The Female of the Species.... Trivia Quiz

Answer: 7

Carol Aileen Wuornos was a sexual predator, she hitch-hiked along freeways killing and robbing seven of the drivers who picked her up. A great many feminists throughout the world supported her case and have even composed an opera about her life. Now on death row, Wuornos has dropped all appeals and wishes to be executed.

Answer: A trunk containing five dead infants

Williamson was a spinster and a recluse but it was assumed that the infants were children she had given birth to in secret, then smothered and preserved their bodies in the trunk.

Answer: Elderly Nursing Homes

Terrell worked in nursing homes across Illinois and Florida. In a home in St. Petersburg she killed 12 elderly victims by injecting them with huge doses of insulin. She was 29 years old and was a diagnosed schizophrenic and a Munchausens by Proxy sufferer.

She was finally caught when police discovered her psychiatric background. She was certified insane and sentenced to 65 years in prison.

Answer: She was the first woman to die in the electric chair in Ohio

Hahn worked as a live-in attendant for elderly men. Between 1932 and 1937 she fleeced five elderly victims of their financial assets and then murdered them. She was an expert in deadly poisons using a different one on each victim. Finally, the banks became suspicious and contacted the police.

The bodies of her victims were exhumed and autopsied. Hahn was arrested and in 1938 became the first woman in Ohio to die in the electric chair.

Answer: No

Lila Young was a midwife who ran a home for unwed mothers in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She was supposedly a devout Seventh Day Adventist who ran an adoption service for these poor girls. The home eventually became the most successful on the eastern seaboard, becoming a multi-million dollar enterprise.

However, an ex-employee alleged that when births outnumbered adoptive families, at least 100 babies were starved to death and buried in 'butterboxes' in the grounds. Although corpses were found, it was impossible to prove the cause of death. Lila Young was charged with manslaughter, but acquitted. All the authorities could do was to order the home closed due to health violations.

Answer: Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy

The term 'Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy' was coined in the late 1970s as a label a number of mothers who intentionally harmed their children and then rushed the child to hospital for treatment. These mothers would appear to be caring, devoted parents, distraught at the thought of their child suffering. Doctors have struggled to understand this syndrome and to identify sufferers before the child is harmed beyond saving.

Answer: Mary Flora Bell was only 11 years old

When 4 year old Martin Brown was found it was assumed he had died as the result of a fall. Two months later 3 year old Brian Howe went missing. Mary Flora Bell led searchers to find his body. He had been strangled and had characters carved into his stomach and legs with a razor. The Medical Examiner stated that it was the work of a child. Mary was convicted on two counts of manslaughter and was incarcerated.
She was released on the 14th of May 1980 at the age of 23.

Answer: 11

Nannie Doss insisted that she had murdered each of her 4 husbands in turn with rat poison, as they didn't match up to her romantic ideal.
However, since she also murdered her mother, two sisters, two children, one grandson and her nephew, romance doesn't exactly seem to be the motive. Nannie spent the rest of her life in prison and before dying of leukaemia in 1965, she wrote her memoirs for 'Life Magazine'.

Answer: boiled their bodies for use in her potions

Enriqueta was a self-styled witch. She made her living by making and selling expensive love potions. She would boil the childrens' bodies down and add the remains as ingredients to her potions. She was eventually caught and confessed. She was then convicted and executed in 1912.

Answer: Yes

Unbelievably, she drowned her remaining three children in a bath tub. She was found innocent due to mental illness and was recommitted. She was not released again and in 1973 her drowned body was found seven miles downriver from the hospital.