Title: The return of the female serial killer – Trouble and Strife
Headings: The return of the female serial killer
The return of the female serial killer 2
Mythologizing murder
The female serial killer: monster, victim or psychopath?
Joanna Dennehy’s story
The question of sex
Becoming a hero
Cognitive dissonance
The sexual politics of serial killing

Content: The return of the female serial killer – Trouble and Strife
The return of the female serial killer 2
As Joanna Dennehy begins a life sentence for the killing of three men, Debbie Cameron considers the way she has been represented and reflects on the meaning of her crimes
‘I murdered three men, but it could have been worse—I could have been fat and ugly ’. If this line had been spoken by a fictional character we could read it as feminist satire. But in fact the words were recorded in an English police station during an interview with Joanna Dennehy, a 32-year old woman accused of stabbing three men to death and attempting to kill two more. In court she pleaded guilty to all the charges against her, and last month she was sentenced to a whole-life term in prison. Predictably, Joanna Dennehy’s case unleashed a tsunami of media commentary on the subject of ‘the female serial killer’. I last wrote about this mythical figure in 1996, following the trial of Rosemary West. Now, almost 20 years later, she is back in the news, and it seems there might be something new to say about her. Mythologizing murder
When I refer to ‘the female serial killer’ as a ‘mythical figure’, I don’t mean to imply that she does not exist at all. But discussions of ‘the female serial killer’ as a ‘type’ give the impression that the examples we have heard of are just the visible tip of some vast hidden iceberg. That is a myth.