Black Widow Women – Female Serial Killers

Women Who Commit Violent Crime Often do it for Financial Security

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Black Widow Spider  - Tarantula Breeding
Black Widow Spider - Tarantula Breeding
Financial security is usually at the root of the needs of women who commit violent crimes, even those they call the Black Widows.

It is true that most violent crime is committed by the male of the species, but there is a certain kind of woman who preys on her victim, usually on a husband or partner, even a relative. This kind of woman predator is called a Black Widow.

Most women may be physically weaker than most men and statistics show that women are not nearly so inclined to violent crime anywhere in the world. Women also seem to feature more prominently in certain types of crimes, like fraud and embezzlement, even in violent crimes concerned with the taking of a life, where strangers are not often their victims. When women turn to murder, their modus operandi is usually to prey on their nearest and dearest.

Famous Black Widows

  • Lyda Catherine Ambrose left a trail of five dead husbands and lovers in her quest for insurance policy payoffs.
  • The publicity-seeking merry widow Elfriede "Sugar" Blauensteiner had two obsessions: Gambling and pharmacy. Her last victim, retired and wealthy answered her personal ad and survived just five weeks.
  • Judias Buenoano hid behind various pseudonyms for years while she went about killing a couple of husbands, a fiancée, and a son for their money.
  • Lydia Trueblood of Pocatello, Iowa, poisoned an offspring, five husbands, and an in-law earlier in the 20th century.
  • Germany's Maria Velten poisoned two husbands, a lover, an aunt, and even her father during the 1960s and 1970s.

They Destroy Their Mates for Profit - Female Serial Killers

One kind of female serial killer, the most notorious and elusive, and also maybe misunderstood is theatrically called the Black Widow, a nickname that refers to the highly poisonous spiders who destroy their mates when their usefulness is over.

Three-quarters of the time, this group of women seemingly kill strictly for profit. They live off life insurance policies, pensions, and other assets gained from "sudden" deaths of close relations — husbands, children, grandchildren, stepchildren, sisters, brothers, mothers and fathers.

(It is a fact that male multiple murderers do not usually kill for financial gain. Most male serial killers have a deep psychological fantasy that they need to play out.)

South African Profiler’s Theory

Dr Micki Pistorius, a South African forensic psychologist and criminal profiler researched the correlation between the economic and psychological needs of these women and found the answer in the motivational theory of psychologist Abraham Maslow.

“Although wealth may seem to be an external gratification to others, female serial killers kill for money to gratify their deep, deprived psychological need for security,” says Dr Pistorius in her book Fatal Females: Women who Kill (Penguin, 2005).

Targets Are Changing; Strangers are Becoming victims

However, Christiana Evripidou of the University of Virginia found in a 2004 study that the traditional targets of the Black Widow may be changing. "An increase in strangers as victims has occurred in recent years," she says.

So although it seems as though the Black Widows may be targeting strangers rather than loved ones and family members more often than in the past, they may still be killing more as a substitute for security rather than just from pure greed and covetousness as many people believe.

Source:

Black Widows: Veiled in Their Own Web of Darkness by Joseph Geringer. TruTV. Criminal Psychology.

Fatal Females: Women who Kill. Micki Pistorius, Penguin Books (2004).

Crimezzz.net Serial killer crime index.

Karen Lotter, Ros Sarkin

Karen Lotter - Karen Lotter is a journalist and writer based in Durban, South Africa. She has written profiles, features, advertising copy, ...

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Jan 9, 2011 12:11 AM
Guest :
A recent movie called the Exterminators showed a woman who had a pest control company who along with several other women she met in an anger management class, turned to terminating other pests, ex's but they too were all male.

This is loosely based upon history. A woman in Europe in the 18th century had a school to teach others how to poison people. She only accepted women in the school and their potential victim also had to be male. It is my understanding that well over 3,000 males were dispatched before anyone caught on or suspected it although a much higher number of people were getting sick and dying. We know that males are the weaker sex and they do die at a faster rate than women but when only males were dying, it would seem someone would have caught on sooner.

Even though I am a male, if either gender is a victim of murder, I would rather it be a male than a woman or child. You may not agree with my reasoning but women are the superior gender as shown by a lot of evidence and the fact that males still commit 90% of the murders is just one of the pieces of evidence, and it is what enables a few women to get away with murder a little easier as no one suspects women of being able to murder.
May 15, 2011 12:04 AM
Guest :
Even though I am a male, if either gender is a victim of murder, I would rather it be a male than a woman or child.

I too am a male and I agree with this. I think most would too. After all, the title "black widow" talks about how female spiders kill the male but even the Black Widow male does escape at times. The Redback spider male lives to be about 3 months and mates ONE time as it is always fatal for the male. The female lives about 3 years and mates many times, killing the male each time. (this would be like human males living to be 6 or 7 while women live to be 80) This shows the focus in nature is always on the female and the male is just a necessary tag a long.

The fact that most people think women should not be in wars also shows that most think that women should not die violently. The Civil War killed 660 thousand males but only 60 women. I think the 60 women should have been protected better if if it meant another 1 or 2 thousand males would have died.

As to Black Widows, some of the males they killed my have deserved it. I do think any woman should be able to kill any male who is trying to attack her or her children.
Jul 8, 2011 9:41 AM
Guest :
Very good explanation. My elderly wealthy neighbor married his 4th wife - she on her 5th husband - three of which disappeared mysteriously. I predict, this young gold digger is going to kill my neighbor and friend and he doesn't care because the sex is too good. Also he has dimentia and is a drunk. She's on her way to wiping him out financially and I predict when she is through with him, he is good for dead. I just hope she gets caught.
Jul 14, 2011 2:11 AM
Guest :
"You may not agree with my reasoning but women are the superior gender as shown by a lot of evidence "

It may surprise some to know that even though I am a male too, I fully agree with the above comment that women are superior to the males. Since the other comment agrees that if either gender is a victim of murder, it should be a male, it would seem like at least 3 males agree women are superior. In reality, I think most women and males know that we males are the inferior sex.

"The Natural Superiority of Women" is a good book that shows solid evidence that women are the superior gender. It starts by showing that every human starts out female but it goes on to say that at one certain stage of development something "goes horribly wrong" and some of us (myself included) end up to be male. In short, we males are a mutation of a female. (Seldom is a mutation good)

One comment stated that the last update of this book was in 1999 and since than a lot more has been learned.

Recently there have been several news items regarding this. Some say males will disappear totally. Others say we will still be around but not really needed. Before machines were invented, males were needed for their muscles for physical work. Now that machines can do all of that, males are not needed as much as we once were.

Now there is a book that can fill in that 21 year gap.

"Man Down" by Dan Abrams

Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt That Women Are Better Cops, Drivers, Gamblers, Spies, World Leaders, Beer Tasters, Hedge Fund Managers, and Just About Everything Else

Someone said that now that women are getting an equal chance, women are surpassing males in almost every area. This is what Abrams said is the reason for this book.

"There’s a lot more evidence now. A lot of the studies from the book are from the last three years. It’s only been in the last twenty or so years, that women have been on a relatively even playing field in terms of work to do many of these studies. We weren’t able to make fair comparisons before, because women were a fraction of the working world. Now we’re see women taking over the majority in many professions. But only recently has there been enough time to look back to compare men versus women and only recently has there been real interest."

Abrams said a vast majority of lead researchers are male, but the broad trend trackers are women. so it may be that males are beginning to wake up and smell the roses that male superiority is history. Actually, males never were superior as women have always been superior to males.

Women have a better sense of smell, taste, and new research is suggesting the fact that women tend to endure pain more makes them more immune to it. It’s the old aphorism, “That which doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Women survive injury better than males do and 77% of those who die in traffic accidents are male. Women have 34 more nerve fibers per square centimeter of facial skin, while men have an average of 17. This brings up sexual pleasure. Women have hundreds of times more nerve endings in their vagina than males have in their penis and as a result a male's orgasm pales to a woman's. A woman feels it in all of her body for several moments and it can be repeated many times in a short time. A male's orgasm consists of a few throbs of his penis and it is over in usually much less than a minute. He usually cannot have another one for several hours. Someone said that it is like Niagara Falls for women, a dripping faucet (no pun intended) for males.

Women live an average of five years longer than men. The reasons for this are both genetic and behavior-based. First of all, women have stronger immune systems, again due to estrogen which aids the fight against disease-inducing enzymes. But women are also less likely to engage in risky behavior. Almost all of the Darwin Award winners are male. Usually 9 or more males kill themselves for each woman who does to get this award.

Women make better doctors. While forty percent of doctors are women, 80 percent of those under investigation for medical misconduct or incompetence are male. In the U.S., there were similar findings. Male physicians were twice as likely to be sued as women


He does list things males are better at: Males are better at parking, they’re better dieters, they have better distance vision, and they read maps better. Males do have larger muscles, so they tend to be better at some sports but women far excel males in endurance sports.

A woman's body can more efficiently process oxygen. When it comes to ultra-marathons—say, a 135 mile race without sleep—women can beat men. Remember the first male that ran a marathon died and when we read about someone dying while playing sports or running a race, it is far more likely it will be a male.

When looking at sex change operations, we will notice that a few hundred males want to become women for every woman who wants to become a male. Still these males would not become members of the superior gender as their DNA would still be male thus keeping them inferior to women.

Even in combat, women are better sharp shooters and if the battle of the sexes every turned into a real war, we males would not have a chance. All the males would all be dead while 3/4 or more women remained alive and unharmed.

It is a given that males need women far more than women need males but lets count our lucky stars that most women still want us around.

With Montagu's book, I use to think women had a 80 out of 100 advantage over us males. With his last update in 1999 I raised that to 85 to 100. Now with this new book, it looks like women have a 95 to 100 advantage over males and if it keeps up since women have grown so much in the last 20 to 30 years, soon they will have total advantage over anyone that has the misfortune of being born with testicles. From what I see around me, I too am glad women are the SUPERIOR gender and MALES are the inferior one.
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