Evil or Insane? The Female Serial Killer and Her Doubly Deviant Femininity(8) Helen Gavin

 

Evil or Insane? The Female Serial Killer and Her Doubly Deviant Femininity(8) 

Helen Gavin

7.   Couples who kill (8)

On the 23rd May, 1934, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker were shot to death by police in Louisiana, the culmination of one of the most spectacular manhunts of the time. They were understood to have committed 13 murders, usually during the commission of armed robberies. Barrow was also suspected of killing two police officers and kidnapping a couple in Louisiana.[i] When Parker met Barrow she was already married to an imprisoned killer; it is clear that she was attracted to Barrow for being a dangerous person. The paraphilia of being sexually aroused by someone who has committed an outrageous or horrific crime is called Hybristophilia but it has also been dubbed the Bonnie and Clyde syndrome.

Some women do attach themselves to men and fall into a downward spiral of behaviour that the world sees as depravity. Notable examples include Myra Hindley, the female part of the Moors Murderers, who abducted, sexually assaulted, tortured and murdered at least five children between July 1963 and October 1965. At her death, in prison, Hindley was dubbed the most evil woman in Britain, an astonishing epithet for someone who never actually killed anyone, even though she was complicit in the murders. Another notable pairing of interest is the Wests, Fred and Rosemary (known as Rose). These two managed to rape and murder at least 10 women and girls, including their own daughter and step-daughter, over a 20-year period. The subservient nature of the woman is less clear here, as Rose was undoubtedly the killer in at least one case. A more probable case study for the subservient partner is Karla Homolka, who drugged her teenage sister and gave her as a present to her husband, Paul Bernardo, because he wanted to deflower a virgin. Together they were responsible for the deaths of several women during the 1990’s. There are unconfirmed reports that Homolka has been diagnosed with hybristophilia.[ii]

So we have the picture of our female serial killer as the subservient partner to a murderous husband or make lover. Not all such pairings are heterosexual though, which makes the argument around male dominance a little shaky. Gwendolyn Graham and Cathy Wood met when they both worked as nurse's aides. They became lovers, practicing sexual asphyxia, but also murdering as a sexual game. They openly boasted about the murders, but no-one believed them, except Wood’s ex-husband, who contacted the police. Graham was convicted of five murders, Wood was charged with one count of second-degree murder and one count of conspiracy to commit second-degree murder.[iii]

So, we may not be able to identify the majority of female serial killers as subservient partners to men, but we do have a hint at a further category, the caring professional.

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[i] The Federal Bureau of Investigation in the USA (2011) holds an archive in which Bonnie and Clyde’s crimes are described. http://vault.fbi.gov

[ii] Stephen Williams, Invisible Darkness: The Strange Case Of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka (Toronto: Random House Publishing Group.,2009). 20

[iii] Tobin Buhk and Stephen Cohle, Skeletons in the Closet (New York: Prometheus Books, 2007).25 .