Who run the world? Multi-billion dollar corporations, Big Pharma and the Bilderberg Group. But who kills the best? Girls, especially those who hail from my homeland. These are some of the lovely (I use that word loosely) lady killers from down under.
Katherine Knight, obviously.
See the full article on Australian’s own Hannah Lector HERE.
Martha Needle, AKA, the Black Widow of Richmond.
Martha was born Martha Charles on April 9, 1863, near Morgan, South Australia. Her father, died when she was young and her mother remarried and had 2 more children. As they were a poor family, the five of them shared a 2 bedroom home in North Adelaide. Martha’s mother apparently beat her regularly and her stepfather, Daniel Foran, abused her at the age of 13. So she got the fuck outta there and found work as a housekeeper.
In 1882, she married Henry Needle, she was 18 at the time. They had 3 children, Mabel, Elsie and May before 1885, when they moved to Richmond, a suburb of Melbourne. The move did nothing to help the tumultuous relationship. Henry was a jealous man who often beat Martha, who was considered attractive by the local men. It’s hard to tell whether Martha had battered women’s syndrome or whether she was a nasty piece of work, but I can’t imagine the shitty relationship and beatings by every man she ever met helped.
On February 13, 1885, Mabel Needle passed away. She was sick for a very short time and it took the family by shock. Mabel’s life was insured for 100 pounds and the grieving family collected roughly $46,000 in 2017 money. Tragedy struck again on October 4, 1889, when Henry died from a “mysterious illness”. The next year took Elsie, and then May. Doctors were shocked to see such a beautiful family struck down, whilst Martha collected insurances on each death and spent the majority of the cash on an elaborate grave for the family.
In 1893, Martha began chattin’ up a bloke by the name of Otto Juncken, a brother of a friend named Louis from Adelaide. Martha was sub-letting an apartment attached to Otto’s Saddlery business at the time. Louis and his other brother Herman were not exactly massive supporters of the union and attempted to stop the engagement of their brother to a lady whose entire family had died over the course of 5 years. When Louis died of (suspected) typhoid in 1894, Herman had to make the trip back over to Adelaide to deal with family affairs. Martha offered to make him some lunch for the trip, but not long after eating the meal, Herman became gravely ill. Violent, painful cramps took hold of his body almost suddenly. He had seemed to recover but then became ill again after breakfast the next day. After two days, Herman was back to full health only to be struck once again by the painful cramps, this time after eating yet another lunch prepared by Martha. A doctor tested Herman’s vomit and sent it off for testing, the puke contained high levels of Arsenic. Herman had been poisoned.
The doctor informed police of his discovery and they decided that they would get Herman to catch Martha in the act. He asked Martha to fix him some lunch, and when Martha served him a lovely cup of tea, he literally blew a whistle to inform the waiting police officers it was time to charge. This tea was found to have enough arsenic in it to kill five people.
Martha was arrested for attempted murder and the bodies of each of her deceased family members were exhumed. The body of Louis Juncken was also exhumed and tested for arsenic. Each body contained fatal levels of the poison. Martha was charged with murder, she pleads not guilty, but was found hella guilty and sentenced to death.
At 8.00am on October 22, 1894 she was hanged at Melbourne Gaol, making her one of only four women to face death at the historic prison. Her last words were “I have nothing to say.”
SOURCES
http://murderpedia.org/female.N/n/needle-martha.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martha_Needle
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/53646564
Kathleen Megan Folbigg.
Kathleen’s life didn’t start off great. She was born on June 14, 1967, in New South Wales, Australia. Two years later, on January 8, 1969, her biological father, Thomas John Britton, murdered her mother by stabbing her 24 times. After his arrest the day after, Kathleen was made a ward of the state and placed into a foster care home. She remained in that home until July 18, 1970, when she was brought to Bidura Children’s Home. In September of the same year, Kathleen was placed into yet another foster home under the care of Mr and Mrs Marlborough. The couple expressed interest in adopting Kathleen, but it has been said that the Marlborough’s treated her as a slave and kept her isolated from her friends. Kathleen remained in their care, leaving school at 15 and marrying Craig Gibson Folbigg in 1987.
The couple set up home in Mayfield, New South Wales in 1987 and February 1, 1989, saw the birth of Craig and Kathleen’s first child, Caleb Gibson Folbigg. Caleb was diagnosed with a mild case of Laryngomalacia, a breathing condition that he was expected to outgrow. On February 20, Kathleen put Caleb to bed. He was restless from midnight to 2am, and when Kathleen went in to check on the baby, he was dead. The death was ruled to be caused by cot death, known in Australia as SIDS.
Patrick Allen Folbigg was welcomed into the world on June 3, 1990. Craig took three months off of work to help take care of his wife and their new child. On October 18, Craig woke to the sound of his wife screaming, he rushed out of bed to find Kathleen standing at the side of the babies cot. Craig attempted CPR on the baby as they waited for the ambulance to arrive. After being rushed to the hospital, Patrick was diagnosed with epilepsy and cortical blindness. On February 13, 1991, Kathleen called her husband at work, screaming down the phone that “it happened again!”. Patrick’s death was caused by acute asphyxiating event resulting from an epileptic fit.
Kathleen and Craig decided they would move to Thornton, New South Wales in the months following Patrick’s death. On October 14, 1992, the couples third child, Sarah Kathleen Folbigg was born. Not much is said about the life of Sarah Kathleen, because, she died on August 29, 1993.
Three years later Kathleen and Craig moved once again to Singleton, New South Wales. On August 7, 1997 Laura Elizabeth Folbigg was born. Again, not much information is out there on Laura’s life because again, surprise, she died as an infant on February 27, 1999. If Laura had lived she would have been my age.
After the fourth death, a grieving Craig found Kathleen’s personal diary. The pages depicted a macabre situation, Kathleen had been responsible for the deaths of her children. The diaries mentioned “flashes of rage, resentment and hatred” towards her children and the most damning statement from her entries came after the birth of Laura Elizabeth Folbigg.
“I feel like the worst mother on this earth. Scared that she [Laura] will leave me now. Like Sarah did. I knew I was short-tempered and cruel sometimes to her and she left. With a bit of help.”
The trial of Kathleen Folbigg lasted seven weeks. There was no physical evidence to link Kathleen to the murders, and the entries in the diaries were chalked up to a grieving mothers guilt by the defence. Ambulance and hospital staff claimed there was nothing unusual about Kathleen’s behaviour when they treated her dying children. Kathleen continued to stick by her belief that the children had died of natural causes. As SIDS can run in families, it was not a crazy thing to think that each child had been tragically taken by “cot death”.
But on May 21, 2003, Kathleen was found guilty of three counts of murder, one count of manslaughter and one count of maliciously inflicting grievous bodily harm and was sentenced to 40-years with a non-parole period of 30-years. This was later adjusted to 30-years with a non-parole period of 25-years.
On August 22, 2018, a judicial inquiry was launched in regards to Folbigg’s case in response to a petition from her supporters. The inquiry is still in progress and Folbigg will remain in custody until it’s completion.
SOURCES
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143007546/patrick-allen-folbigg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Folbigg
http://murderpedia.org/female.F/f/folbigg-kathleen.htm
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/143007713
Tracey Avril Wigginton, AKA The Lesbian Vampire Killer.
I mean, the moniker is pretty self-explanatory but let’s get into it. Tracey Avril Wigginton was born in 1965, not much is said about her life until the night she, Lisa Ptaschinski, Kim Jervis and Tracy Waugh (all aged 24 and 23), crossed paths with 47-year-old council worker, Edward Baldock.
Long before Twilight took over the psyche of young women of the world, Tracey claimed to be a vampire. She drank animal blood and was like hella goth. She told police later that she lived purely on blood bought from the butcher and her girlfriend, Lisa Ptaschinski would on occasion slit her wrists for Tracey to drink from. In the months leading up to the murder, she told the other women that she wanted to murder a man to “feed” from him.
Turns out that Edward Baldock was the unlucky meal for Tracey. After a night out drinking with his mates at a local pub on October 20, 1989, he was heading home for the night. The women drove up to him in their car and took advantage of his inebriated state and convinced him to get into their vehicle. They drove up to the banks of the Brisbane River and parked the car, Tracey got out and lured Edward out with a promise of “sexual favours”, but instead of a receiving good time, Tracey attacked him with a hunting knife, stabbing him to the point of near decapitation. It is believed that Tracey then proceeded to drink his blood, although Tracey herself later calls bullshit on that and the police call bullshit on her.
The women then left the body on the banks where it was discovered by locals the next day. In Edward’s shoe, there was a cash card bearing the name “Tracey Wigginton” which led police straight to the group. All four women were charged, Tracey was the only one who pleaded guilty.
Tracy and Lisa were charged with murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, Kim Jervis was charged with manslaughter and Tracy Waugh was cleared of involvement after her defence argued she had tried to stop Jervis from taking part in the murder.
On January 11, 2012, after a first failed parole bid and 22-years in prison, Tracey Wigginton was released on parole. She can’t make contact with any of her co-accused, and can’t sell her story for profit. Bummer.
SOURCES
http://murderpedia.org/female.W/w/wigginton-tracey.htm
https://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/australias-reallife-femme-fatales/3611637/
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