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I read yesterday that female serial killer Irina Gaydamacuk, a Russian woman who was convicted of killing 17 elderly woman over an 8 year period, has been dubbed "Satan in a Skirt" by the media. She was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Her modus operandi was to get a list of local retirees, then pose as a social worker or housekeeper and offer to help them with chores or other home improvements. Her violent way of killing her victims (she often used a hammer or other heavy object to crush their skulls) reportedly threw Russian police off the trail and convinced them initially that the killer was a man. She is the fourth most prevalent female serial killer on record.
While the motive was reportedly money, what strikes me about this case is the violent, up-close-and-personal way she killed her victims. Did she just pick old women because they were vulnerable? If so, why didn't she use a "kinder" way of getting rid of them—poison, shooting, even suffocating might have been more humane than smashing someone's skull in with 24 blows of a hammer.
Same Motive, Different Method?
Killing for profit is, of course, nothing new. But, historically, most of the women who murder for money do so with less violent—or, at least, less direct—methods. We poison. We smother. We hire someone to do it for us.
Is this changing? Irina Gaydamacuk has some recent company. Consider Juana Barraza, a 48 year old Mexican woman who was tried in the spring of 2008, the prosecution alleging she had been responsible for as many as 40 deaths. She admitted one murder, that of Alfaro, and told the police her motive was lingering resentment regarding her own mother's treatment of her. All the murderer's victims were adult women aged 60 or over, most of whom lived alone. Murder was by bludgeoning or strangulation, and the killer invariably robbed the victims.
Looking closer to home, Dana Gray, our luxury addicted serial killer, also fits the mold. During her month-long spree, Gray is credited with killing three elderly women and attempting to kill a fourth, all through hands-on and personal methods.
Trend or Anamoly?
Watch YouTube or scan news headlines and you will quickly become convinced that woman are becoming more and more violent. But are we? It's almost impossible to tell, given how the definition of violence changes over time (we're much more tuned in to verbal forms of aggression), police are intervening earlier (more proactive in intervening in what would historically be viewed as a private dispute) and the internet has broadened our exposure to news we would otherwise be clueless about. Perhaps the best answer is that, for females who already have a knack for for aggression, the quality of violence has escalated. In other words, bad girls are getting worse.
