The female murderers more chilling than Killing Eve’s Villanelle including one who boiled victims’ heads
FEMALE killers are a rare breed, and only ten percent of all serial assassins across the globe are women.
But as murderous Villanelle shows as she takes out man after man in hit drama Killing Eve, their crimes can be just as chilling.
The BBC series returns for its second season tonight and sees the hired assassin, played by Jodie Comer, leave a trail of bodies behind her.
While the characters in the show are fictional, there are plenty of real-life female killers who may have inspired the murderous blonde, including a mum-of-two who bombed 115 people and the notorious Russian ‘Granny Ripper’ who ate her victims.
Here, the Sun Online looks at some of the female assassins who make Killing Eve's protagonist look tame.
The ‘Granny Ripper’ who boiled heads in a saucepan
Name: Tamara Samsonova
Born: Russia, 1947
Kill count: up to 11
Status: Alive, Imprisoned
Twisted Tamara Samsonova, 68, appeared to be like any other OAP to her neighbours - until she was caught dumping a pan of human remains into a rubbish skip.
Thought to have killed up to 11 victims over a period of 20 years, the murderess drugged and killed her elderly friend.
She then cut off her head, boiled it in a saucepan and then tried to dispose of it.
Like many other female killers, Samsonova's preferred method was poisoning and she slipped sleeping pills into her friend's food before taking a knife to her throat.
And if that wasn’t cold-hearted enough, the killer is thought to have eaten parts of her suspected victims, who include another lodger she admitted to cutting up and dumping around Russia in plastic bags.
She even admitted to a friend that she had killed her mother-in-law, and many think the ferocious female disposed of her own husband after he went ‘missing’, having told police he had left her for another woman.
The warped killer is now in custody while Russian forces try to determine how many she murdered - last appearing in court in 2016, where she blew a frightening kiss to men passing by.
The ‘Tigress’ who seduced the men she bombed
Name: Idoia López Riaño
Born: Spain, 1964
Kill count: 23
Status: Alive, Released
Nicknamed ‘La Tigresa’, or the Tigress, because of her sexual prowess, Idoia Lopez Riano was a leading commando in deadly political group ETA.
Her violent campaign, demanding independence for the Basque region of Spain, led to her planting a bomb in the Spanish capital of Madrid which killed 12 police officers in 1986.
Later that year, the then 22-year-old killed five more in another bombing, earning the female terrorist a spot on Spain's most wanted list in 1994.
But she was most notorious for seducing policemen in the days before carrying out her attacks, often having sex with officers and then killing their colleagues over the following nights.
The 55-year-old had originally been sentenced to 2,000 years in prison but she went on to renounce violence, quit ETA and apologise for her crimes, reducing her sentence.
It was enough for the Tigress to be freed early.
She was released in 2017, much to the outrage of her victims' families, and is now studying to become a journalist.
The female killer who shot seven men at point-blank range
Name: Aileen Wuornos
Born: Michigan, USA, 1956
Kill count: 7
Status: Executed
Aileen Wuornos shot and killed seven men at point-blank range over a period of a year while working as a prostitute and hitch-hiking across Florida.
The American serial killer would ask for a ride in her victim’s car before turning on them inside the vehicle and shooting them at close range - some as many as six times.
Her seven victims were all dumped in the woods, and while some were recovered, others were never found - with Aileen not giving up the secrets of where their bodies lay.
She was only caught when she was pulled over by police over an accident in a stolen car, with her fingerprints confirming she was the killer by matching those from her victim’s cars.
She originally contested the murders and sickeningly told the court that all the men had tried to sexually take advantage of her and that she had acted in self defence - but she wasn't believed.
Aileen was first sentenced to death in 1992 and was given a total of six death sentences by 1993. She was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2009.
The Mexican wrestler who preyed on elderly women
Name: Juana Barraza
Born: Mexico, 1957
Kill count: 42 to 48
Status: Alive, Imprisoned
Former professional wrestler Juana Barazza was dubbed La Mataviejitas, or ‘The Old Lady Killer’, after being found guilty of killing at least 42 elderly women.
Sentenced to 759 years in prison, Barazza acted over a period of eight years and preyed on women over 60 who lived alone, bludgeoning and strangling them to death.
Thought to be a psychopath due to her lack of remorse, Barazza posed as a government official who worked in social welfare and offered ‘care’ to local females in need.
But in reality, once La Mataviejitas had identified her victims she would strangle them to death before leaving their dead bodies to be found by neighbours or relatives.
The sick murderer would go through the women’s belongings, often taking trinkets or family photographs as memorabilia.
She was caught when a neighbour spotted Barazza leaving the scene where an 82-year-old woman had been killed.
The Black Widow who killed her own family
Name: Nannie Doss
Born: Alabama, USA, 1905
Kill count: 11
Status: Dead
Nicknamed ‘The Black Widow’ and ‘The Giggling Granny’, Nannie Doss was a serial killer who acted from the 1920s until she was apprehended in 1954.
After the death of her fifth husband, the housewife revealed she had killed all four of her previous husbands, two of her children, her two sisters, her mother, grandson and mother-in-law.
Wiping out all of her family, Nannie was after the life insurance payouts from all of the relatives, hoping she could make it rich and disappear.
She killed her two of her children by poisoning during her first marriage and chose the same method, rat poison, for her second husband before strangling her young grandson to death.
When husband number five was found to have large quantities of arsenic in his system, the Black Widow was arrested, where she confessed to the killings and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
She died of leukaemia in a hospital ward of Oklahoma State Prison in 1965.
The bouquet killer armed with a rocket launcher
Name: Brigitte Mohnhaupt
Born: Germany, 1949
Kill count: 9
Status: Alive, Released
Described as the most evil woman in Germany, Brigette Mohnhaupt was one of the far-left militants involved in a wave of terror in West Germany throughout 1977.
Her terrorist organisation, Red Army Faction, left over 30 people dead, and when she was arrested in 1982, it was found that Mohnhaupt was involved in nine of these murders.
She came up with extravagant displays in order to kill her victims, and in one instance, she handed a bouquet of flowers to a banker before shooting him at close range.
The assassin also severely injured an American commander and his wife by firing a rocket propelled grenade at their heavily armoured car, hoping to blow it up.
These crimes earned the female killer five life sentences, but in 2007 - despite never expressing remorse - she was controversially released on parole and has kept a low profile since.
The secret agent mum-of-two who bombed 115 on a plane
Name: Kim Hyon-hui
Born: North Korea, 1962
Kill count: 115
Status: Alive, Pardoned
Kim Hyon-hui was recruited to serve as an agent for the barbaric North Korean regime when she was just 19, and brainwashed to believe in killing the opposition.
Spymasters pulled her out of university and spent six years teaching her how to blend in, before tasking her with a deadly mission: disrupt the 1987 Olympics, hosted by South Korea.
She was disguised as a Japanese tourist and ordered to board a South Korean airliner, armed with a bomb big enough to down the jet and kill all of its passengers.
The undercover agent planted her explosive in the overhead compartment of flight 858, disembarked during a stopover, and waited as the bomb detonated - killing all 115 people on board.
She was eventually captured and sentenced to death in 1989, but South Korean president Roh Tae-woo pardoned her and spared her life.
Today, having defected from the regime, the 56-year-old is married to a former South Korean spy and is a mother of two children.
The exotic dancer whose stolen secrets 'killed thousands'
Name: Mata Hari
Born: Holland, 1876
Kill count: Estimated 50,000
Status: Executed
A known maneater who hypnotised men with the swaying of her hips, Mata Hari was a skilled seductress with a sting in her tail that is thought to have brought down thousands.
Born Margaretha Zelle in Holland, she reinvented herself after an abusive marriage, moving to Paris in 1905 where she became an exotic dancer, calling herself Mata Hari.
The beautiful dancer soon became an object of affection for many of the wealthiest men in the city, and she forged connections with businessmen, politicians and soldiers alike.
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When the First World War broke out, Mata attracted the attention of German spymasters lurking in Paris. They recruited her as an agent to spy - and she soon began working as a double agent for the French.
When she was caught out in 1917, she was sentenced to death - having been rumoured of killing up to 50,000 soldiers as a result of the information she shared.
Although she didn’t kill anyone directly, she’s been dubbed by her accusers as one of the deadliest women in history.