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Women Behaving Badly: True Tales of Cleveland's Most Ferocious Female Killers: an Anthology

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"Women Behaving Badly: True Tales of Cleveland's Most Ferocious Female Killers" by John Stark Bellamy II is an anthology of 16 true crime accounts involving women who committed murder in the Cleveland area from 1868 to 1965. The book is fascinating, even in the preface, where he lists a few cases he didn't include and explains why.

This is great fun, in a gruesome sort of way. The cases are not dramatized for effect; some of the writing reads like a newspaper account. In fact, he reprints excerpts of newspaper articles and editorials pro and con for many of the crimes. When possible, the author gives us enough background to let us guess at the killer's motivation, and then he summarizes the trial and the fate of the killer. The book is straightforward and easy to read, and each case is short enough that when you finish one, you want to start on the next.

The husband seems to be the victim of preference for most of the "ladies," and poison -- especially arsenic -- seems to be the weapon of choice. But some of the killings are just brutal. Velma West, for example, took a clawhammer to her husband's head and then went to a party where she played piano and "was the heart and soul of the fete." Martha Wise loved funerals so much that she created a few of her own --?providing her relatives as the bodies -- and famously claimed "The devil made me do it!" The Eva Kaber case involved arsenic as well as stabbing and "remains the only homicide in the history of the world in which a grandmother, mother and granddaughter were indicted for the same first-degree murder."
Some of the tales are still mysteries. One woman unknowingly fell in love with her half-brother -- but did he know she was his sister? And who was the Black Widow of Cleveland?

These cases seem to present proof that marriage can be hazardous to your health and to offer a cautionary message to would-be seducers. This author has also written "They Died Crawling," "The Maniac in the Bushes," "The Corpse in the Cellar," "The Killer in the Attic" and "Death Ride at Euclid Beach."

John Stark Bellamy II, Women Behaving Badly: True Tales of Cleveland's Most Ferocious Female Killers (Gray and Company, 2005)

Women Behaving Badly is Bellamy's greatest-hits album, complete with exclusive tracks recorded for this just so the fans will buy it despite having it all on the old albums. There are two new stories here, but if you've read Bellamy's other books of Cleveland (and environs) crime, you already know most of the stories here; it's worth pulling out of the library to read the new ones if you're a fan of Bellamy's storytelling style, which is on a par with today's better true crime writers, but it's not worth buying the book if you've got the others. If you don't, however, this is a pretty good introduction to Bellamy's style, and it contains a pretty varied cross section of stories, ranging from the late nineteenth century all the way up to the 1950s.

If you need an introduction: this is a collection of short pieces from Cleveland's prodigious crime history, with this collection focusing on women-- mostly female killers, but a few victims, as well, and at least one case where we'll never know whether the woman in question was criminal or victim. Bellamy's stories cross a storytelling air with the florid diction of the yellow journalism of the time he's reporting; more than once I found myself amused by a turn of phrase or an anachronism that seemed to reflect the newspaper articles Bellamy often quotes at length. The pieces are snappy, well-balanced (in the main), and quick reads; Bellamy's a good read for those who like true crime stories, especially those from the past. Worth checking out, if that's you. ***