Title: The Unique Motives of Female Serial Killers | Psychology Today
Headings: The Unique Motives of Female Serial Killers
Scott A. Bonn Ph.D.
The Unique Motives of Female Serial Killers
Women kill for very different reasons than men.

Content: The news and entertainment media have popularized the female comfort/gain killer in the cultural image of the "Black Widow." The Black Widow serial killer is a woman who murders three or more husbands or lovers for financial or material gain over the course of her criminal career. The Black Widow killer was featured in the 1944 classic dark comedy film Arsenic and Old Lace starring Cary Grant. This highly popular film tells the fictional tale of two sisters who murder elderly gentlemen by serving them elderberry wine laced with arsenic. Although they comprise less than 15 percent of all serial killers, females are very effective in their work and they typically use quieter and less messy methods to kill than their male counterparts. The methods they use for murder are more covert or low-profile, such as murder by poisoning, which was the preferred choice or modus operandi of female serial killers in the aforementioned research study. Other methods of murder that were also identified in the study of female serial killers include shooting, stabbing, suffocation, and drowning (1). Female comfort/gain killers are frequently involved in theft, fraud, or embezzlement prior to becoming serial killers due to their interest in material things. Although most female serial killers murder for money or other profit, some do it for the attention and sympathy they receive following the death of someone they cared for. It is not uncommon for female comfort/gain killers to be employed as caretakers in nursing homes for the elderly.