These are History’s Most Evil Women

The world has seen evil in many forms throughout the years. There have been men, women, and even children who performed devious acts of evil. Today, we’re going to talk about some of the most malicious ladies to ever walk the Earth. These women proved to have wreaked havoc on humanity. From sadistic Nazi commandants to female serial killers, here are the most ruthless, evil women in history. Watch out, you may have nightmares after this one!

Gertrude Baniszewski

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Upon Likens’ death, authorities discovered that the majority of torture was actually carried out under Baniszewski’s instruction by her children and their friends. When she was finally convicted of first-degree murder in 1965, the judge claimed the case was “the single worst crime perpetrated against an individual in Indiana’s history.”

Ilse Koch

Ilse Koch, known as the “Bitch of Buchenwald,” was a notorious Nazi war criminal during World War II. As the wife of Karl-Otto Koch, she was the commandant’s wife at the Buchenwald and Majdanek concentration camps. Koch was a nymphomaniac known for torturing innocent prisoners of the camp.

She performed extremely evil and sadistic behavior at the camp. Koch enjoyed beating the prisoners, forcing them to perform sexual acts and skinning those who had tattoos. She would then use the skin of those prisoners to cover her lamps and books. After the war, she was tried for war crimes and sentenced to life in prison.

Myra Hindley and the Moors Murders

Myra Hindley earned the title of “the most hated woman in Britain” when she shocked the world with terrifying crimes in the 1960s, alongside her evil boyfriend Ian Brady. The couple’s killings were known as “The Moors Murders.”

Hindley and Brady violently raped, tortured, and killed five children aged between 10 and 17-years-old. Two of the victims were discovered in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor, which is in the Manchester, England area.

Ma Barker

Ma Barker was one of the most notorious female criminals in the history of the United States. She ran the feared Barker Gang which consisted of her and her sons. The group orchestrated a number of robberies, murders, and kidnappings throughout the 1930s in the Midwest.

In what was believed to be the longest shootout in FBI history, Barker was killed in her Florida hideout in 1935. FBI’s director back then, J. Edgar Hoover, described the woman as  “the most vicious, dangerous and resourceful criminal brain of the last decade.”

Katherine Knight

An Australian woman who became infamous for the brutal murder of her partner in 2000. Knight stabbed him to death before skinning and cooking parts of his body, intending to serve them to his children. 

An Australian woman who became infamous for the brutal murder of her partner in 2000. Knight stabbed him to death before skinning and cooking parts of his body, intending to serve them to his children. 

Her crime, one of the most gruesome in Australian history, was a culmination of a life marked by extreme violence and abuse, making her one of the most notorious female murderers.

Jiang Qing

Also known as Madame Mao, she was a major political figure during the Cultural Revolution in China. As Mao Zedong’s fourth wife, she wielded significant power, promoting radical policies and persecutions that led to mass chaos and countless deaths.

Her involvement in the “Gang of Four” made her directly responsible for the Cultural Revolution’s worst excesses, earning her a reputation as one of the most ruthless women in modern history.

Griselda Blanco

Griselda Blanco, “La Madrina”, who also went by the nickname La Madrina, was one of the most feared drug “queen pins” of her time. This ruthless Colombian criminal played a key role in the Medellin drug cartel and was known to be a mentor for Pablo Escobar himself – until they became enemies over a drug-related argument.

Blanco was responsible for up to 2,000 murders while transporting cocaine across the border. La Madrina was shot and killed in 2012 at age 69.

Irma Grese:

Irma Grese is considered to be one of the most bloodthirsty female Nazi war criminals in history. In fact, she was one of the very few women concentration camp workers to be executed for devious war crimes by the Allies.

She was in control of around 30,000 female prisoners which she enjoyed torturing both physically and emotionally, grating her the moniker “The Hyena of Auschwitz.” Grese wore heavy black boots and carried a whip and gun with her wherever she went. According to survivors, Grease seemed to have great sexual pleasure from these evil acts against the innocent prisoners.

Mary Ann Cotton

Known as Britain’s first serial killer, Mary Ann Cotton is believed to have poisoned up to 21 people, including three of her husbands and eleven of her thirteen children, during the 19th century. 

She used arsenic to commit her crimes, primarily motivated by the pursuit of insurance money. Her case was one of the first to draw attention to the dangers of arsenic as a domestic poison.

Aileen Wuornos

Aileen Wuornos was a famous American serial killer who was sexually abused and thrown out of her home as a teen. She eventually began making a living as a sex worker on Florida’s busy highways.

In November of 1989, she killed her first victim, which was a man who had picked her up on a corner. After that, Wuornos continued her killing spree by murdering at least five other men before she was eventually caught and placed on death row. Wuornos was executed by lethal injection in 2002.

Leonarda Cianciulli

Italian female serial killer Leonarda Cianciulli murdered three women, who were all her middle-aged neighbors. Cianciulli had a special habit that she often performed upon their deaths: she made tea cakes and soap out of their remains.

This is how she earned the disgusting nickname of the Soap Maker of Correggio. Cianciulli was considered to be a very superstitious person and claimed that she performed these murders to break a family curse that was inflicted on her by her parents.

Delphine LaLaurie

Before Delphine LaLaurie was the convicted killer known as “Madame Blanque”, she was once a wealthy socialite living in New Orleans. LaLaurie was later discovered to be an evil woman who tortured and murdered the black slaves that lived in her mansion.

She was accidentally busted when rescuers responded to a fire at her house and found slaves trapped in her attic. However, LaLaurie never made it behind bars as she managed to somehow escape to France before the authorities could stop her.

Elizabeth Bathory

Elizabeth Bathory was a Hungarian noblewoman that has been described as the most vicious female serial killer in all recorded history.

Throughout the end of the 16th century and beginning of the 17th century, Bathory went on a killing spree that resulted in the torture and killing of up to 650 young women. She got her nickname because she was known to bathe in the blood of her victims, believing it would provide anti-aging benefits to her skin.

Mary Tudor

Mary Tudor, the only child of King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon to survive into adulthood, was the very first queen of England. She reigned from 1553 until her death in 1558. However, Tudor is more famously known as “Blood Mary”, and for being one of the most tyrannical women in English history.

Famously nicknamed Bloody Mary, Tudor performed brutal religious persecutions of Protestants and executed over 300 people. Tudor also had her first cousin, Lady Jane Grey, beheaded when she wanted to claim the throne. 

Charlene Gallego

Charlene Gallego, alongside her husband and partner in crime Gerald Gallego, raped, tortured, and killed ten innocent people between 1978 and 1980. The murders were performed in and around Nevada and northern California. All but one of their victims were young teenage girls.

After serving 16 years in prison, Charlene Gallego was released early in exchange for testifying against her husband. Gerald Gallego was subsequently sentenced to death but died of cancer in a prison medical center before he was scheduled to be executed.

Enriqueta Martí

A Spanish serial killer known as the “Vampire of Barcelona,” Martí kidnapped, prostituted, and murdered young children in Barcelona in the early 20th century. She allegedly used their remains to prepare remedies, which she sold claiming they had curative properties. 

Her heinous acts, combining child exploitation with a macabre form of entrepreneurship, make her one of Spain’s most infamous criminals.

Amelia Dyer

Amelia Dyer was born in 1837 in Bristol, United Kingdom. She is known to be one of the most prolific serial killers in history. Dyer wreaked havoc on Victorian Britain for 30 years when she killed over 300 infants that she was meant to be caring for.

At that time, Britain was struggling with a pandemic issue of infanticide – which is why Dryer was able to get away with her gruesome work for so long. Dyer was finally arrested in April 1869 and was hung two months following her conviction.

Miyuki Ishikawa

Miyuki Ishikawa was an especially evil Japanese midwife that earned the title as Japan’s most prolific serial killer. Ishikawa spent the 1940’s torturing between 85 and 169 infants, with all of them dying as a result of her neglect.

When Ishikawa was finally caught and put on the stand, she argued in her trial that the children’s parents should be blamed for the deaths as they had deserted the children. Shockingly enough, her defense was pretty successful – she was only sentenced to 8 years in jail and even managed to half that sentence with the help of an appeal.

Catherine De Medici

Catherine de Medici was an extremely powerful yet viciously evil female ruler of Medieval Europe. This ruthless Italian noblewoman served as the Queen of France from 1547 until 1559.

However, Medici is best known for being the mastermind of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre. In this organized violent Catholic mob directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants) in August 1572, an estimated 30,000 people lost their lives. Medici was responsible for organizing and instigating this bloody massacre.

Belle Gunness

Belle Gunness, also known as the Black Widow, was one of history’s most degenerate and evil female serial killers. Gunness was a very strong woman of Norwegian descent, standing at 6 feet tall and weighing in at over 200 pounds.

Many believe that the Black Widow killed both of her husbands and all of her children at different points throughout her life. However, it is confirmed that Gunness also murdered her boyfriend and two adorable daughters, Myrtle and Lucy. Gunness has killed between 25 and 40 people.

Tillie Klimek

Tillie Klimek, a Polish-born American serial killer, was active in Chicago during her killing spree at the beginning of the 20th century. Claiming she was a powerful psychic, Klimek allegedly believed that her dreams accurately predicted the times of death of her victims

Klimek poisoned at least 20 people with arsenic between 1912 and 1923. Some of them survived, but most of them passed away – including all four of her husbands. She was sentenced to life in prison in 1923 but died at age 60 in 1936.

Dagmar Overbye

Danish serial killer Dagmar Overbye murdered up to 25 young children – including one of her own – during a seven-year killing spree from 1913 to 1920

Overbye was able to obtain close contact with her victims as she was working at the time as a “professional” child caretaker. She killed the babies by strangling them, drowning them, or burning them to death. Overbye was sentenced to life in prison in her March 1931 murder trial. She eventually died at age 42 in prison.

Darya Saltykova

Russian serial killer Darya Saltykova was once a highly respected noblewoman of the 18th century. But that didn’t last long for this notorious murderer. Saltykova eventually earned the reputation of being a cold-blooded killer when it was discovered that she tortured and murdered up to 140 of her serfs.

Darya Saltykova and the Hungarian Blood Countess, Elizabeth Bathory, seem to have a lot in common. They both come from noble origins and have unusual brutality and sadistic lust for blood.

Juana Barraza

Juana Barraza was born in 1957 to an alcoholic mother and became a professional Mexican wrestler. Eventually, Barraza moved on from wrestling and became one of the most prolific serial killers in the history of Mexico.

The hefty, muscular woman killed between 42 and 28 elderly women between 1998 and 2006. She was finally arrested in January 2006 when the cops caught her fleeing from the home of her last victim. Barraza was sentenced to 759 years in prison.

Ranavalona I

For the 33 years that Ranavalona I controlled the African island of Madagascar, the country was ruled with terror, fear, and violence. Commonly known as the Mad Monarch of Madagascar, thousands of her people were murdered due to the extremely brutal discipline she used against them.

The Christian minority suffered the most under her regime as they constantly faced imprisonment, torture, and execution. Ranavalona had a huge role in reducing Madagascar’s population from 5 million in 1833 to 2.5 million in 1839. Ranavalona ruled for 33 years until her death in 1861.

Mireya Moreno Carreon

Mireya Moreno Carreon was one of the most brutal female drug dealers that made a name for herself in the feared Mexican Los Zetas drug cartel. Carreon was responsible for overseeing operations at all of the drug-trafficking hot spots in Monterrey, Mexico.

Interestingly, she started off as a police officer before she joined the notorious drug cartel and eventually became the head woman of Los Zetas. Carreon was eventually arrested when she was caught red-handed driving a stolen vehicle that held huge amounts of drugs.

Karla Homolka

Karla Homolka and her husband Paul Bernardo were some of the most brutal Canadian serial killers in history. The couple kidnapped, raped, and killed at least three young girls throughout the early 1990s

Their first victim was 15-year-old Tammy Homolka, who was Karla’s youngest sister. After testifying against her ex-husband, Karla was offered a plea deal and was released from prison in 2005. She changed her name and currently lives on Guadeloupe Island with her new husband and three young children.

Klara Mauerova

Klara Mauerova was a member of a sinister religious cult in the Czech Republic who was responsible for torturing her own two sons. Alongside fellow members of the sadistic cult, she even forced one of her sons to eat his own flesh!

The boys were brutally tortured and sexually abused for almost a whole year in 2007. Klara was “accidentally” busted when a TV baby monitor installed in her neighbor’s apartment picked up Mauerova’s monitor and showed the child being beaten and chained in a cellar.

Christiana Edmunds

Although her nickname may indicate that she is somewhat sweet, Christiana Edmunds was one of the evilest women to ever walk the Earth.

She had a very unique way of carrying out her murders: Edmunds would steal chocolate from a shop, poison them with a lethal toxin, and then return them to the store. People would buy them and become very ill. Once, a four-year-old boy died from eating one of Edmunds’ chocolates.

The Innsmouth Woman

Arguably the evilest woman on this list, this lady is no less than an ocean-born monster. Well, to be more precise, author H.P. Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth‘s version of an ocean monster.

In his book, Lovecraft invented the creepy town of Innsmouth, whose residents are all decent from an evil ocean-dwelling race of humanoid fish creatures who seek to take over the world, and dabble in human sacrifice to appease their dark god Dagon. Facing such a concept, it’s not a surprise that the good people of the internet rushed to create an image of what these people may have looked like in real life, and, well, that’s the result. Ladies and gentlemen, this is history’s most monstrous woman.

The Terrible Crimes of Mary Bateman, the Witch of Yorkshire

Legends of witchcraft and witch hunts are woven throughout the long history of Great Britain. For hundreds of years, countless women were accused of sorcery, conspiring with the devil, shape-shifting, making people sick, and much, much worse—often in the name of witchcraft.

Some of the accused were innocent of the alleged crimes. But others were not. Mary Bateman, the Yorkshire Witch, was one of the guilty ones—and her career of murder and deceit was concluded at the end of a rope.

Mary Bateman loved to steal her employers’s belongings.

Mary Harker was born in Aisenby, North Yorkshire, to a farming family around 1768.

Though Mary Harker’s childhood was financially comfortable, she developed a stealing habit. By the time she was 12 years old, when she became a domestic servant, Mary was an experienced criminal. As one 1811 account of her life put it, she had a “knavish and vicious disposition”—and her employers caught onto her schemes. Eventually, her dishonesty made it impossible for her to find any employment at all.

Mary Bateman had a side hustle as a witch.

With her local job prospects limited, Mary moved to Leeds, England in the late 1780s. She managed to find work as a seamstress through her mother’s friend. And, like a couple of other Yorkshire women at that time, she had a side hustle as a witch.

Mary told fortunes, brewed love potions, and removed hexes as requested by servants or their employers. In 1792, she married a wheelwright named John Bateman. He either didn’t know about, or didn’t mind, Mary’s darker predilections.

Mary Bateman married an honest man.

John Bateman was an honest man, but his wife couldn’t give up her habit of stealing.

The couple was forced to move constantly to escape her angry victims and the threat of punishment for her crimes. None of it mattered to Mary Bateman, however—not even after she and John had children. Soon after that, she added a new type of fraud to her criminal repertoire. Instead of simply stealing, she began to include a spiritual element to her graft.

Mary Bateman posed as an agent for women with mysterious powers.

Around 1800, Mary began claiming to be an agent for a Mrs. Moore. Mary said that Mrs. Moore had special powers bestowed upon the seventh child of a seventh child, and was capable of “screwing down,” or supernaturally binding to, those who would cause her or her friends harm.

But Mrs. Moore was not real—just Mary’s con. Mary also began pretending to be the go-between for a Miss Blythe, a more garden-variety psychic who could “read the stars.” But Blythe, too, was fictitious.

Mary Bateman did brisk business in charms and potions.

Before long, people were flocking to Mary’s home, hoping to hear what their futures might hold. Mary took their names—and payment—and supposedly gave it to Miss Blythe.

She then delivered Blythe’s predictions along with any charms that the fictional psychic thought might aid them. Mary sold a variety of magic potions and charms that she claimed could ward off evil, repel curses, and cure disease. But it wasn’t enough for Mary Bateman. Soon, she turned to murder.

Mary Bateman also pretended to be a caring nurse.

The first people Mary killed, in 1803, were three women from the Kitchin family. Mary helped in their drapery shop and told them their fortunes according to Miss Blythe. When one of them fell ill, Mary “nursed” her with special powders she prepared.

Soon, all three women were dead. Mary blamed the plague, and locals didn’t argue. Then creditors discovered that the Kitchins’s drapery shop and house had been cleaned out—and the account books were missing. But no one thought to blame Mary.

Mary Bateman kept her con games fresh.

Mary deployed her deceptions with skill: As soon as she sensed that one of her victim’s interest in her and her powers might be waning, she looked for a new batch of naive marks who were unfamiliar with the notorious Mary Bateman.

Mary sought out people in need of reassurance. She looked for people who were looking for cures for what ailed them, and she promised to offer the magical answer. Mary Bateman was confident, charming, and seemingly well-connected, and as such was rarely without customers.

Mary Bateman pivoted to apocalyptic prophecy.

Around 1806, Mary claimed that a chicken she owned was laying eggs inscribed with the words “Crist [sic] is coming.”

People flocked to see her “Prophet Hen of Leeds,” and paid Mary for magical protection. For a penny, she promised her clients that they would be spared from the end times.

The truth, of course, was that Mary had etched the words on the eggs with vinegar and popped them back into the hen’s oviduct, where they would be “freshly” laid. A local doctor discovered the deception, but he didn’t blow Mary’s cover.

Mary Bateman’s final deception preyed on a Leeds couple.

In the spring of 1806, a Leeds-based couple named William and Rebecca Perigo heard about the apparently kindly and talented Mrs. Mary Bateman.

Rebecca suffered from a nervous condition and complained of a fluttering in her side that she had been told was the result of an “evil wish.” So the Perigos sought out Mary Bateman for help—and Mary graciously agreed to seek Miss Blythe’s assistance. There was no way for Rebecca Perigo to know what would happen next.

Mary Bateman said Miss Blythe needed cash.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the cure to Rebecca’s issues relied on cash.

Miss Blythe “told” Mary Bateman to sew silk bags containing guinea notes, donated by the Perigos, into the corners of Rebecca’s bed, where they should remain undisturbed for 18 months. Miss Blythe demanded money for magical supplies as well as china, silver, and eventually even a new bed for herself; she claimed she needed all of the items for paranormal purposes. The couple handed over the cash, then burned the requests so evil spirits couldn’t read their contents.

Miss Blythe warned of a mysterious illness. 

The Perigos had given Miss Blythe a small fortune when they received a warning: “My Dear Friends—I am sorry to tell you, you will take an illness in the month of May next, either t’one or both, but I think both, but the works of God must have its course.”

Mary dutifully supplied them with special powders to be sprinkled into puddings. On no account were the Perigos to share the magical food, Mary said, nor summon a doctor. That would only make the supernatural illness worse.

Mary Bateman poisoned the Perigos.

This warning wasn’t without reason: Mary Bateman had laced the Perigos’ food with poison, and the couple fell ill almost immediately.

William later described the feeling as having “a violent heat came out of his mouth, which was very sore, that his lips were black, and that he had a most violent pain in his head 20 times worse than a common headache, [and that] everything appeared green to him.” He also suffered from a “violent complaint in his bowels.”

William Perigo discovered Mary Bateman’s treachery.

On May 24, 1807, Rebecca Perigo died, but William did not. He continued to rely on the potions. As the years passed, he wondered why his constant payments and gifts to Miss Blythe didn’t seem to have done much good

Finally, he unpicked the stitches on the silk purses that Mary had sewn into Rebecca’s bed. Inside, he found paper and a few small coins, not the money he had given to Miss Blythe. William realized he had been duped.

Mary Bateman’s jig was up.

He confronted Mary, who said he opened the bags too soon. William retorted, “I think it is too late,” and promised to come back the next morning to settle things.

When he returned, he brought a Constable Driffield, who hid nearby. Mary tried to turn the tables and claim Perigo was the poisoner. For once, William—and the constable—were one step ahead of her. A search of Mary’s house uncovered items Miss Blythe had supposedly demanded of the Perigos. Even Mary’s gift of gab wouldn’t save her this time.

A newspaper called Mary Bateman a “sedate and respectable” witch.

Mary Bateman was arrested, and when her trial for the murder of Rebecca Perigo opened at York Castle on March 17, 1809, she stuck to one defense: deny everything.

In a written statement, she claimed “it is utterly false that [I] ever did send for any poison by any person,” and spoke in court only to deny the charges. The Hull Packet reported that Mary looked “sedate and respectable,” despite having “a tongue in her head that would weedle the devil.”

Witnesses came forward against Mary Bateman.

As witnesses came forward to tell of the extortion they witnessed at the hands of Mary Bateman, it soon became apparent that the scope of her crimes was broader than police had initially suspected.

The unexpected deaths of the Kitchins six years earlier now took on a more sinister feel. Something else became obvious, too: There was no Miss Blythe nor was there any Mrs. Moore. In fact, Mary’s handwriting matched that of Miss Blythe perfectly, but she made no attempt to explain the similarity.

Evidence showed Mary Bateman administered poison.

A doctor who analyzed what was left of the Perigos’ food found traces of mercury in it.

Tests on a bottle in Mary’s possession also found that it contained a mixture of rum, oatmeal, and arsenic. The jury swiftly returned a verdict of guilty in the case against Mary Bateman. There was, the judge said, not “a particle of doubt” on the matter, and he declared to Mary, “For crimes like yours, in this world, the gates of mercy are closed.” A death sentence seemed inevitable.

Mary Bateman tried one last ruse.

Though it should have been clear to Mary Bateman that she had finally been caught, and her reign of terror had come to an end, she wasn’t ready to give up just yet.

Suddenly, Mary tearfully declared that she was pregnant. If that was true, her death sentence would need to be postponed, if not set aside altogether. But the court-ordered medical examination found no evidence of a pregnancy, and Mary was duly sentenced to death. She continued to protest her innocence even as she kept up her witchy business from her prison cell, making magical charms for fellow inmates.

Mary Bateman was hanged for her crimes.

On March 20, 1809, as Mary mounted the New Drop gallows, thousands of people turned out to witness the last few moments of the life of the Yorkshire Witch, as she would soon become known.

To her final breath, she denied the murder charges against her. Though some said she died “with a lie on her lips,” others still believed in what the Lancaster Gazetter called “the pretended Sorceress,” and hoped that she would be saved by a miracle.

Of course, no miracle came.

Mary Bateman’s skeleton was put on display.

Mary Bateman’s body was brought to the Leeds Infirmary, where the public paid three pence to view her remains.

Some curious onlookers purchased a preserved patch of her skin as a souvenir. Her skin was even used to bind several books, one of which was allegedly owned by the future George IV. Her skeleton was on display for over two centuries, first at the Leeds Medical School, and later at the Thackray Medical Museum—an emblem of one of the most dastardly serial killers Britain has ever known.