The Deathly Female Contemporary of Jack the Ripper
She was well known to Charles Dickens, but is almost unheard of today — The 19 victims of Margaret Waters were helpless children
Content warning: this article contains descriptions of the abuse and murder of children including genuine witness testimony from the 1800s which elaborates on the condition of the victims. Additionally, this article contains a discussion of capital punishment and extreme poverty.
Victorian London was riddled with killers; from the plague to poverty — the cold winters to arsenic wallpaper.
Some of these killers took human form — Jack the Ripper being the most notorious.
Some of these killers took a rarer form still — female.
While it’s estimated that fewer than 17% of the world’s serial killers are women, Victorian London was home to a unique breed of females who systematically murdered large numbers of victims under their own roofs.
They were known as ‘baby farmers.’
These killers didn’t operate under the radar (not that we had radar back then) — it was well known in society and even made it into the most famous works of the time.
