How Bad Can Girls Be? Female Serial Killers In The USA
6 journalers for this copy...
participants to far:
1. juettpbb (Germany)
2. Amusedbythis (USA)
3. mojosmom (USA)
4. spaceystacey (USA)
5. powerslave (Portugal)
6. 21stcentury (Germany)
7. Marielsd (Germany)
8. back to me...
sending it to juettpbb.
The sources are based on large part oon research from the internet, which consists of secondary sources. If you had scratched the surface, you would have read the Justice Department's Bureau of Statistics 2000 report on female offenders. That report indicated that 1 of 14 female murderers victimize strangers. That is clearly higher than the 1 in 4 males, but is not so large to be statistically insignificant with a large pool of female murderers. That BJS article also listed the number of women on death row in 2000, some of whom were presumably serial murderers. One, in Illinois, in fact was a serial murderer. Over the course of three years, she robbed and killed three seniors who were living in three separate senior apartment buildings and robbed, hurt and/or stole from six others. She also gave separate court-reported confessions to all three murders, which flies in the face of the analysis of this term paper. That defendant strangled in separate incidents an old man and a woman and stabbed an old man. She was sentenced to death for the woman's murder and plead guilty and was sentenced to two life sentences for the deaths of the two men and a term of years for the robbery of another old man. In 2003, along with all others in Illinois, her death sentence was commuted to natural life.
Also, with a rising number of women offenders, I cannot fathom the conclusion on pp.11-12 that for a woman to be convicted of murder, the evidence needs to be far more overwhelming than to prove the guilt of a man. Although I did not check each and every one of your sources, if one states that premise, it too must be outdated. The burden of proof for all defendants charged with a crime in the United States is "beyond a reasoanble doubt." This is a high burden for the prosecution to overcome in all cases.
At any rate, you should be commended for trying to research this subject. You are correct that it is a subject that bears more study. Thank you for sharing your hard work.
I have contacted mojosmom and am awaiting her address. I am very interested in reading her comments.
sending to mojosmom.
You adopt Kelleher's categories without any analysis, and, in at least one instance, I think that is absolutely, clearly wrong. To say that Aileen Wuornos was a sexual predator is to totally misunderstand the context of her killings.
There is also no cultural or societal context presented for these women, which I think is important, given that you use examples going back to the 19th century in the U.S. and the 16th Century in Hungary!
It's an interesting topic, especially the question of what you and Kelleher call "Team Killers". I'd like to see someone do an in-depth analysis of the relationship dynamics in those cases. (BTW, Debra Brown was not married to Alton Coleman. Also, though it's not clear from the text, she was not involved in his first murder. I also think it's wrong to say that they ever "selected their victims carefully"; from the outset, their victims varied as to age, circumstances of killing, etc. There was no evidence that they ever killed for "fun".)
This is an area that is difficult to research without access to primary research, particularly interviews with people involved (not necessarily the offenders, but police, lawyers, etc.) In recent years, there is the possibility of mental health evaluations having been done, though access to these would, of course, be restricted. That would certainly shed some light on the motivations and causations of serial killers.
It's a area definitely worthy of more research.
[I'm waiting for an address for the next person, and will send this out as soon as I have it.]
Released 19 yrs ago (9/13/2004 UTC) at
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
On its way to the next person in the ring.
On the way to Portugal. 10/21/04