She later described her motivation as a paralysis of thought and reason, a strong urge to poison. In 1872, Amelia married William Dyer, a brewer's laborer from Bristol. From the "Little Old Lady Killer" to the "soap maker of Correggio," these are some of the most prolific and horrifying female serial killers throughout history. Toppan then began a career as a private nurse and flourished despite complaints of petty theft. He would inject his patients with a Today, psychiatrists say she was one of the most unusual serial killers in history. The Toppans passed her off as an Italian girl whose parents died at sea, because of the stigma associated with the Irish. She was sentenced to life in prison in 1917 and eventually transferred to a mental hospital. She would have been the first woman to receive the death penalty had King Christian X not commuted the sentence to life imprisonment due to Overbye's gender. Toppan insisted upon her own sanity in court, claiming that she could not be insane if she knew what she was doing and knew that it was wrong, but nonetheless she was declared insane and committed. Perhaps even more disturbing was Toppan's stated life's purpose:"to have killed more people - helpless people - than any other man or woman who ever lived.". Nora In fact, the methods that some of these nursesused to terminate those in their care may be disturbing enough to make you think twice about going in for that checkup. During April, the Thames was dredged and six more bodies were discovered, including Doris Marmon and Harry SimmonsDyer's last victims. Fred died by suicide. to get INSIDER's favorite stories straight to your inbox. Photo courtesy Library of Congress. At the inquest into the deaths in early May, no evidence was found that Mary Ann or Arthur Palmer had acted as Dyer's accomplices. The daughter of a widow, Jane Hill, the baby had been given to Mrs. Stewart, for 12. This rate of murder has led to some estimates that Mrs. Dyer may, over decades, have killed over 400 babies and children, making her one of the most prolific murderers ever.[5]. She later explained they had gotten feeble and fussy and old and cranky. Her colleagues in nursing school remembered her saying there was no use keeping old people alive. Italian nurse Daniela Poggiali murdered 38 patients using potassium chloride and took pictures of herself next to the deceased bodies and shared them on social media. She was born Honora Kelley around 1857 in Boston, the youngest of four girls in a poor Irish immigrant family. Delia supposedly became a prostitute and an alcoholic. Mary Ann Cotton | Biography, Murders, Trial, & Execution [20], On March 14, 2001, a federal jury convicted Gilbert on three counts of first-degree murder, one count of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. Prosecutors said Gilbert was on duty for about half of the 350 deaths that occurred at the hospital from when she started working there in 1989, and that the odds of this merely being a coincidence was 1 in 100 million. (Dane was forced to decamp to the US, shortly after meeting Amelia, to escape the attention of the authorities. She went instead to 76 Mayo Road, Willesden, London where her 23-year-old daughter Polly was staying. She spent the remainder of her life at a state hospital and died in 1938. The Women Who Were Married to Serial Killers, Killers of Medieval Times and the Renaissance, Serial Killers That Still Haunt the Earthly Plane, 17 Serial Killer Nurses Who Murdered Their Patients, Amelia Dyer Killed An Estimated 400 Infants, 13 Twisted Facts About Serial Killer Amelia Dyer, The Last Words Of 29 Famous Serial Killers, 9 Startlingly Evil Baby Farmers Who Abused And Murdered Children, Arnfinn Nesset Killed Up To 138 Patients In Norway, 41 Dangerous Serial Killers Who Had Nicknames, Edson Izidoro Guimares Killed Up To 131 People As A So-Called Act Of Mercy, Jane Toppan's Dream Was To Kill More People Than Anyone Else, Serial Killers Who Were Doctors Or Nurses. Get the inside scoop on todays biggest stories in business, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley delivered daily. Once she became close with the patients, she picked her favorite ones, who were normally elderly and very sick. She briefly returned to Cambridge but was soon dismissed for administering opiates recklessly. However, inquiries from mothers, evidence of other witnesses, and material found in Dyer's homes, including letters and many babies' clothes, pointed to many more.[6]. [5] On June 23, 1902, in the Barnstable County Courthouse, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed for life in the Taunton Insane Hospital. "[1] Curiously, she was subpoenaed to appear as a witness in Polly's trial for murder, set for a week after her execution date. [10] Many children died as a result of such dubious practices: "Opium killed far more infants through starvation than directly through overdose." Serial killer nurse She lied that the Tsar of Russia had offered her a nursing job, and she probably stole small things. She is still in prison today. Her family and associates testified at her trial that they had been growing suspicious and uneasy about her activities, and it emerged that Dyer had narrowly escaped discovery on several occasions. She claimed she started her killing spree because a boyfriend dumped her when she was 16. Jolly Jane Toppan, the Killer Nurse Obsessed With Death Her story was portrayed in the film ", Judy Buenoano was known as the "Black Widow" and was, in 1998. The mothers subsequently left their unwanted babies to be looked after as "nurse children". Toppan was recommended for the prestigious Massachusetts General Hospital in 1889; there, she claimed several more victims before being fired the following year. For the brutality of her crimes, West was, Beverley Allitt was dubbed the "Angel of the Death" after killing numerous children in her care in Britain. Jolly Jane Toppan killed at least 31 people between 1880 and 1901, but the doctors who hired her thought she was one of their Edson Izidoro Guimareswas convicted of four murders in 2000. Taunton State Hospital, 1987 (since demolished). After confessing to her crimes, she was, Kristen Gilbert was a nurse at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Massachusetts and was convicted of, killing four patients (all veterans) and attempting to kill three others. A serial killer nurse who enjoyed snuffing the life out of his patients will likely be sentenced to death in Texas on Wednesday. Eleven days after handing her daughter to Dyer, Evelina Marmon, whose name had emerged in items kept by Dyer, identified her daughter's remains. His exact number of victims has been difficult to determine due to a lack of concrete evidence connecting him to suspicious deaths in the hospitals where he was employed. After he was caught in 1982, Nessenadmitted to killing 27 patients at a nursing home with a lethal injection of the muscle relaxant drug suxamethoniumchloride. Dorothea Puente's crimes were revealed in 1988 after homicide detectives searched for a missing man at his last known address: Puente's house in Sacramento, California. Richard Speck - Wikipedia Prosecutors said Gilbert threatened the life of at least one person verbally and physically in July 1996. According to her court testimony, she turned one of the women's remains into soap that she gave out to neighbors, which earned her the nickname ", ," which translates to "the soap-maker of Correggio. Amelia Dyer - Wikipedia Amelia eventually left her husband. She was also getting a sexual thrill, she later admitted, from climbing into bed with her patients as she murdered them. She confessed to shooting men who picked her up hitchhiking in self-defense after she, Wuornos was sentenced to death in 1992 and was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002. Death from severe malnutrition would result, but the coroner was likely to record the death as "'debility from birth,' or 'lack of breast milk,' or simply 'starvation. Her eldest brother, Thomas, inherited the family shoe business. [16], Gilbert left the hospital in 1996 amid a hospital investigation into the many suspicious patient deaths that occurred during her shifts. Italian nurse Daniela Poggialiallegedly killed at least 90 of her patients on purpose because they were bothersome. [15], The character of Amelia Dyer appeared in the short story "The Baby Farmer" by Philip Fracassi in his horror collection Behold the Void. [12] Because of this, in 1987, she transferred to Mount Wachusett Community College in Gardner, Massachusetts and then to Greenfield Community College in Greenfield, Massachusetts. Although she also confessed to killing her mother, sister, grandson, and mother-in-law, she was only charged with the deaths of her husbands. Inside was a three-week-old girl but, though cold and wet, she was alive. On June 6, 2019,Hoegel was convicted of 85 intentional deaths and sentenced to life in prison. The following day, Wednesday 1 April 1896, another child, named Harry Simmons, was taken to Mayo Road. A mass murderer leaves eight women dead She would then respond to the coded emergency, often resuscitating the patients herself. Documents from the asylum note that Delia and Honora were "rescued from a very miserable home". Although she also confessed to killing her mother, sister, grandson, and mother-in-law, she was only charged with the deaths of her husbands. In April 1998, Gilbert was convicted of that crime.[17]. Although female serial killers are thought to be less common than male serial killers, they certainly exist. [12] Unlike previous "breakdowns", this had been a most disagreeable experience and she never entered another asylum. Leonarda Cianciulli ran a small shop in Correggio, Italy, in the 1930s. According to her court testimony, she turned one of the women's remains into soap that she gave out to neighbors, which earned her the nickname "la Saponificatrice di Correggio," which translates to "the soap-maker of Correggio.". Terms, 10". [2] In 1901, Toppan moved in with the elderly Alden Davis and his family in Cataumet to take care of him after the death of his wife, Mattie (whom Toppan had murdered). She had just signed a lease on a new office space to start her own private practice as a psychiatric nurse practitioner. His other monikers include the Classified Ad Rapist and the Adman Rapist. It was the same poison that Doss later said she used to kill three of her previous husbands who had all died mysteriously.