In the popular imagination, a killer is usually a man. Statistics confirm that women are far less likely to commit the most serious crimes. According to United Nations data, more than nine out of ten people suspected of intentional homicide worldwide are men and boys. Yet when the killer is a woman, especially a mother, wife or carer, the crime often provokes an additional sense of disbelief.
This September, Viasat True Crime presents Killer Women Season. The main title in the strand is season six of Deadly Women. The line-up also includes documentaries about Jodi Arias, Dorothea Puente, the women who followed Charles Manson, Myra Hindley, Rose West and a wife who planned her husband's murder.
There is no single psychological profile of a woman capable of murder. Motives may include money, revenge, jealousy, obsession, the need for control or the desire to start a new life. Serious mental disorders play a role in some cases, but they cannot be treated as a universal explanation for violence.
A study of 64 American female serial killers found that financial gain was the most common motive within the group, while poisoning was the most frequently used method. The offenders usually knew their victims and were often related to them or responsible for their care. Cases in which mothers kill their own children are particularly difficult to understand because very different mechanisms may lie behind such crimes, from psychosis and delusions to revenge or coldly calculated intent.
In Deadly Women, former FBI profiler Candice DeLong and Dr Janis Amatuzio examine the motives of some of the most dangerous women featured in the series. Season six includes Manling Williams, who killed her two sons and husband, and Louise Vermilya, who was suspected of using arsenic to poison people around her. The programme explores women who killed for money, jealousy or revenge, as well as those who committed crimes alongside their partners.
Bad Behind Bars: Jodi Arias shows that manipulation can continue even after an arrest. Murders at the Boarding House tells the story of Dorothea Puente, a boarding-house owner whose garden concealed seven bodies.
Manson: The Women explores the power of manipulation exercised by a charismatic cult leader, while Moors Murders revisits Myra Hindley's role in the crimes she committed alongside Ian Brady. Fred and Rose West: The House of Horrors examines Rose West's involvement in one of the most disturbing chapters in British criminal history.
The strand also includes the two-part documentary My Wife, My Killer and the Secret Footage, about a woman who planned her husband's death and manipulated a former boyfriend into carrying out the murder.
Killer Women Season shows that violence has many faces and that the stereotype of a gentle, caring woman can sometimes make danger harder to recognise. The stories of Jodi Arias, Dorothea Puente, Myra Hindley and Rose West explore manipulation, obsession, dependence on a partner and the need for control.
These programmes are shocking, but they also remind us that there is rarely one simple explanation behind a murder.
Killer Women Season airs on weekdays from Tuesday 1 September at 22:00 CET on Viasat True Crime.
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