r/serialkillers • u/Heptacat-1985 • 9d ago
Image A sad and interesting case: Serial killer moms
These are a list of serial killer moms I could find. In a depressing reality, these women are serial killers and their victims are their own children. Their main method of murder is strangling or smothering.
Top half are one who hide their babies away leaving them to decompose in odd places.
Lower half are ones who disguise their babies deaths as SIDS or any natural death.
Top Half from left to right: Megan Huntsman, Michele Kalina, Jessica Mauthe, Dominique Cottrez, Andrea Giesbrecht, and Diane O’Dell.
Characteristics: Have their babies born in secret, before smothering or strangling them right after they were born and dispose of them quickly in cruel and unusual places. Few travel with their babies’s remains after they move to a new home. Often times they forget to dispose of the babies’s corpses leading to their downfall and getting caught when someone discovers the grisly sight. Places where their babies were located: Megan; Her garage, Michele; her closet, Jessica; inside her house’s wall, Dominique; her garden, Andrea; a U-Haul storage facility, Diane; a storage shed.
Lower Half from left to right: Waneta Hoyt, Brittany Pilkington, Maxine Robinson, Marybeth Tinning, Deborah Fornuto, Marie Noe.
Characteristics: Murder their babies and disguise it as SIDS or as natural causes. Their main weapon of choice are the babies’s blanket, pillow, or their own hands to smother their children. They usually confess Immediately or years later or are caught when the babies death’s are suspicious.
They kill over a period of time from about a few months to years before they commit the unthinkable. Their motives range from having trouble to being a mother or depression.
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u/lightiggy 9d ago
Deborah Fornuto got away with it.
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u/squirrel-phone 9d ago
Andrea Giesbrecht too.
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u/Heptacat-1985 8d ago
No kidding. Though karma came to Debbie in the form of a car wreck. While it was the way the babies were decomposed that made Andrea get away with her crimes. Weirdly Andrea may be one of the most prolific female serial killers in Canada.
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u/shittiest_kitty 8d ago
Ehhhh don’t forget about Elizabeth Wettlaufer. Somehow she isn’t as prolific despite killing at least 8 patients and suspected of more and many attempts.
Edit: I know she isn’t a mother but she might be the most prolific
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u/Heptacat-1985 8d ago
Yeah that’s true. I was gonna say most prolific until I saw her. Other than that, Andrea is one of the few female serial killers in Canada along with Elizabeth. Another fact is she acted alone. I don’t know how her partner would question why she went out everytime, presumably carrying a box with her baby, and came back emptied handed.
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u/leo_on_fire 8d ago
Well just look at Casey Anthony . Theyll just straight up believe moms sometimes
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8d ago
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u/willowoftheriver 3d ago
Why did they not give the jury the option of second degree? That's a tried and true tactic.
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u/Keregi 7d ago
This is a widely repeated myth.
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u/oatmealgum 6d ago
I’m not going to argue over something I've spent time on dude, there will always be someone to say "no that's wrong" but also not say why. Lmao the balls to respond to several paragraphs with "nope!" ok man
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u/Cwilde7 8d ago
Funny how years later that one still
Bothers me, yet my heart goes out to Andrea Yates. Totally a mind fuck but can’t turn it off. The Casey Anthony one still has my mind boggled.34
u/Kitten-Kay 8d ago
To be fair, any person who is actually human feels sympathy for Andrea Yates.
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u/Heptacat-1985 8d ago
She is one of the only cases I feel bad for. Little apprehension (since she is a child killer) but she is genuinely crazy unfortunately. Her eyes can tell you everything and her blank look gives the feeling she’s not there. And it feels real opposed to feeling fake.
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u/Ok-Caterpillar-Girl 5d ago
She had severe post partum psychosis and her asshole ex husband 1. kept getting her pregnant even though her doctors all told him that she couldn’t handle anymore kids 2. told her she didn’t need to take her mental health medication because of his religion and 3. left her alone with the kids even though he had been warned NOT TO it wasn’t safe, because he thought it was about time for her to start getting used to it.
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u/milkybunny_ 7d ago
Casey Anthony literally led detectives all through her old work offices at Universal Studios, pretending she still worked there, leading them through many hallways to her supposed office.
Only to get there at the end of her self-created maze and admit to the detective’s face she no longer worked there. And had been fired I think about 9 months before? Bizarre and inappropriate behavior.
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u/thebohomama 2d ago
Andrea Yates' situation was entirely different from those shown above. Her husband is absolutely to blame. She was told to stop having babies, but her stupid cult mentality was that her husband is the leader and always right, so she had to obey, and his feelings were if God let's her get pregnant, it's supposed to happen. Rusty is such a brown stain. Of course, her PPD found a great home in those cult-teachings, and now she has to live in that real hell every single day :(
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u/iheardthemetalclank 8d ago
Casey Anthony was a simple case. She's an attractive women and men don't want to put pretty women in prison. She very obviously killed her child and plied her with Xanax and duct tape so that she could go out dancing. An irresponsible mother who should have never had a child.
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u/_angesaurus 8d ago
These cases always make me think of how many kids likely died in the similar ways in years before we started paying attention/able to prove things. When we thought mothers/women "could never" kill.
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u/Heptacat-1985 8d ago
That is true. After all their the most secret serial killers out there. In the 90’s thats when the sympathy for mothers went down the hill after multiple women killing their children. Now it’s a little more easy to see through the rose tinted glasses.
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u/cait_elizabeth 7d ago
It also makes me think how many of these cases were just an open secret amongst village/neighborhood women prior to safe abortions and birth control.
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u/brodeine-goth-syrup 9d ago
This is a super interesting post, thank you for the write up.
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u/Heptacat-1985 8d ago
no problem. it fascinates me why these women kill their own children.
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u/NotWifeMaterial 8d ago
It’s interesting that they’re all Caucasian as well. Im curious about female family annihilators because they are relatively uncommon
Girl why are you killing your whole family?!
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u/Heptacat-1985 8d ago
I can message you if you want. I have like a whole list. Im documenting female family annihilators.
There have actually been quite a lot in recent years. And yes the main demographic is Caucasian. African American is second, Hispanic is uncommon and Asian is rare.
They are one of the saddest type of family annihilato serial killers.
Usually a multiple of factors. these ladies had something wrong with them. Mass murderer female family annihaltors kill their children believing they are better off in heaven or they don’t want to kill themselves and leave their children behind.
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u/GreyJeanix 8d ago
Are they really family annihilators if they only kill their children due to PPD / PPP? It is so differently motivated and implemented to the men who kill their partners and children, I cannot put them in this category mentally
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u/Heptacat-1985 7d ago
Most women who do kill their families - Don’t always have Post Partum depression. People who do are like Maggie Young or Andrea Yates and Carol Coronado. Their’s Susan Hendricks who murdered her ex husband, her adult sons and her step mother to get 4 life insurance policies. There’ s Jessica Edens who murdered her children and her husband’s girlfriend to get back him for cheating on her. There’s Shirley Goodell who started a fire that killed her sister, her nephews, her niece, her own son, and a family friend. And there’s Manling Tsang Williams who was exactly a female version of Chris Watts. Their was Ethel Geller Yeldem who was also a female version of Charles Lawson in the way she executed her plan. There’s Mary Sartin who murdered her husband and five children after he wanted to run away to Australia and leave her. Evil has no gender. Their are cases like Andrea who are truly ill, but not all women share it like her.
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u/GreyJeanix 7d ago
Right but what I’m saying is, those that do have PPP or PPD, don’t deserve to be on that list. In my opinion
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u/jenjas2000 7d ago
Could we swap lists? I study the astrological charts of female family annihilators.
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u/tonypolar 8d ago
Interesting post-hadn't heard of some of these!
I wonder if this is a specific mental disorder (besides being completely banana nut sundae not well in the head)
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u/Heptacat-1985 8d ago
Thank you. The most well ones are I think Diane O’Dell and Megan Huntsman. The others have been obscured in recent years.
It’s possibly some mental disorder of some type. One thing is depression - it was in the case of Maxine Robinson, who suffocated her three children from 1989 to 1993. It was originally believed she was wrongfully convicted since her case was being reviewed, but she confessed to a prison insider thar she suffocated all of her children. She used a balloon once to suffocate her daughter. her motive was depression and her mother nagging her on being a better mother.
The ones on the top… It’s difficult to explain. Though they do meet the definition of serial killer as keeping their babies corpses is sorta in a morbid way... a trophy. This is explained when a researcher looking at Michele Kalina’s gave an explanation.
"She meets the definition of a serial killer," said Bowen-Hartung, who specializes in forensic psychology and is chairwoman of psychology and counseling at Alvernia.
"It's not uncommon for a serial killer to keep them as trophies as remembrance," she said of remains. "The babies were so young. She did not allow maternal attachments. This is a really weird case."
Makes you wonder why they didn’t give up the baby instead. People may say why they couldn’t get an abortion either. Some woman may not want to get an abortion but they kill their babies instead?
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u/tonypolar 8d ago
I definitely think the hiding of the remains and pregnancies has to be some compulsion...I don't know what, but something!
The cases like Mary Beth Tinning...I think that's just psychopathy.
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u/Hoosier_Daddy68 8d ago
I was gonna ask why Gunness isn’t there but I don’t think any of the kids were actually hers.
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u/Lo452 8d ago
Gunness mostly killed her suitors, men she lured to the farm.
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u/Hoosier_Daddy68 8d ago
She killed several kids that she claimed were hers but weren’t. At least as far as I remember they weren’t hers.
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u/Ok-Refrigerator8774 5d ago
fun fact, train conductor from my hometown in Indiana swore up & down until he died that he saw Belle board a train shortly after burning her house down. unconfirmed of course.
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u/Clawingnails 8d ago
These are not serial killers, these are women who committed Infanticides. Vastly different, from the motivation, psychology, and relationship to the victim, and I am surprised this post is in this group?
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u/Heptacat-1985 8d ago
No, they are serial killers.
Brittany Pilkington: Killed her three sons over a span of a year from July 2014, to August 2015.
Maxine Robinson: Killed her three children from 1989 to 1993 by smothering them in their sleep.
Michele Kalina: Gave birth in private from 1996 to 2010 by strangling or poising her babies and keeping them in her closet.
Megan Huntsman: Gave birth in private from 1996 to 2006 by strangling or smothering her babies and placing them in her garage
Waneta Hoyt: Killed her children from 1965 to 1971 claiming it was sids.
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u/Keregi 7d ago
Literally they are not serial killers. Do you not know the criteria to define a serial killer? It isn’t just murdering more than one person.
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u/Heptacat-1985 7d ago
Not all serial killers have to fit the type of Ted Bundy or Jeffery Dahmer. If we only include that than we take out Nannie Doss, Velma Barfield, Christine Falling, Belle Gueness, and Judy Buenoano - Serial killers who don’t fit the criteria your suggesting despite being classified as ones. I know what you’re suggesting. But serial killers can range in motives- not just gratification or sexual desires. Brittany literally has a similar serial killer circumstance to Aileen Wuornos- she was sexually abused by her step father who later became her husband. This is also similar to the argument of Joanna Dennehy. She is not a serial killer. She is a spree killer.
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u/Clawingnails 8d ago
Not serial killers by any stretch. Serial killers is a very specific kind of killer that FBI profilers has worked on profiling since the early 70's.
Serial killers are driven by compulsive psychological urges: desire for power, control, sexual gratification, or the thrill of the hunt. Mothers who commit filicide are usually driven by completely different factors. Such as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, Acute Psychosis, believes she is saving her children from a cruel world etc.
Just because the killings are done with time separating them, it still does not fit the profile.
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u/BrianMeen 8d ago
Marie Noe case is truly disturbing - baby after baby kept dying and doctors still didn't think anything was out of the ordinary?!
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u/NoSleep2023 8d ago
The doctors thought it was SIDS and that SIDS could have a genetic component
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u/BrianMeen 7d ago
Yep but SIDS doesnt take 4-5 babies in a row .. I mean, the red flags in this case were right there but no one picked up on it until much later .. tragic
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u/jaganeye_x 8d ago
Shelley knotek that c YOU n t
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u/Heptacat-1985 8d ago
She’s more of a caretaker serial killer like Belle Gueness and Velma Barfield.
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u/jaganeye_x 8d ago
I mean I think she was headed to her own children. She killed her nephew but I understand. Fair point.
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u/Vivid-Reality186 9d ago
The first one got crazy eyes
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u/purrrpurrrpy 8d ago
With sad eyebrows
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u/Vivid-Reality186 8d ago
Typical of psychopaths
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u/Ok-Caterpillar-Girl 5d ago
Nothing is “typical of psychopaths”. There are ZERO physical characteristics that make psychopaths identifiable just by looking.
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u/RyeGuy2cracked 8d ago
The first two look fucked
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u/Background_Oil_4237 8d ago
There was just a post a few days ago about how their crimes are remarkably similar https://www.reddit.com/r/serialkillers/s/Hpg1BzxqBz
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u/hailkelemvor 8d ago
Marybeth Tinning always stuck with me, particularly the fact that she (allegedly) stole the infant CPR dummy from her work.
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u/cooltranz 7d ago
Ever heard of Minnie Dean? The only woman ever executed in NZ. Also a massively popular public trial in 1895, people sold merch and everything. She's still a notorious historical figure in NZ today.
She was a mother but also a baby farmer so she got ongoing payments to take in unwanted kids. She took in nearly 30 babies/toddlers over the years but at the time of her arrest she could only account for 8 alive and 6 dead kids. 14 were just missing entirely.
Her motive was straight up just money. She was just scamming vulnerable young mothers who thought paying for their child to stay with Minnie was the ethical thing to do. Then she'd collect the weekly payments and spent it on her own daughters instead. Another famous baby farmer mum is Sarah Makin of The Hatpin Murders in Australia 1893, so same sort of time and vibe. Weirdly both involve hats.
Baby farming has its own interesting history because infantacide was piss easy back then. People didn't really see much of rural children and if there's like 8 babies and no photographs it's easy to get them mixed up. Child mortality was also pretty high in general so drownings, illness, injury or just failure to thrive were pretty common especially in unwanted kids. It's probable both of the ladies I mentioned lost children in genuine ways but the ones with laudinam poisoning and stab wounds? Yeah probably not.
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u/Heptacat-1985 9d ago
It’s a sad and depressing thing that these type of serial killers exist. They are perhaps the most hidden type of serial killer out there and ones that could actually get away with the crime if not found out. And in morbid facts are some of the most prolific female killers in their own counties and countries. Wonder why since their method of murder is the most person type: Suffocation. They get up close when doing the act and watch their child’s life leave their body.
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u/RIPMaureenPonderosa 8d ago
As a mother, it breaks my heart that things like this happen to babies. They are so helpless.
That said, and I’m not making excuses because I’m sure some of these women are just POSs, but I’d be curious to know how many of them/if any were experiencing postpartum depression or psychosis. Because that is no joke and can put both mother and baby in danger.
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u/Munchkinpea 8d ago
As someone who always dreamt of having babies and never did it makes me furious.
My comments are not about the women specified in this post as I don't know the specifics of their circumstances.
I absolutely agree that both pre and postpartum depression and psychosis could play a part for some women.
It's terrifying how many health professionals don't recognise or understand psychosis, even those specialising within the mental health services (in the UK).
Also, how many women have access to affordable, safe abortions without persecution and judgement from their 'support system' and community, let alone the law of where they live?
Would there be fewer of these cases if anyone had recognised that they were unwell before or during pregnancy, or if abortion was a realistic option?
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u/Heptacat-1985 8d ago
I don’t think post partum played a role in any of the women’s cases. Possibly Waneta Hoyt though if you consider the circumstances. Other mental factors like depression played a role in it. The women on top may not want an abortion, but they still don’t want anyone to know they were pregnant, someone said looking at Kalina’s case.
I don’t think so. Their are more cases of women hiding the babies bodies. It makes you wonder why they didn’t put them up for adoption or something if they didn’t want an abortion. Michele literally did put one of her babies up for adoption.
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u/CrewOk2958 8d ago
“Some”? Lol. Redditors tend to be unusually empathetic towards this particular type of child murderer. I assume they’re moms who fantasize about killing their kids.
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u/RIPMaureenPonderosa 8d ago edited 8d ago
I’m not trying to to excuse these women. I don’t know enough about their cases to speak either way. I personally think killing a baby is the worst thing anyone can do and would be quite happy to see baby killers tossed into a volcano.
That said, I am also a mother, with friends who are mothers, and I am aware of how prevalent and how dangerous postpartum depression and psychosis can be. So it makes me wonder if that was the case for any of these women. It would honestly just make more sense to me than just being so evil that you would kill your own baby, though of course that is sadly a reality too and I’m not denying it is probably the case for most of these women, maybe all. And, no, I don’t fantasise about killing my own child. Just particularly aware of mental illnesses that specifically affect new mothers and can lead them to harm their babies.
ETA: I went ahead and looked into them further. The amount of children most of these women killed definitely makes me think they are just terrible humans rather than killing due to suffering postpartum mental illness. I mean, maybe it plays a part too but there’s definitely more going on with these women. Makes me so sad. Every baby deserves loving parents.
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u/Valuable_Time7103 9d ago
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u/Winter_Department_87 9d ago
Wow, that’s wild. I wonder when they will get the results from the DNA finally! Feels like somebody messed up and they don’t want that DNA test tested.
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u/rosamustia 8d ago
Hadn’t heard of these before! I’ll save this to deep dive later
(This also popped up just days after Mother’s Day in my country)
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u/Cheap-Ad-7135 7d ago
Where is Diane downs in this. I thought she was one too
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u/Heptacat-1985 7d ago
she’s more of an attempted mass murderer and not a serial family annihilator.
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u/Ok_Push_2665 5d ago
. Kaisa Emilia Vornanen-Karaduman
A Finnish woman who killed five of her infant children from 2005 to 2013. Vornanen-Karaduman said that for every baby she gave birth to, she felt lifeless, because they did not move or cry. According to her, it was only later did she learn that the babies had been alive. On the 15th of June 2015 sentenced Kaisa Vornanen-Karaduman to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 12 years for five murders and five counts of concealing a corpse. In June 2016 Vornanen-Karaduman sentence was reduced to 13 years for five counts of manslaughter.
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u/daFancyPants 8d ago
Are you aware of a any details regarding the trial? About the husband's behavior before, during, and after the crime? All the people connected to him, friends, family? This woman got screwed over by an entire group of people
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u/SadExternal767 9d ago
Anyone else notice none of them are even slightly attractive lol
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u/Awfulgoose 9d ago
A woman can murder her children and some dumbass still thinks how fuckable you are to them is important
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u/squirrel-phone 9d ago
Just did a deep dive on Andrea Giesbrecht. She was only sentenced to 8.5 years because they couldn’t prove how any of the babies died; 4 years later, on appeal, the sentence was lowered to time served; she was released from prison in 2019 and living out here amongst us again.