1 In 6 Serial Killers Are Women, Here's Why - Dr Marissa Harrison
Chris Williamson (host), Dr Marissa Harrison (guest)
In this episode of Modern Wisdom, featuring Chris Williamson and Dr Marissa Harrison, 1 In 6 Serial Killers Are Women, Here's Why - Dr Marissa Harrison explores unmasking Female Serial Killers: Motives, Myths, and Evolutionary Roots Dr. Marissa Harrison explains how female serial killers differ systematically from men: they more often kill for money and power, target familiar and vulnerable victims, and use covert means like poisoning, frequently in caregiving roles.
Unmasking Female Serial Killers: Motives, Myths, and Evolutionary Roots
Dr. Marissa Harrison explains how female serial killers differ systematically from men: they more often kill for money and power, target familiar and vulnerable victims, and use covert means like poisoning, frequently in caregiving roles.
She argues that cultural beliefs about women as nurturers make female serial killers both under‑suspected and under‑studied, despite estimates that roughly one in six serial killers in the U.S. are women.
Drawing on evolutionary psychology, Harrison links male and female motives to reproductive strategies, proposing a ‘hunter–gatherer’ model where male killers stalk strangers while women ‘gather’ victims within their social and domestic circles.
The discussion also critiques the true-crime industry’s glamorization of violence, emphasizes the impact of childhood trauma, and calls for more resources for policing and psychological intervention to prevent violence earlier in life.
Key Takeaways
Female serial killers are more common than people think, but harder to detect.
Harrison cites estimates that about one in six U. ...
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Men and women kill for systematically different primary motives.
Her data show men are primarily sexually motivated, often targeting strangers, while women more often kill for money and power, usually against people they know—spouses, children, elderly relatives, or patients.
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Female serial killers frequently occupy caregiving roles that grant access and cover.
Roughly 44% of the women in her U. ...
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Cultural beliefs about female nurturance create investigative blind spots.
Societal schemas of women—especially grandmothers, mothers, and nurses—as inherently caring delay suspicion, meaning female killers ‘hide in plain sight’ inside roles where death can be plausibly attributed to illness or age.
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Childhood sexual and physical abuse is overrepresented among both male and female serial killers.
Harrison repeatedly finds profound childhood trauma, especially sexual abuse, in case histories; while most abused children never become violent, this trauma appears as a common denominator among those who do.
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An evolutionary lens helps explain sex differences in serial murder.
She links men’s higher average sex drive (many sperm) and women’s preference for resource-rich partners (few eggs) to male sexual motives versus female financial motives, and extends this to a ‘hunter–gatherer’ analogy: men hunt unknown prey, women ‘gather’ familiar victims and profits.
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Better forensic science and connectivity may be reducing modern serial killing careers.
Because of advanced diagnostics, digital surveillance, and online ‘armchair detectives,’ it is increasingly difficult to rack up multiple undetected murders, especially with obvious violence; female poisoners may still evade detection longer, but data suggest similar average ‘killing spans’ for men and women.
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Notable Quotes
“We need to catch male serial killers, but we need to detect female serial killers.”
— Dr. Marissa Harrison
“When somebody’s convinced something is true, they dig their heels in, and even in the face of contrary evidence, they might dig in even further.”
— Dr. Marissa Harrison
“Women tend to kill for money and power; men tend to kill for sex.”
— Dr. Marissa Harrison
“If I told you the story of that boy they called Johnny, you’d feel bad for him. But that boy was John Wayne Gacy.”
— Dr. Marissa Harrison
“I do believe morbid curiosity informs protective vigilance.”
— Dr. Marissa Harrison
Questions Answered in This Episode
How should law enforcement and medical institutions update their training and systems to better detect potential female serial killers, especially in healthcare environments?
Dr. ...
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To what extent does emphasizing evolutionary explanations for murder risk excusing behavior versus helping us prevent it more effectively?
She argues that cultural beliefs about women as nurturers make female serial killers both under‑suspected and under‑studied, despite estimates that roughly one in six serial killers in the U. ...
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How can the true-crime industry be reformed to maintain public interest and education without glamorizing killers or dehumanizing victims and their families?
Drawing on evolutionary psychology, Harrison links male and female motives to reproductive strategies, proposing a ‘hunter–gatherer’ model where male killers stalk strangers while women ‘gather’ victims within their social and domestic circles.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
If childhood trauma is so prevalent among serial killers, what early-intervention policies or screening programs would most realistically reduce future violence?
The discussion also critiques the true-crime industry’s glamorization of violence, emphasizes the impact of childhood trauma, and calls for more resources for policing and psychological intervention to prevent violence earlier in life.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Do changing gender roles and increased female economic independence alter the motives or methods of female serial killers compared with historical patterns?
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Transcript Preview
Why is it particularly interesting to study female serial killers?
I think it's interesting because there seems to be this preconceived notions that all serial killers operate the same way, and when we think of a serial killer, we think of, in the United States at least, Ted Bundy or Ed Kemper. We think about monstrous males who commit sex crimes, and female serial killers might be monstrous for some people's definitions, but they tend to be more low-key. They tend to poison people. They tend to kill for money and power, versus male serial killers tend to kill for sex. So, there are profound sex differences, so I think it's interesting to bring that to public attention.
Right, so you're like a, uh, a promoter of females... Not- not a promoter, not quite saying that they're good, but just maybe that a little bit more attention should be paid. Why have they been so neglected, beyond the fact that maybe the way that they kill is less extravagant?
I- I agree with you. First, let me say, when I was writing the book, Just as Deadly: The Psychology of Female Serial Killers, I was thinking to myself, "Is this a feminist book?" Because I'm saying women can do that too, and it's a really horrible argument of equality, but the thing is, they can. Um, so you had asked, why might people pay attention to males more so than females, and I think there's this age-old notion, and I'm certainly not the first person to say this, but I think there's this age-old notion that women can't be damaging. Women can't be dangerous. Women are nurturing and caregivers, right? So if I said to you, "Grandma," you might think of... Well, let me ask you this, Chris. What do you think of when you think of grandma?
Soft, gentle, caring, mothering, sleepy.
Exactly. (laughs) Sleep, right, exactly. Well, what have I told you about the Giggling Granny, Nannie Doss, who killed her mother, her likely her sister, her, I think three husbands, some of her grandchildren, uh, and when they interviewed about her, about it, she laughed. So that doesn't fit my schema of grandma. Um, and she looked like a grandma, right? So, the, what we might think a grandma would look like maybe... I don't wanna get in trouble for saying this, but, you know, maybe like a house co- an old- old-school 1950s house coat in the kitchen cooking bread, all that kind of stuff. And you wouldn't suspect that she would do these things. And I think that's why we are maybe not so quick to catch female serial killers, and we're really not so quick to think, "Yeah, she did that." And I have some stories for you if- if you would like about that type thing.
I would. I would like, yes.
Oh, my. So I get some really interesting, I can't say fan mail, but attention from, uh, Lucy Letby, committed her crimes in the United Kingdom in- in- in Chester, right? Chester, England, um, in Cheshire, United Kingdom. Lucy Letby was a neonatal nurse. She was a very skilled nurse, and she was convicted last year, 2023, of killing, I think it was seven infants? And I was asked to talk about that on- on some podcasts and some other interviews in the United Kingdom. Well, I got my share of colorful emails. Uh, "I'm wrong. I'm try- uh, how could I ever be so stupid?" Th- they made fun of my American accent. Thank you. They said I must be in cahoots with The Crown. I'm like, "The only time I'm, you know, making a deal with The Crown is when I'm binge-watching the series on Netflix." Um, uh, you know, what I'm going by is the evidence that The Crown Prosecution Service presented, that the jury convicted her on, and that Justice Goss sentenced her by. Uh, and also Lucy fits some of the parameters of previous data of known female serial killers. So I'm just going by that, but I've gotten all kinds of emails and notes and Twitter posts and stuff that tell me-
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