One California radio station, for instance, put up a billboard with a Peterson mugshot framed with the question Man or Monster? and asked listeners to weigh in on his guilt or innocence. Her fourth husband wasnt so lucky. Kelly Cochran helped her husband kill her boyfriend and then she turned around and killed her husband, too. 2023 BBC. A national drama ensues, as the media looks for answers. Some female bluebeards include Mrs. Bluebeard, the Lady Bluebeard, and even one woman who was dubbed the High Priestess of the Bluebeard Clique. Castor then busied herself writing a murder confession wherein Ashley confessed to the crime. In June 2014, 27-year-old Marine Christopher Lee murdered his mistress, 19-year-old Erin Corwin. A movie based on her life and crimes is currently in the works. And in fact, theres nothing inherently noteworthy about murderous husbands, because, as we now know, more than half of women murdered are killed by a current or former intimate partner. After stranglingCorwin, Lee threw her body downa mine shaft. Barry Morphew previously said investigators were trying to blame him for the May 10 disappearance of his wife, Suzanne. According to Japanese authorities, between 1994 and 2013, at least seven men that Kakehi a.k.a. "If you start looking at all these cases, there's planning, determination, there's always coercive control.". Here are the top ten rulers who killed their wives. Real Adults Who Convinced Kids to Do Their Bidding, 12 Husbands Who Killed The Woman They Were Cheating With To Stay Out of Trouble, he was released from jail in February 2017 on a legal technicality, Peng hit his mistress in the head with a rock, in June 2010, he was convicted of second-degree murder, wanted her married lover to choose her or his wife. After murdering his victims, Landru, who was called the "Bluebeard of Gambais" for his crimes, dismembered the women's bodies and burned their remains in his oven, eliminating any traces of their corpses. Victoria Cilliers, a keen skydiver and parachuting instructor, was taking part in a 4,000ft jump when the incident happened. Its unclear what led prosecutors to charge Barry Morphew this week in his wifes disappearance, and 11th Judicial District Attorney Linda Stanley said court documents and sworn affidavits would remain sealed. Law enforcement investigated theleadand on July 1, 1975, Smith - who was dubbed the "Bluebeard of the Bath" - was convicted of three counts of murder and given the death penalty for his crimes. Criminology expert Dr Jane Monckton Smith found an eight-stage pattern in 372 killings in the UK. Women who are known as Black Widow killers devour their mates assets after killing him. According to the BBC, at one of Wilsons many wedding receptions, her friend asked her: "What shall we do with these sandwiches and cake?" Police didnt buy it, though, and Castor was arrested for murdering David and attempting to murder Ashley. She added: "A greater understanding will also reduce misleading and damaging headlines which cite jealousy, an affair or heartbreak as the reasons why women are killed by a current or former partner.". On February 25, 1922, 52-year-old Landru was executed by guillotine in Versailles, France. She was sentenced to death in 1958 for murdering two of these husbands with beetle poison in 1956 and 1957. De Souza had met her at a party, and Samudio ended up pregnant. (Prosecutors didnt believe his story.) "For being so fussy, you old fool." With national humour like that, it is perhaps not surprising that 15,000 Russian women were beaten to death by . Everybody liked him, was the Daily Beasts headline take on Watts. She was convicted and sentenced to 51 years, but died in prison earlier this year. Between 1911 and 1916, a staggering 48 of her residents died in this mannerthis includes five of her husbands, all of whom were found dead of arsenic poisoning. By the time she was 38, Klimek's first husband had passed away, and she went on to marry three more times, with her second and third spouses dying under mysterious circumstances. Police arrested husband Robert Blake. We want to hear it. (George W. Bush, a master at stoking minivan majority hopes and fears, even renamed a fetus-rights bill the Laci and Conner law in 2003.) Her seventh marriage only lasted a month before her unfortunate suitor croaked. But he changed his mind, and he went to a police station to confess to the murder. Her response was to blame them for the murders. According to legend, Polish immigrant Tillie Klimek posed as a psychic who predicted the deaths not only of three husbands for insurance money, but of several neighborhood dogs, a neighbor woman who was suspicious about her husbands deaths, and three children who belonged to a family with whom shed been quarreling. Allen was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Gentrys brother was convinced that Neumar was behind it, and urged police to re-open the case. Wilson replied: "We'll keep them for the funeral." Nearly one-third (31%) of the husbands had a history of drug abuse, compared to 9% of the wives. When her husband Bruce came home from work one day in June 1986 complaining of a headache, thrill-seeking bored housewife Stella Nickell fed him four Extra-Strength Excedrin capsules shed laced with cyanide. Neighbors place flowers in front of the Watts home in Frederick, Colorado, in August. Katherine Knight had a long history of violence towards the men in her life, all ramping up to the shockingly brutal murder of her boyfriend. While out on parole, Southard died of a heart attack on February 2, 1958 at the age of 65. Knight was promptly arrested. Six women are killed every hour by men around the world, most by men in their own family or their partners. Still, what really happened remains unclear, since Watts only confessed to strangling his wife in a rage because he claimed he had seen her strangling their daughters on a baby monitor. Among white victims murdered by their spouse, wives were much less likely to be the killers: 38% of the victims were husbands and 62% were wives. Her special brewa mix of arsenic, belladonna, and leadcalled "Aqua Tofana . An autopsy revealed that Malone had not been pregnant. She invited the 20 year old over for a drink, and dosed her with so many pills that she wound up in a coma for 17 hours. Two years later she contacted her daughter Ashley, suggesting they should drink together to mourn Davids passing. Many of these bluebeards were married multiple times, often failing to get divorced before remarrying, making them bigamists as well as killers. So why do stories about Scott Peterson and Chris Watts become national talking points? Rita Gluzman was a Jewish expatriate of the Soviet Union who resettled in the USA with her Ukrainian-born husband, prominent cancer researcher Yakov Gluzman. And when it comes to women above the age of 18 killed by an intimate partner, most [79.2 percent] were killed by a current partner and 14.3 percent were killed by a former partner. Alice Ruggles was murdered by her ex-boyfriend in 2016, Dr Monckton Smith said she believes her homicide timeline model can prevent killings. In this particular suburban imaginary, so-called inner-city crimes involving people of color are seen as normal, non-newsworthy pathologies of the underclass. For 50 years in the mid-1600s, she helped wives kill their husbands. She murdered her sixth husband, Jimmy Don Beets, in 1983. The Peterson story first garnered coverage in Modesto, California, in 2002, and focused on Laci, a mother-to-be, who vanished on Christmas Eve. When I found they had money, I went after that.". But after Yakov filed for divorce citing Ritas abusiveness and lavish spending, she began plotting her revenge. Lying in bed with her bones all rotten. Yet stories like Watts and Petersons are still positioned as supposedly shocking anomalies, and become investigations into an apolitical idea about individually evil men and sociopaths not, say, incels or participants in toxic masculinity. (That particular gruesome detail is one that lingered in peoples minds, and that commenters on Reddit threats and YouTube videos brought up time and time again.). After the conviction, her lawyers argued that since she had been physically and sexually abused her whole life first raped at five years old, she accused her husbands of abuse as well she should be granted clemency. In June 2014, 27-year-old Marine Christopher Lee murdered his mistress, 19-year-old Erin Corwin. She was found guilty of arson and murder and is serving life plus 30 years. Detectives concluded shed killed him with a muscle paralyzer and then set the room ablaze. Soon after, a man identified as Trent Bolte came forward on social media to say he too had an affair with Watts, alleging that Chris told him he was trapped in a loveless marriage. "We really believe that if this model gets out there and people start acting on it, then it will improve things for people and very likely save lives.". An army sergeant has been found guilty of attempting to murder his wife just five weeks after she gave birth. A photograph of Shanann Watts and her daughters, Bella, 4, left, and Celeste, 3, is shown at a makeshift memorial in Frederick, Colorado. He had an affair with a woman named Phyllis Malone, who said she became pregnant. The female black widow spider devours the male after copulating. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! Authorities announced on April 18, 2003, that the remains found at Point Isabel Shoreline Park in Richmond, California, were those of Laci Peterson. The suburban context becomes a visual trope in these stories that trades on viewers (presumed) emotional resonance with the idea of home, with the white suburban family inside and some unknown outside force threatening it. In 2003, Castor married David Castor. These cases both became big scandals because they play on a very particular, conservative moral framework thats popular with tabloids and cable news. Read about our approach to external linking. They broke down the door and found David Castor dead with a bottle of antifreeze at his side. When, in 2012, Ahmad Otak stabbed and killed Samantha Sykes, 18, and Kimberley Frank, 17, Otak was not the boyfriend of either of them but of Kimberley's sister. (Courtesy of Suzanne Morphew's Family). All rights reserved. But rather than settling the question of Petersons guilt in the media narrative and the publics view, details that emerged after the discovery of the bodies did the opposite. This list of married serial killers includes some of the most notorious criminals in history. These black widows named after the desert spiders whose deadly female often eats their partner after sex act out their anger, sociopathic tendencies, or desire for financial gain by killing their husbands and boyfriends, or in Cochrans case, both. Malonerefused to abort their baby, and she threatened to tell Jones's wife about their affair. Alessa Dominguez is a senior culture writer for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York. Her smiling visage, juxtaposed with the lurid details inside, spoke to many womens fears about the humiliation of everyone knowing but you.