Lady Killers with Martina Cole

As a young girl Bristolborn Amelia Dyer watched her mother die in pain and it is assumed this had a traumatizing effect on her She qualified as a nurse and became a baby farmer looking after others babies After the deaths of children in her care she was charged with neglect and served six months in jail Later she spent time in a mental asylum but carried on babyfarming In 1896 she was hanged for

Always an attention seeker from childhood fabricating imaginary illnesses Granthamborn Beverly Allitt studies nursing and due to staff shortages obtains a job in a local hospital where she is wellregarded Here she kills four children and attempts to injure another nine for which she is put away in a secure hospital for life

Countess Bathory her son two sonsinlaw and several female helpers got young girls to come to her castle on the pretext of finding them work and then tortured and killed them She was eventually found out and died virtually walled up in her castle It is claimed that she killed 600 victims making her the most prolific female serial killer of all time A myth grew up that she bathed in her victims

Mary Ann Cotton was a Victorian Black Widow Killing for greed she murdered husbands stepchildren her mother and even her own children She was hanged in Durham in 1873

Martina Cole tells the story of Myra Hindley dubbed lsquothe most evil woman in Britain by the tabloid press Along with petty criminal Ian Brady with whom she was besotted Hindley killed five children in the 1960s burying their bodies on moorland Despite her claims she had reformed while in prison Hindley was always denied a release and died in jail at the age of sixty

Rosemary West was born in Barnstaple After her parents split up she spent time with her father who repeatedly sexually abused her She met Fred West a man who had already killed two girls and with Rose would kill ten more usually tenants at their house but family members too Fred West killed himself in prison Rose was initially dealt a life sentence of at least twentyfive years but it was later