TELEVISION
About
British crime writer Martina Cole examines the life and times of six of the most notorious female serial killers across history: Myra Hindley, Amelia Dyer, Beverly Allitt, Mary Ann Cotton, and Elizabeth Bathory. Each episode tells the story of one of these women, using expert analysis and dramatic reconstruction.
Related Subjects
Episodes
1 to 3 of 6
1. Episode One
47m
In this first episode of this series, British crime writer Martina Cole tells the story of Myra Hindley, dubbed the most evil woman in Britain by the tabloid press, who, in company with the petty criminal Ian Brady, with whom she was besotted, killed five children in the 1960s, burying their bodies on moorland. Despite her claims that she had reformed whilst in prison, Hindley was denied release and died in jail at sixty.
2. Episode Two
47m
In the second episode of this series, British crime writer Martina Cole examines the life and times of female serial killer Amelia Dyer. As a young girl, Bristol-born Amelia Dyer watched her mother die in pain, and it is assumed that that experience traumatized her. She qualified as a nurse and became a baby-farmer, looking after others' babies. After deaths of children in her care, she was charged with neglect and served six months in jail. Later, she spent time in a mental asylum but carried on baby-farming. In 1896, she was hanged for the murder of Doris Marmon, a child in her care, but she's suspected of having killed many more infants.
3. Episode Three
47m
In the third episode of this series, British crime writer Martina Cole examines the life and times of female serial killer Beverly Allitt. Always an attention seeker from childhood, fabricating imaginary illnesses, Grantham-born Beverly Allitt studied nursing and, due to staff shortages, obtained a job in a local hospital, where she was well-regarded. There, she killed four children and attempted to injure another nine, for which she was put away in a secure hospital for life.
4. Episode Four
47m
In the fourth episode of this series, British crime writer Martina Cole examines the life and times of female serial killer Rosemary West. Rosemary West was born in Barnstaple and, after her parents split up, spent time with her father, who repeatedly sexually abused her. She met Fred West, a man who had already killed two girls and, with Rose, would kill ten more, usually lodgers at their house, but family members too. Fred West killed himself in prison. Rose was originally subject to a life sentence of at least twenty-five years, but it was later amended to mean life, so that, with Myra Hindley, she is the only British murderess denied any hope of release.
5. Episoide Five
47m
In the fifth episode of this series, British crime writer Martina Cole examines the life and times of female serial killer Mary Ann Cotton. Mary Ann Cotton, hanged in Durham in 1873, was a Victorian Black Widow. Killing for greed, she murdered husbands, step children, her mother, and even her own children.
6. Episode Six
47m
In the sixth episode of this series, British crime writer Martina Cole examines the life and times of female serial killer Elizabeth Bathory. Born in Hungary in 1560, Countess Bathory was a lesbian who, with her son, two sons-in-law, and several female helpers, got young girls to come to her castle on the pretext of finding them work and then tortured and killed them. She was eventually found out and died virtually walled up in her castle. It is claimed that she killed 600 victims, making her the most prolific female serial killer of all time. A myth grew up that she bathed in her victims' blood to stay young, a fact used in the horror film Countess Dracula, starring Ingrid Pitt, one of the episode's talking heads.
Extended Details
- SeriesLady Killers
- Closed CaptionsEnglish