Little Old Ladies Who Committed Horrible Murders

Between 1939 and 1940, Italian serial killer Leonarda Cianciulli, known as “la saponificatrice di Correggio,” killed three women. She committed these acts as human sacrifices to break a family curse.

Cianciulli suffered many miscarriages and lost many children to sickness while they were young. To save her surviving children, she sought dark power, offering human sacrifices for their safety.

She dismembered the bodies to dispose of them. She turned them into soap or baked them into tea cakes to sell in her shop. She noted her final victim...The cakes made excellent soap.The cakes were a wonderful snack; that woman was really sweet.

Italian authorities sentenced Cianciulli to thirty years in prison.

Amelia Dyer is said to have killed...She killed over 400 infants.Dyer worked as a "baby farmer" for 20 years, adopting children for money. In 19th-century Victorian England, older women often took in children for a fee. The nurse offered services to young, unmarried mothers or those unable to care for their babies.

Initially, Dyer ignored the children until the delay became too long. Then, she started murdering them at the start of their adoption to gain more profit.

Police confirmed only one of Dyer’s victims. Investigators found evidence of between 12 and hundreds more dead children in her care. People widely guess she killed hundreds more. Authorities sentenced her to...Death by hanging.She died in the summer of 1896.

Tamara Samsonova, also called the "Granny Ripper," is a 68-year-old woman from Russia who...She confessed to killing 11 people.After her arrest in July 2015, St. Petersburg police found Samsonova's diaries. These diaries showed the gruesome details of how she murdered, dismembered, and ate some of her victims. Her journals give a...Fairly straightforward version of each of her crimes.This is of each of her crimes:

I killed my tenant Volodya. I cut him to pieces in the bathroom with a knife. I put the pieces of his body in plastic bags and threw them in different parts of the Frunzensky district.

Courts found Samsonova mentally insane and...Sentenced her to life.She went to a psychiatric facility.

In July 2016, 36-year-old Allen Trobaugh moved in with 65-year-old Gloria Marie Tensley and helped her with house tasks. He found a human skeleton in the closet of her home in Paragould, Arkansas. He told...Region 8 News.

I tried to open it and finally did. It looked like this: wind blew out and cobwebs everywhere. I immediately looked down and said, ‘Oh no, that can’t be real.’

Trobaugh claimed he lived with Tensley for three months before finding the body. Tensley reportedly cashed Social Security checks using the dead man's name after hiding his body in the closet. Authorities charged her with corpse abuse and fraud.

Faye Copeland worked with her husband Ray to kill drifters they lured to their Missouri farm. Ray Copeland was a known fraud in Mooresville. When money was low, he hired drifters to work as farmhands for cattle fraud. The drifters bought cattle with bad checks, then vanished after the deals closed. The Copelands killed the drifters and buried them on the farm. Faye even sewed a quilt from their clothes.

Authorities arrested the Copelands after a former employee called a Crime Stoppers tip line in 1989. The courts sentenced Ray, 76, and Faye, 69, to death for first-degree murder, making them the oldest couple on death row.This couple holds the oldest status on death row.Ray died in prison. The courts later reduced Faye's sentence on appeal. In 2003, she died on parole in a nursing home.

In 2015, Nilda Sheffield, 53, wrote in her diary that she wanted to kill her daughter and grandchildren to free them from hell. She compared herself to Abraham, a biblical figure God called upon to sacrifice his own son.She compared herself to Abraham.She was a biblical figure God called upon to sacrifice his own son.

The Florida grandmother shot 31-year-old Elizabeth Flores and her children, ages 7 and 2, while they slept before shooting herself. Sheffield reportedly thought the family would be reincarnated and meet again in their next lives.

In 2016, Delaware police arrested Angela Bingham after she confessed to killing her 3-year-old grandson. Bingham reportedly said she could not afford a child, so she suffocated him to mask the smell of his decomposing body. She stuffed towels around the bedroom door and burned incense.She masked the smell.She stuffed towels around the bedroom door and burned incense to cover the smell of his decomposing body.

Bingham allegedly tried to kill herself after the murder. Delaware authorities sentenced her to 22 years in prison.She served 22 years in prison.

In November 2005, after an argument over a dowry, 62-year-old Mangal Bharat Thorat beat his daughter-in-law, Neelam Thorat, doused her in kerosene, and set her on fire. Neelam suffered burns on over 85 percent of her body and died from those injuries at Bhatia Hospital. Thorat allegedly tormented his daughter-in-law since their wedding in March.

Mumbai High Court sentenced Thorat to life in prison. Prosecutors sought to arrest Thorat's husband too, but according to a judge, there was no solid proof to convict him.A judge stated this.Working the case, the investigator said, "Although her husband was also a culprit, there is no substantial evidence to convict him." The courts acquitted him of charges.

Melissa Ann Shepard's nickname is "Internet Black Widow." This 80-year-old woman from Halifax, Canada, murdered two of her four husbands and tried killing the others over twenty years. Her choice was to give her husbands tranquilizers, causing them to overdose.

After her second husband died in 1991, authorities acted.Authorities convicted her of manslaughter and sent her to six years in prison. She served early release on good behavior. In 2012, police charged her with attempted murder after her fourth husband nearly died. Investigators found prescription pills at her home when the husband was hospitalized for poisoning. Evidence also shows she likely tried to kill two other husbands without success.Shepard received six years in prison and served early release for good behavior. In 2012, police charged her with attempted murder after her fourth husband nearly died from poisoning. Investigators found prescription pills at her home. Evidence also suggests she tried to kill two other husbands unsuccessfully.

The courts released Shepard in 2016.Shepard must document any relationship with a man and report weekly to the police, either by phone or in person.At 64, Dorothea Puente faced trial for murdering nine people, including a former boyfriend. Law enforcement found victims' bodies buried under her unlicensed boarding home in Sacramento, CA, leading to the charges.

At 64, Dorothea Puente stood trial for murdering nine people, including a former boyfriend. Law enforcement found Puente's victims' bodies buried under her unlicensed boarding home in Sacramento, CA.

Hazel Dulcie Bodsworth had a reputation for baking scones and delivering them to the local police station.Australian authorities later found she killed three men, including the father of her four children. Bodsworth staged her killings as accidents. Her first husband "accidentally" drowned, and another victim burned in a "strange" house fire.She targeted people without friends or family: the elderly, alcoholics, and the disabled. She gave them fatal drug doses and cashed their Social Security checks. Authorities caught Puente in the early '90s; she served a life sentence and died at 82.

Hazel Dulcie Bodsworth had aThe ladies received $2.8 million in insurance payouts before Los Angeles County authorities uncovered their plot. The Black Widows killed two men, but police found their crimes after the women failed a third murder attempt.she delivered the bodies to the local police station. Australian authorities later found she killed three men, including the father of her four children. Bodsworth staged the killings as accidents. Her first husband 'accidentally' drowned; another victim burned in a 'strange' house fire.

Bodsworth and her husband, Henry William Bodsworth,stood trialbefore the Central Criminal Court. Both pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served five years for Bodsworth’s first husband's death; Bodsworth was found guilty of killing another man and received a life sentence.

Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt, the “Black Widows,” ran a scheme. They took in homeless men, applied for life insurance policies worth thousands for them, then killed them with cars in staged hit-and-run accidents.

The ladies got $2.8 million in insurance payouts before Los Angeles County authorities uncovered their plot. The Black Widows killed two men, but police found their crimes after the women failed athird murder attemptThe women tried to get a homeless man named Jimmy Covington to apply for an $800,000 life insurance policy. He became suspicious and ran away.

In 2008, law enforcement charged Golay and Rutterschmidt with murder and conspiracy for killing Kenneth McDavid and Paul Vados. Los Angeles courts sentenced the Black Widows tolife in prison.

Law enforcement arrested 74-year-old Sandra Layne in 2012 after she shot her 17-year-old grandson multiple times. Her lawyer argued self-defense, claiming Layne feared her grandson, Jonathan Hoffman, who was a drug addict.

Michigan prosecutors alleged Sandra Layne wanted to murder her grandson due to his juvenile delinquency. Hoffman called authorities during the shooting. The courts found Layne guilty and sentenced her toSandra Layne served twenty-two years in prison..