History knows examples when women showed cruelty, in comparison with which all stories about bloody maniacs- just children's fairy tales. Psychologists claim that women, although not as often as men, sometimes become serial killers and then act with particular cruelty and sophistication.

Queen Mary I, 1516-1558 The daughter of Henry VIII and his first wife went down in English history as a monarch who tried to return the country to the fold of the Roman Catholic Church after her father, having quarreled with the Pope, declared himself the head of the new Anglican Church. The restoration took place against the backdrop of brutal executions of Protestants, persecution and murder of the innocent population, for which the people called the queen Mary the Bloody. Under this name she went down in history.

Myra Hindley 1942-2002 Serial killer, together with her accomplice Ian Bryan, received the nickname “English Bonnie and Clyde.” Over the course of several years, criminals kidnapped, abused and tortured to death five minor children aged 10 to 17 years. The bodies of the victims were later discovered by police in moors near Manchester. To the horror and disgust of the entire country, it turned out that the latter-day Bonnie and Clyde made audio recordings and photographs “for history,” perpetuating their crimes. Having received a life sentence - the death penalty in England was abolished literally within a month of the arrest of the criminal couple, neither Hindley nor Brian ever repented of their deeds. On the day the verdict was announced, Myra calmly ate ice cream while waiting for the hearing to begin. A British court ruled that criminals do not have the right to commit suicide, so Brian, who had begun a hunger strike, was force-fed by injecting saline. Myra Hindley died in a prison hospital from a heart attack, saving herself from further imprisonment and the world from a terrible criminal.

Isabella of Castile, 1451-1504 Isabella of Castile and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon stood at the origins of the unification of Spain and the formation of a strong state: a dynastic marriage led to the union and unification of Castile and Aragon into one kingdom - Spain. The Queen is also known for her patronage of the famous explorer Christopher Columbus. Notorious for her cruelty towards non-Catholics: a passionate and devout Catholic, she appointed Tomas Torquemada as the first Grand Inquisitor of the infamous Spanish Inquisition and ushered in an era of religious purges. The Inquisition persecuted heretics, Moors, Maranos, and Moriscos. Under Isabella of Castile, most of the Jews and Arabs - about 200 thousand people - left Spain, and those who remained were forced to convert to Christianity, which, however, rarely saved converts from death at the stake.

Beverly Ellit, R. 1968 An English pediatric nurse, nicknamed the “angel of death,” killed four young hospital patients in 1991 and seriously harmed the health of five others. The serial killer injected children with insulin or potassium to induce a severe heart attack and simulate a natural death. The motive for the crime is still unknown.

Bell Gunnes, 1859-1931 An American of Norwegian descent became the most famous female killer in US history. She killed both her husbands, her own daughters, several admirers and lovers. The main goal is to receive payments for life insurance. Over several decades, Gannes killed about 30 people.

Mary Ann Cotton 1832-1873 She poisoned about 20 people with arsenic. The police became interested in her when it turned out that all of her closest relatives were not only constantly dying, but also dying from the same disease - stomach colic. Throughout her life, the criminal killed several husbands, her children and even her own mother. The executioner who supervised her hanging deliberately prolonged her torment by “forgetting” to knock out the stool from under the condemned woman’s feet.

Elsa Koch, 1906-1967 Elsa Koch, better known as the "Witch of Buchenwald", was the wife of the commandant concentration camp. She tortured prisoners, beat them with a whip, mocked them and killed them. What was left behind was a terrible collection: pieces of human skin with tattoos. She committed suicide in prison in 1967.

Irma Griz, 1923-1945 One of the most cruel guards of women's concentration camps Hitler's Germany. While torturing prisoners, she resorted to both physical and psychological violence, beating women to death and amusing herself by shooting prisoners. She starved her dogs so she could set them on victims, and personally selected hundreds of people to be sent to the gas chambers. Grese wore heavy boots and, in addition to a pistol, she always carried a wicker whip. She was sentenced to death by hanging.

Katherine Knight, R. 1956. The first woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life imprisonment. In October 2001, during a family quarrel, she beat her partner with a meat knife, after which she abused the dead body in such a way that Chikatilo must have vomited.

Erzsebet Bathory, 1560-1614 Hungarian Countess, better known as the Bloody Lady. She tortured and killed maids and peasant women: she brutally beat them, burned their hands, faces and other parts of the body with a hot iron, skinned victims who were still alive, starved them, mocked them and raped them. In 1610 she was placed under house arrest on charges of murder, heresy and witchcraft. During the trial, the castle servants could not name the exact number of victims of the sadist: the countess's confidants, who found themselves in the dock, spoke of four to five dozen killed, the rest of the servants assured that they carried out the corpses in the hundreds. Bathory died of natural causes in 1614, and her name soon became overgrown with legends no less sinister than those about Count Dracula.

Antonina Makarovna Makarova, nicknamed “Tonka the Machine Gunner”, married Ginzburg (1921 - August 11, 1979) - executioner of the Lokot District during the Great Patriotic War, who shot more than 1,500 people in the service of the German occupation authorities and Russian collaborators.

In 1941, during the Great Patriotic War, being a nurse, she was surrounded and found herself in occupied territory. She voluntarily joined the auxiliary police of the Lokot district of the Lokot district (see Lokot self-government), where she carried out death sentences, executing about 1,500 people (according to official data). For executions she used a Maxim machine gun, given to her by the police at her request.
At the end of the war, Makarova got a fake nurse’s ID and got a job in a hospital, married front-line soldier V.S., who was treated in her hospital. Ginzburg, changed her last name.

Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova, nicknamed Saltychikha(March 11, 1730 - November 27, 1801) - Russian landowner who went down in history as a sophisticated sadist and serial killer of several dozen serfs under her control. By the decision of the Senate and Empress Catherine II, she was deprived of the dignity of a pillar noblewoman and sentenced to life imprisonment in a monastery prison. Saltychikha's town house in Moscow was located on the corner of Bolshaya Lubyanka and Kuznetsky Most streets, that is, on the site where buildings that now belong to the FSB of Russia were later built. The estate where she usually committed murders and tortures was located in the village of Mosrentgen (Trinity Park) near the Moscow Ring Road in the Teply Stan area. Crimes concerning serfs Having been widowed at the age of twenty-six, she received full ownership of about six hundred peasants on estates located in the Moscow, Vologda and Kostroma provinces. The investigator in the case of the widow Saltykova, court councilor Volkov, based on the data from the house books of the suspect herself, compiled a list of 138 names of serfs whose fate was to be clarified. According to official records, 50 people were considered to have “died of disease,” 72 people were “unknown,” and 16 were considered to have “gone to their husbands” or “gone on the run.” According to the testimony of serfs, obtained during “wide searches” in the estate and villages of the landowner, Saltykova killed 75 people, mostly women and girls.
Before the death of her husband, Saltychikha had no particular tendency to violence. But about six months after her widowhood, she began regularly beating the servants. The main reasons for punishment were dishonesty in cleaning floors or doing laundry. The torture began with her striking the offending peasant woman with an object that came to hand (most often it was a log). The guilty one was then flogged by grooms and haiduks, sometimes to death. Saltychikha could pour boiling water over the victim or singe the hair on her head. Saltychikha also used hot curling irons for torture, with which she grabbed the victim by the ears. She often pulled people by the hair and slammed their heads against the wall for a long time. Many of those killed by her, according to witnesses, had no hair on their heads; Saltychikha tore her hair with her fingers, which indicates her considerable physical strength.
The victims were starved and tied naked in the cold. Saltychikha did not love and broke up loving couples who were planning to get married in the near future. Crimes concerning nobles In one episode, Saltychikha also suffered a nobleman. Land surveyor Nikolai Tyutchev - grandfather of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev - was with her for a long time love relationships, but then decided to marry the girl Panyutina. Saltykova decided to burn Panyutina’s house and gave her people sulfur, gunpowder and tow. But people were scared. When Tyutchev and Panyutina had already gotten married and were traveling to their Oryol estate, Saltykova ordered her peasants to kill them. But Tyutchev found out about this.

Honestly, after reading this article, I was shocked. I never thought that women could be so cruel... Why were they like that? What caused their cruelty? Even psychiatrists cannot answer this question precisely. It can be assumed that mental illness is behind such aggressiveness. But it seems to me that often the cause of cruelty is the lack of sincere love in a person’s life - a man, a woman...

1. Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova (“Saltychikha”), 1730-1801.

Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova, nicknamed "Saltychikha" (Birth year: 1730; Year of death: 1801), a sophisticated sadist and murderer of at least 139 people, mostly women, girls and girls. She was sentenced to death, which was later replaced by imprisonment in a monastery prison. One could talk about the influence of the place: Daria Saltykova’s city estate was located not far from the Ivanovsky Monastery, at the intersection of the Kuznetsky Bridge with the notorious Bolshaya Lubyanka, but most of the murders took place on her estate in Troitsky near Moscow. One could talk about bad blood, but she was the daughter of a pillar nobleman, who was related to the Davydovs, Musins-Pushkins, Stroganovs and Tolstoys. For quite a long time, the grandfather of the poet Fyodor Tyutchev was in a love relationship with her. True, he married, as is known, someone else - for which Saltychikha almost killed him along with his young wife.

Daria was only 26 years old when she was widowed, and about 600 peasant souls came into her undivided possession. The next seven years of life for those who depended on her were filled with pain and blood: people were flogged, doused with boiling water, starved, the hair on their heads was burned off, and they were kept naked in the cold. The nickname “Saltychikha” gave birth to the image of an overweight, unwashed, disgusting old woman in my head. But she committed all her crimes in fairly at a young age. Catherine the Second received the first complaint against her almost immediately after ascending the throne - it was 1762, Saltychikha was 31 years old at that time. Who knows how the investigation against Saltychikha would have turned out if Catherine II had not used her case as a show trial, which marked new era legality.

2. Queen Mary I, 1516-1558.

Queen of England, fourth crowned monarch of the Tudor dynasty. Bloody Mary(the same one whose name is named after a popular cocktail). The day of her death was celebrated as a national holiday in the country, because her reign was accompanied by bloody massacres. Her father, Henry VIII, declared himself head of the church, for which he was excommunicated by the Pope. Mary was put in charge of a poor country that needed to be raised out of poverty.

Maria was not in good health (her father suffered from syphilis), but she was active and unforgiving - she could bring closer to herself those who only yesterday opposed her, but not the Protestants. Almost 300 Protestants were burned at the stake of the Inquisition, 3,000 lost their places and most of them chose to flee the country. It was unlikely that this was God's punishment, but in family life Mary was unhappy.

Her husband Philip, son of Charles V, was eleven years younger than her, had no official say in government, did not inherit the crown, and was unable to give her a child. Therefore, of his own free will, he left for Spain, then returned to England, and three months later he fled home again. Maria, who was naturally sick, became sad, fell ill and died. "Bloody Mary" was buried in Westminster Abbey. There is not a single (!) monument to this queen in the country.

3. Myra Hindley, 1942-2002.

Mira, a pretty, etched blonde (although in the photo she is clearly a brunette :)) has made herself a friend, Ian Brady. Ian, a heavy drinker, idealizing Hitler, Bonnie and Clyde, reading Mein Kampf, Crime and Punishment, the stories of the Marquis de Sade, attracted Mira's attention with his unusualness. He was her first man, but he quickly taught her such sexual entertainment that people who have been married for forty years are not aware of.

They loved to beat each other, tie each other up - with ropes, chains - and take pictures. Soon these entertainments became scarce. Mira and Ian planned to rob banks, and in the meantime they caught children, abused them, raped them, tortured them, recording cries asking for mercy on film, photographed them and killed them. They killed disgustingly, with whatever they could get their hands on - knives, shovels, telephone wires. 11 child victims of a criminal couple. At the trial, Mira said that the reason for everything was disappointment in Catholicism. But crimes did not fall under the article of “spiritual quest”. During the trial, she showed extreme composure, bordering on arrogance.

While already in prison, Mira and Ian planned to get married and corresponded, but this request was denied. Not all the bodies of the children they killed were found, and therefore Mira, unlike Brady, who never wanted to leave prison, insisted that she should have been released over the years, and even made an unsuccessful escape attempt. She died at the age of 60, about two weeks before, despite all the legal conflicts, she could be released. Someone unknown pinned a note to her coffin: “Send to hell.” Several feature films were made based on the crimes of this couple.

4. Isabella of Castile, 1451-1504.

The year 1492, an epochal year for Isabella, was marked by the largest historical events: the capture of Granada, which marked the end of the Reconquista, the patronage of Columbus and his discovery of America. Another event happened this year, which is the reason why we mention Isabella today.

Thomas de Torquemada was a monk of the Dominican Order, born in 1420, founded in 1215 by the Spanish monk Domingo de Guzman and approved by a papal bull on December 22, 1216. This Order was the main support in the fight against heresy. Isabella wished to have Torquemada as her confessor, and Torquemada considered this a great honor. He infected the queen with his religious fanaticism, received the title of Grand Inquisitor and headed the Spanish Catholic tribunal.

In Spain, Torquemada resorted to auto-da-fe much more often than inquisitors in other countries: over 15 years, 10,200 people were burned on his orders. The 6,800 people sentenced to death in absentia can also be considered victims of Torquemada. More than 97,000 people were subjected to various punishments. Primarily baptized Jews were persecuted - Marranos, accused of adhering to Judaism, as well as Muslims who converted to Christianity - Moriscos, suspected of secretly practicing Islam. In 1492, Torquemada persuaded Isabella to expel all Jews from the country. By the way, the Catholic Church believes that Isabella has considerable services to the Church.

5. Beverly Allitt, b. 1968.

A serial killer nurse dubbed the "Angel of Death" killed four children and made nine murder attempts. Sentenced to 40 years in prison. All of her crimes were committed between 1991 and 1993. She thought it was possible (perhaps, since this has not been proven) that this was due to mental disorder Beverly that the children who were in the hospital and complaining about their poor health were simply trying to attract her attention so as not to be bored.

Nurse Evil gave insulin injections to children who annoyed her to make it appear that the children's deaths were due to natural causes. Fortunately, not all of her crimes were successful, but they amazed people because they were committed by a representative of one of the most humane professions and against those for whom we are responsible - children.

6. Bell Gunnes, 1859-1931.

At 1.83 m tall and 91 kg in weight, this American of Norwegian descent had quite an impressive build. The American “Bluebeard”, perhaps female, she killed her two husbands, her three daughters, all those who suspected her and those who came into the zone of her attention. It is believed that she is responsible for the lives of more than twenty people. She committed arson, poisoned her, and quietly dropped huge meat knives on her victims’ heads.

She came from Norway hoping to find mountains of gold in America, but she worked as a maid in rich houses, desperately jealous of those she served. Money was her identity. She insured the lives of her husbands and did everything to ensure that the insurance turned into cash; witnesses were mercilessly killed. Covering her tracks, in 1908 she started a fire in her house, in which her children died, but those remains that were supposed to be her remains were not identified as the former Belle. In 1931, Esther Carlson was arrested in Los Angeles for the murder of her husband in order to obtain insurance ($ 2,000). She died in prison before her trial, but external signs could be identified as Bell Gunnes. Death saved her from this.

7. Mary Ann Cotton, 1832-1873.

Perhaps Bell got the idea for this diabolical form of enrichment from Mary Ann Cotton. This beautiful-looking woman was married three times, spending a total of forty years in a married state. This was a time when there were no cures for many diseases, and child death was not a rare occurrence. Mary had her own children from her husbands, but she married widowers with a considerable number of children from a previous marriage.

Everyone was doomed to death. Mary insured all the members of her family, then went to the pharmacy, bought arsenic and gradually, without attracting much attention, poisoned the children, and at the same time their husbands, clearing her way to a new marriage. Her impudence failed her when, after the death of her last husband, she sent two adopted sons to the next world and immediately went to demand the insurance reward. Before this, she carelessly bought arsenic at a pharmacy a few weeks before the murders. An investigation was conducted, an autopsy was conducted, and the test for arsenic was positive.

Then they began to conduct research on the bodies of relatives who died at the hands of Mary - each corpse contained arsenic. At the trial, she had only one argument: “So what, you don’t execute those who get rid of children in the womb. I did the same thing, but a little later and for money.” In prison, she had a daughter from her last husband, who was lucky to survive. Before her execution, this fragile-looking woman prayed, and a second before a black flag rose over the prison, confirming the execution of the sentence, she said: “Heaven is my home.” Not likely, Mary. Hardly. You have either 12 or 15 human lives on your account.

8. Elsa Koch, 1906-1967.

Elsa was born in 1906 in Dresden. Little is known about her early years, but when she married Karl Koch in 1937, she was already working at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The husband is promoted - appointed head of the Buchenwald concentration camp, and the friendly family is sent there. At the camp, Elsa is not bored, playing the role of wife. She is the camp controller. Elsa became famous ill-treatment to prisoners. She loved to flog or beat people herself. If she saw a prisoner with an interesting tattoo, these were the last hours of his life. Elsa was collecting a collection of tattooed human skin. Samples with interesting natural marks also ended up there. This leather could also be used to make household items, such as a chandelier. Even the bag that Elsa went out with was made from it.

Elsa’s husband was arrested in 1944 and later executed, and she hid from the authorities, knowing that for now they were catching “bigger fish.” Elsa’s turn came in 1947; during the investigation, she managed to become pregnant, in the hope of avoiding punishment. But the prosecutor said that Elsa has more than 50,000 victims on her conscience, and pregnancy does not exempt her from anything. She was tried by the Americans in Munich, and the investigation lasted for almost four years. Elsa claimed that she was merely a “servant of the regime.”

Incredibly, she was released from prison in 1951. Not for long, because she was immediately arrested by the German authorities, who noted her particular sadism during the investigation and sentenced her to life imprisonment. The son, born in prison, did not know for a long time who his mother was, but when he found out, he did not treat her as a “Buchenval bitch” and visited her in prison. In 1967, Elsa ate her last schnitzel and hanged herself, never repenting of anything.

9. Irma Grizz, 1923-1945.

If it had not been for the war, perhaps Irma would have become a pretty German peasant girl. But when she was 13, her mother committed suicide, and a couple of years later Irma dropped out of school. Her father had by this time joined the NSDAP. Irma lacked education, but she proved herself in the organization - the female analogue of the Hitler Youth. She worked as a nurse, and in 1942 she joined the SS, despite her father’s dissatisfaction, and was immediately sent to work in the Ravensbrück concentration camp, then there was Auschwitz (Birkenau), where she was very quickly appointed to the position of senior guard - this was the second person in camp hierarchy.

She was 20 years old and very cruel. She beat women to death, shot prisoners according to the principle of “whoever she hits.” She starved the dogs and then set them on the prisoners. She herself selected those whom she sent to death in gas chamber. In addition to the pistol, Grez always carried a wicker whip. Irma Griese is known as the most brutal woman of the Third Reich; prisoners called her a “beautiful beast.” She developed a reputation as a nymphomaniac who sexually abused prisoners. Among the German staff she also had her fair share of “fans”, one of them was the infamous “Doctor Death”, Josef Mengele.

In 1945, she was captured by the British at her next “workplace” - in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Irma Griese was found guilty and sentenced to hang. On the last night before her execution, Griz laughed and sang songs with her fellow accomplices. When a noose was thrown around Irma Griz's neck, not even a shadow of remorse flashed on her face. Her the last word was “Faster,” addressed to the executioner.

10. Katherine Knight, b. 1956.

On November 9, 2001, the harshest sentence possible in Australia was announced. Catherine Knight became the first woman in the country to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of review. Perhaps the fact that she worked in a slaughterhouse, with a special interest in beheading pigs, played a role in her decision on how to punish her husband's alleged infidelity. The first time she tried to kill her husband was on the first wedding night, when he “did not fulfill her expectations.”

As a warning to her husband and his alleged passion, Katherine caught the woman's dog and, in front of her eyes, cut out its throat with one movement of a knife. A few days later, she will inflict 37 stab wounds on a man - her husband, after which she will dismember his body, put his head in a saucepan and, adding vegetables, cook broth from it. Katherine tried to cook the meat of her murdered husband for lunch for the children. Thank God, at least the police prevented her from doing this. At the trial, she admitted her guilt. But how can a simple confession wash away the guilt for a terrible crime, unthinkable for a civilized society?

11. Erzsebet Batory, 1560-1614.

Guinness World Records calls her the most prolific serial killer. Whether her cruelty was natural or acquired is now impossible to find out. But it is known that this Hungarian woman was the wife of Ferenc Nadasgy. Ferenc showed amazing cruelty towards the captured Turks, with whom the war was going on at that time, for which he received the nickname “Black Bek”. As wedding gift“Black Bek” gave the “Bloody Countess” Cachtice Castle in the Slovakian Lesser Carpathians, where she gave birth to five children and killed 650 people.

According to legend, Erzsebet Bathory once hit her maid in the face. The blood from the maid's nose dripped onto the countess's skin, and Erzsebet thought that her skin began to look beautiful in those places where drops of blood fell. Rumor has it that Elizabeth had the Maid of Nuremberg in the basement of the castle, in which the victim was bleeding, this blood filled the bath, which Erzsebet took. The cruelty of the Black Countess was fully revealed after the death of her husband. And first of all, girls and young women suffered from Erzsebet’s temper. Erzsébet's brother was the ruler of Transylvania (remember where Count Dracula is from?), so she never went to trial and did what she wanted until her death.

Psychologists say that women, although less likely than men to become serial killers, act with particular cruelty and sophistication.
We present to you the 11 most dangerous women in human history.

Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova (“Saltychikha”), 1730-1801.

A Russian landowner who went down in history as a sophisticated sadist and murderer of 139 serfs under her control, mostly women and girls. She was sentenced to death, but the execution was replaced by imprisonment in a monastery prison.
Queen Mary I, 1516-1558.

The daughter of the English king Henry VIII and his first wife went down in history as a monarch who tried to return the country to the fold of the Roman Catholic Church after her father, having quarreled with the Pope, declared himself the head of the new Anglican Church. The restoration took place against the backdrop of brutal executions of Protestants, persecution and murder of the innocent population, for which the people called the queen Mary the Bloody.
Myra Hindley, 1942-2002.

Serial killer, together with her accomplice Ian Bryan, received the nickname “English Bonnie and Clyde.” Over the course of several years, criminals kidnapped, abused and tortured to death five minor children aged 10 to 17 years. The bodies of the victims were later discovered by police in moors near Manchester. To the horror and disgust of the entire country, it turned out that the latter-day Bonnie and Clyde made audio recordings and photographs “for history,” perpetuating their crimes. Having received a life sentence (the death penalty in England was abolished literally within a month of the arrest of the criminal couple), neither Hindley nor Brian ever repented of their deeds. On the day the verdict was announced, Myra calmly ate ice cream while waiting for the hearing to begin. A British court ruled that criminals do not have the right to commit suicide, so Brian, who had begun a hunger strike, was force-fed by injecting saline. Myra Hindley died in a prison hospital from a heart attack, saving herself from further imprisonment and the world from a terrible criminal.
Isabella of Castile, 1451-1504.

Isabella of Castile and her husband Ferdinand of Aragon stood at the origins of the unification of Spain and the formation of a strong state: a dynastic marriage led to the union and unification of Castile and Aragon into one kingdom - Spain. The Queen is also known for her patronage of the famous explorer Christopher Columbus. Notorious for her cruelty towards non-Catholics: a passionate and devout Catholic, she appointed Tomas Torquemada as the first Grand Inquisitor of the infamous Spanish Inquisition and ushered in an era of religious purges. The Inquisition persecuted heretics, Moors, Maranos, and Moriscos. Under Isabella of Castile, most of the Jews and Arabs - about 200 thousand people - left Spain, and those who remained were forced to convert to Christianity, which, however, rarely saved converts from death at the stake.
Beverly Allitt, b. 1968.

An English pediatric nurse, nicknamed the “angel of death,” killed four young hospital patients in 1991 and caused serious harm to the health of five others. The serial killer injected children with insulin or potassium to induce a severe heart attack and simulate a natural death. The motive for the crime is still unknown.
Bell Gunnes, 1859-1931.

An American of Norwegian descent became the most famous female killer in US history. She killed both her husbands, her own daughters, several admirers and lovers. The main goal is to receive payments for life insurance. Over several decades, Gannes killed about 30 people.
Mary Ann Cotton,1832-1873

She poisoned about 20 people with arsenic. The police became interested in her when it turned out that all of her closest relatives were not only constantly dying, but also dying from the same disease - stomach colic. Throughout her life, the criminal killed several husbands, her children and even her own mother. The executioner who supervised her hanging deliberately prolonged her torment by “forgetting” to knock out the stool from under the condemned woman’s feet.
Elsa Koch, 1906-1967

Elsa Koch, better known as the "Witch of Buchenwald", was the wife of the concentration camp commandant. She tortured prisoners, beat them with a whip, mocked them and killed them. What was left behind was a terrible collection: pieces of human skin with tattoos. She committed suicide in prison in 1967.
Irma Grizz, 1923-1945.

One of the most cruel guards of the women's concentration camps of Hitler's Germany. While torturing prisoners, she resorted to both physical and psychological violence, beating women to death and amusing herself by shooting prisoners. She starved her dogs so she could set them on victims, and personally selected hundreds of people to be sent to the gas chambers. Grese wore heavy boots and, in addition to a pistol, she always carried a wicker whip. She was sentenced to death by hanging.
Catherine Knight, b. 1956.

The first woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life imprisonment. In October 2001, during a family quarrel, she beat her partner with a meat knife, after which she abused the dead body in such a way that Chikatilo must have vomited.
Erzsebet Bathory, 1560-1614.

Hungarian Countess, better known as the Bloody Lady. She tortured and killed maids and peasant women: she brutally beat them, burned their hands, faces and other parts of the body with a hot iron, skinned victims who were still alive, starved them, mocked them and raped them. In 1610 she was placed under house arrest on charges of murder, heresy and witchcraft. During the trial, the castle servants could not name the exact number of victims of the sadist: the countess's confidants, who found themselves in the dock, spoke of four to five dozen killed, the rest of the servants assured that they carried out the corpses in the hundreds. Bathory died of natural causes in 1614, and her name soon became overgrown with legends no less sinister than those about Count Dracula.

The most noble human qualities, such as kindness, mercy, care, love and compassion are characteristic of the weaker sex, however, history has known many women whose main traits were cruelty, aggression, fanaticism and sadism. In our list, we propose to get acquainted with the most famous representatives of the fair half of humanity, whose actions make your blood run cold.

Saltykova Daria Nikolaevna, or, in common parlance, “Saltychikha” (years of life - 1730-1801)

The world-famous sadist killed at least 140 people, mostly young girls and women. The result of her “productive” leadership was a death sentence, which was later commuted to life imprisonment in the prison of one of the monasteries. The heartless person lived next to the Ivanovsky Monastery, not far from the intersection of Kuznechny Bridge and Bolshaya Lubyanka, but the vast majority of the crimes were committed in Troitsky, a small estate located in the near Moscow region. Daria Nikolaevna was the heiress of a pillar nobleman, with whom such famous families as the Musins-Pushkins, Tolstoys, Davydovs and Stroganovs were related. Interesting fact- For a long time, Saltychikha’s lover was the grandfather of the greatest Russian poet Tyutchev, but the matter never came to a wedding. Having fallen in love with another, the poet’s ancestor abandoned Daria Nikolaevna, for which she almost killed her former beau and his newly-made wife.
At the age of 26, Saltykova became a widow, and at her disposal were left huge estates and 600 peasant souls, many of whom experienced the bloodthirsty nature of their mistress. All the years until her death, the landowner tortured powerless people, and rivers of blood were shed in her estate and the surrounding area. The cruel woman’s sophisticated torture included regular beatings and torture of men and women, who were also starved, doused with boiling water, hair on their heads set on fire, and exposed naked in the bitter cold right in the middle of the yard. By all accounts, Saltychikha was an evil and merciless old woman, but at the time of the first bullying, the woman was only 31 years old. The first complaint about harsh treatment of serfs reached Catherine II in 1762. The Tsarina used the criminal trial as a demonstration - it was important from the first days of her reign to demonstrate to the Moscow nobility what local abuses could lead to. As a result of the investigation and after the verdict, Saltykova was stripped of her title, ordered to stand for an hour in the center of the capital on a pillar of shame and imprisoned in a dungeon, without light and human communication.

Queen of England, Mary I Tudor (1516-1558)

The monarch was the fourth ruler of the Tudor dynasty. Everyone named after the ill-fated queen famous cocktail“Bloody Mary”, and the date of her death began to be celebrated as a national holiday. Throughout the reign of Mary I, many innocent human lives were destroyed, mostly people professing Protestantism. The queen's father, Henry VIII, due to his marriage to Anne Boleyn, was forced to declare himself the head of the church, which resulted in the excommunication of the monarch by the Pope. Maria was the daughter of Catherine of Aragon, from whom Henry divorced, in the opinion of most Englishmen illegally; moreover, the king was sick with syphilis, and therefore Maria was born in poor health and was on the verge of life and death for a long time. After the death of the king, the country fell to Mary in a disastrous state; moreover, there were constant clashes between Protestants and Catholics, which led to casualties. Mary was a politically active person and was not known for her rancor, but this applied only to adherents of Catholicism. During the years of the queen's reign, more than three hundred Protestants were burned at the stake of the Inquisition, and about three thousand were forced to flee the country.
Maria's family life could not be called happy. Her legal husband was the son of King Charles V, Philip, who was 11 years younger than his wife. In fact, the queen’s husband did not have the right to vote and was only a figurehead, while he was never able to give an heir to the throne to Mary. Having left of his own free will for Spain, a little later he returned to England, but could not stay here for long and after three months he went back again. The Queen, suffering from various illnesses, became sad, caught a fever and died from its complications. Mary Tudor was buried in Westminster Abbey. To this day, not a single bust or monument to the ill-fated queen has been erected in the country.

Serial killer Myra Hindley (1942 - 2002)

Myra Hindley was called by her contemporaries “the most evil woman in Britain”, and is accused in the high-profile case of the “Marsh murders”, which had a great resonance. The cruel child killer was born in the suburbs of Manchester in the family of a chronic alcoholic and a simple working-class woman. After the birth of her younger sister, Myra was sent to be raised by her grandmother. Returning to her parents after some time, the girl fell under the influence of her rude and ruthless father, who taught her to fight. The constant violence instilled in Myra had a direct impact on her future fate. Having reached adulthood, the girl became involved in religion and even managed to take communion for the first time, but a meeting with Ian Brady turned her life in a completely different direction. The man loved to drink, was an atheist, idealized Hitler, reveled in stories about Bonnie and Clyde and the Marquis de Sade. Mira and Ian had their first sex, after which their love games began to resemble the struggle of two predators: they bit each other, beat each other, tied them up and photographed everything that was happening. The next step They began robbing banks, and while the plan was being developed, Mira and Ian kidnapped children, raped them and brutally killed them with everything that came to their hands - from knives to shovels. Based on materials judicial trial, the couple is credited with at least 11 murders of young children, while none of the criminals admitted their guilt, and Myra behaved extremely arrogantly and cold-bloodedly, claiming that disappointment in Catholicism was to blame. Separated after the verdict, the killers corresponded and even wanted to get married, which was denied to them. Brady spent the rest of his life in prison and then in a mental institution, while Myra sought release and died in her cell two weeks before her eventual release from prison. At Hindley's funeral, an unknown person nailed a note to her coffin with the words "send her to hell."

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Fighter against heretics Isabella of Castile (1451-1504)

She went down in history as Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Leon and Castile. The mention of Isabella should begin with 1492 - a year that was epoch-making not only because America was discovered, Granada was taken and the end of the Reconquista was marked. It was during this period that an event occurred that served as the impetus for Isabella of Castile to become considered one of the most cruel women in history. In 1420, the Dominican monk Thomas de Torquemada, who was destined to become Isabella's confessor, was born into one of the most influential Orders. The Dominican Order was distinguished by its intolerance of heresy and heretics, and Torquemada infected the queen with religious fanaticism, for which he was awarded the title of Grand Inquisitor and became the head of the Catholic tribunal throughout Spain. The cruelty of the torturer knew no bounds - over fifteen years, more than 10 thousand people were burned at the stake of the Inquisition, and another 7 thousand were sentenced to death in absentia. Another 100 thousand were subjected to torture and torture, most of them Jews who adhered to their true faith - Judaism. Muslims who converted to Christianity did not escape such a harsh fate. Catholic courts suspected them of secretly practicing Islam. In the ill-fated 1492, Isabella, at the direction of Torquemada, expelled all Jews from the country. The total number of victims of the bloody queen and the Grand Inquisitor remains unknown to this day.

Child killer Beverly Allitt (born 1968)

The bloody nurse, murderer and criminal received the nickname “angel of death.” She has four children's lives and nine more attempts on her account. She was sentenced by the court to forty years in prison, and the ruthless episodes proven by lawyers occurred in the period 1991-1993. According to psychiatrists, Beverly had a mental disorder, which was expressed in her hatred of children. The woman believed that every sick child unnecessarily drew attention to himself by complaining about poor health. A nurse nicknamed "Evil" flew into a rage at the sight of unhealthy children who annoyed her and got on her nerves with their complaints. She planned the murder of the child in advance, injecting her victims with lethal doses of insulin or other drugs, while doctors declared the children’s deaths to be of natural causes. Fortunately, not all attempts to harass innocent patients were successful, but the public will long remember cases when a person of such a humane profession turned out to be such a desperate monster.

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"Bluebeard" Bell Hannes (1859-1931)

By origin, US citizen Bell had Norwegian roots and was distinguished by her impressive dimensions - weighing 91 kg and height 183 cm, and her compatriots nicknamed the cold-blooded killer “Bluebeard”. And there was a reason - the woman caused the death of two of her spouses, three of her own daughters and several other people who involuntarily ended up in her life path. In total, Hannes has 20 people tortured by her, including those burned, poisoned and stabbed to death with huge meat cleavers. Arriving in the New World in the hope of a better life, Bell got a job in rich houses as an au pair or maid, feeling hatred for her masters. Money was her only goal and passion, and when a young wife got married, the first thing she did was insure the life of her husband. After some time, the unsuspecting husband died in a strange way, and the widow removed all the witnesses. Covering her tracks, Hannes burned the house, along with her children, and one of the charred corpses was identified under the name of Bell herself. Two decades later, the insurance situation was repeated in Los Angeles, but the widow died in prison before reaching trial. According to experts, it was Bell Gunnes, who changed her last name to another one for a lot of money.

"Black Widow" Mary Ann Cotton (1832 - 1873)

Another lover of getting rich from the insurance policies of the husbands she killed. A handsome, intelligent and decent-looking woman, she was married three times and over more than forty years of marriage she brought many innocent people to the grave. Mary Ann lived at a time when most serious diseases could not yet be properly diagnosed and therefore sudden death did not surprise anyone. A decent wife and highly moral, caring mother was always close to her own children and did not let the numerous offspring of her new husbands out of her sight. Mary Ann left no chance for anyone to live: all members of her family were insured for a large sum, after which the woman went to the pharmacy and purchased arsenic. Soon the children and husbands were overtaken by sudden death and the path to wealth was open. Impunity added excitement to the sadist, and one day, immediately after the death of another husband and his sons, the police became interested in such a coincidence. The investigation established that shortly before this, Mary Ann bought a large quantity of arsenic at the pharmacy. So the truth came out, and the bodies of all the poisoned were exhumed, after which an examination discovered poison in all of Cotton’s dead relatives. In total, Mary Ann was responsible for 15 people, for whom she was sentenced to death.

Elsa Koch (1906 - 1967)

The place of birth of the pretty German girl was Dresden. Little is known about Elsa’s childhood and youth, but her adult life can be more or less traced back to 1937, when the young Frau marries Karl Koch and begins her working career in the notorious Sachsenhausen concentration camp. After some time, Elsa's wife is waiting for a promotion - he is appointed head of Buchenwald and his faithful wife, without hesitation, goes after him. Gradually, the role of the wife fades into the background and Elsa becomes the official camp controller, and is particularly cruel to prisoners. Women's favorite pastimes are beating, torturing and torturing men and women, and if a person came across interesting tattoos on his skin, then his hours were numbered. The sadist was so sophisticated that she collected a collection of camp tattoos, as well as samples birthmarks, scars and other natural marks. Elsa decorated the interior with chandeliers made of human skin, and went to work with a bag made entirely from the skin of one of the captives.
In 1944, Karl Koch was arrested, and his wife managed to escape. The criminal hid for a long time, but was found in 1947. Being pregnant from another woman, Elsa was counting on a reduced sentence, but the prosecution attributed more than 50 thousand victims to her. The investigation lasted for several years, after which the accused was released for some inexplicable reason, but not for long. German authorities reopened the investigation and sentenced the “camp witch” to life imprisonment. In 1967, Elsa Koch hanged herself in her cell, never repenting of any of her crimes.

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Examiner-overseer Irma Griese (1923 - 1945)

Perhaps, if not for the Second World War, the charming Irma Griese would have lived the simple life of an ordinary German peasant woman. But this knacker was destined for another role - one of the most cruel representatives of the fair sex in world history. Irma's mother committed suicide when the girl was 13 years old, and her father joined the NSDAP. Irma studied poorly and soon abandoned this unnecessary activity, becoming one of the leaders of the women's Hitlergund. For some time, the devout Nazi worked as a nurse, and then got a job at the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Irma's next promotion was the position of senior warden in Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she developed her active work. Despite her 20-year age, Griz was particularly cruel - she beat prisoners to death, shot them in crowds, set hungry dogs on exhausted people, and personally selected those who should go to the gas chamber. Her favorite weapon was a whip, and among her captives Irma was nicknamed “the beautiful beast.” To all her inappropriate inclinations were added nymphomania and sexual perversions, about which terrible legends circulated among the prisoners. A fan of Griz was “Doctor Death” himself - Joseph Mengele. Irma was captured in 1945; she was arrested at her workplace by British officers liberating Bergen-Belsen. The prosecution was merciless and sentenced the fanatic to hanging.

Australian knacker Catherine Knight (born 1956)

The only life sentence marked "without the possibility of review" was announced in Australia in November 2001. The defendant in the case was Katherine Knight, who brutally murdered her husband by stabbing him 37 times. The flayer did not rest on this - she dismembered her husband’s body and made sauce from his head. The woman tried to feed the remaining parts of the body to her children, but the police prevented Catherine from carrying out this unimaginably cruel plan. The reasons for such hatred towards a man were his sexual weakness and the desire to leave an insatiable woman after the first wedding night. Katherine worked in a slaughterhouse and famously butchered the largest pig, so the sadist had more than enough experience in this matter. After her husband left, she began to pursue him and, finding another woman next to him, dismembered her dog before her eyes, promising to do the same with her lovers. Surprisingly, during the trial, Knight fully repented and admitted her guilt, but did this make her crime any less terrible?

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"Bloody Countess" Erzsebet Bathory (1560-1614)

According to the Guinness Book of Records, Erzsebet Bathory, a native of Eced (Hungary), is recognized as the bloodiest serial killer. Exact amount The murders committed are unknown, but presumably over several decades the bloody lady killed more than 650 people. According to legend, the Countess filled a bath with the blood of her victims, which she took regularly, which allowed her to maintain her youth. Countless women and girls disappeared within the walls of her Čachtitsa castle, and local residents tried to avoid the area around the citadel. Since Erzsebet’s brother was the ruler of Transylvania (the homeland of Count Dracula), the torturer was not threatened with any trials, and she continued her bloody activities until her death.

17. Vera Renzi. 1903 - 1948

16. The Gonzalez sisters

15. Eileen Wuornos. 1956 - …

14. Rosemary West

12. Bella Sorenson Guinness

7. Beverly Allitt, 1968-…

6. Bell Gunnes, 1859-1931

5. Mary Ann Cotton, 1832-1873

4. Elsa Koch, 1906-1967

3. Irma Griz, 1923-1945

2. Katherine Knight, 1956-…

20. Antonina Makarovna Makarova. 1921 - 1979

Antonina Makarovna Makarova, nicknamed “Tonka the Machine Gunner,” was the executioner of the Lokot District during the Great Patriotic War, who shot more than 1,500 people in the service of the German occupation authorities and Russian collaborators.

In 1941, during the Great Patriotic War, as a nurse, she was surrounded and found herself in occupied territory. She voluntarily joined the auxiliary police of the Lokot region, where she carried out death sentences, executing about 1,500 people (according to official data). For executions she used a Maxim machine gun, given to her by the police at her request.

At the end of the war, Makarova got a fake nurse's ID and got a job in a hospital, married front-line soldier V.S. Ginzburg, and changed her last name.

For a long time, the KGB could not find her due to the fact that she was born Parfenova, but was mistakenly recorded as Makarova. She was arrested in the summer of 1978 in Lepel (Belarus), convicted as a war criminal and, by the verdict of the Bryansk Regional Court on November 20, 1978, sentenced to capital punishment - the death penalty (becoming the only woman sentenced to capital punishment in the USSR after the period Stalin's repressions). On August 11, 1979, the sentence was carried out.

19. Marquise de Brenvilliers. 1630 - 1676

She poisoned her father, husband, children, two brothers and sisters with the help of her lover, cavalry captain Gaudin de Sainte-Croix, who was fond of alchemy. There were rumors of other poisonings of her - in particular of her servants and many of the poor people she visited in Parisian hospitals. Gaudin de Sainte-Croix betrayed the poisoner, but he himself died unexpectedly in 1672 for unknown reasons. The Marquise fled and hid in London, Holland and Flanders, but was found in a Liege monastery and taken to France in 1676.

Her attempt to commit suicide failed, and after a long trial (April 29 - July 16, 1676), during which the criminal first completely denied her guilt, and then, out of fear of torture, confessed to all the atrocities, the Marquise de Brenvilliers was tortured by drinking , beheaded and burned.

18. Petrova Maria Alexandrovna. 1978 - …

Petrova, Maria Alexandrovna (“Zyuzinsky maniac”) - Russian serial killer who hunted in Moscow.

Maria Petrova has been swimming since childhood. She was uncommunicative and withdrawn. I was raped once. The rapist was a young man. After Petrova was harassed at work by an elderly colleague, she began to hate all men.

On March 1, 2002, Petrova killed a 20-year-old guy with two knife blows. Subsequently, she explained this by harassment on his part, but witnesses did not see this. The murder took place at the Shalom Theater stop near the Varshavskaya metro station.

Subsequently, Petrova committed 4 more attacks with the intent to kill, but all of her victims survived. All attacks were carried out with the same style - stab wounds to the abdomen and neck.

Petrova was absolutely not afraid of being caught. She committed crimes in front of dozens of people and in the same area. The arrest was made on the night of April 23, 2002.

Petrova soon confessed everything. She was charged with murder of 2 and attempted murder of 4 people. A forensic psychiatric examination found Petrova insane and sent her for compulsory treatment.

17. Vera Renzi. 1903 - 1948

Vera was born into a wealthy family descended from the Hungarian nobility. She was an uncontrollable child, already at the age of fifteen she often ran away from home with her friends, many of whom were much older than her. She had an obsessive desire to be friends with men. By nature, Vera was very jealous and suspicious. The first time she married a rich businessman from Bucharest, many years older than her. They had a son, Lorenzo. Vera began to suspect her husband of cheating and one day, in anger, she poured arsenic into his wine. She told family and friends that her husband had abandoned her son. A year later, she announced that she had heard rumors that her estranged husband had died in a car accident. Soon she remarried. This time her chosen one was a man close in age. However, they often quarreled, and Vera tormented herself with suspicions about her husband’s infidelity. A month later, her husband disappeared and she again told family and friends that he had left her. A year later, Vera stated that she received a letter from him, where he said that he would never return home.

Vera never married again, but entered into relationships with men, including married ones. Her lovers were people of different strata and different social status. And they all disappeared months, weeks, or even a few days after the start of the novel. Vera always made up stories that men were unfaithful and abandoned her. One day, the deceived wife of one of her lovers followed her unfaithful husband. When the man disappeared, she called the police, Vera’s house was searched and 32 zinc coffins were found in the wine cellar, each of which contained a male corpse in various stages of decomposition. Vera was arrested and confessed that she poisoned these 32 men with arsenic when they cheated on her or lost interest in her. She also said that she liked to sit in a chair among the coffins of her former fans. Vera also confessed to the murder of two husbands and a son. She said that one day her son came to visit her and accidentally saw coffins in the basement. He began to blackmail her, and she poisoned him and disposed of his body.

16. The Gonzalez sisters

The Gonzalez sisters are Mexican serial killers.

Sisters Delphine and Maria ran a brothel. The sisters hired prostitutes through advertisements. When they got sick or stopped being liked by their clients, they killed them. The sisters also killed clients if they saw that they were carrying large sums of money. In total, police found 80 female and 11 male bodies. In 1964, the Gonzalez sisters were sentenced to forty years in prison. In prison, Delphine died due to an accident. Maria disappeared from sight after her release.

There were several sisters in the Gonzalez family. Carmen and Maria Luisa helped Maria and Delphine commit crimes. Carmen died in prison from cancer; Marie Louise went crazy, afraid of revenge.

15. Eileen Wuornos. 1956 - …

Many experts call her “the first female maniac in the USA”

Eileen Wuornos's psyche was disfigured even in childhood: her parents were teenagers who very soon separated, her mother fled in an unknown direction, and her father went to prison for molesting minors, where he hanged himself. Baby Eileen was placed in the care of her father's parent.

She lived with her grandparents until she was 13 years old. According to her own statements, she was raped by her grandfather, although psychiatrists later questioned this fact. At the age of 14 she was kicked out of home, and at the age of 15 she was already a vagrant and engaged in prostitution.

Over the years, her anger and anger towards men grew.

She had all the hallmarks of an antisocial personality disorder, Eileen broke the law, robbed gun stores, and even married a 70-year-old man whom she physically abused. As a result, her elderly husband left her.

Shortly after the divorce, Eileen met a woman named Tyra, with whom she began a whirlwind romance. To support herself and her friend, Eileen went to work at the panel. Working on the roads selling your body was a dangerous job. And one day she killed a man. Eileen stated that she was brutally raped and killed her rapist in self-defense. However, she soon killed seven more people in Florida.

14. Rosemary West

Rosemary (also known as Rose) was the very embodiment of evil and soullessness. Rosemary and her husband Fred met young girls on the street (most often students) and invited them to visit, promising food, housing and compassion. The fate that awaited these unfortunate girls and young women was truly terrible.

Rosemary, a mother of eight children, was a prostitute and sexual sadist who took pleasure in inflicting pain on others. Together with her husband, she committed ten brutal murders, including the murder of her own child, a daughter named Heather. Rosemary was also found guilty of murdering her stepdaughter Michelle. Many other victims may have also been harmed and tortured and killed by this couple, as Fred made it clear that more than 20 of the missing girls may have been killed by him.

"Kill as much as possible more people- helpless people than any other man or woman who has ever lived...” - this is how she explained the motives for her crimes.

Jane Toppan is a nurse, maniac and sociopath who has suffered from obesity all her life.

In 1885, Toppan began training to become a nurse. During her studies, one of the professors noticed that the student had an unhealthy interest in looking at autopsy photographs, but no one attached much importance to this, and Jane Toppan completed her studies with honors and began caring for patients who found her pleasant and nicknamed her “Jolly Jane.”

And Jolly Jane, in turn, used her patients as guinea pigs in experiments with morphine and atropine, changing the prescribed dosages of drugs and observing how it affected them. nervous system. She touched unconscious patients and received sexual satisfaction from this. In 1899, Jane killed her adopted sister Elizabeth with a dose of strychnine.

In 1901, Jane cared for the elderly Alden Davis after the death of his wife (whom she had killed). Within weeks, she killed Davis himself and two of his daughters. After that, with a sense of accomplishment, she returned to her hometown and began caring for the husband of her late adoptive sister. By this time, surviving members of the Davis family requested toxicology testing for the youngest deceased daughter Alden Davy. It was determined that she had been poisoned.

On October 26, 1901, Jane Toppan was arrested for the murder of Alden Davy's daughter. But during the first interrogation, “Jolly Jane” pouted and stated that she had killed 31 people.

The court found her not guilty due to insanity and sentenced her to a mental hospital, where she remained until her death.

12. Bella Sorenson Guinness

Bella Sorenson Guinness - woman Serial killer, killing for pleasure and greed. She killed 42 people for profit.

Guinness was born in Norway, at the age of 21 she moved to the USA, where she married a businessman from Chicago and gave birth to two daughters, whom, a few years later, she herself poisoned in order to receive insurance. Later, her husband died under strange circumstances from the drugs he was treating and again, for the death of her husband, Guinness received money from the insurance company. Bella bought a farm with the proceeds.

Her husband's relatives suspected something was wrong and blamed her for her husband's premature death. Soon, “Black Widow” put the matter on stream. Her scheme was extremely simple: seduce a man, marry him, persuade the chosen one to insure his life, and then poison him and receive the insurance money. She easily managed to lure men into her bed and they did not even imagine that a cold-blooded killer was hiding behind the mask of a pretty woman. It became known that she buried 42 husbands and accumulated more than a quarter of a million dollars. The “Black Widow” also ended her life tragically; her body was found in the forest, beheaded and burned. However, evil tongues claim that the body found does not belong to the Black Widow.

11. Daria Nikolaevna Saltykova (“Saltychikha”), 1730-1801

A Russian landowner who went down in history as the most sophisticated sadist and murderer of 139 serfs under her control, mostly women and girls.

10. Queen Mary I, 1516-1558

The daughter of the English king Henry VIII and his first wife went down in history as the monarch who tried to return the country to the fold of the Roman Catholic Church after her father, having quarreled with the Pope, declared himself the head of the new Anglican Church. The “restoration” of the country took place against the backdrop of brutal executions of Protestants, persecution and murder of the innocent population, for which the people called the queen Mary the Bloody.

A serial killer who carried out her atrocities with her accomplice Ian Bryan. They received the nickname “English Bonnie and Clyde.”
Over the course of several years, criminals kidnapped, abused and tortured to death five minor children aged 10 to 17 years.

8. Isabella of Castile, 1451-1504

Isabella of Castile became famous for her cruelty towards non-Catholics: a passionate and devout Catholic, she appointed Thomas Torquemada as the first Grand Inquisitor and ushered in an era of religious purges. Under Isabella of Castile, most of the Jews and Arabs left Spain - more than 200 thousand people, and those who remained were forced to convert to Christianity, which, however, rarely saved converts from death at the stake.

7. Beverly Allitt, 1968-…

An English nurse, nicknamed the “angel of death,” killed four young hospital patients in 1991 and caused serious harm to the health of five others. She injected children with insulin or potassium to induce severe heart attacks and simulate natural death. The motive for the crime is still unknown.

6. Bell Gunnes, 1859-1931

This American woman became the most famous female killer in US history after she killed both of her husbands, her own daughters, and several admirers and lovers. The main goal is to receive payments for life insurance. In total she killed 30 people.

5. Mary Ann Cotton, 1832-1873

She poisoned about 20 people with arsenic. Throughout her life, the criminal killed several husbands, her children and even her own mother. For this she was sentenced to death by hanging. The executioner who supervised her execution deliberately prolonged her torment by “forgetting” to knock out the stool from under the condemned woman’s feet.

4. Elsa Koch, 1906-1967

Elsa Koch, the “Witch of Buchenwald,” was the wife of the concentration camp commandant. She tortured prisoners, beat them with a whip, mocked them and killed them. She committed suicide in prison in 1967.

3. Irma Griz, 1923-1945

One of the most cruel guards of the women's death camps Ravensbrück, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen in Hitler's Germany. The prisoners gave her the nickname - Blonde Devil. While torturing prisoners, she resorted to both physical and psychological violence, beating women to death and amusing herself by shooting prisoners. She starved her dogs so that she could later set them on victims.

2. Katherine Knight, 1956-…

The first woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. In October 2001, during a family quarrel, she killed her 44-year-old partner. She stabbed him about 30 times with a butcher knife, abused the body of her former friend, and then skinned the corpse.

To top it all off, Katherine Knight dismembered the corpse and stewed the severed head along with vegetables. The motive for the crime is a banal insult. As investigators found out, Knight’s partner decided to break up with her, kick her out of the house and deprive her of her inheritance.

1. Elizabeth Batory, 1560-1614

Hungarian Countess, better known as the “Bloody Lady”. She tortured and killed maidservants and peasant women: she brutally beat them, burned their hands, breasts, genitals, faces and other parts of the body with a hot iron, skinned victims who were still alive, starved them, mocked and raped them. In 1610 she was placed under house arrest on charges of murder, heresy and witchcraft. During the trial, the castle servants were unable to name the exact number of the sadist’s victims: the countess’s associates, who found themselves in the dock, spoke of four to five dozen killed, the rest of the servants claimed that they carried out the corpses in the hundreds. Batory died of natural causes in 1614.