Her case was so infamous in Canada that it led to a popular schoolyard song: You cut off his legs She murdered her sixth husband, Jimmy Don Beets, in 1983. One murder victim's father said the findings could help to "save lives". Investigators learned that Corwine was pregnant with his child. After settling in Chicago, IL, Hochbigamously married more than 50 women over the course of two decades, using over 20 different aliases to cover his tracks. Now that I know who he is, it gives me the chills! Robbed and killed two men with his brother and his wife; later killed a prostitute in Charleston during an argument Travis, Maury: 2000-2002 2 17+ Murder Is One of Top Causes of Death for Pregnant Women Her fourth husband wasnt so lucky. In 1923, Klimek was convicted of killing her third husband, Frank Kupczyk, and she died behind bars on November 20, 1936, while serving a life sentence. Femicide: Women are most likely to be killed by their partner or ex California man Scott Peterson was convicted of murder in 2004 for killing his pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn son. These husbands who killed their mistresses might seem like the stuff of horror movies. Why do men kill their families? The stories adhere to a certain individualistic, conservative moralism, one that allows the media and public to play detective in a murder mystery, all in the name of justice for innocent white women and reaffirming the safety and sanctity of the (white) suburban way of life. In this May 8, 2009 file photo, former Bolingbrook, Ill., police officer Drew Peterson arrives for court in Joliet, Ill. Barry Morphew previously said investigators were trying to blame him for the May 10 disappearance of his wife, Suzanne. Pam insisted that it was Billys idea to kill Greggory Smart, but the jury wasnt convinced. But these married men who killed their mistresses did just that, all to avoid getting caught in a lie. The particulars of their cases may be different, but their stories are linked by desperation and brutality. Everyone agreed that Evelyn Dick was beautiful. With the affair taking over as the main story, the Peterson case was featured on the cover of People, which featured Lacis smiling face even as they teased Petersons double life and other woman as the story inside. She crushed some pills into her daughters drink, whereupon Ashley fell into a coma for 17 hours. Her trial became a media circus, dominating headlines across Canada as tales of her dalliances with many powerful, rich, married men came out. Legal Statement. Dr Monckton Smith has taught her model to lawyers, psychologists, police forces across the country and probation officers. For months, Maryland surgical technician Kimberly Hricko had complained to coworkers that she wanted her husband dead. But it is of course not these couples normalcy that gives these stories legs. These are the kind of crime stories that highbrow media outlets like Vanity Fair usually cover only to point out the coverage theyre getting elsewhere mainly in soft news human interest outlets like People magazine and the network morning shows, such as Today or Good Morning America, whose readers and viewers are predominantly women. She shot and killed her fifth husband, Doyle Wayne Barker, in 1981. She completely removed his skin and hanged itfrom a hook in the houses entrance. When Dhillon began stalking Miss Ruggles, she and her family "did not realise how much danger she was in", Mr Ruggles said. On trial for her the infant's murder, it turned out she had slept with over 150 men, including the judges own son. June 26, 2007 -- The recent killing of 26-year-old Jessie Davis, who was nine months pregnant, has highlighted what some believe is a terrifying phenomenon . When I found they had money, I went after that.". She later buried him in the backyard and painted the bedroom to try and hide evidence. Suspicions quickly turned to his spouse, who told police a string of strange tales about mafia hits and boyfriends. Knight became the first woman in Australian history to be sentenced to life without parole. Nelson fled from Virginia after the murder, but he was eventually arrested in Florida and confessed to the killings. And in fact, theres nothing inherently noteworthy about murderous husbands, because, as we now know, more than half of women murdered are killed by a current or former intimate partner. Mary Ann Cotton, tied up with string. Neighbors place flowers in front of the Watts home in Frederick, Colorado, in August. As the police investigated her, they uncovered more and more mysteries. Media reports on tribunnews.com have cited at least six other cases of husbands killing their wives since January. The verdict was celebrated nationwide, and passersby honked their car horns and clapped outside the courtroom. A new report shows that in the UK a woman is killed by a man every three days. At least thats what the Michigan prosecutors allege, and Cochran now sits in a jail cell awaiting trial. 2023 BBC. Blanco allegedly shot someone for the first time when she was only 11 years old. Both men had been shot multiple times in the back of the head. Castor then busied herself writing a murder confession wherein Ashley confessed to the crime. Then there was Drew Peterson a former Illinois police officer who was convicted in 2012 of the 2003 murder of his third wife, Kathleen Savio, in the months before their divorce. It's chilling to think about harming someone you once loved. Even as Watts awaits his sentencing on Monday, the other woman in the case is still making headlines with her revelations about his lies. And these telegenic white men are so often sold and packaged as emblems of normalcy right up until the moment they turn out to be monsters by the media. As one redditor noted, I think this news story just bumped this up from a Lifetime movie to a Netflix docuseries. The Watts family's three appearances on People that month were accompanied by headlines like: A Husbands Deadly Secrets, Did His Affairs Lead to Murder? and Married to a Monster. As with Peterson, so-called experts were trotted out to call him sociopathic, to read the lack of emotion in his responses after the disappearances as explanation for what came before. Rita Gluzman was a Jewish expatriate of the Soviet Union who resettled in the USA with her Ukrainian-born husband, prominent cancer researcher Yakov Gluzman. So why do stories about Scott Peterson and Chris Watts become national talking points? named after a maudlin playground song inspired by the gruesome event and sensational trial. He then dismembered Giordano's body and, with the help of a friend, dumped her remains in a pond inNew York. Anti-domestic violence advocates asked then-Texas Governor George W. Bush to stay her execution, but he denied the request, even traveling back to the state for the 62-year-old great grandmother's execution in February 2000. She was arrested before the children ever got to seemuch less eatthis gruesome meal, however. She reportedly offered a coworker $50,000 to do the job and boasted that an insurance payout of anywhere from $200,000 to $400,000 awaited her the moment her husband was buried. VideoThe secret mine that hid the Nazis' stolen treasure, LGBT troops take love for Eurovision to front line, Why an Indian comedian is challenging fake news rules. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Neither was her fifth. In June 2014, 27-year-old Marine Christopher Lee murdered his mistress, 19-year-old Erin Corwin. Between 1955 and 1957, the U.K.'s Mary Elizabeth Wilson loved and lost four husbands, earning herself the title of the Merry Widow of Windy Nook. While some of her marriages lasted only a few short weeks, it was enough for her to establish herself as the rightful heir of their estates, inheriting money after each death. The University of Gloucestershire lecturer said controlling behaviour could be a key indicator of someone's potential to kill their partner. It was Dicks own son. COVID-19 is overshadowing the issue, the United Nations says. Rolling Stone is a part of Penske Media Corporation. When investigators examined her devices, they found shed Googled, "Did people hate Amber Frey?". He was convicted of first-degree murder, and in February 2013,he was sentenced to life in prison for the crime. This is a phenomenon that really took hold in the late 90s and early aughts, fueled by TV personalities like Nancy Grace, cables queen of facile moral outrage, in which the disappearances of young white women like Chandra Levy and Natalee Holloway captured a disproportionate amount of the attention of cable news and the media. What are bluebeards? She called Chris, who said his wife had taken their daughters Bella, 4, and Celeste, 3, to a playdate, but she also insisted on a police welfare check. Yet stories like Watts and Petersons are still positioned as supposedly shocking anomalies, and become investigations into an apolitical idea about individually evil men and sociopaths not, say, incels or participants in toxic masculinity. Some of the deaths in her wake were originally deemed of natural causes (two husbands died of "unknown causes", one had a stroke, and a boyfriend died possibly of cancer), but when traces of cyanide were found in her new groom's dead body, police started to become very suspicious of the repeat widow. Related: 10 Monarchs Who Executed Their Sons 10 King Henry VIII 1491-1547 Henry VIII - The Tyrant of the Tudors Documentary King Henry VIII is a celebrity on this list. According to the Internet Journal of Criminology: Black Widow killers murder those close to them, usually those who they have some form of romantic association with, such as a husband or lover, however, they also prey on their own relatives. The bodies were exhumed and found to contain insecticide. In the ads, Landru pretended to be a wealthy widower who was interested in a meeting a new bride -a relatively simple feat given the number of women who had lost their husbands in World War I. The jury found her guilty of her Beets's murder, and sentenced her to death. Sophie's husband is killed in the line of duty as a police officer, now she goes undercover to solve his last case as she deals with her gravely ill daughter. Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. She had met her first husband, Michael Wallace, when she was just 17, and they married a few years later and had two daughters. Why do men kill their families? Here's what the research says In other words, she finds him, fucks him, and then eats him. Sadistically playing on her reputation, Calvey had the audacity to wear a fake spider in her bridal headdress for this marriage to a man fifteen years her senior. She told the police she thought David had committed suicide. To cover her tracks and make it appear that Bruce was the victim of product tampering la the Chicago Tylenol murders, she placed bottles of tainted capsules in nearby grocery stores. After all, many of her boarders were elderly and ailing. She was convicted and sentenced to 51 years, but died in prison earlier this year. When one of her boarders sisters got suspicious and went to the local Hartford Courant, they began to investigate what they later dubbed the murder factory. Soon, police began to investigate the trail of bodies in Archer-Gilligans wake and every one they exhumed during their investigation had traces of either arsenic or strychnine. The act he was accused of was seemingly so incomprehensible that people were willing to entertain outlandish theories, like the defense attorneys suggestion that a satanic cult had kidnapped Laci to steal her baby, despite the simple statistical reality that more than half the time the person likely to have murdered any given woman was her male partner. You've successfully subscribed to this newsletter! While Klimek spent the rest of her life in prison, her cousin was tried for murder and acquitted, allowing Koulik to go free. The first one was between Watts and a then-unidentified coworker, who was given ample space in Radar Online to describe their animalistic sex, which included choking fantasies (details no doubt meant to hint at sociopathic tendencies). Watts was interviewed on his porch, clips from which played over again and again on cable news. Beetss son and daughter, who had helped their mother get rid of the bodies, testified against her at trial. PDF Men Who Murder Their Families: What the Research Tells Us While out on parole, Southard died of a heart attack on February 2, 1958 at the age of 65. Here, the eight most notorious black widow killers. She was convicted, but the state appealed; she was re-tried, pleaded insanity, found guilty and given life in prison. In 1923, Klimek was convicted of killing her third husband, Frank Kupczyk, and she died behind bars on November 20, 1936, while serving a life sentence. This evidence of "strange" secret sexual behavior quelled anxieties that anyone other than these sociopathic cheaters could do something like this. And when her fifth husband passed away in 2007, the state of Georgia investigated to determine if he was poisoned, but could find no evidence of Neumars involvement. The couples Instagram and Facebook posts, including video of 4-year-old Bella singing to her father, all became content to parse. In October 2001 she stabbed her male lover John Price 37 times, puncturing several vital organs and leaving his house looking like the slaughterhouses where she toiled. Many of these bluebeards were married multiple times, often failing to get divorced before remarrying, making them bigamists as well as killers. Antifreeze was the preferred weapon for Stacey Castor. Attorney Gloria Allred (far left) leaves the courtroom with her client Amber Frey in 2004; People magazine featuring a Laci and Scott Peterson cover story. However, when he got around to killing his thirdwife, Margaret Lloyd, a year later on December 18, 1914, Smith's former landlord read about the woman's death in the newspaper and immediately contacted police. Bruno Fernandes de Souza, a married Brazilian soccer player, murdered his former mistress, Eliza Samudio. (Peterson even looked a little like Ben Affleck, who played the missing womans husband in the movie.) Suspicionimmediately fell upon Klimek, leading officials to exhume the bodies of the many people who had died after coming into contact with her - including her cousin Nellie's children and grandchildren. Her dark history became the inspiration for the play (and later the Frank Capra movie), Killer Wives: 8 Most Infamous Black Widow Murderers, Rolling Stone on Twitch is Bringing the Show to Super Bowl LVI, A Tommy Egan Power Spin Off Was Long Overdue, These Seven Scenes Remind Us Why, The Environmental Revolution Comes to Music Festivals, CIA Director, Noam Chomsky Named in Epstein's Private Calendar: Report, Drake, Will Arnett Celebrate Toronto Maple Leafs' (Long-Awaited) Postseason Triumph, Meet the YouTube Creator Busting Crypto Scams, Twitter to Allow Media Publishers to Charge Per Article, Want to Make Cash As a Creator? She killed Barker so she could gain ownership of his trailer home in Gun Barrel City, TX. And Petersons wife Laci was everybodys sister, as Grace put it. The suburban context becomes a visual trope in these stories that trades on viewers (presumed) emotional resonance with the idea of home, with the white suburban family inside and some unknown outside force threatening it. Katherine Knight has been called Australias most notorious psychopath, and from all accounts she was quite the nasty piece of work. She added: "A greater understanding will also reduce misleading and damaging headlines which cite jealousy, an affair or heartbreak as the reasons why women are killed by a current or former partner.". Then, while pregnant with her daughter, she torched his clothing and walloped him on the head with a frying pan. Police saw through the ruse, though, and Castor was convicted of murdering David and attempting to murder Ashley. Suzanne Morphew went missing on May 10, 2020 Mothers Day after leaving her home for a bike ride. Join us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Top5sOffical/overviewFor some, the concept of marriage is their one goal in life; their biggest dream. Detectives concluded shed killed him with a muscle paralyzer and then set the room ablaze. You cut off his arms She contacted her cousin Vladimir Zelenin and explained she wanted to murder Yakov in order to inherit his company, ECI Technologies. This strategy didnt work, and she was put to death by lethal injection in 2000. In 1921, Southward was found guilty on one count of second-degree murder and was given 10 years to life in prison for her crime. Its safe to say that the police dont believe her. The Peterson story first garnered coverage in Modesto, California, in 2002, and focused on Laci, a mother-to-be, who vanished on Christmas Eve. (Courtesy of Suzanne Morphew's Family) (Courtesy of Suzanne Morphew's Family). The fact that she murdered her son casts reasonable suspicion on Evelynfor her husbands brutal dismemberment. In 2007, former WWE superstar, Chris Benoit, killed his wife and their son in a murder-suicidewhich took place at their home in Georgia. Chancy Jones was a married ex-police officer in Memphis, TN. While her daughter was unconscious, Castor forged Wallaces name on a suicide note in which she confessed to killing her father and David Castor. At age 22, seeking $140,000 from her husbands life-insurance policy, Pam convinced her 15-year-old boy lover, Billy Flynn, to kill her husband in 1990. Criminology expert Dr Jane Monckton Smith found an eight-stage pattern in 372 killings in the UK. At her fourth wedding reception she reportedly joked that her husbands were dropping off so quickly, she would be able to use the fresh sandwiches from the prior husbands funeral for the next ones funeral. Detectives traced the capsules back to Stella when it was revealed they also contained traces of an algaecide she used in her fish tank. She was found guilty of arson and murder and is serving life plus 30 years. When his wifes body washed ashore, along with the body of the fetus, in April 2003, Peterson was arrested, and the media frenzy consumed news networks and tabloid magazines alike. Story tips can be sent to michael.ruiz@fox.com and on Twitter: @mikerreports, Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. Benoit shot his wife today and strangled his done before hanging himself. 2023 FOX News Network, LLC. Domestic abuse: Killers 'follow eight-stage pattern', study says "As soon as they see it, victims and professionals are able to say, 'Oh my God, I've got a case at stage three', or 'My relationship is at stage five'," she said.