Bad Girls Do It! an Encyclopedia of Female Murderers (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jack the Ripper may be more notorious, but while he was busy killing five prostitutes in the alleyways of Victorian London, another Victorian murderer, Jane Toppan, was brought in on charges of having killed close to 100 people in Connecticut. Toppan said in court, "That is my ambition, to have killed more people--more helpless people--than any man or woman who has ever lived." Bad Girls Do It! has a jocular title and cover illustration, and Michael Newton (author of Hunting Humans) occasionally indulges in macabre humor.

Nonetheless, these 182 case histories of female multiple murderers are packed with well-researched details. You will read about "angels of death" (nurses who kill), "black widows," lethal landladies, and murderous moms. Many of them are little known, such as Rachal David, a religious fanatic who tossed her seven children off an 11th-story hotel balcony in Salt Lake City in 1978, while a screaming crowd watched from below.

Product Details

• Paperback: 195 pages
• Publisher: Loompanics Unlimited (November 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1559501049
• ISBN-13: 978-1559501040
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,245,404 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and horrible, this is an important record!, September 16, 1998

By A Customer

This collection of macabre women is certainly a welcome addition to the vast sea of books on [primarily male] serial killers. Still, it's rather encyclopedic in nature, and if you read it straight through (as I did) you're likely to be overwhelmed, nauseated, and left wanting more. Newton covers a lot of ground, but I wish he would've been more in-depth on some cases. All in all, though, it's a striking book and well worth the cost. Plus the cover is snazzy and will upset your mother.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars mystifying, November 15, 1998

By	[e-mail] (kansas USA) - See all my reviews

As one of only a few females i know who are interested in the serial killer, i found this book hard to quit reading, i was enthralled in many cases, only to find myself wanting to read a book several hundred pages long on the murderess. Some cases left me feeling like he was fluffing up his book. However, some other entries left me cringing and in awe. I have wondered where all the female murderers were kept.... Michael Newton unlocked that door for me can't wait to read Hunting Humans

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reference on all varieties of female murderers, August 29, 2004

By	J. D. Ripper (Athens, PA) - See all my reviews

The cover art on this book is deceiving: a brightly colored cartoon panel of a 1950s-looking heavily made-up woman smoking. There is nothing cartoonish, sleazy, or sordid about this book. This is a serious, thorough reference work devoted to female mulitple murderers [mass and serial]. It deserves to be called encyclopedic; it contains case descriptions of all the major female serial killers [and more than a few minor ones] and a wide spectrum of female mass killers, known and unknown.

Each woman's case is described decently--these aren't capsule descriptions [though some of them are quite short]. The writing is matter-of-fact and there are no illustrations in the text. Recently, I came across a reference to Martha Woods, one of the first women prosecuted for Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in the US. Her case is obscure but I found an entry for her in this book. It is that kind of reference work.