In celebration of women, let’s take a look at the five most notorious criminals who also happen to be ladies:
5) Patty Hearst – She pops up everywhere. A famous and affluent member of the Hearst family, she was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) as a 19 year old in Berkeley for ransom. The SLA opposed the U.S. government and the so-called capitalist state, campaigning for anarchy. They brainwashed her, with Hearst announcing her solidarity in their fight. She later was caught on security cameras robbing a bank with an assault weapon before hiding out. She was caught eventually, sentenced to seven years in prison, and served two. She was later commuted and pardoned for her crimes.
4) Lizzie Borden – You might recall her from an old rhyme from your childhood – if your parents were creepy. “Lizzie Borden took an axe/Gave her mother forty whacks/when she saw what she had done/she gave her father forty-one.”
She has been attributed to the Fall River Murders of 1892, but was never convicted. In 1892, Borden came into her house to find her dad dead, with his eyeball split in two. Her stepmother was found similarly axed upstairs. Police gathered overwhelming evidence against her, finding the hatchet with a broken handle in the basement, and evidence that Borden had burned a dress shortly after the murders. Borden never appeared to mourn the loss of her parents. Despite this, she was acquitted and lived a comfortable life long after.
3) Leona Helmsley – This woman is perhaps one of the most glamorous on this list. She was one of the richest women in New York City – a hotel tycoon with a real estate portfolio in the millions. On top of that, she was a horribly mean women behind closed doors, throwing tantrums and abuses at those who worked for her for all manner of slights – perceived or real. She was known as the ‘Queen of Mean,’ and had nothing but disdain for the commoners, who she referred to as the ‘little people.’ Too bad for her, she was arrested in 1989 for tax fraud and tax evasion, and sentenced to 16 years in prison. She didn’t serve out the full sentence, but the testimony against her character was pretty damning, and her reputation never recovered.
2) Griselda Blanco – El Chapo has nothing on the ‘Cocaine Grandmother,’ who ordered dozens (that we know of) of murders and attacks in the drug wars in Miami. Her career as drug cartel boss lined her pockets and set her up for a very nice retirement – to the tune of millions of dollars per month. She brought massive amounts of cocaine into America under the guise of a lingerie company, filled with secret compartments in which to sneak cocaine. In 1985, she was arrested and served 20 years in jail, after which she was deported to Colombia. Shortly after her return, she was gunned down in a drive-by shooting on a motorbike (one of her favorite methods of killing her enemies).
1) Aileen Wuornos – forever depicted by a grizzled Charlize Therone, this woman had one heck of a year between 1989 – 1990. While working as a prostitute, she killed seven men by shooting them at point blank range. She claimed she killed them in self-defense at trial, to no avail. She was convicted and sentenced to death. Right before her execution, Aileen came clean, admitting that she was never in any danger, and she simply killed the men she stole from.