CRIMES OF THE CENTURY: WOMEN KILLERS

Murder is a terrifying factor of everyday life but when the perpetrator is a woman it somehow makes it much more difficult for most of society to comprehend. In truth women killers have been a real fact of life throughout history. Mary Ansell poisoned her own sister in the late 19th century in order to collect life insurance and became the youngest woman at the age of 22 to be hanged in the modern era. Ruth Ellis was the last woman to be executed in Britain when she was convicted for the murder of her lover David Blakely in 1955. Less than 10 years later Myra Hindley was identified as one of the notorious Moors murderers alongside Ian Brady the couple being responsible for the deaths of five children. Beverley Allitt was convicted in 1993 of murdering four children attempting to murder three others and causing grievous bodily harm to a further six children while working as a nurse at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire. Meanwhile Rosemary Rose West was yet to be discovered. In 1995 she was convicted of the torture and murder of at least 10 young women alongside her husband Fred West at the couples home in Gloucester. CRIMES OF THE CENTURYury Women Killers takes a disturbing look at the minds and crimes of some of the worlds worst female serial murderers as well as those that managed to defy and evade the authorities resulting in the deaths of vulnerable children at the hands of their own mothers.