Deadlier Than the Male Trivia Quiz

Answer: Darya Saltykova

Darya Saltykova, from a common family, married an officer of high rank - Gleb Saltykov: this enabled her to enter aristocratic circles. Unfortunately Gleb Saltykov died suddenly leaving Saltykova a very wealthy 26 year old widow: it was not long after her husband's death that she started to show her sadistic side, torturing and murdering mostly woman.

Her crimes came to light when a note was passed to Catherine the Great by Yermolay Ilyin, claiming Saltykova had murdered all three of his wives. Catherine ordered an investigation which brought to light the severity of Saltykova crimes: the estimated number of victims was 138, she was found guilty of killing only 38, and was sentenced to life in prison. She was placed in a convent dungeon with no human contact, her food was passed through a slit in the door, there were no windows just a candle for light: at a later date she was moved to a small cell attached to the convent where she died a few years later.

Answer: Amelia Dyer

Dyer was a nurse by profession but went into the lucrative business of baby farming: She would take an unwanted baby from the desperate single mothers who were barred from the work-house for having a child out of wedlock: giving the child up was the only option open to these mothers. Dyer would take the child for a fee in the pretence of finding the child a home.

Her crimes came to light when on 30th March 1896: one of her victims a baby called Helena Fry, was fished out of the River Thames: she had been strangled, the cord was still wrapped around her neck. Doctors started to notice the number of death certificates issued to children under her care and reported them to the police, but she was only charged with neglect and went to jail for six months with hard labour.

When Dryer was released she continued with her baby farming scheme but this time not wanting to involve doctors she decided to dispose of the children's bodies herself. This lead to her capture and she was charged with murder.

She tried to convince the jury she was insane but that was rejected and she was found guilty and hanged at Newgate prison on Wednesday 10th June, 1896.

Answer: Hélène Jégado

Hélène Jégado (1803-1852) was a French domestic servant accused of killing over 36 people by arsenic poisoning within a period of 18 years. Most of her victims were people who employed her or in some cases other servants. She was arrested on January 1st 1851.

She claimed in her defence she didn't know what arsenic was so how could she use it to kill someone? Her trial started on December 6th 1851, she was sentenced to death by guillotine: she received a public execution on February 26, 1852.

Answer: Leonarda Cianciulli

Leonarda Cianciulli was a very superstitious woman and believed a curse was placed on her by her own mother. A fortune teller once told her she saw a prison in her left hand and a criminal asylum in her right. She went on to murder three woman when her son Giuseppe told her in late 1939, that he was going to join the army.

She believed human sacrifice would keep him safe ... The fortune teller's prediction came true; she spent thirty three years in prison and three years in an insane asylum: she died of cerebral apoplexy, in 1970, at age 79.

Answer: Mary Ann Cotton

Mary Ann Cotton, was born in October 1832. She moved out of the family home at the age of 16, she didn't get along with her step-father: she studied to become a nurse and dressmaker. She married her first husband William Mobray in 1852: she was living in Plymouth with Mobray and her children when the deaths started happening.

She lost four of children, and according to a doctor "gastric fever" was the cause of death. Mary Cotton went on to lose more children and three husbands and her own mother, all diagnosed with intestinal problems: these kinds of problems were rife in Victorian England so no-one suspected anything was wrong.

She had insurance policies for most of her victims and she received a tidy sum of money upon their deaths. It was her last marriage to Frederick Cotton, that sealed her fate: she poisoned her step-son, Charles, with arsenic but this time the doctor wanted the body exhumed: large quantities of arsenic were found in the boy's body and she was charged with murder. She was sentenced to death by hanging and her execution took place on 24th March 1873: unfortunately for her the hangman William Calcraft botched the hanging and she was slowly strangled to death.

Answer: Belle Gunness

Brynhild Paulsdatter Størseth was born November 11th, 1859: she changed her name to Belle Gunness. She paid for her travel to America by working on a farm in her homeland: by 1881 she had saved up enough money to emigrate to America. She married her first husband Mads Ditlev Anton Sorenson, in 1884: and bought a confectionery shop Chicago and the couple had four children together. The shop wasn't doing well, and burned down within a year of opening: Belle claimed the insurance and they bought a house which also burned down. Two of Belle's own children died (according to their doctor) of acute colitis, her husband's soon afterwards with similar symptoms. She married Peter Gunness in April 1902: he died in suspicious circumstances when a meat grinder fell from a shelf onto his head (according to Belle) and she claimed a very large insurance payout.
She bought a farm and advertised to meet wealthy men and the men were never seen again. When the police became suspicious of the disappearances they started digging and found human bones buried all over the farm: there was also evidence that she had fed some victims bodies to the pigs.
When searching the farmhouse the police found dead bodies in the basement where, with the help of a farm hand Ray Lamphere, Belle took the bodies to chop them up. She is believed to have faked her own death in order to escape justice, by burning down her farmhouse and leaving an unknown female inside, even putting her false teeth in the corpse's mouth for identification. Ray Lamphere was charged with Belle's murder along with her two children, he admitted helping her to bury and burn the victims he was sentenced to twenty years in prison, but died shortly of tuberculosis. It is not known what became of her.

Answer: Jane Toppan

Jane Kelley was born on 17th August 1854. Her parents were both Irish immigrants; her mother died of tuberculosis when Jane and her sister Delia were young. Her father couldn't cope with two small girls so he had them committed to the Boston Female Asylum.

A few years later she adopted the name Toppan, the name of the family in which she was placed with as an indentured servant. She stayed with the family for 20 year's before training to became a nurse at Cambridge Hospital, Massachusetts. She began to use her patients as guinea pigs, but the patients liked and trusted her: she used this to her advantage to inject them with sedatives.

While they were sleeping or paralysed she would climb into bed with them and abuse them. She started mixing medicine together and injecting them, getting a thrill at watching them take their last breath.

Her killing spree was not contained to the hospital she went on to kill her landlord and a few years later she killed her foster sister Elizabeth, with strychnine.

She killed many more in the coming years until she was arrested on October 29th 1901: she admitted killing 33 people and was declared insane. On June 23rd: she was sent to Taunton Insane Hospital where she died in 1938, aged 80 years old.

Answer: Nannie Doss

Nannie Doss was born Nancy Hazel on Nov 4th 1905. She married Charley Braggs, when she was only sixteen years old. She gives birth to four children from 1923 to 1927. When two of her daughter's died the cause was recorded as suspected food poisoning: her husband left her shortly after their children's death.

She went on to marry four more times, none of these husbands survived and she claimed the insurance policies. Her killing spree included her own mother, two sisters, her nephews and her mother-in-law.

It was when her fifth husband died that doctors finally did an autopsy and found arsenic in his body: she was arrested for murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. She was never charged with the other murders. She died from leukemia at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, in 1965.

Answer: Vera Renczi

Born in 1903 in Bucharest, Vera Renczi had a very privileged upbringing. At fifteen years old she had already had numerous affairs with older men, some of her friends would describe her as possessive and an extremely jealous woman. Her first marriage was to a wealthy businessman but didn't last long due to his cheating with other woman.

It did however produce one child, a boy named Lorenzo. She poisoned her husband with arsenic and proceeded to tell people he had left her. Her second marriage failed also and she believed that all men were untrustworthy.

She poisoned every boy friend who disappointed her, ending up with 32 male corpses buried in her cellar: unfortunately for Lorenzo he learnt his mother's secret, and he ended up buried in the cellar with the other rotting corpses. Vera was found guilty of 32 counts of murder and spent the rest of her life in jail.

Answer: Marie Alexandrine Becker

Born in 1877, Marie Alexandrine Becker was 55 years old when she began an affair with Lambert Beyer. Bored with her husband she poisoned him to be with Beyer. However Lambert Beyer met the same fate when Becker poisoned him. She received a small income and decided to open a dress shop, it was here she poisoned and robbed her elderly patrons.

Her downfall came when a friend was complaining about her husband, Becker and told her she could get poison to kill him: her friend reported the discussion to the police and an investigation was launched. Becker was arrested and charged with murder on October 1936.

She was found guilty and spent the rest of her life in jail.