10 of the Most Evil Women in History

Traditionally, women are often thought to be weaker, less aggressive, and much less violent than their male counterpart. Women are assumed to be more caring, nurturing, and much more compassionate than men.So, it’s absolutely shocking when a woman breaks the stereotype to commit such a heinous crime.

Here is a list of ten women whose actions are filled will such evil, that it’s nearly impossible for a ordinary human being to understand:

1. Gertrude Baniszewski

Known as the ‘Torture Mother,’GertrudeBaniszewski had a creepy passion for abusing others. An Indiana divorcee, Baniszewskiinstigated and facilitated the prolonged torture, mutilation, and murder of Sylvia Likens, a teenage girl she had taken into her home. What makes Baniszewskiso evil is that she coerced her own seven children and other neighborhood kids to beat, torture and sexually abuse Sylvia. In one particular incident, Baniszewski even forced Sylvia to rape herself with a Coke bottle.

Indianapolis police laterfound Sylvia’s dead body on a mattress, starved, bruised, bleeding, and burned.

Baniszewski, her daughter Paula, her son John, and two neighborhood youths, Coy Hubbard and Richard Hobbs, were tried and convicted of torturing and murdering Sylvia Likens.

2. Mary Ann Cotton

Mary Ann Cotton was an English serial killer who was responsible for the deaths of her two husbands, three lovers, her mother and at least 11 of her 13 children. It is likely that she murdered three of her four husbands in order to collect on their insurance policies. Her secret murder weapon was arsenicpoisoning, which causes gastric pain and rapid decline of health.

Cotton was hanged at Durham County Gaol in March 1873. It was a slow and agonizing death for her. Rather than her neck breaking, she died of strangulation from the rope being too short, possibly done intentionally.

3. Myra Hindley

Myra Hindleywas a British serial killer who kidnapped, raped, tortured, and killed five children alongside her boyfriend, Ian Brady.

Three of the children they killed were under the age of 12 and two were in their mid-teens.

Hindley’s 17-year-old brother-n-law notified police of her crimes. She was arrested and pled ‘not guilty’ to all of the murders. But she was found guilty of three murders and imprisoned for life after an audio recording emerged of her egging Brady on.

She died in jail in 2002.

4. Belle Gunness

Belle Gunnessswas a Norwegian-American serial killer who was reported to have murdered more than 40 people before disappearing without a trace. A physically strong woman, she stood six feet tall and weighed over 200 pounds.

Gunness killed most of her suitors and boyfriends, as well as her two daughters, Myrtle and Lucy. She was thought to have also killed both of her husbands and all of their children. Her apparent motives involved collecting life insurance, cash and other valuables, and of course, getting rid of any witnesses.

5. Irma Grese

Irma Grese was a female SS guard at the Nazi concentration camps of Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, and was the most notorious of the female Nazi war criminals. In fact, she was nicknamed by the camps’ inmates “the Hyena of Auschwitz”. Grese also served as warden of the women’s section of Bergen-Belsen.

She was convicted for crimes against humanity and sentenced to death at the Belsen trial. She was executed at the age of 22, and was the youngest woman to die judicially under British law in the 20th century.

6. Queen Mary I

Queen Mary I(18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), daughter of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, was the Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.

She is best known for her religious persecutions of Protestants and the executions of over 300 subjects, earning the nickname “Bloody Mary.”

7. Marie-Madeleine-Marguerite d’Aubray, Marquise de Brinvilliers

This French noblewoman was executed after murdering her father and two brothers as revenge for putting her lover, Captain Godin de Sainte-Croix, in jail. Sainte-Croix had reportedly helped her after learning how to poison a person from his cellmate in prison.

After the crimes were discovered, she escaped but was eventually arrested and was beheaded in Paris in 1676.

She was also accused of the murders of many poor people who visited her asking for charity. She practiced her killing techniques on them before poisoning her family, and those early killings she got away with because her victims were poor.

8.Ranavalona I

Ranavalona was Queen of Madagascar from 1833 to 1839 and she very worked at trying to keep her country safe from European influence that was overtaking Africa at the time. She also despised the growing Christian movement that was spreading across the continent.

Known as the Mad Queen of Madagascar, she was as bad, if not worse, than the colonizers that she hated. She employed violent military campaigns to expand her empire and also used forced labor to build her grand palace.

Ranavalona was also known for applying torturous tactics against her enemies, including; progressive amputation, crucifixion, pouring boiling water over victims’ heads, sawing people in half and forced death marches.

During her six-year reign, the population of Madagascar decreased by half from 5 million to 2.5 million.

9. Marie DelphineLalaurie

Marie DelphineLalaurie, a prominent New Orleans socialite, was known for torturing and killing slaves at her mansion.

Some rumored instances of her abuse included the death of a young girl that she had whipped for catching a snag while brushing Lalaurie’shair.

Another instance was in 1843 after a fire broke out at her mansion. When the authorities arrived, it was revealed that the cook had chained herself to the stove by her ankle, and lit the fire in an attempt to commit suicide.

When witnesses asked for the keys to the slave quarters to check that everyone had been evacuated,LaLaurie refused. So, they broke down the doors and found seven slaves badly mutilated and suspended by the neck.

Her mansion was sacked by an angry mob soon after that and she escaped to Paris, where she remained until her death.

10. Hélène Jégado

Hélène Jégado is a 19th-century French woman who was known as “The Pious Poisoner” because she poisoned at least 36 people, including her sister and a priest.

Her killing spree began in late September 1833 when she murdered seven people, including Fr. François Le Drogo, the priest she worked for at the time, and his elderly parent and her sister, who were visiting him.She was not suspected of murder right away because their deaths were attributed to a recent cholera outbreak in the region.

After that, three other people mysteriously died during a visit fromJegado, including her aunt. She then poisoned another family, which included a mother and daughter. Next, she killed the widow she roomed with and countless others she had cooked for while working for numerous families in the region.

Jegadowas finally arrested after killing two servant girls in the house of ThéophileBidard, a law professor at the University of Rennes.

She was executed by guillotine in 1852.