Title: Why Do Some Women Kill? - ABC News
Headings: Why Do Some Women Kill?
Why Do Some Women Kill?
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Content: And instinct tells me to sit back and let the case come to all of us." Welner said there are a "whole range of possibilities" that could have led to Huckaby's arrest. "The possibilities are she is as horrible as everybody imagines," Welner said. " Or she could have gotten in over her head in an interrogation and gave statements that incriminated herself in a way that are actually inaccurate." Welner said women are statistically less likely to murder than men in part because "destruction and the ability ... use power to knock someone down is so tied into a masculine identity." "That's not part of what makes women feminine in this culture or in any culture," he said. Though there is no single profile of female killers, mental illness has played a part in many of their high-profile killings. According to Jack Levin, a criminology professor at Northeastern University, female killers are more likely than men to suffer from serious mental illness, while male killers more typically suffer from personality disorders, and are often sociopaths who are unable to empathize with their victims. Andrea Yates, a Houston mother who drowned her five children in 2001, was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a state mental hospital. Her attorneys argued that she suffered from severe postpartum psychosis, believed Satan was inside of her, and was trying to save her children from hell.