Last Words From 5 Famous Female Murderers

Few phenomena hold as much of the public's morbid curiosity and total fascination as murderers. We want to understand how they think, why they kill, and how they choose their victims. But most of all, we want to know if they ever regret taking lives. And so, we're naturally curious about the last words of famous murderers. It's a moment that most facing execution have months — perhaps even years — to prepare for. Fear of death is a common human emotion, but is it something you'd talk about with your final words? What crosses the mind of a killer when they face death themselves?

That curiosity only grows when the murderer in question is a woman. It's already difficult for people to imagine women who have the ability to kill. But, when it comes to female murderers facing execution, we still somehow expect that they will show more responsibility for their crimes or awareness of the pain they've caused others. Well, as these five famous female murderers will prove, women facing execution can be just as profoundly creepy as any man. Their last words when they were finally put to death will seriously creep you out.

Amelia Dyer

Amelia Dyer earned her living by caring for orphaned infants until a permanent home could be located. It was a common practice in 1890s England, though Dyer was able to make an unusually lucrative living. Then, in 1896, local authorities figured out why: Dyer had been strangling the infants and discarding their bodies in the Thames River. Dyer didn't deny the killings, saying to authorities when they arrested her, "You'll know all mine by the tape around their necks." It took the jury just five minutes to find her guilty. At her hanging, her last words offered no hint of remorse for the crimes she'd committed:

I have nothing to say.

Aileen Wuornos

Aileen Wuornos confessed to killing six men in northern and central Florida between December 1989 and September 1990. Wuornos claimed the men had picked her up while she was working as a prostitute, but that each had tried to sexually assault her. Wuornos said that she'd shot the men in self defense. The media frenzy surrounding Wuornos' case earned her the popular title of "America's first female serial killer." Just before her lethal injection on Oct. 9, 2002, Wuornos referenced the movie Independence Day in her final, creepy last words:

I'd just like to say I'm sailing with the rock, and I'll be back like Independence Day with Jesus June 6. Like the movie, big mother ship and all. I'll be back.

Mary Blandy

Mary Blandy was executed in 18th-century England for poisoning her father, Francis Blandy, with a solution laced with arsenic. Mary claimed that she thought the mixture was a love potion that would soften her father to the idea of her relationship with William Henry Cranstoun, a married army officer and son of a Scottish nobleman. Mary Blandy wore a dress to her hanging on Easter morning 1752, so her final words could have been a nod to propriety or to a truly creepy sense of humor:

For the sake of decency, gentlemen, don't hang me high.

Barbara Graham

Barbara Graham was executed in California in 1955 for the murder of Mabel Monohan, a rich older woman, during an attempt to rob Monohan's home. Graham and four other accomplices — all men — broke into Monohan's home demanding money and jewelry. Monohan refused and was killed; Graham and the others left the house empty-handed, missing a stash of $15,000 and jewels hidden in a closet. Graham went to the gas chamber on June 3, 1955, and held her breath for a full 60 seconds in a last effort to avoid death. Her last words were just as eerie:

Good people are always so sure they're right.

Myra Hindley

Myra Hindley was convicted in 1966 for raping and killing five children in partnership with her lover, Ian Brady. Both were given life sentences for the murders, though Hindley protested her innocence for nearly 20 years. In 1987, Hindley finally issued a full confession for all five killings and was denied any possibility of parole. Though she was known as the "most evil woman in Britain," Hindley was not executed by the state; instead, she died of respiratory failure in prison in 2002. A priest sent to issue her last rites reported her final thoughts:

The last conversation she had before she died concerned her mother. She just expressed concern for her mother — but I will not say exactly what she said.

Images: Murderpedia.com (5)