed in prison for child molestation where he later killed himself. Her mother heavily neglected her children and that led to her abandoning Aileen and her older brother Keith. The children were then raised by their grandparents in another toxic household. Her grandmother and grandfather were alleged to be alcoholics and extremely violent towards the children. She made a statement saying that her grandfather would sexually assault her. 

Wuornos left home in her early teen years and turned to prostitution. Since she was a ward in her state and was arrested several times, she decided to move to Florida. After she settled in Florida she met a woman by the name of Tyria Moore. 

The two were in a committed and serious relationship starting in 1986. Aileen was open about her arrests and imprisonment in Michigan to Tyria. Between the years of 1989 and 1990, Wuornos killed at least seven men by pretending to be a hitchhiking prostitute and left their bodies on the side of the highways in Florida and southern Georgia. On November 30, 1989, their relationship took a turn. 

Wuornos confessed to Moore that she killed a man. She told her that it was a client who raped her and she killed him out of self-defense. This was her first kill, a 51-year-old man by the name of Richard Mallory. He was shot multiple times in the chest and even though it was not revealed in court, he was a convicted rapist. 

It was easy for her to claim that she killed him out of self-defense, so she became more confident for six other kills. Moore believed her, but after the murders kept occurring, she decided to go to the police. In court, Moore testified against her girlfriend in exchange for immunity. She got Wuornos to confess unknowingly and never saw Aileen again. The judge sentenced her to death and she was executed by lethal injection in 2002. 

Her last words were, “Yes, I’d like to say I’m sailing with the Rock, and I’ll be back. Like Independence day with Jesus, June 6, like the movie, big mothership and all. I’ll be back.”

Sources:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/tyria-moorehttps://www.britannica.com/biography/Aileen-Wuornos

https://www.tampabay.com/archive/2002/10/10/cryptic-words-and-then-she-dies/

https://sites.google.com/site/theaileenwuornostrial/the-team

Photo Sources In Order:

https://www.oxygen.com/snapped/crime-time/aileen-wuornos-best-friend-dawn-botkins-talks-growing-up-together

https://allthatsinteresting.com/tyria-moore

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Wuornos

https://unherd.com/2020/11/aileen-wuornos-was-no-monster/