Everyone is capable of both bad and good deeds. But there are men and women in whom the evil principle seems to have finally triumphed over the good. And if you want to know to what dark depths a person who has rejected morality, pity and conscience can sink, we will tell you.
Introducing the top 10 most evil and cruel women in history. And the most brutal men will be the subject of a separate article.
10. Rosemary West
The English Rosemary and Fred West are known as one of the most ruthless and disgusting serial killers in history. They lured children and young women into their "House of Horrors", tortured and raped them for several days, then killed, dismembered the bodies, and buried under the house.
Rosemary was not a frightened wife, silently watching the actions of her husband. She took an active part in torture and rape, and also helped hide the bodies of the victims.
The couple did not even stop to molest and kill their own children, Heather and Sharmayne (for Rosemary, she was the stepdaughter).
Although the murders of 11 girls were confirmed during the investigation, up to 20 people may have died at the hands of the four Westes.
The Westes were arrested in 1994 for crimes committed mainly between 1973 and 1979. Although Fred committed suicide while awaiting trial, Rosemary became the second woman in British history to serve a life sentence.
9. Beverly Allitt
Another “devil” from Britain worked as a pediatric nurse and used the hospital ward as a den for her crimes. She injected potassium chloride, lignocaine or insulin to children to cause cardiac arrest. During a two-month period in 1991, she attacked 13 children, from newborns to 11-year-olds, killing four of them.
Allytt allegedly suffered from Munchausen syndrome, which caused her to hurt the children in order to save them or to be with them when they die.
In 1993, Allitt was sentenced to 13 life sentences in a Rampton Secure hospital in Nottingham. In 2007, a London court granted the Allitt petition and reduced the maximum period for conditional release from 40 to 30 years.
8. Dorothea Puente
The sweet little old woman who runs a boarding house for the elderly is unlikely to be your first candidate when it comes to the most evil and treacherous women in the world. But that was exactly Dorothea Puente. In her youth, she wandered, forged bank checks, ran a brothel, poisoned the elderly with hard drugs and more than once went to jail.
However, after she moved to Sacramento, California, the elderly Dorothea opened a boarding house for elderly, sick and needy people. Some people praised her for her kind character and hospitality, but in the end everyone saw the dark side of this place.
Nine sick and helpless elderly men and women were trapped and killed by Puente. In the house there was a real stench from decaying bodies that Dorothea buried without special frills in the garden. She attributed the stench to problems with sewers or dead rats.
In the crimes committed by Puente, there was "nothing personal, only business." The old killer used the disability benefits and social insurance of her victims, and also cashed their checks, spending money on clothes, cosmetics and even plastic surgery.
In 1993, Dorothea Puente was sentenced to 2 life sentences without the possibility of parole. She died in 2011 in prison.
7. Belle Gunness
One of the most famous serial killers committed their crimes not because of anger or anger, but for the sake of money - mainly for life insurance policies or for cash. In the end, Gunness earned about a quarter of a million dollars.
To amass such wealth, she killed both her husbands, all her children, friends, and most of the suitors she had in abundance. Presumably, she killed from 25 to 100 people.
And the most shocking fact is that Belle Gunness was never caught. After the fire in her house (during which another woman died), she fled and lived the rest of her days, without encountering the consequences of what she had done. In this case, to say that life is unfair means to downplay the century!
6. Irma Grese
One of the most brutal women in the history of mankind, nicknamed the "Bolzensky Beast", was the overseer in the death camps Ravensbrück, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. She set hungry dogs on prisoners, beat people with a whip, and selected those who went into the gas chamber or for experiments with Dr. Josef Mengele.
Why did some women commit monstrous war crimes that could serve as a source for creating the worst horror films? Were they evil by nature or sincerely believed that they were “simply following orders”? That we will never know. But we know that Irma Grese was one of the youngest Nazis hanged for her crimes. At the time of her execution in 1945, she was only 22 years old.
5. Dagmar Overby
The most famous lawsuit in the history of Denmark was related to a woman who was killing defenseless orphans. However, Dagmar did not seem to see the difference between them and her own child, whom she also killed.
Crimes were committed between 1913-1920, and during this time Overby was drowned, burned in an oven and strangled 25 children. However, Danish justice managed to prove only 9 murders. But there were enough of them to send a monster in a skirt for life imprisonment. Dagmar died in prison in 1929.
4. Ilse Koch
The Nazi, nicknamed "Buchenwald Witch" and "Buchenwald Bitch", was the wife of the commandant of the concentration camps Buchenwald and Majdanek Karl-Otto Koch. She was sadly famous as one of the most cruel women of all time thanks to her monstrous treatment of prisoners. Elsa ordered the skin with tattoos removed from the killed people to be used to create lampshades for lamps, book covers, gloves and other accessories. She personally beat the prisoners, set a dog on them, and watched the killings and rape with pleasure.
After the war, Koch was sentenced to life imprisonment, then released on the orders of American General Lucius Clay, who considered the charges against Ilse insufficiently proven. Clay’s decision provoked a public outcry, so Ilse Koch was arrested again, and in 1967 she committed suicide by hanging herself in a cell.
3. Maria Mandel
If other women from Nazi Germany, known for their atrocities, received nicknames at the place of their work (for example, “Buchenwald Bitch”, etc.), then Mary Mandel was nicknamed “short beast”. This woman, who was in charge of the women's units in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, was involved in the murder of half a million prisoners.
By order of Mandel, hundreds of thousands of women and children went into the gas chambers. She also ordered the killing of any prisoner who, passing by, dared to cast a glance at Mandel.
In 1945, a German gas chamber fell into the hands of the US military. Despite requests for pardon, she was hanged in 1948.
2. Daria Saltykova
In the history of Russia there were also women who, without exaggeration, can be called bloodthirsty nonhumans. Perhaps the most famous of them was the landowner Daria Saltykova (Saltychikha).
This sadist and serial killer is known for having tortured dozens of her serfs, mostly women and girls, to death. The victims were pulled out their hair, beaten with their heads against the wall, left naked in the cold, doused with boiling water, and there were even rumors that Saltychikha was killing or boiling babies.
The news of these atrocities reached Catherine II, who ultimately deprived Daria Saltykov of the dignity of a noblewoman. She was placed in a monastery prison, where she died.
1. Erzhebet Bathory
The Hungarian countess entered the Guinness Book of Records as the woman who committed the highest number of murders in history. The exact number of her victims is unknown, the estimated 650 people. Some historians call the figure at 2,000 people.
Over 300 witnesses have confirmed the facts about the murders committed by Bathory and her bestial cruelty. She mutilated and killed young girls, and, according to unconfirmed reports, bathed in the blood of virgins in order to preserve youth and beauty. She was also credited with vampirism and black magic.
After the trial of Erzhebet, the countess was immured in solitary confinement in the castle of ейтеate. Food was served to her through a small hole in the door. In 1614, the bloody countess died in custody, forever remaining in the memory of descendants as the most terrible of female maniacs.
