Female Serial Killer Research Paper

Throughout history, society has tried to block the image of a female serial killer. Back in the olden days women were considered weak and too fragile to commit acts of violence. Besides that, during those time periods, they did not want to admit that any person could be capable of doing such horrible acts let alone a woman. Even though people did not want to admit that women were capable of such acts history shows that there are female serial killers. Some of these vixens can be considered as being deadlier than their male counterparts. A notable female serial killer who is considered as being America’s first is none other than Jane Toppan. In order to understand why she killed various parts of her life will be examined starting with her childhood.

When Honora was a young girl, her mother died from tuberculosis, leaving her and her sisters with an unstable father (Stone,2010). After her mother’s death, Honora’s father who was a violent alcoholic started to go insane. He was going in and out of insane asylums and even tried to commit suicide. Since he was no longer capable of taking care of his children, he gave his two youngest daughters to an orphanage. Later Honora would be given to the Toppan family as an indentured servant. While serving the Toppan family Honora’s name changed to Jane and she took the Toppan last name as her own even though she was never fully adopted by them. During a time period in her life, she became depressed and tried to commit suicide twice and turned to odd behavior (Lane, 1995). Jane was considered as a pathological liar, thief, gossip, an imposter. She did all these things in hopes of gaining attention that she never really had. According to Stone, these traits were signs that showed Jane meet the criteria for