When it comes to crimes, men keep their monopoly as in most of the fields. However, there have been some notorious women who found a place for themselves in history books for their heinous crimes 6 notorious female criminals in history.
Mary Ann Cotton
Perhaps the most infamous of woman serial killers, Mary Ann Cotton was one of the cruelest female characters in history. She married four times, and all of her husbands and their children died of same type of stomach fever. She inherited large sum of insurance amounts each time, which was bound to arouse suspicions at one point. Eventually the media caught up with her modus operandi, and she was proven to have poisoned her husbands, friends and even her mother and children with arsenic. Collectively, she murdered as many as 21 people, including 11 of her children. Of Mary Ann’s 13 children, only two survived. She was arrested and hanged at Durham County Gaol on 24 March 1873.
Bonnie Parker
Bonnie was the accomplice and lover of Clyde Barrow, who together went on a crime spree during the Great Depression. They with their Barrow gang conducted a series of robberies, kidnappings and murders, evading the police on every occasion. They continued their rampage for four years, till they were caught in a planned ambush in 1934. Bonnie and Clyde were shot and killed in the attack, but their legend, notorious as it is, stayed in the popular culture.
Bonnie Parker named one of the most notorious female criminals in history. In addition to other crimes like robberies, she is most prolific murderess too. She along-with her gang is believed to have killed at least 9 police officers and several civilians.
Patty Hearst
The story of Patty Hearst is a fascinating one. She was the heiress of media baron William Randolph Hearst and was kidnapped by guerrilla gang Symbionese Liberation Army when she was a college student. Later she appeared in a video declaring she had joined SLA. She was also caught in surveillance cameras conducting a bank robbery and wielding a gun. The police caught her within a year and she was sentenced in prison for seven years. She was later pardoned.
Diane Downs
One of the worst mothers in history, Diane Downs, tried to kill all of her children to keep her boyfriend who never wanted kids. Downs shot her children and drove to hospital with them in car. She fabricated a tale of carjacking, and to back up the story, she had inflicted a wound on herself. Only her second child had died, and the testimony of her oldest daughter proved the mother’s cruel act. She was given a life sentence. A movie named “Small Sacrifices” made on her life. It was inspired by the book of same name by Ann Rule. She’s named one of the histroy’s most notorious female criminals.
Lizzie Borden
The prime suspect of the sensational Fall River murders of 1892, Lizzie Borden was figured in one of the gruesome episodes of American history. According to her story, she found her father dead on his couch, covered in blood and his left eyeball split in half. Her stepmother was discovered in same fashion in a bedroom. Lizzie’s testimony was inconsistent and there was an overwhelming amount of evidence against her, including the maid’s testimony. Despite this, she was acquitted and the mystery remained unsolved.
Sandra Avila Beltran
Known as the Queen of the Pacific, Sandra Avila Beltran was one of the fearsome drug traffickers of her time. She was leader of the Sinaloa cartel and partner and lover of Colombian drug trafficker Juan Diego Espinos. Beltran once controlled a big share of the drug trafficking between Colombia and Mexico. She had a luxurious lifestyle, and she reportedly kept it even in prison after she was arrested.
