Hell Hath No Fury Like A Woman Scorned

TRIGGER WARNING: THIS ARTICLE WILL DISCUSS MURDER AND OTHER CRIMES!

When people mention murderers, burglars, murders, gangsters, abusers, and, drug lords the first thing we think of are men. This is unfair because women can be all of these things as well. In many cases, women can be more calculated than men and can plan out crimes with more detail as well. Both men and women can be evil people but this article will focus on the latter. So, sit back, relax and read about some women who felt scorned and took their revenge to the next and horrible level. Oh, not to mention it was a highly illegal level as well.

Katherine Knight – Katherine Mary Knight was born on October 24, 1955, in Tenterfield New South Wales, Australia. She grew up in an unconventional and dysfunctional family environment. Katherine’s dad was an alcoholic who openly used violence and intimidation, and would rape Katherine’s mom up to four times a day. Barbara often told her daughters’ intimate details of her sex life and how much she hated sex and men. Knight claims that she was frequently sexually assaulted by several members of her family until she was 11 years old. When she started attending Muswellbrook high school, Knight became a loner and is remembered by classmates as a bully. She assaulted at least one boy at school with a weapon and was once injured by a teacher who was later found to have acted in self-defense. Katherine left school when she was 15 years old without having learned how to read and write. She started a job as a cutter in a local clothing factory before moving on to her “dream job” as a butcher at a slaughterhouse. There, she was given her own set of butcher knives that she hung over her bed every night so they “would always be handy if she needed them”. In 1974, Knight married co-worker David Kellett, the marriage was a hostile one and in May 1976, Kellett left Knight for another woman. A few days after he left Katherine found the woman and slashed her face with one of her butcher knives and demanded that the woman drive her to Queensland to find Kellett. The woman managed to escape after the pair stopped at a service station. But by the time police arrived Knight had taken a young boy hostage and was threatening him with a knife. She was later admitted to the Morisset Psychiatric Hospital. Kellett eventually left the other woman and moved in with mom to help support Knight. She was released from the psychiatric hospital on August 9, 1976, into her mother-in-law and Kellett’s care. The couple officially divorced a few years later. In 1986 Knight moved in with her boyfriend, David Saunders. Shortly into the relationship, Katherine would become jealous of what Saunders was doing when she was not around and would often throw him out. But she always begged him to come back and he did. In May 1987, she slashed the throat of Saunder’s two-month-old dingo pup for no apparent reason. SEND THE BITCH TO THE ELECTRIC CHAIR! After she killed the puppy Knight knocked Saunders out with a frying pan. Further into their relationship she hit Saunders in the face with an iron and stabbed him in the stomach with a pair of scissors after the couple argued. Needless to say, that was the end of their relationship. In 1997, Knight began dating John Chillingworth. Their relationship lasted 3 years before she left him for another man, she had been having an affair for some time, John Price. In 1998, Knight and Price argued over his refusal to marry her. In retaliation, she videotaped items he had allegedly stolen from his work and mailed the tape to his boss. This resulted in price losing his job. Price kicked her out of the home but eventually went back to her a few months later but refused to let her move back in. In February 2000, a series of assaults on Price resulted in Knight stabbing him in the chest. He finally kicked her to the curb for good. One evening Katherine showed up at Price’s house while he was sleeping. She watched television and took a shower. After, she woke up Price and the two had sex. The next day, when Price failed to show up for work without calling, his employer sent one of his coworkers to see what was wrong. The coworker knocked on Price’s bedroom window to wake him, but immediately notified police when he walked to the front door and found blood on it. The police broke down the front door and found Price’s body. Katherine Knight was near him in a comatose state after taking a large number of pills in a suicide attempt. It was later found out that Knight stabbed David Price with a butcher knife when he fell asleep after they had sex. He awoke during the attack and tried to turn the light on before running from Knight. She chased him throughout the house and he managed to make it outside but had either stumbled or been dragged back inside, where he bled out. Price’s autopsy revealed that he had been stabbed a total of 37 times. After the murder Knight decapitated Price and cooked parts of his body, serving him up with baked potato, pumpkin, beetroot, zucchini, cabbage, yellow squash, and gravy. She set two spots at the dining room table with notes containing his children’s names next to each one. She was going to feed him to his damn kids! Knight’s initial offer to plead guilty to manslaughter was rejected and she was charged with first-degree murder on March 2, 2001. On November 8, 2001, Katherine Knight was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment, with no parole. In June 2006, Knight appealed the life sentence but it was denied.

Winnie Ruth Judd – Winnie Ruth McKinnell was born on January 29, 1905, in Oxford, Indiana to Reverend H.J and Carrie McKinnell. At the age of 17, she married Dr. William C. Judd, a World War I veteran more than 20 years her senior. The marriage was strained by Winnie Ruth Judd’s health problems and inability to bear children as well as Williams’s chronic morphine use as a result of injuries he sustained during the war. By 1930, the couple were living separately but remained in constant communication. Judd moved to Phoenix, Arizona where she met John J. “Happy Jack” Halloran, a 44-year-old Phoenixx politician and wealthy businessman. Although married, Holloran was known to be a playboy and philanderer. The two soon started up an affair. Judd found a job as a receptionist at the Grunow Medical Clinic. There, she met Agnes Anne LeRoi, an X-Ray technician, and her roommate, Hedvig Samuelson, who had moved from Alaska after contracting tuberculosis. Judd became friends with the two women and even moved in with them for a couple of months in 1931, but differences developed between the women, and Judd soon moved out. On October 16, 1931, Judd and Halloran attended a get-together and LeRoi and Samuelson’s place. Halloran danced with all three of them and a fight broke out over Halloran’s affections. Halloran left while the fight was going on. Judd grabbed a handgun out of her bag and shot both women in a fit of rage. Leroi was only 36 years old and Samuelson was only 24-years-old. Winnie Ruth Judd went to work dismembering Samuelson’s body (police believed she had an accomplice but this was never confirmed). She put the head, torso, and lower legs into a black shipping trunk, placing the upper legs in a beige suitcase and hatbox. Leroi’s body was stuffed intact into a second black shipping trunk. Two days after the murders, on October 18, 1931, Judd boarded the overnight Golden State Limited passenger train from Phoenix’s Union Station to Los Angeles, California along with a bandaged left hand from an injury sustained while she was holding the handgun. She also carried the trunks and luggage containing the bodies. On the way to California, Judd’s trunks sparked the suspicion of a baggage handler due to their foul odor, as well as the fluids, leaking out from them. He alerted the district baggage agent in Los Angeles believing the trunk contained contraband deer meat. The district baggage agent tagged the trunks to be held at the station until they could be opened for inspection. When they arrived in California he asked Judd for the key, but she claimed she didn’t have it with her but that her brother had an extra copy at his home and she would be glad to get it. Her brother (oblivious to the crimes) picked her up from the train station and Judd never returned for her trunks. Later that afternoon, baggage agents called the Los Angeles Police Department to report the suspicious trunks. Authorities were able to pick the locks and discovered the bodies. Meanwhile, Burton McKinnell had dropped his sister off somewhere in L. A and she disappeared. Judd hid out for several days until she finally surrendered to the police in a funeral home on October 23, 1931. Judd’s trial began on January 19, 1932, at the Maricopa County Courthouse. Her defense tried to build a case for self-defense which ultimately failed. Winnie Ruth Judd was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. She was set to be hanged on February 17, 1933, but on April 24, 1933, her death sentence was overturned after a ten-day hearing found her mentally incompetent. Judd was sent to the Arizona State Asylum for the Insane. Winnie Ruth escaped from the asylum a total of 6 times between 1933 and 1963. On October 8, 1963, her final escape attempt was successful. She went to the San Fransisco Bay Area, where she became a live-in maid for a wealthy family, using the alias “Marian Kane”. After 6 years, her true identity was found out and she was taken back to Arizona. After a lengthy trial, Judd was paroled and released from the asylum on December 22, 1971. She returned to California and began working for the family that previously employed her. On October 23, 1998, Winnie Ruth Judd passed away at the age of 93.

Eugenia Falleni – Eugenia Falleni was born in Italy on July 25, 1875. Assigned female at birth (I will be referring to Falleni by her male name and using the pronoun ‘he’ from here on out), Falleni was the eldest of 22 children. Yes, you read that right, 22 children. During his teenage years, Falleni began dressing as a male to make finding work in brickyards and stables easier. Falleni married in 1894, but soon learned that his husband was already married, and in 1895, he left the marriage. He found work on a ship as a cabin boy and lost touch with his family after they grew opposed to his behavior. While on the ship Falleni had a drunken conversation with the captain and revealed that he had been raised as a female. Subsequently, Falleni was repeatedly raped by the captain. The ship docked in Newcastle, New South Wales in 1898, and Falleni was put ashore pregnant and destitute. He moved to Sydney where he gave birth to a daughter, Josephine Crawford Falleni. The child was put in the care of an Italian-born woman, Mrs. De Angelis. He took on the male identity of Harry Leo Crawford, and Ms. De Angelis told Josephine that her father was a sea captain who took very long trips. Harry would visit his daughter infrequently. In 1912, Crawford started a job for Dr. G.R.C Clarke in Wahroonga, Northern Sydney, as a sulky driver. While there he met Clarke’s housekeeper Annie Birkett, who had been widowed a few years before. She and her son from her previous marriage, also named Harry, moved to Balmain, where she opened a confectionary shop. Crawford followed them there and helped run the business. Crawford and Birkett got married on February 19, 1913. The couple moved to Drummoyne, and Crawford found jobs working in hotels and factories. Birkett remained blissfully unaware that Crawford was transgendered until 1917 when a neighbor informed her (how Crawford managed that is beyond me). Birkett confronted Crawford but he refused to confirm this fact in fear that his wife would go to the police and have him arrested. At that time being transgender was a criminal offense. On October 1, 1917, Birkett suggested that the couple have a picnic near Lane Cove River. According to Crawford, he and his wife had gotten into a fight after she revealed her plans of leaving him. During the frenzy of the fight, Annie Birkett slipped and fell backward, hitting her head on a rock. Crawford claimed he tried to save his wife but she passed away in minutes. He said he tried to burn her body to dispose of it, fearing that during the investigation into the death he would be exposed as transgender. Crawford told Birkett’s son that she had run off with another man. Birkett’s body was eventually discovered and the medical examiner concluded it contained no definite marks of violence and that she most likely died from the burns she sustained. The body was not identified at the time and police believed it was a case of suicide. In 1919, Crawford met Elizabeth King Allison (known as Lizzie), who was over the age of 50. They married in September of 1919. While Crawford was living with his new wife, Birkett’s son was doing some investigating of his own into the disappearance of his mom. In 1920, Harry Birkett visited his great aunt and told her that after he returned from a trip and learned that his mom left the family, Crawford took him to “The Gap”, a notorious suicide spot, where he tried to get the boy to stand close to the edge of a cliff, but he refused. A week later, Crawford took him to a wooded area and asked him to dig a hole. Harry dug the hole but an emotional Crawford later threw the shovel into the bushes and the two left. These two trips made Harry Birkett very suspicious of his step-dad. He went to the police and was able to identify his mom’s personal effects. Harry Crawford was arrested on July 5, 1920. He asked to be placed in the women’s jail cells and requested that Lizzie not be told that he was transgendered. Annie Birkett’s body was exhumed and retested. At Crawford’s hearing, a dentist who made false teeth found with Birkett’s remains belonged to her, confirming her identification. Henrietta Schieblich, who rented a room from Crawford after his wife’s death claimed that during a conversation Crawford told her that his wife planned to leave him and they had a “jolly god row, and I gave her a crack on the head, and she cleared”. Harry Crawford, now using the name Eugenia Falleni again pleaded not guilty to the murder, but the jury only took two hours to reach a guilty verdict and sentenced Falleni to death. Falleni’s sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment. The matter of gender identity made this a popular case and the press portrayed Falleni as a monster and pervert. In 1931, after an appeals hearing, Falleni was released from prison. She assumed the new identity of “Mrs. Jean Ford” and began running a boarding house in Padding, Sydney. On June 9, 1938, Ford was struck by a car and died of the injuries sustained during the accident at the age of 62.

Jennifer Pan- Jennifer Pan was born on June 17, 1986, in Markham, Canada to Huei Hann Pan and Bich Ha Pan. Her parents had extremely high expectations of her. She was started taking piano lessons, as well as figure skating classes, and had hopes of becoming an Olympic champion until she tore a ligament in her knee. She attended Mary Ward Catholic Secondary School where she played the flute in the school band. The Pan’s picked Jennifer up from school each day and monitored her extracurricular activities very closely. She was not allowed to date or attend school dances out of fear that these might distract her from her academic commitments. She was also banned from attending any parties while she was studying at college. At the age of 22, she was very sheltered and had not done any of the normal things most children and teenagers did while growing up. People described her upbringing as very restrictive and greatly oppressive. Despite her parents’ high expectations that Jennifer receive good grades growing up, her grades throughout high school were fairly average. She would forge report cards to make her parents believe that she earned straight As. When Pan failed calculus in 12th grade, Ryerson University pulled her early admission. Unable to bear failure, she started lying to those she knew, including her parents and pretended that she was attending the university. Instead, she sat in cafes, taught piano, and worked in a restaurant to earn money. To keep up the charade, she told her parents that she had won scholarships, and claimed that she had accepted an offer into the pharmacology program at the University of Toronto. She purchased second-hand textbooks and watched videos related to pharmacology to create notebooks full of falsified class notes to show to her parents. Jennifer asked her parents if she could live near the campus with a friend during the weeks she went to classes. She was staying with her boyfriend, Daniel Chi-Kwong Wong, whom she had met in high school. While pretending to finish her degree in Toronto, Pan told her parents that she had started volunteering at The Hospital for Sick Children. Hann and Bich soon became suspicious when they noticed that their daughter did not have a hospital ID badge or uniform. On one occasion, Bitch followed Jennifer to work and quickly discovered her deception. In shock, Hann wanted to throw his daughter out of the house, but Bich convinced him to let her stay. She eventually began working to finish high school and apply for university. She was forbidden to contact her boyfriend or go anywhere except for her piano-teaching job. During this time Wong and Pan secretly spoke. When Jennifer turned 24, Wong had decided to end pursuing a relationship with her, as she was so restricted by her parents and could only meet him in secret. The couple broke up and Wong began to date another young woman. After hearing about his new relationship, Pan claimed to Wong that a man had broken into her house, showing what appeared to be a police badge, allowed several men to rush into the house and gang-raped her. She later told him that a bullet was sent to her in the mail and that both events were planned by his new girlfriend in an attempt to break them up. In Spring 2010, Pan began contacting Andrew Montemayor, a high school friend. Montemayor introduced her to Ricardo Duncan, a “goth kid” whom Pan claims she gave $1,500 to kill her dad in the parking lot of his work but he refused. By this time Pan and Wong were back in contact and came up with a plan to hire a professional hitman for $10,000 to kill her parents. Wong contacted Lenford Roy Crawford, whom he called Homeboy, and gave Pan a SIM card and iPhone so that she could contact Crawford as well without using her usual cell phone. Crawford reached out to another man, named Eric Shawn Carty, who in turn contacted David Mylvaganam. The murder took place at the Pan residence on November 8, 2010. Jennifer unlocked the front door before she went to bed and called Mylvaganam. Shortly after the call was placed, he and two other men entered the home, carrying guns. After waking up Bich and Hann they demanded all the money in the house, the three men took Jennifer’s parents to the basement where they shot them multiple times. Hann survived his wounds. The three men then took all the cash and left the house. Pan called 911, claiming that the men had tied her up but she managed to break free. An interview started the night after the murder occurred and Jennifer Pan was arrested on November 22, 2010. She admitted that she hired hit men but claimed that she wanted them to kill her and not her parents. They of course did not believe her and she went on trial on March 19, 2014. She pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, attempted murder, and conspiracy to commit murder. On December 14, 2014, she was found guilty of all charges. She was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 25 years. Pan’s father and brother (oh yeah, she has a brother) requested that the court ban her from being allowed to ever contact them again. She is also banned from ever contacting Daniel Wong again.

Jamila M’Barek- Jamila M’Barek was born in 1961 in Lens, Pas-de-Calais, France, to a Tunisian mom and a Moroccan dad. Jamila and her siblings were brought up in a hostile environment and were frequently abused by their alcoholic dad. When M’Barek was 6 years old her mom fled with her and her 6 siblings to Nabeul, Tunisia to escape the abuse. At the age of 17, M’Barek moved to Saint-Tropez where she married her 1st husband, Raf Schouten, the couple had two children together. They eventually divorced. In her early 20s, she moved to Switzerland then to Paris, where she claimed she studied acting. Raf Schouten said Jamila often went by the name “Sarah” and her children knew her by that name. He also believes that M’Barek worked as a prostitute during their short, unhappy marriage. In 1993, she posed nude in Playboy magazine before working for an escort agency. She began to look for a permanent arrangement with one of her wealthy clients after her recent divorce. Under the name “Sarah” she met the twice-divorced Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury in 2001. The couple married in the Netherlands on November 5, 2007. To the disappointment of his family, Lord Shaftesbury became infatuated with his new wife, buying her a flat in Cannes and transferring other properties into her name. M’Barek, now Countess of Shaftesbury, claimed to be pregnant with his child, the Earl included her in his will, naming her the heir of his properties in Ireland and France. But M’Barek never showed any signs of pregnancy and it was later found out that the whole thing was a lie. The relationship rapidly deteriorated and Lord Shaftesbury eventually filed for divorce. In April 2004, he started a new relationship with Nadia Orche, another escort. This dude definitely had a type. He planned to marry her after his divorce from M’Barek was finalized. One night while speaking with Jamila, a fight broke out between Lord Shaftesbury and his brother-in-law, Mohammed M’Barek. The Earl died during the fight when the other man strangled him, breaking his neck. In February 2005, Jamila M’Barek was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where she had an emotional breakdown. She ended up confessing to her involvement in her husband’s death. She claimed that her late husband had been beaten to by her brother during a fight. According to Jamila, her brother placed Lord Shaftesbury’s body in the trunk of his car and left it in an undisclosed location. On April 7, 2005, a body in the late stages of decomposition was discovered by French authorities in Theoule-sur-Mer, Aples- Maritimes. It was Lord Shaftesbury. On May 22, 2007, the trial of Jamila and Mohammed M’Barek began. It was determined that the siblings premediated the murder, fearing that Jamila would lose everything given to her during the marriage in a messy divorce. On May 25, 2007, after deliberating for just 2 hours, the jury returned guilty verdicts against the siblings. They were both sentenced to 25 years in prison. On February 4, 2009, Jamilia appealed her conviction, as a result, her sentence was reduced for 25 to 20 years.

Christine & Lea Papin- Christine Papin was born on March 8, 1905, and her sister Lea Papin was born on September 15, 1911, in Mans, France to Clemence and Gustave Papin. As children, Christine was sent to live with her paternal aunt and uncle, and Lea was sent to live with her maternal uncle after their mom was deemed unfit to raise them. The sister eventually ended up at the Bon Pasteur Catholic Orphanage, which was known for its brutality and discipline. In her teenage years Christine found work as a live-in maid for the Lancelin family; Monsieur Rene Lancelin, his wife Leonie Lancelin, and their youngest daughter, Genevieve. After a couple of months of excellent service, Christine convinced Madame Lanceline to hire Lea as a chambermaid. The sisters dedicated their lives to working long days doing their job. However, a few years later, Madame Leonie developed depression and the girls became the target of her mental illness. She began to scrutinize the girls cleaning and had become critical of the job done. On many occasions, Madame Lancelin physically assaulted the girls. At the height of the abuse, she would slam the sibling’s heads against the wall. On February 2, 1933, Monsieur Lancelin was supposed to meet his wife and daughter for dinner at the home of a family friend. Madame Leonie and Genevieve had been out shopping that day. When they returned home, no lights were on in the house. The Papin sisters explained that the power outage had been caused by Christine urinating into an electrical socket. Weird flex, but okay. The Madame became furious and attacked the sisters on the first-floor landing. Christine lunged at Genevieve and gouged her eyes out. Lea joined in the struggle and attacked Madame Lancelin, gouging her out as ordered by Christine. The older Papin sister ran downstairs to the kitchen where she grabbed a knife and hammer. She brought both weapons upstairs, where the sisters continued their attack. At some point, one of the sisters grabbed a heavy pewter pitcher and used it to hit the victims on the head. They mutilated the bottoms and thighs of both women. It was later estimated that the attack went on for 2 hours. Hours later, Monsieur Lancelin returned home to find the house dark. He assumed that his wife and daughter had gone to the dinner party and proceeded to head there himself. When he arrived, he found out that his family wasn’t there, so he returned to the house with his son-in-law (his oldest daughter was married), where they found the whole house dark except for one light turned on in the Papin sisters’ room. The front door was bolted shut from the inside, so they were unable to enter the home. The men found this suspicious and went to a local police station to get help. A policeman climbed a garden wall and made it inside the house. When he turned a light on, he found the bodies of Madame Lancelin and Genevieve. They had both been beaten and stabbed to the point of being unrecognizable. Madame Lancelin’s eyes were found in the folds of the scarf around her neck and one of Genevieve’s eyes was found under her body while the other was found on the stairs nearby. Thinking that the Papin sisters’ might have met the same fate as the other women, the policeman went upstairs only to find the door to the Papin sisters’ room locked. He knocked by received no response, he summoned a locksmith who eventually opened the door. Inside the room, the officer found the siblings naked in bed together, and a bloody hammer with hair still hanging from it, on a chair. The sisters immediately confessed to the murders but claimed they were done in self-defense. The Papin’s lawyer put in a plea of not guilty because of insanity. Both women displayed signs of mental illness such as limiting eye contact and staring straight ahead while in a daze. A psychological evaluation suggested neither of the sister suffered from a mental disorder. The jury took only 40 minutes to decide that Christine & Lea Papin were guilty of murder. Lea Papin was sentenced to 10 years in prison since the jury believed she had been under the control of her older sister and killed on her orders. Christine was initially sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. Christine went on a campaign where she refused to eat while in prison, she died from starvation on May 18, 1937, at the age of 32. Lea Papin died on July 24, 2001, after suffering a stroke at the age of 90.

Karla Faye Tucker- Karla Faye Tucker was born on November 18, 1959, in Houston, Texas. The marriage of her parents was a very troubled one and she began smoking cigarettes with her 2 older sisters when she was only 8 years old. Tucker’s parents divorced when she was 10 years old and she learned that her birth was a result of an extramarital affair and that the man who had helped raise her for the early years of her life was not her biological dad. By the age of 12, Tucker had started taking drugs and having sex. She dropped out of school when she was 14 and followed her mother into a life of prostitution. When she was 16, she was briefly married to a hand man named Stephen Griffith. They eventually divorced and when Tucker was in her early 20s, she began hanging out with bikers. She became friends with married couple Shawn and Jerry Dean and in 1981 they introduced her to a man named Danny Garret and the two began dating. After spending a weekend using drugs with Garrett and their friends, things got out of hand and Shawn told Tucker that Jerry had struck her. On June 13, 1983, at 3 a.m. the next morning Tucker and Garrett went to Jerry Dean’s apartment to steal his motorcycle he was restoring as revenge for him hitting Shawn. They gained access by using a set of keys that Tucker claimed Shawn had lost. During the burglary, the couple entered Jerry’s bedroom where he was sleeping. Upon seeing him Tucker became angry and sat on him. To protect himself, Jerry grabbed Karla Faye above the elbows. This upset Danny Garrett and he intervened. Garrett picked up a hammer off the floor and struck Jerry in the back of the head numerous times. He then left the room to carry the motorcycle parts out of the apartment. Tucker claimed that the blows to Jerry’s head cause him to start making “gurgling” sounds. Tucker wanted to “stop him from making that noise”. She picked up a 3-foot pickaxe that was lying against a wall and began striking Jerry Dean. Garrett re-entered the bedroom and dealt the fatal blow to Dean’s chest. Garrett left the bedroom again to load up more motorcycle parts into his truck. Karla Faye Tucker was alone in the bedroom once again when she noticed a woman was hiding under the bedsheets. Deborah Ruth Thornton had gone to the party and after arguing with her husband the day before ended up spending the night in Jerry’s bed. Upon discovering the woman, Tucker grazed her shoulder with the pickaxe and the two began to struggle, Garrett eventually returned to the room and separated them. Tucker began hitting Thorton repeatedly with the pickaxe before striking a fatal blow to her heart. The pair quickly left the apartment. The next morning, one of Jerry Dean’s co-workers who had been waiting for a ride entered the apartment and discovered the two victim’s bodies. An investigation ensued and Tucker and Garrett were arrested 5 weeks later. In September 1983, the couples were indicted for murder and tried separately. Tucker was charged with the murders of both Dean and Thornton, but after she testified against Garrett the charge for the murder of Thornton was dropped. Tucker was found guilty of the murder of Jerry Dean and was sentenced to death. While in prison she became a born-again Christian. Between 1984 and 1998, requests for retrials and appeals were denied. Tucker explained that she believed her life should be spared since she was under the influence of drugs at the time of the murders. Tucker was a model prisoner and gained many supporters. Among those who appealed to the state of Texas on her behalf were: Bacre Waly Ndiaye, the United Nations commissioner on summary and arbitrary executions, the World Council of Churches, Pope John Paul II, Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, Speaker of the U.S House of Representatives Newt Gingrich, televangelist Pat Robertson, and Ronald Carlson, the brother of Debbie Thornton. The death row warden said she became a model prisoner and that, after 14 years on death row, she had likely been reformed. Her final appeal was rejected on January 28, 1998. On February 3, 1998, Texas Governor George W. Bush refused the final 11th-hour appeal and Karla Faye Tucker was executed by lethal injection. She was 38 years old.

Christa Pike- Christa Gail Pike was born on March 10, 1976. She lived a troubled life and dropped out of high school. Later she joined the Job Corps, a government program aimed at helping low-income youth by offering training and career skills, and attended the Jobs Corps center in Knoxville, Tennessee. While there, Pike began dating a man named Tadaryl Shipp. Together, they started dabbling in the occult and devil worship. Pike became jealous of fellow Job Corp student 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer when she thought, the other girl was trying to steal Shipp from her. Slemmer and friends of hers denied the accusations. Slemmer would claim vehemently that she had Tadaryl Ship. Christa and her group of friends began bullying Colleen and making her life on campus difficult but she didn’t want to return home. Christa Pike and her friend Shadolla Peterson began coming up with a plan to lure Slemmer to an isolated, abandoned steam plan near the University of Tennessee. Once there they were going to beat her up and scare her, hoping it would keep the young girl away from Tadaryl. On January 12, 1995, Pike, Shipp, Peterson, and Slemmer signature of the dormitory and walked to the wood, where Slemmer was told they wanted to make a peace offering by offering her some marijuana. Once in the secluded location, Slemmer was attacked by Pike and Shipp while Peterson acted as a lookout. For 30 minutes Colleen Slemmer was taunted, beaten, slashed, and an inverted pentagram was carved into her chest. After the torture Christa Pike smashed Slemmer’s skill with a large chunk of asphalt, killing her. Pike kept a piece of her victim’s skull and began showing it off around school. She was arrested within 36 hours of the murder. Detectives found the piece of Slemmer’s skull in Pike’s jacket pocket. All of the suspects’ rooms were searched. Pike confessed to the police of torturing and killing Colleen Slemmer but insisted the trio only meant to scare her and the situation got out of control. Christa Pike was charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. On March 22, 1996, she was found guilty on both counts. Pike was sentenced to death for the murder conviction and 25 years imprisonment for the conspiracy charge. In June 2001 and again in 2002, against the advice of her lawyers, Pike asked the courts to drop her appeals and sought to be executed via electrocution. Judge Mary Beth Leibowitz granted the request (why wouldn’t she?) and set an execution date of August 19, 2002. Pike soon after changed her mind and a month before her execution was scheduled to take place filed a motion to allow the appeals process to continue. The motion was granted. In December 2008, Christa Pikes, last and final request for a new trial was turned down. With this denial, her allowed appeals had been exhausted. On August 27, 2020, Tennessee Attorney General Herber Slatery requested that the Tennessee Supreme Court set an execution date for Pike. Due to COVID restrictions set in place at the time, Christa Pike’s attorneys were granted an extension by the court. On June 7, 2021, Pike’s attorneys filed a motion to have her death sentence commuted to life in prison. If Christa Pike is executed, she would be the first woman to be put to death by the state of Tennessee in approximately 200 years.

Ruth Elliis- Ruth Ellis was born on October 9, 1926, in Rhyl, Denbighshire, Wales, UK to Elisabeta Goethals and Arthur Hornby. She attended Fairfields Senior Girls School in Basingstoke and dropped out when she was 14 to work as a waitress. In 1941 the family moved to London. In 1944 ruth became pregnant by a Canadian soldier at 17 years old. She gave birth to a son and the father sent money to help provide for the boy for approximately a year before it stopped. The child was sent to live with Ruth’s mom. Ellis became a nightclub hostess in Hampstead, London through some nude-modeling work she had done. This job paid significantly more than any of the other various jobs she had since leaving school. However, her manager at the Court Club in Duke Street, Morris Conley, blacked his hostess employees into sleeping with him. By early 1950, Ruth was making a living as a full-time escort and became pregnant by one of her regular clients. She ended up illegally terminating the pregnancy and returned to work as soon as she could. On November 8, 1950, Rith married 41-year-old George Johnston Ellis, a divorced dentist with 2 sons from his previous marriage. He was a jealous, violent, and possessive alcoholic. The marriage quickly fell apart when George thought his new wife was having an affair. Ruth left several times but always found her way back to him. In 1951, she gave birth to a daughter, Georgina, but George refused to believe the new baby girl was his, the couple divorced shortly after and Ruth moved into her parents’ house with her daughter. She returned to sex works as a way to make ends meet. In 1953, Ruth became the matter of the Little Club, a nightclub in Knightsbridge. At this time, she had been given expensive gifts by her admirers and had many celebrity friends. Eliss met David Blakely, through race driver Mike Hawthorn. Within weeks, he moved into Ellis’s flat above the club she managed despite being engaged to another woman. Ruth Ellis became pregnant again and had another abortion. The relationship grew increasingly violent and the couple started to see other people while staying together. Eventually, Blakely asked Ellis to marry him and she agreed. She became pregnant by Blakely again. In January 1955 Blakely punched Eliss in the stomach during an argument resulting in her miscarrying the baby. On April 10, 1955, Rith Ellis took a cab to her friends Anthony and Carole Findlater’s housing believing Blakely would be there. When she arrived, she saw Blakely’s car drive off and she followed it on foot. She found it parked outside The Magdala, a pub in South Hill Park. She waited outside and Blakely emerged from the pub with his friend Clive Gunnell around 9:30 p.m. As David Blakely dug around in his pocket for the keys to his car. Ruth stepped out of the shadows, pulled a Smith & Wesson Victory from her handbag, called his name, and fired. The first shot missed and Blakely started to run, Ruth followed him and fired a second shot, this caused David Blakely to fall onto the pavement. Ruth stood over him and fire three more shots into him. By now, Eliss was in apparent shock, she calmly turned to Gunnell and said, “Will you call the police, Clive?” She was immediately arrested by an off-duty policeman who happened to be nearby. All she said to him was, “I am guilty, I’m a little confused.” On June 20, 1955, Ellis walked into the Number One Court at the Old Bailey, London for her trial. The prosecutor, Christmas Humphreys, asked only one question, “When you fired the revolver at close range into the body of David Blakely, what did you intend to do?” Ruth calmly replied, “It’s obvious when I shot him, I intended to kill him.” Ruth Ellis was found guilty of murder and given the (at the time) mandatory death sentence. While Ellis sat in Holloway Prison awaiting execution her attorney, John Bickford, wrote a letter to Home secretary Gwilym Lloyd George asking for a reprieve since the murder could be considered a crime of passion. Lloyd George denied the request. Ellis fired Bickford and asked to see Leon Simmons, clerk to lawyer, Victor Mischcon. On July 12, 1955, the day before her scheduled execution, Simmons and Mishcon saw Ellis to help write out her will. When they pushed Ellis for the full story that led up to the murder, she asked them to promise not to use what she said to secure a reprieve, Mischon refused. Following an interview that lasted 2 hours, the two men when to see Permanent Secretary, Sir Frank Newsam, who went back to London and ordered the head of the CID to check Ellis’s full story. The inquiry ended with Ellis’s guilt greater showing the murder was premeditated. In a final letter to Blakely’s parents from her prison cell, Ellis wrote, “I have always loved your son, and I shall die still loving him.” Just before 9:00 a.m. on July 13, 1955, the hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, and his assistant entered Ellis’s cell and took her to the adjacent execution room where she was subsequently hanged. Ruth Ellis was 28 years old. Ruth Ellis would be the last woman to be executed under Great Britain law. The United Kingdom abolished the death penalty in 1965.

Theresa Knorr- Theresa Jimmie Francine Knorr was born on March 14, 1946, in Sacramento, California to Swannie and James Cross. In the 1950s James Cross was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which forced him to quit his job. He fell into a depression, taking his anger and frustrations out on his family. When Swannie Crossed died from congestive heart failure in 1961 her father was unable to keep the family home and sold it. Desperate to get out of the unhappy home 16-year-old Theresa married Clifford Sanders after only knowing him for a few months. She dropped out of high school and became pregnant. On July 16, 1963, she gave birth to her first child, Howard Clyde Sanders. The married was rocky and Clifford reported that Theresa was very possessive and repeatedly accused Sanders of infidelity. The couple argued regularly and on June 22, 1964, Theresa claimed that Sanders punched her in the face during an argument. She reported the incident to the police but refused to press charges. On July 6, 1964, the day after Clifford’s birthday, the couple started fighting because he spent his birthday out with friends instead of at home with his family. Sanders informed Knorr that he was leaving her. She became enraged and shot Sanders in the back with a rifle as he was walking out the door. Theresa Knorr was charged with murder and plead not guilty claiming self-defense. After hearing her story about a violent marriage to an alcoholic man the jury acquitted Knorr of the murder charge on September 22, 1964. Theresa was pregnant with her second child at the time of Sanders’ death and on March 16, 1965, she gave birth to a daughter, Sheila Sanders. Theresa eventually Robert Knorr and she soon became pregnant. The couple married on July 9, 1966. The couple’s daughter Suesan Knorr was born on September 27, 1966, this was Theresa’s third child. The Knorr’s went on to have three more children; William, born in 1967, Robert born in 1968, and Theresa “Terry” born in 1970. Both spouses were known to be volatile and would often beat each other and the children. Robert grew fed up with Theresa’s constant accusations of him having an affair and he left her in December 1970. They officially divorced in 1971, after the separation Robert attempted to keep in contact with his children but Theresa prevented him from doing so. Theresa went on to marry and divorce 2 more times. Over the years Theresa’s physical, verbal, and psychological abuse grew towards her children. She also gained a tremendous amount of weight and became reclusive to the point of disconnecting her home phone and refusing to allow the children to have friends over. The family moved into a two-bedroom apartment in Sacramento, California and according to neighbors the home was filthy and smelled of urine. Neighbors also noticed that Knorr’s children never went outside and seemed fearful, nervous, and high-strung. For years, Knorr abused her children in various ways. She would beat them, force-feed them, burn them with cigarettes, and throw knives at them. On one occasion, Knorr held a pistol to her youngest daughter’s head and threatened to kill her. Most of her abuse was focused on Suesan and Sheila. Knorr believed that her fourth husband, Chet, had turned Suesan into a witch, causing her to receive the worst of the abuse. After one beating, Suesan ran away from home. She was picked up by police and placed in a psychiatric hospital where she confided to staff that her mom abused her. Theresa Knorr adamantly denied the abuse claims and told the hospital that Suesan had mental health issues. When Suesan was released back into Knorr’s custody she immediately punished her daughter by beating her while wearing a pair of leather gloves. She also forced Suesan’s siblings to take part in the assault. In the subsequent weeks, Knorr handcuffed Suesan to the kitchen table and ordered her other kids to watch over her. She refused to let Suesan leave the house and forced her to drop out of school. Her other children were also pulled out of school and most of them never advanced past the eighth grade. In 1982, Knorr became convinced that Suesan had started casting spells on her so she would gain weight. Her daughter denied it but Knorr became enraged and shot Suesan in the back with a handgun she kept in her bedroom nightstand drawer. The bullet got lodged, but Knorr refused to allow Suesan to seek medical attention. Suesan was taken to a bathroom in the house and placed in a bathtub where her siblings began to try and nurse her back to health. Suesan eventually recovered. In July 1984, Knorr and her daughter got into another fight and Knorr stabbed her with a pair of scissors. Again, Knorr refused to allow Suesan to receive medical attention. A few weeks after the stabbing Suesan decided to move to Alaska to flee the abuse. Knorr told her she could go but only if she allowed her to remove the bullet from her back. Suesan reluctantly agreed. She was given Mellaril (an antipsychotic drug) and liquor as an anesthetic. During the “operation” Suesan passed out. While she was unconscious, Knorr ordered her 15-year-old son Robert to remove the pulled with an X-Acto knife. The next day Suesan woke up in immense pain. Over the following days, she developed sepsis and grew delirious. Knorr attempted to treat her daughter with ibuprofen and antibiotics. The treatments were ineffective and Suesan’s condition worsened. On July 16, 1984, Knorr packed all of Suesan’s things in trash bags, and after binding her arms and legs and placing duct tape over her mouth, orders her sons Robert and William to put Suesan in their car. They drove to Squaw Valley, where the boys placed their sister on the side of the road along with the trash bags. They doused Suesan and the bags in gasoline and lit her on fire. Her body was found the following day. An autopsy revealed that Suesan was still alive when she was set on fire. Due to the state of her remains, an identification was never made and Suesan was classified as a Jane Doe. After Suesan’s death, Knorr began directing most of her abuse towards Sheila, forcing the girl into prostitution in May 1985 to support the family. Knorr was pleased with the arrangement due to the large amounts of money her daughter was earning and allowed Sheila to leave the house freely. After a few weeks, Knorr became convinced that Sheila was pregnant and contracted a sexually transmitted disease. When Sheila denied the accusations, Knorr beat her, hogtied her, and locked her in a closet with no ventilation. Korr forbade her other children from giving their sister any food or water. Eventually, Sheila confessed to being pregnant and having an STD to stop the punishment. Knorr told her daughter that she was lying and refused to let her out of the closet. Sheila passed away on June 21, 1985, from dehydration and starvation. Sheila‘s body sat in the closet for 3 days before being discovered. Once again, Knorr ordered her sons to dispose of the body. Sheila’s body was placed in a box and left near the Truckee-Tahoe Airport. Her body was discovered hours later and was classified as a Jane Doe. On September 29, 1986, Knorr took all of the family’s belongings out of the apartment and ordered her youngest daughter to burn it in an attempt to destroy any physical evidence that might have been left behind. Neighbors reported the fire before it spread. The closet Sheila was locked it sustained no damage and investigators were able to remove the subfloor from the area and test it for physical evidence. Theresa Knorr went into hiding and her children cut all ties with hers. In November 1991, Robert Knorr Jr. was arrested after he fatally shot a bartender in a Las Vegas bar during an attempted robbery. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Terry attempted to report her sister’s murders to Utah police after moving there but they dismissed her stories as fiction. On October 23, 1993, she called America’s Most Wanted hotline and told the show to contact detectives in Placer County, California where Suesan’s body was found. Detectives took the claims seriously and opened up an investigation. They soon connected Suesan and Sheila’s murders. William, Robert Jr., and Theresa Knorr were arrested and charged in connection to the murders. On November 15, 1993, Theresa Knorr was charged with 2 counts of murder, 2 counts of conspiracy to commit murder, and 2 special circumstances charges. Knorr made a deal with prosecutors after learning that both her sons were going to testify again her. She pled guilty on the condition that she would be spared the death penalty. On October 17, 1995, Theresa Knorr was sentenced to 2 consecutive life sentences. In July 2019, she was up for parole but it was denied. She will be eligible for parole again in July 2024.

Well, there you have it. Some stories about murderous women. So, what’s the moral here? Don’t piss off women and you won’t get killed. I’m just kidding! The moral is that killing is bad and you shouldn’t do it! Toodles!

Sources:

“Deadly Women” – Investigation Discovery

“20 of the most infamous female serial killers” – Insider

“True Tales of Women Who Killed” – Frank Jones