Random "Little Old Ladies" Who Committed Murders (17 items)

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  (#3) Amelia Dyer

  • Dec. at 59 (1837-1896)

  For 20 years, Amelia Dyer is said to have killed more than 400 infants while she was working as a "baby farmer," someone who adopts children for lump sums of money. In 19th-century Victorian England, it was common for older women to take in children for a fee. The Victorian nurse offered her services to young mothers who were unwed or unable to care for their offspring. 

  Initially, she neglected the children until they died, but when that began to take too long, she started murdering them at the onset of their adoption to make more of a profit.

  Police were only able to confirm one of Dyer’s victims, but investigators found concrete evidence of between 12 and 50 more deceased children who had been in her care. However, it's widely speculated she killed hundreds more. Authorities sentenced her to death by hanging, and she died in the summer of 1896.
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  (#13) Dorothea Puente

  • Dec. at 82 (1929-2011)

  At 64, Dorothea Puente stood trial for murdering nine people, including a former boyfriend. Monterey County convicted Puente after law enforcement found her victims' bodies buried under her unlicensed boarding home in Sacramento.

  Puente murdered victims who police referred to as “shadow people,” or people without friends or family - the elderly, alcoholics, and the disabled. She gave her borders fatal doses of drugs and then cashed their Social Security checks. Authorities apprehended Puente in the early '90s,  and she served her life sentence in Chowchilla prison, where she later died at the age of 82. 
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  (#8) Nilda Sheffield Killed Her Daughter and Grandchildren to Save Them From 'Hell'

  In 2015, Nilda Sheffield, 53, wrote in her diary that she wanted to kill her daughter and grandchildren to free them from "hell." She compared herself to Abraham, a biblical figure God called upon to sacrifice his own son. 

  The Florida grandmother then shot 31-year-old Elizabeth Flores and her children, ages 7 and 2, before turning the gun on herself. According to police reports, Sheffield killed her family with a shot to the back of the head while they slept. Sheffield reportedly believed the family would be reincarnated and meet again in their next lives. 
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  (#14) Hazel Dulcie Bodsworth Baked Cakes For Cops, Then Killed Her Husband

  Hazel Dulcie Bodsworth had a reputation for baking cakes and delivering them to the local police station. Australian authorities later discovered she killed three men, including the father of her four children.

  Bodsworth staged her killings as accidents. Her first husband "accidentally" drowned, another of her victims tragically burned in a "strange" house fire. She even tried killing her son-in-law by shoving him into a hole, but he survived the attack.

  When police finally caught her in 1964, she and her new husband were on their way to pick up their newly adopted son. Bodsworth and her husband, Henry William Bodsworth, stood trial before the Central Criminal Court. She admitted guilt, and the court sentenced her to life in prison, of which she only served 14 years. Henry pleaded guilty to manslaughter and served five years for the death of Bodsworth’s first husband.
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  (#16) Carolyn Hood Helped Her Son Kill Her Husband

  In 2016, Montgomery law enforcement arrested 79-year-old Carolyn Hood for allegedly helping her son, William Minton, kill her husband. Investigators report Minton killed Kenneth Hood in 2014 and then dismembered his body. Reportedly, Minton scattered Kenneth’s remains around Baldwin County, AL. 

  Despite her attorney referring to her as "basically an invalid," police believe Hood helped Minton dismember Kenneth's corpse. While her son did most of the dirty work, prosecutors believe she had a hand in the slaying of Kenneth. Both initially faced capital murder charges, but in 2017, Alabama courts dropped the case against Hood, who has since moved into a nursing home. Minton pled guilty to manslaughter and received a life sentence.
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  (#7) Faye Copeland Made A Quilt Out of Her Victims' Clothes

  Faye Copeland worked with her husband Ray to kill drifters who they lured to their Missouri farm. Ray Copeland was a known fraud in the small town of Mooresville. When money was tight, he picked up drifters to act as farm hands to commit cattle fraud. The drifters bought cattle using bad checks and then after the transactions were done, they would mysteriously disappear. The Copelands killed the drifters and buried the bodies on the farm. Allegedly, Faye even sewed a quilt from her victims' clothes. 

  Authorities arrested the Copelands after a former employee called a Crime Stoppers tip line in 1989. Charged on first-degree murder counts, the courts sentenced both Ray, 76, and Faye, 69, to death, as the oldest couple on death row. Ray died in prison, and the courts later reduced Faye's sentence on appeal. In 2003, she died on parole in a nursing home. 

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