Elizabeth Bathory: Most Ruthless Female Serial Killers

In the stories of The Wife of Bath and Queen Guinevere from the tale of King Arthur, both women of nobility and are strong characters. The Wife of Bath is a woman who likes to be known in the upper class and enjoys and parties. Queen Guinevere “is more passionate and caring,” she takes her royal status for granted. In the Middle Ages, these two women did not fit the idea of how women were to act or think towards their roles as women in that time period.

People were shocked to hear everything the elderly lady, Dorothea Puente, was capable of. Investigators weren’t suspicious of her even after corpses were found on her property because she didn’t fit the typical serial killer profile. The average serial killer is a white male in his mid to late 20’s. More than 90% of serial killers are men according to research done by criminologists James A. Fox and Jack Levin, and among these 73% were white. Only 4% had graduated with a bachelor’s degree. Victims were 67% female, with children, prostitutes, and the elderly and other common victims while 20% were males who had been raped by their attackers.

In the past few decades, a new stream of research has emerged in American crime and criminality. It entails the study of sensationalized murder stories. Such an inquiry is critical to understand Americans past in crime and criminality. Case studies such as the murder of Jewett are riveting thus creating a nuanced portrait of a historical moment. Such study paints a picture on important changes in American culture and society over time. With this in mind, the paper details the sensational murder of Helen Jewett. A cursory glance at the argument shows that Jewett personality and lifestyle shatters the common ideas particularly in popular minds about prostitutes as pathetic and broken persons living impoverished lives. However, understanding Jewett murder demand a closer look at the 1830s and 1840s prostitution.

At fourteen, during her wedding her lover's mistress killed him with a poisoned drink. She went with her mother to their estate in Gaeta. On the way pirates boarded the ship and raped the women and sailed to Morocco to sell them as slaves. There was a war going on in Morocco and the pirates were attacked, the old woman saw her mother and maids of honor ripped apart by men. She somehow survived, fell asleep under a tree and woke up to an Italian man trying to rape her. She met a country man who had once served at her mother's palace he promised to take her back to Italy but took her to Algiers and sold her to the prince. She was then sold several times and ended up owned by a Muslim military commander. He brought her to Algiers to defend the city of Azov against the Russians. Only the commander's fort was left standing and eunuchs wanted to kill and eat her. A religious leader convinced them to only cut one of her buttocks for food. She was taken to Moscow and a nobleman took her as his slave and beat her daily for two years. She managed to escape when he was executed and she worked as a servant in inns around Russia.

H.H Holmes was not only “one of the first documented serial killers,” he lured dozens of innocent people into his “murder castle” where he performed cruel and disgusting acts on his victims. Holmes admitted to 27 murders but it is estimated that he was responsible for nearly 200. Holmes was an incredibly intelligent child with a seemingly normal childhood. What had happened to him to turn such a promising child into such a greedy and nefarious fiend.

Many researchers in the field of criminology, psychology as well as sociology have interests in serial killers, why they kill, and the reason for criminal behavior in general. One aspect of serial murders that is particularly intriguing are those who kill in teams, specifically male and female teams. One case that many researchers in these fields analyze is the case of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady. Birch (1994) looks into the details of male and female team killing and gives an overview of the popular case. Throughout this paper there will be a detailed overview of the Myra Hindley and Ian Brady case in relation to another case about Debra Brown and Alton Coleman, another serial killer team; as well as a in depth look at free will

Erzsebet Bathory, also known as Elizabeth Bathory, was one of history’s most prolific female serial killer as she would torture and kill her victims, who were mainly young girls, merely to use their blood to take baths, believing that her skin would get as smooth as most of her victims. The Blood Countess was convicted and confined to a room of her castle that only had slits for air and food. She survived in there for three years, however, she then died at the age of 54 most likely due to negligence and malnutrition (Bathory’s Torturous Escapades).

Serial killer, Aileen Wuornos became a serial executioner, who had killed seven guys, by using and large acknowledged to be the use first woman serial killer. She became arraigned six for the murders and sentenced to death, ultimately meeting her cease thru execution by means of dangerous imbuement. The result of a very pointless marriage, Aileen have been subjected to appalling torments as a younger female.

Before I start my explanation, I would like to first define who is an offender. According to Oxford Dictionary, offender is a person who commits an illegal act, a person who does something wrong or causes problems. Looking at the above definition you will see that an offender is all that. An offender a person guilty of an offense by the law has several characteristics which differs one offender from the other. Before I go further, I would like to talk about Aileen Wuornos the first woman serial killer in the history of America. She was born like every other kid and there was nothing exceptionally different about her birth. Aileen became an offender because of problem behavior syndrome which involves family dysfunction, environmental factor, sensation seeking and early sexuality. Aileen had poor parental supervision, abandonment and neglect issues as a child and this lead to poor peer relationship. Which lead her to the early life of hitchhiking and later a serial killer. In the movie Monster, Aileen was portrayed as a mean, manipulating, and controlling lady who will kill to survive. Like I said earlier, every offender has a characteristics which differs them from other offenders, regardless of their similarities. Aileen and Jeffery Dahmer are both known as serial killers despite they are both products of a troubled marriage (broken and abusive homes) but their characteristics

My paper will reflect how serial killers get attention. I will explain why serial killers commit crimes. I will talk about their genetic dispositions and if the person is programed to be a killer. All serial killers don’t always have a theory. I will talk about the importance of health, personal history, social habits, and the personality of the victims. I picked two serial killers the first one is Velma Barfield. Velma Barfield was a serial killer from South Carolina. She was born Margie Velma Bullard. She died on Nov. 2, 1984 from lethal injection. It was said that Velma Bullard killed 6 people. She did her killings from 1971 until

During the French Revolution, nobility was under fire and killed haphazardly by the bloodthirsty masses. The masses were created to be very barbaric in order to give the nobility a sense of compassion and elegance. Keep in mind that these personas were not exactly accurate, but they drastically enhanced her

Now, the loathly lady in The Wife of Bath’s Tale is originally portrayed as a hag that displays some less than appealing qualities as a person. She is introduced with the line, “A fouler-looking creature I suppose could scarcely be imagined”(142). Obviously, the knight

The Wife of Bath's greedy need for complete control over men reflects in most of her actions. She seems proud of this, and constantly describes women as cruel creatures that bring great sorrow to men. When talking about her first three husbands, she says that she "governed them" (193), and "chided them cruelly" (193). She makes life for her husbands a living hell, having no respect for their feelings. Just like the women questioned in her story, she cares only for "riches...amusement...rich apparel...," to be "flattered and pampered," and for "pleasure in bed" (225). When talking of her first three marriages, she says: "Since they had given me all their land, why should I take pains to please them, unless it be for my own profit and pleasure" (192). In her story, the moral is that all women want to hold the whip in a relationship, and it is in the man's best interest to let them do so. The Wife of Bath is not a woman to be admired and, worst of all, she insists all

“The serial killer ‘is an entirely different criminal,’ ”The term serial killer is misleading on the ground that each murder is intended to be the last.” We see them as a figure of “the dark side of human potential,” but they believe they’re “on a heroic quest for the biggest score possible” They believe they are “the archetypal figure of impurity, the representative of a world which needs cleansing.” However, society knows that serial killers are not heroes, and they’re not cleansing the world. “The figure of the serial killer is violent impurity personified, and it is a construction that necessitates figures of violent purity to confront it.” While it can be argued whether having mental disorders should prevent a serial killer from being capitally punished, it is proven that many serial killers suffer from “paranoid schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, or psychopathology.” It’s even said that “this crime is actually a form of disease. Its carriers are serial killers who suffer from a variety of crippling and eventually fatal symptoms, and its immediate victims are the people struck down seemingly at random by the disease carriers.” Serial killers usually have a stressor in their life that makes them start killing, and when they do “homicidal mania becomes ‘a necessity… linked to the very existence of a psychiatry which had made itself autonomous but needed thereafter to secure a basis for its intervention by gaining recognition as a component of public

Elizabeth Báthory was born on a family estate in Nyírbátor, Hungary, in 1560 or 1561, and spent her childhood at Ecsed Castle. Her father was George Báthory of the Ecsed branch of the family, brother of Andrew Bonaventura Báthory, who had been Voivode of Transylvania, while her mother was Anna Báthory (1539–1570), daughter of Stephen Báthory of Somlyó, another Voivode of Transylvania, who was of the Somlyó branch. Through her mother, Elizabeth was the niece of the Hungarian noble Stephen Báthory, King of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Prince of Transylvania. As a young woman, she learned Latin, German, and Greek. Born into a privileged family of nobility, Elizabeth was showered and endowed with wealth, education and a stellar social