Never Underestimate a Woman, Especially one that kills for fun - 30 min Recovery walking workout

Hey, friend,

Thank you for joining me for Running Scared with Coach Christine. I'm a Level 2 RRCA and Galloway certified coach,  but more importantly, I'm someone that knows it's so much easier to get out for your run or walk when you have something to look forward to that helps with motivation.

So if you are like me and are a runner or walker that enjoys hearing a true crime case or spooky tale, then welcome! You have found your corner of the internet.

In researching female serial killers, the quote that comes to mind is about Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Folks frequently talk about how Ginger could do what Fred could, but she could do it backward and in heels. Well, my friend...female serial killers may not be as common as their male counterparts, but they are just as deadly.

This recovery walking or light running workout will let us explore the motives, classifications of female serial killers and by the end of it, I think you will agree, that while the "lady killers" may not have as "splashy" or gory crimes, they leave behind just as much wake and destruction.

We will explore the 3 serial killer classification: Organized, Disorganized, and Mixed along with motive categories of Visionary, Mission-Oriented, Hedonistic, and Power/Control. Along with how female, but specifically female serial killers fit into those classifications and categories.

From the streets of Medellin to NYC, Miami-Dade, and Los Angeles, Griselda Blanco, aka La Madrina, left a trial of body bags in her wake in her bid to be the baddest bish in town.

While I think it is safe to say that I am fascinated by female serial killers, I would love you to share and tag me on Instagram with your favorite true crime obsessions. 

30-minute active walking or light running recovery run (RPE Scale 2-4) We will be using RPE found here >>

Not sure how to use recovery workouts in your training plan? Hit me up! I am happy to help you with your running and workout questions.

I'd love you to join the Running Scared community on Facebook, where you get to weigh in with your thoughts and requests and get invites to special true crime-focused events. You can find it here >>

If you have any questions about running or want to chat about True Crime, please email me at christine@runwinefinishlines.com.

Please consult a physician before starting any new exercise routine.

Thank you for Running Scared with Coach Christine! 

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

serial killers, killers, female, victims, women, murder, kill, true crime, cases, running workout, walking workout, running coach, training plan 

Transcript

Christine: 0:04

Hey friends, welcome to running scared. I'm Coach Christine, I'm a level two RCA and a run, walk run certified coach. And if you run with me before, you know how I roll around here, I love me zoom to crime, I love running, walking. And sometimes it takes a little extra motivation to get those shoes laced up and out that door jump on the treadmill. So that's where running scared came into play. I assume that you are like me as well, my friend. So welcome. You have found your corner of the internet and we are likely going to be besties let's not waste any more time on this jibber jabber let's get right into today's workout. And let's make it nice and tall. The strong walk in three, two, and one, my friends, we are going to do an active recovery workout today. So we're gonna keep it in a strong strong walk or a very light conversational pace jog. We'll talk a little bit more about that as we progress here. But more importantly, let's go over some really important notes to take into consideration for girls of whatever you do to move your body today, I want you to be tall, be proud, be confident in yourself. Stay relaxed by keeping those shoulders down and back and stay light on those feet. And because we are a true crime fiends I know that if you're outdoors, you are being very mindful of your surroundings, you have bright visible clothing. And of course you let someone that you love and trust. Know what time to expect you back home. Or at the very least, you popped on maybe your GPS watch so that someone can keep track of you. If not go ahead and shoot shoot that loved one or friend a texts, let them know that you're out for a run or a walk. If you're inside on a treadmill or maybe another cardio machine like a stair stepper elliptical, that's awesome as well, you're still gonna stay super tall, you're going to engage your core, and you're gonna make sure that you're not leaning on those handrails, you're not getting too close to the display, really be mindful and intentional with how your body is moving. If you aren't on treadmill, I'd like you to bring that incline up to 1% that helps to minimize the impact on your joints, and helps you to mimic the outdoors. So, my friend today is gonna be a little bit different. Usually I get into telling you some true crime story cases and I am absolutely obsessed with. But today what we're gonna do is we're gonna dive super deep into the world of mistresses of murder, and mayhem, specifically, female serial killers. If you were with me before, you know that my favorite type of true crime cases is hands down serial killers, but more so. I love me the lady killers. And if you're thinking why well, it's for a myriad of reasons. Mainly, I think it's because oftentimes with female serial killers, while they're just a sinister, while they're just as deadly. all intents and purposes, they seem to be kind of trivialized a little bit by the media, they're perceived as not as frightening. And sure that may indeed be the case they aren't typically as blood lusty as their male counterparts. But if you dive into it, you will see that the female serial killers oftentimes have as many or more victims in some of their male serial counterparts. Yet for the most part, they aren't portrayed as scary by the media. And more often than that, here's specifically in the United States, they are less likely to receive the death penalty. Now we're not going to discuss whether or not I personally am a fan of capital punishment. That's a whole other topic for a whole another day, my friends, but I do find it interesting that for example, Kristen Gilbert, the angel of death that I recently highlighted, she actually killed more people than let's say Jeffrey Dahmer, but she's virtually unknown. And I get it her crimes weren't as poorly they weren't as sensationalized she didn't disintegrate her victims and vats of acid. She didn't try to keep them around as zombies. But let's be honest, she shot up her patients with epinephrine and basically cause their hearts to explode. She then coldly would call a victim's family to deliver the news of their loss. She did this just to gain attention from a lover and even once just because she wanted to go home early. Now if that is not absolutely batshit crazy. I don't know what it is. It's cold. It's calculating, and in so many ways. It can even be said that it's more sinister than the acts that Jeffrey Dahmer actually committed. And I'm not just picking on her Miss Angela's death over there. Let's go back to one of my other cases I highlighted with Judy when I knew she killed her child. I mean her child that she fed poison to so that she could collect insurance money, and when he didn't die, she then when he was rendered as an invalid and he was unable to move she loaded her up in her car under the guise of taking him out for a nice day in a canoe trip and drowned him. She killed her husbands boyfriends in her own child. So again, female serial killers are not quite as flashy, we don't see tons of Netflix specials coming out about them. But trust me, friends. I'm not saying that I want equal pay for equal work when it comes to serial killers. But I am saying that if we dive a little deeper into their psyche, what makes them tick. And also, let's say while they may not be hacking folks up there, nothing to be messed with. So in today's workout, we're going to use our time together. Again, like I said, for a really strong walk or an easy recovery run. Let's get right into it here. Nice and easy in three, two. And one, I will tell you a little bit more about what you can do during this recovery run and why it would be important to us so these are the type of workouts that you would like to employ through your training plan. If you had a long run or a harder effort, maybe you went out for some speed play or tempo, or you hit the gym super hard. Maybe you have lower body day or you had a full body strength training day and you're feeling a little tense a little tight. This is a great movement to get some circulation going, let your body warm up a little bit and still allow you to have some of those great endorphins that we know and love. And of course Legally Blonde comes to mind here. Endorphins give you like happiness Happiness means that nobody gets killed. I'm paraphrasing that. All right friends, we use the RPE scale so that RPE scale here is rate of perceived effort from one to 10 one is easy peasy stroll. 10 is Uber shows a murderer on the loose heading your way you better sprint for your life. Today with this recovery, you want to keep it around a two to a four. So nice and easy conversational from start to finish. While you're moving and grooving. Let's go ahead and talk a bit more about while I had a little bit of a soapbox moment. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna be on my soapbox this entire time. Throughout today's case, I'm gonna give you some really hardcore facts. And then you can decide what you feel about female serial killers. So let's go with the numbers right out of the gate. How many serial killers are actually women? Well, when we look to the world of academia to help answer this question in the book, female serial killers how and why women become monsters. It's a nonfiction True Crime history. by Peter Bronski, a criminal justice historian, we learned that nearly one in six which is about 16% of serial killers apprehended in the United States, since 1820, was a female, either acting alone or as a partner of a male or a female offender. Now Wronski goes on to argue that contrary to popular belief, female serial killers prefer to murder their male intimate or family members. While recent data indicates that currently female circulars marginally prefer strangers as victims and the historically in the US 53% of females or killers had a murder at least one adult male, female and 32% at least one female child. I found that quite interesting. Because by and large, these murders, especially serial murderers are usually at the hands of men but 16% of circulars being made up of women, that's nothing to sneeze that I don't know about you friends. I don't feel warm and fuzzy that when I learned that 50 53% of Lady killers kill other women. I mean, when I think of things, sisters before misters, I didn't think that men serial killers were gonna go after their fellow gal pals before they went after men. And those are the assumptions that not just me and the regular public have, but until fairly recently, in the last few decades with the increased awareness and coverage of murders. We saw that law enforcement to head several misconceptions of the female sex and their capacity to commit heinous crimes and murders even as recently as 1985. Now if you're a younger person, you may think that 1985 was like a gazillion years ago, was the turn of the last century after all, but really not that long when you look at the history of humankind. But even as recently as 1985, criminologist Eric Higley published the first to his knowledge, academic paper on female serial killers, and his expansive research on this demographic belied a really dangerous assumption that women are incapable of the depravity needed for such horrific crimes. He goes on to recount that earlier in his career and a conversation with FBI agents at a conference when he described a case in which he was consulting, the an identified offender had murdered eight people over two years, all of them had been poisoned. He told the agents which sex he suspected and their response. There are no female serial killers. Boy, were they wrong. And this isn't just something that popped up in the past couple of century from as female serial killers go back in history, there are cases like Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian Countess who at the turn of the 16th century, supposedly tortured and killed hundreds of young girls. On that same time period we know of Julia Tufano, who wasn't just a serial killer, she was an Italian professional poisoner, she sold a poison called Aqua to finance to women who wanted to murder their abusive husbands. Okay, granted, back then women didn't have as many ways to escape an abusive relationship. So maybe we give a pass to Julia to find out but let's that toy discount that she didn't exactly exude tons of pity on the men that she helped kill. And these are just the women that we know of. Some could say that these women are the ones that got caught because the numbers may indeed may be much higher. Women are known as silent killers. Kinda like high blood pressure. One day you may be fine living your best life and your sweet dear friend or girlfriend brings you buy an apple pie that she baked and then boom next day, that is Dardanelles, not gory. Not sensationalized may not like even make any headlines. Likely not even a true crime podcast may cover it. But for the most part, it can be said that the female killers and definitely female serial killers can get away with murder. And do I feel like I've opened the door for another Reddit thread from some random dude in his parents basement to post about how horrible it is to be a guy because they're out there getting killed and no one cares. Well, let's make sure that I repeat that right here. Now, yes, female serial killers exist in Yes, it does indeed appear that they may get away with having more victims or being able to operate longer than men with very little media coverage and or sensationalism. Around their murders. But by and large, women are often the victims of men. And still, by and large, they're killed or lose their lives at the hands of men that they know specifically, husbands or boyfriends. This is where I feel like we would insert a sponsored ad break for Aqua to find out if podcasting existed or if she was in this day and age. But my friends, I'm not going to be taking any sponsored ads from any serial poisoners. And back to our topic at hand. Why do women kill and how do they get away with it? And why are women so often seen as non threatening, even if they are, I mean, let's look at the monikers of females who are killers. Let's just start there. And I'm going to be honest, right out of the gate. I'm guilty of this as well. So don't think that I'm casting judgment on others, my friends. I know that I generally title my mistresses of mayhem and murder with innocuous names that female serial killers may have received. Like the giggling granny sounds adorable who doesn't want to giggling granny right? But she killed her children, sisters, husbands boyfriends, not so adorable. She giggled and laughed when she retold the story of her murders and she escaped capital punishment. Because in the words of the judge and jury, she was after all, just a woman, a woman that you didn't want to cross my friends. Now, while male serial killers are given positively a frightening moniker is the ones that just by hearing the names will keep you up at night at least double checking the doors on your Friday checking the door locks like Gainesville Ripper, or BTK or the butcher Baker, Boston Strangler. Women get giggling granny or jolly Jane. I mean, even antelope, that doesn't sound so bad right? will tell us the families that lost loved ones way too soon at the hands of nurses or caregivers that they entrusted with the care of a loved one. I bet they didn't think there was anything jolly about him. And then if that wasn't bad enough, female killers or female serial killers are often sexualized. They're seen as dangerous and sexy again, I know I can seem guilty of this as well my friends. I can't tell you how many stories in cases I've researched where I had to I mean, I had to go look up what this female killer look like. Because when I would hear about her and I would hear the story and really like read into all the details. I figured she had to be gorgeous I mean she had to be a true femme Fatah with like a bang and figure gorgeous face and certain Genesee quoi about her no wrong I still don't quite understand how I know so many intelligent kind, gorgeous single women. Yet so many of these serial killers or Lady killers that seem a bit let's say touched were over the top with their possessiveness. And were nothing to write home about. It didn't seem that special, but they seem to find guy after guy or I should say, victim after victim. Okay, I'm not saying that this tongue in cheek as well because I'm aware that neither men nor women, serial killers have a specific look. They don't necessarily come in a cookie cutter we can see them from afar. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors, they range the gamut from attractive and charming to monstrous and physically frightening. I get that right. But you have to agree with me that when you see the title like Black Widow, or you recall the cases that are of murderers like Casey Anthony or Jodi Arias, how often did we hear about their sexiness their great looks, or we were regaled with the details about their sex lives. While neither of these ladies were Sue killers suffice to say that the hyper sexualization of their crimes or their behaviors were definitely brought to the forefront of media coverage. I digress enough about that I am officially getting done from my soapbox right here right now. And this is a great time to let you know friends if you are outside and you're in and out and back. We're here we're at the halfway point and go ahead and turn around and head back to home. But regardless, if you're moving and grooving outside, you're on a treadmill or again, a stair stepper elliptical, let's check in with our form, making sure that we're still nice and tall, engaging that core bringing the shoulders down and back and kind of shake out your hands. Oftentimes, we tend to add a lot of tension to our face or hands. This is a good time for what I call a shoulder shimmy. And then let's get into learning a little bit more. Now that we're in the back half of this recovery workout again, have you run with me before you know that I like to incorporate recovery runs and walks into my training plans to help us get some light movement. But if you aren't sure how to get these incorporated into your training plan, I promise you they are just as important as those harder efforts do feel free to reach out to me at Christine at runway unfinished lines.com. Or we could just talk about Lady killers. Okay, so let's learn about the classification of serial killers. And what and how the motives behind killing varies from men to women. For all of you true crime fiends out there, I know that you probably have murder PD on your bookmark. So you're likely to be familiar with these different classifications. Bear with me as we recap them a little bit here. We're gonna start with the ones that maybe fascinate us, maybe me the most, let's see organized serial killer in the FBI classification. The organized serial killer equals the definition of psychopath, this criminal suffers from antisocial personality disorder. This type of killer plans his crimes in advance and uses tricks or deception to reduce his victims, who are usually strangers. He erases footprints and traces he may have left behind, he alters the crime scene to disorient investigators. It's typical that improves with each crime. They're perfected through experience, and they become difficult to catch. It's important to note that while there's a common myth, though, about organized circulars is that they're really highly intelligent. And that's not always the case. A myth that exists is that serial killers also have like a debilitating mental condition or that they are incredibly clever and intelligent. And again, they vary just as much as we talked about physicality, they vary in intelligence levels, personality disorders, or any kind of psychopath II. So let's try to maybe hear debunk that. By making sure that we know that it doesn't necessarily mean that they're carrying around Mensa cards in their back pocket. Even though that is the way they're portrayed by and large when we see them on media or movies and works of fiction. Now, that's the organized serial killer, which I mean, I have to tell you, the slightly type a person in me like that just even sounds better than this next one, but they're both just as deadly. The second type of store killer is the disorganized serial killer. This is the one that usually corresponds to psychosis mentally, ill, almost always schizophrenia, paranoid or delusional. This criminals driven by delusions and hallucinations, they hear voices that induce them to murder, or they're seized by like unfounded jealousy or the like interpreting their brain there's provocative gestures or looks from their victims. They often feel persecuted, or they think sometimes that someone's cast a spell on them that forces them to to murder. They believe sometimes they're the chosen one who must fulfill a mission and by divine mandate. So the disorganized person does not plan their crimes or choose their victims logically, location of their crime scene reflects the same conclusion and the disorder that they have in their mind so their victims are often badly wounded because the resistance they present when attacked by surprise. Which brings us to the third classification, which is the mixed serial killer and on many occasions, a crime scene presents mixed characteristics. The crime may have been began as an organized murderer and became disorganized by various factors. Again, maybe they were caught by surprise, or the killer may have gotten startled or thrown into a murderous fantasy, or they weren't actually able to clean up their act as well as they had planned. But where does that mean? And where does this have to do with female serial killers? Well, on first blush, it appears the majority of feeling sorry, killers are able to get away with murder for much longer than their male counterparts likely due to their methodology of killing. So as we mentioned earlier, female seller killers prefer poison. But the motive behind the killings can also play a large part of why female soul killers are noted as in quotes being better at murder than men. Yep, you heard me, women, serial killers take the gold for being better at murder. I guess showing that quality of quality over quantity wins the day. But motives behind serial killers are generally within four different categories. So let's talk about those four different categories. four main types of killers can be summed up as follows visionary, this is the individual or person who feels that they're being commanded to kill, most likely they are suffering from psychosis. And as we have already explored previously, these generally fall into that disorganized classification. Okay, so let's talk about mission oriented killers. Next, now, this individual they kill. In order to read Society of a certain group, the biggest difference between mission oriented and visionary isn't the mission oriented killer is usually not psychotic, they are well aware of what they're doing. And these killers, for example, they might be racist or against a certain ethnicity or religion, where they may target sex workers or they may target the LGBTQ community. So it's really important to note that they are more methodical in how they approach their victims, then the visionary killer may. Then we have the next to hedonistic now this is the individual who commits their acts for their own personal pleasure, for example, rape, torture, or money. And what's interesting about this particular category is that this categories has three main subcategories last thrill and comfort. Which brings us to our final, final four types of overarching reasons people kill us power and control. And this individual usually fantasizes about having power and seeks to dominate and control their victims. Now, again, where do most females through killers fall? And well, it's usually under those last two categories, either hedonistic, because of lust, thrill, comfort, or power and control. There's a bit bit of disagreement, and the roles of academia. And whether female sort of killers that stand to gain financially from their victims are hedonistic or they're looking to control. But I think it's likely safe to say, probably both. And if you think about it, in our society, women tend to lack as much equal power control as their male counterparts, and this can seem everywhere from Congress to the C suite. So it stands to reason that women serial killers would feel the easiest way to dominate and control their victims is through gaining financially from their death. So now you know how serial killers are classified and their motives. Let's talk a little bit more about how female circulars differ than men. Well, we can think evolutionary biological reasons for why women are different than their male counterparts in many ways. But even when it comes to murder, women serial killers tend to gather their victims, while men hunt their victims, both literally and figuratively, as seen by killers like the butcher Baker, where he would hunt down women in the woods of Alaska for sport or the somebody killer, or the beast where he would prey on his young victims from the streets of Columbia. And then look at the women that I have featured like again Judy bueno annual where she would collect her victims, taking them from date to boyfriend to husband, to insured and then deceased and out the door. Researchers found that male serial killers were almost six times as likely to kill a stranger, while female serial killers were nearly twice as likely to kill a person that they already know. Additionally, 65.4% of males are killers stalked their victims, compared to 3.6% of female serial killers. Now, this is where I have to interject very quickly and say, it could be that they didn't stalk their victims physically like males, because I know a lot of my females know how to stalk everybody on the internet. So maybe they did their homework before they went after their victims. I don't know. But suffice to say there is quite a disparity. And Marissa Harrison, an associate professor of psychology at Penn State, explains that because humans lived as hunter gatherers for about 95% of our history. These roles could explain these differences. So who are these women gathering? Well, that's what's kind of interesting is not just husbands like only hearts killers. There's also quite a few female circulars that consider Angels of Death. These are women in caregiving or caretaking roles that are entrusted with our most vulnerable populations like small children and the elderly. Although there are cases of women that target both infants and older people that being entrusted with their care, and while it's rare, there are women that kill for sexual deviancy like rosemary West and friends. Trust me I will be highlighting her in it is a whole lot of hot messes. Rosemary West, who along with her husband would sexually torture and kill victims, including their daughters to live out their own dark and fantasy Dark Twisted fantasies. Or there's thrill seeker killers, like Joanna Dennehy is featured in my most dangerous women in Britain episode where I mean, she was just actually quoted in saying that she wanted to just have more fun and her fun was killing victims, just random individuals walking with her dogs. So this brings us to the next observation when we research females circulars. I can't tell you how many times I come across serial killers, female serial killers where it looks like it's kind of like, maybe this was a thing of the past like Belle gunness or Amelia Dyer. Maybe we've been lulled into believing that now that women have more power are able to accumulate their own wealth. The need for women to kill for material possessions is not as popular or no longer as needed. Well, my dear friend, that is wrong. Actually, out of the female serial killer cases reported in the United States since 1826. Approximately 75% occurred since 1950. And trust me, I have plenty of cases in the works to highlight and show you how that is indeed the case. Don't let me get too freaked out. Serial killers are rare, and even more so since the 1980s likely things to advances in forensic psychology, legal enforcement criminology. But while thrill killers may be on the decline, we're still more fascinated than ever on killers and specifically circulars as we've seen a rise in true crime podcast shows novels, even true crime conventions. Well, there are several reasons and theories and research why I personally liken it to wanting to explore and confront some of the fears that have been instilled in us and helps us to explore the nature of humanity, and maybe the darker side of humanity. But usually we're able to explore for more observation, every state in the confines of a safe space. And that's what we're gonna continue to do. Because we're gonna continue learning more about the human psyche, and exploring mistresses of murder and mayhem. So from if you have a mistress of murder or mayhem that you'd like me to feature, please do reach out in if you're tackling the Murder, Mayhem and Miles challenge. Great work, we're gonna go ahead and wrap up this workouts. And as you're on that Miles challenge, know that we're on our way to Boston, where we get to learn all about a nurse with quite an interesting fetish. He may be the quintessential example of a woman that was as ambitious as she was deadly, because she is quoted with saying that her goal was to have killed more people, more helpless people, than any man or woman who has ever lived. So till then, let's sum up this workout and all the lessons we learned for today. There's just one lesson my friend, never underestimate a woman cuz you may end up dead. Thank you so much for joining me on this workout. I hope you enjoyed it. I want to hear from you. Please. I'd love to hear more about what you think about females that are killers. Do they fascinate you? Or do you have a different subcategory that you're more intrigued by? And do you have one in mind that again, you'd like to see me talk about hit me up on my email Christina at runway and finish lines, or join the Facebook community running scared podcast we can chat all about the murder mayhem and miles with our fellow true crime and running fiends. Thank you for running scared with Coach Christine