10 Female Serial Killers You've Never Heard Of

Leonarda Cianciulli [aka the Soap-Maker of Correggio]

From 1939 to 1940, the Italian village of Correggio lost three residents to serial killer Leonarda Cianciulli. The popular shop owner believed that in order to keep her son safe while he served in the Royal Italian Army during WWII, she needed to make human sacrifices. Her first victim, Faustina Setti, was someone she advised about finding a husband. She lured in her second and third victims, Francesca Soavi and Virginia Cacioppo, by claiming she was helping them find jobs. All three women consumed a substance-laced drink and were killed with an axe. Cianciulli confessed to using their remains to make soap and teacakes, which she shared with neighbors and family. Cianciulli was given a 30-year prison sentence with three years in a criminal asylum.

Dana Sue Gray

Between February and March 1994, former nurse Dana Sue Gray took the lives of three elderly women in California and went on shopping sprees with their money, beginning with Norma Davis on February 14. Police officers discovered her body two days later, and on February 28, they found June Roberts deceased. Both were strangled in their Canyon Lake homes, a gated residence where Gray owned a house. On March 10, Gray attacked Dorinda Hawkins at an area antique shop. Fortunately Hawkins survived and provided authorities with crucial details. Police apprehended Gray on March 17, unaware that she’d already killed another victim, Dora Beebe, just hours before. Gray pleaded guilty in 1998, and was sentenced to life with no possibility of parole.

Velma Barfield

In 1949, North Carolina native Margie Velma Bullard left her troubled home life to wed Thomas Burke, with whom she had two children. After he died in a house fire in April 1969, the widow married Jennings Barfield in 1970, barely a year before he died in March 1971. Using arsenic and rat poison, Velma murdered two elderly patients in her care, Dollie Edwards and John Henry Lee, in 1977. Despite confessing to killing Edwards and Lee in 1977, and her mother in 1974, she was only charged with the 1978 murder of her boyfriend, Rowland Stuart Taylor. At age 52, Velma Barfield, by then dubbed “The Death Row Granny,” died by lethal injection in 1984.

Enriqueta Martí [aka The Vampire of Barcelona]

For over twenty years, Barcelona, Spain, had a prolific serial killer claiming the lives of at least 12 youths, though more are suspected. Enriqueta Martí worked as a nanny and witch-doctor and owned a brothel catering to wealthy clients. She lured and kidnapped young victims, forcing them into sex work, and using their remains to create remedies for incurable diseases and elixirs to extend one’s life. Martí’s reign of terror ended in February 1912 after she abducted Teresita Guitart Congost, and a neighbor alerted police. After her arrest, they discovered blood-stained clothing and human remains on her various properties. In May 1913, Martí was killed by other inmates at the Reina Amalia prison. She never went to trial for her crimes.

Vickie Dawn Jackson

In a span of three months, from December 2000 to February 2001, Nocona General Hospital in Texas had an alarming number of elderly patients die under its care. At the same time, administrators noted several missing vials of the paralytic Mivacron. During their investigation into over 20 deaths, authorities soon zeroed in on Vickie Dawn Jackson because she was often the last nurse reported to be in the victims’ rooms. When police searched her home, they found a discarded syringe in her trash, which was positive for Mivacron. Facing 10 capital murder charges, Jackson entered a plea of no contest and was sentenced to life in prison.

Jeanne Weber [aka The Ogress of Goutte-d’Or]

In 1906, French serial killer Jeanne Weber, who earned the nickname the Ogress of Goutte-d’Or, was accused of the murders of 8 children, including three of her own and several nieces and nephews. Despite visible bruising on their necks, medical professionals attributed the deaths to natural causes. She was ultimately acquitted of these crimes. Just a year later, Weber, using a different name, was apprehended and released again after another youth perished under her care. In October 1908, she claimed her 10th and final victim, the son of an innkeeper. Months later, Weber was declared insane. She lived out the rest of her days in a psychiatric hospital until passing away in 1918.

Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova [aka the Saltychikha]

Often compared to Hungary’s notorious “Blood Countess” Elizabeth Báthory, Darya Nikolayevna Saltykova was suspected of committing up to 138 murders. The Russian noblewoman regularly subjected her predominantly female servants to physical abuse, which ended in their demise. After years of getting away with murder, Saltykova was finally arrested in 1762 and later convicted of killing 38 serfs. Her many accomplices were also punished. Under the rule of Empress Catherine II, aka Catherine the Great, Saltykova was publicly humiliated in 1768. She was sent to serve her life sentence in Moscow’s Ivanovsky Convent until she died in 1801.

Reta Mays

In July 2017, US Army veteran Reta Mays began working as a nursing assistant on Ward 3A of the Louis A. Johnson Veterans Medical Center, in West Virginia. From then until June 2018, over 100 patients died, many suffering a sudden hypoglycemic “event” beforehand. Mays injected lethal doses of insulin, most of whom were not diabetic. Mays was fired in June 2018, but wasn’t apprehended until July 2020. While there was a large number of deceased patients, she was only charged with seven murders. She pleaded guilty to all counts of second degree murder and one count of attempted murder. In 2021, Mays received seven consecutive life sentences with an additional 20 years.

Helen Patricia Moore

In 1978, Helen Patricia Moore lost her younger half-brother Andrew to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Two months later, the Australian babysitter was watching her little cousin, Suzanne, when she, too, died from the disease. While on another babysitting job, Moore attempted to kill a boy named Aaron, who survived but was left maimed and died later. In 1980, her mother, Jesse, discovered her son, Peter, was unresponsive; Moore then confessed to killing her young step-brother. The juvenile offender was charged with the murders of Suzanne, Aaron, and Peter, and two attempted murders, earning her three life sentences, plus 10 more years. However, Moore only spent 13 years behind bars before she was released in 1993.

Lydia Sherman [aka The Derby Poisoner]

Lydia Sherman, aka the Derby Poisoner, murdered several victims using arsenic, beginning in 1864, with her first husband, Edward Struck. That year, the nurse also poisoned three of their six children, and in 1865, the remaining three met the same fate. In 1868, she married her second husband, Dennis Hurlburt, and killed him the same way shortly after. Two years later, she wed Horatio Sherman, who died from arsenic poisoning about a year after tying the knot. Lydia Sherman was finally caught in 1871 and sentenced to life in prison for second-degree murder. While she only admitted to the murders of her three husbands and four of her children, some believe she killed close to 11 people.

Which of these surprised you the most? Let us know in the comments below.