Female Serial Killers (The Kelleher Typologies)
Female serial killers are first divided into two groups: those who act alone and those who act in partnership. Those two categories are then further divided.
Acting in partnership – characteristics:
Killers of this type tend to be younger, aggressive, vicious in their attack, sometimes disorganized, and usually unable to carefully plan. They usually attack victims in diverse locations. They tend to use guns, knifes, or torture:
- Team Killer – kills or participates in the killing of others in conjunction with at least one other
- Question of Sanity – kills in apparent random manner and later judged to be insane
- Unexplained - kills for reasons that are totally inexplicable or for unclear motives
- Unsolved - a pattern of unsolved killings that may be attributed to a woman (or women)
Acting alone – characteristics:
Killers of this type are often mature, careful, deliberate, socially adept, and highly organized. They usually attack victims in their home or place of work. They tend to favor a specific weapon, like poison, lethal injection, or suffocations:
- Black Widow - systematically kills multiple spouses, partners, or other family members
- Angel of Death - systematically kills people who are in her care for some form of medical attention
- Sexual Predator – systematically kills others in clear acts of sexual homicide
- Revenge - systematically kills out of hate or jealousy
- Profit or Crime – systematically kills for profit or in course of committing another crime
Theresa Knorr (born March 14, 1946) is an American woman convicted of torturing and murdering two of her children, while using the other children to facilitate and cover up her crimes. She is eligible for parole in 2027.
One of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims escaped, only to be returned to him by police. When it was later publicized, there was widespread condemnation of the officers. In the early morning hours of May 27, 1991, 14-year old Milwaukee Laotian Konerak Sinthasomphone was discovered on the street, wandering nude. Reports of the boy’s injuries varied. Dahmer told police that they had had an argument while drinking, and that Sinthasomphone was his 19 year-old lover. Against the teenager’s protests, police turned him over to Dahmer. Later that night Dahmer killed and dismembered Sinthasomphone, keeping his skull as a souvenir. Sinthasomphone was the younger brother of the boy Dahmer had been convicted of molesting.
John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish, the two police officers who returned Sinthasomphone to Dahmer, were terminated from the Milwaukee Police Department after their actions were widely publicized, including an audiotape of the officers making anti-gay statements to their dispatcher and laughing about having reunited the “lovers.” The two officers appealed their termination and were reinstated with back pay. They were named officers of the year by the police union for fighting to regain their jobs. Balcerzak would go on to be elected president of the Milwaukee Police Association in May 2005.
Items found in Jeffrey Dahmer’s apartment included:
- A human head and three bags of organs, two being a heart were found in the refrigerator.
- Three heads, a torso and various internal organs were inside a free-standing freezer.
- Chemicals, formaldehyde, ether, and chloroform plus two skulls, two hands and male genitalia were found in the closet.
- A filing cabinet which contained three painted skulls, a skeleton, a dried scalp, male genitalia, and various photographs of his victims.
- A box with two skulls inside.
- A 57-gallon vat filled with acid and three torsos.
- Victims’ identification.
- Bleach used to bleach the skulls and bones.
- Incense sticks. Neighbors often complained to Dahmer about the smell coming from his apartment.
- Tools - Claw hammer, handsaw, 3/8” drill, 1/16” drill, drill bits.
- A hypodermic needle.
- Various videos, some pornographic.
- Blood soaked mattress and blood splatters.
- King James Bible.
“I feel so bad for what I did to those poor families, and I understand their rightful hate. I also know I will be in prison for the rest of my life, and know I will have to turn to God to get me through each day. I should have stayed with God. I tried and failed and created a holocaust. Thank God there will be no more harm that I can do. I believe that only the Lord Jesus Christ can save me from my sins.”
-Jeffrey Dahmer.
Jeffrey Dahmer “The Milwaukee Cannibal”
Born May 21, 1960 in Wisconsin. In his early teens he became increasingly withdrawn and quiet. He would look for dead animals and diseact them. By his late teens he was an alcohlic, causing his father to force him into the army. He was kicked out for drinking. Then he lived with his grandmother for six year in which she observed him keeping dead animals, guns, even a manquin he stole from a store. He was arrested twice during this time for masturbating in front of two small boys. Then in 1988 he was arrested for drugging and molesting a 13 year old boy.
From 1978-‘81 he took 17 boys and men, from ages 17-31. He picked them up in gay bars or malls, drug them, strangle them, have sex with them, taking several pictures through the process, then proceed to cut them up and hide the remains. Or in several cases, eat their organs or other cut up body parts.
After complaints from neighbors in his apartment complex about the smells and noises, police discovered his pictures. Dahmer went to trial, convicted with 15 counts of murder, with 15 life sentences.
While in prison he was beaten and killed from head trauma. Then even kept his brain to study it.
Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos ”The Beast”
Luis Alfredo Garavito was born on 25 January 1957 in Génova, Quindío, Colombia. He is the oldest of seven brothers, and apparently suffered physical and emotional abuse by his father. In his testimony, he described being a victim of sexual abuse when young.
Garavito’s victims were poor children, peasant children, or street children, between the ages of 6 and 16. Garavito approached them on the street or countryside and offered them gifts or small amounts of money. After gaining their trust, he took the children for a walk and when they got tired, he would take advantage of them. He then raped them, cut their throats, and usually dismembered their corpses. Most corpses showed signs of torture.
Garavito was captured on 22 April 1999. He confessed to murdering 140 children. However, he is still under investigation for the murder of 172 children in more than 59 towns in Colombia. He was found guilty in 138 of the 172 cases; the others are ongoing. The sentences for these 138 cases add to 1,853 years and 9 days. Because of Colombian law restrictions, however, he cannot be imprisoned for more than 30 years. In addition, because he helped the authorities in finding the bodies, his sentence has been decreased to 22 years.
As Garavito served his reduced sentence, many Colombians began to gradually criticize the possibility of his early release, some arguing that he deserved either life in prison or the death penalty, neither of which are applicable in Colombia.
A judicial review of the cases against Garavito in different local jurisdictions found that his sentence could potentially be extended and his release delayed, because he would have to answer for unconfessed crimes separately, as they were not covered by his previous judicial process.
