8 Notorious Female Criminals Throughout History

History loves to pretend danger always arrives with a loud voice, a heavy boot, and a weapon in plain sight. Yet some of the most chilling criminal stories came from women who moved through society quietly, hiding behind family life, charm, politics, romance, poverty, or public innocence.

Their names survived because their crimes shocked the people around them and exposed how easily evil can wear an ordinary face. These women came from different centuries, countries, and social classes, but each left a dark mark on criminal history.

Some were convicted killers. Some became symbols of organized crime, political violence, or outlaw legend. Here are 8 notorious female criminals throughout history.

Elizabeth Báthory

Elizabeth Báthory may be the most infamous woman on this list, though her story is also one of the most debated. The Hungarian countess was accused of torturing and murdering young women in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. Britannica describes her as a noblewoman who purportedly murdered hundreds of young women⁠, a claim that helped create her terrifying “Blood Countess” reputation.

Her case remains complicated because legend, politics, misogyny, and historical record have tangled together for centuries. Some accounts paint her as a sadistic killer, while other historians question whether powerful enemies exaggerated the accusations against her. Either way, her name became a permanent fixture in dark history. She represents the uneasy space between documented crime and folklore that refuses to die.

Charlotte Corday

Charlotte Corday entered criminal history with one act that shook the French Revolution. In 1793, she assassinated Jean-Paul Marat⁠, the radical journalist and revolutionary figure, by stabbing him while he was in his bath. Britannica identifies Corday as Marat’s assassin and notes that she was executed shortly after the killing.

Corday believed she was saving France from bloodshed, but murder wrapped in political conviction remains murder. Her crime turned Marat into a martyr and made her one of history’s most famous political assassins. Unlike many criminals on this list, she did not build a long criminal career. She committed one shocking act, then walked into legend through the guillotine.

Mary Ann Cotton

Mary Ann Cotton remains one of Britain’s most infamous suspected serial killers. A nurse and housekeeper in 19th-century England, she was convicted of murdering her stepson by poisoning, though investigators and historians have long suspected her involvement in many more deaths. Britannica notes that she was believed to have poisoned up to 21 people⁠, a number that included relatives, husbands, and children in her household circle.

Her story feels especially disturbing because her crimes unfolded in domestic spaces where trust should have been strongest. Victorian life was already full of illness, weak medical oversight, and poor record-keeping, which made repeated deaths easier to explain away. Cotton’s case became a grim reminder that the most dangerous person in a room can sometimes be the one pouring the tea.

Belle Gunness

Belle Gunness built her legend from a lonely farm in La Porte, Indiana. Born in Norway before immigrating to the United States, she allegedly lured men through personal advertisements, encouraging them to visit her property with money in hand. Estimates vary, but accounts commonly place her suspected victim count at 14⁠ or more, with some claims rising much higher.

What made Gunness so notorious was the combination of romance, greed, and mystery. Men looking for companionship arrived at her farm and vanished, leaving behind a trail of suspicion that only exploded after a fire revealed bodies on the property. Her own fate remains murky, which gives the case its ghost-story edge. She became a symbol of early American true crime because her evil seemed planned, practical, and frighteningly patient.

Griselda Blanco

Griselda Blanco was no backroom side character in the drug trade. She became one of the most feared Colombian cocaine traffickers of the 1970s and 1980s, with Britannica describing her as a central figure in Miami’s violent drug wars. Her empire made her wealthy, powerful, and infamous in a world where brutality often worked like currency.

Blanco’s notoriety came from the scale of her operation and the violence tied to it. She helped turn cocaine trafficking into a deadly urban battlefield, and her name became attached to the ruthless image of the “Cocaine Godmother.” Her rise showed that organized crime did not reserve power for men. She claimed space in that world through fear, money, and bloodshed, leaving behind a legacy that still fuels documentaries, dramas, and crime writing.

Myra Hindley

Myra Hindley became infamous for her role in the Moors murders, committed with Ian Brady in England⁠ during the 1960s. The crimes targeted children and teenagers, and the case horrified Britain because of its cruelty, secrecy, and the discovery of graves on Saddleworth Moor. Encyclopedia.com describes Hindley as a British serial killer who was convicted with Brady and sentenced to life in prison.

Hindley’s notoriety endured because the public saw her not as a passive accomplice but as an active participant in crimes that shattered the country’s sense of safety. Her later attempts to seek parole only deepened public anger. The case became more than a murder story. It became a national wound, especially for the victims’ families, some of whom spent decades still searching for answers.

Aileen Wuornos

Aileen Wuornos became one of the most widely discussed female serial killers in modern American history. She murdered at least seven men in Florida between 1989 and 1990, and her case drew national attention because it disrupted the usual public image of female killers. Britannica notes that she was convicted of one murder in 1992⁠ and later pleaded no contest to five others before her execution in 2002.

Her case remains controversial because it sits at the intersection of violence, poverty, trauma, sex work, media sensationalism, and the death penalty. Wuornos claimed self-defense in some accounts, then later changed her story, making the case even harder for the public to process. Her crimes were real and devastating, but the public obsession around her also exposed America’s appetite for turning damaged people into dark entertainment.

Anne Bonny

Anne Bonny belongs to the rougher, salt-stung side of criminal history. An Irish American pirate active in the Caribbean during the early 18th century, she became legendary as one of the few women known to have entered the violent world of piracy. Britannica describes her brief period of Caribbean marauding as the reason she became fixed in pirate legend.

Bonny’s criminal fame rests partly on fact and partly on the myths that grew around her. She sailed with “Calico Jack” Rackham and was captured in Jamaica⁠, where she was tried for piracy. Her story fascinates readers because she rejected the narrow role society assigned to women of her era. Still, piracy was not an adventure in a clean costume. It was robbery, violence, and terror at sea, and Bonny’s legend should never erase that reality.