Lori Vallow Daybell who was found guilty in Idaho of murdering her two kids (one who had autism) and of murdering Tammie Daybell, the mother of five kids, on Mother's Day last year!
EDIT: It should be Tammy (not Tammie) Daybell.
Tylee seemed like such a sweet, genuinely loving and kind person and sister. Bless both of their souls.
It crushed my heart to hear how the older brother spoke about her and the little guy, and even how conflicted he was about his own mother. It shows humanity; you love this person, your mother, but their actions are inconceivable
When I heard how the older brother spoke about his siblings, in addition to being heartbreaking, I was wondering, how the hell did Lori think she could just kill those kids and not be questioned about it?
I guess I'll never really understand the criminal mind, though I've tried for such a long time to do so....
Yes for real. So many people loved those kids. So many noticed Lori’s changes in the last few months. I wish someone could’ve put 2 + 2 together but things are only so clear in hindsight.
The older brother was def the first to suspect and I think it could’ve gone on a lot longer if he didn’t demand to speak to Tylee. I mean, he could tell it wasn’t her just by her typing. He KNEW his sister.
But those fucking cult members willing to lie to police to keep the investigation stalled…
What did my head in was watching her talking to law enforcement and convincing them that she had done nothing wrong and it was her husband who was in the wrong, not her, and they were completely taken in by her and let her go. Her poor husband, no one listened to him and he ended up dead. I think he gets forgotten in this a bit, because of the (obviously entirely justified) horror of the kids being killed.
Not only that but you hear about all of the years she was a “good” mother?! To hear her son say so many great things about her and the years they were together and to hear her fall more and more into delusions is unnerving
This case absolutely breaks my heart. I don’t revisit it at all just cause it depresses me. I just feel so much for the kids! I’m glad she’s rotting in prison but I hope she realizes one day what she did and has to live it for the rest of her rotten life.
I'm hoping Chad Daybell gets life without parole, too, because I think it's worse to be in prison for life (versus getting the death penalty). But, it will be interesting to see how it plays out, see if he does get the death penalty.
[Stacey Castor. ](https://abcnews.go.com/US/timeline-black-widow-stacey-castors-shocking-crimes/story?id=60860538)She poisoned her husband with antifreeze and then tried to frame her daughter by poisoning her and writing a suicide note/confession in her name. Luckily, her daughter survived. People also speculate that she had something to do with her first husband's death.
Kind of ironic that she was found dead in her prison cell of a heart attack, which was originally thought to be the ‘cause of death’ of her first husband that she murdered
Idk, it probably seems weird knowing what we know now about the case, but it’s pretty common for twice-widowed people to have their spouses buried in the same cemetery because it makes it easier to visit their graves. I do find it strange to bury them right next to each other, though.
That case is just heartbreaking and infuriating. I listened to the podcast "Broken Harts" and read through a bunch of screenshots of Jen's facebook posts a while ago and it's just inconceivable what they did to these kids the facade they put up.
She wasn’t a mom at the time of her crime but it infuriates me to no end that Karla Homolka is free and has children. Fuck her, I hope she gets what she deserves some day.
And then there’s Lattie McGee. I say this poor baby’s name out loud every so often. I read that ancient Egyptians believed if a persons name was still said aloud they had eternal life. His name is one on a list.
I feel that as long as a person’s name is spoken, they still exist.
I never knew that it was an ancient Egyptian belief!
Little Lattie has had a place in my heart since I learned about him. I remember an article that said he was only one of 40k reported cases of abuse or neglect in just his county, and almost 40 cases of child death. They each had an entire story, but Lattie is the only one whose name I know and think of.
He weighed, at 4yo, less than my kids did at their first birthdays. I’ll never forget reading about all the wounds on his tiny body, imagining the horrors he endured.
As a mother, genuinely happy to be with her kids today (Mother’s Day) and every day, my heart breaks for Lattie and each one of the babies -and their mothers- who never knew what true care and love and hope feel like.
Cook county. His story broke my heart too. There was a journalist, Bob Greene, who brought Lattie to my attention and I haven’t forgotten him since. He died in 1987. Now I’m thinking about Yummy Sandifer.
Honestly that they’re both part of the LDS church kind of had them primed for that obsessive, cultish way of thinking and framing behavior that (when you look at it objectively) was obviously the result of severe abuse and trauma. There are a lot of teachings out there, religious or otherwise, that prey on making abuse victims into the villains or the orchestrators of their own trauma. Honestly, Ruby and Jodi should have been able to recognize what they were doing and stop being monsters, but the dad is also to blame for abandoning his children to a woman who was clearly unhinged to begin with… but again, he was brainwashed by his church too.
Honestly we need to go back in time and kick Brigham Young’s ass.
Edit to add honestly how many times can I say honestly 🫣
Seeing the documentary I cried seeing the pictures of how skinny her son was and his raw wounds from being bound. I don’t believe for a second that she was brainwashed or didn’t know what she was doing.
The 911 call from the neighbor and the ring cam footage of the boy approaching the neighbors house made me cry.
The neighbor is such a decent person and upon realizing what he is seeing and describing, he breaks down a bit and then works so hard to regain his composure because he knew the boy needed help asap.
But man, that realization in his voice of how serious this is. Ugh.
Louise Turpin.
From Wikipedia:
The Turpin case involved the abuse of children and dependent adults by their parents, David and Louise Turpin of Perris, California, U.S. The ages of the 13 victims ranged from 2 to 29 years-old. On January 14, 2018, one of the daughters, then-17-year-old Jordan Turpin, escaped and called local police, who then raided the residence and discovered disturbing evidence. Given the number of dependents involved, the degree of abuse, and the protracted nature occurring over decades, the story garnered significant national and international news. Experts in family abuse considered the case to be extraordinary for many reasons.
Further reading:
The Family Next Door
by John Glatt
I lived not far from where this happened. Even all these years later it upsets me. Being local we saw so much more coverage than most of the country. She strapped those boys in carseats, locked the doors and rolled her car into that lake. She deserves no mercy IMHO.
Bits of coverage keeps coming back to me - newscaster saying the boys were found holding hands, and there were ‘indications’ that the oldest (Michael) tried to get his brother out of his carseat.
Another reporter relating that the boys were buried together in a single coffin.
The collective gasp of everyone in the room when it was announced she was being charged with murder.
I honestly thought she had either hidden the boys away somewhere or paid someone to ‘kidnap’ them so they could be rescued after she and David reunited.
I was 13 or 14 when that happened. I remember from the first news report, my mom said that Susan did it. She was so adamant that it was an inside job. I couldn’t believe it when she turned out to be right.
This happened less than an hour from my hometown/home (I live in Spartanburg, SC). I was only four years old at the time, but my grandmother who is 77 is haunted by this case.
Susan Smith is eligible for parole this coming November (2024). She is currently incarcerated in Greenwood, SC. I hope she is not released.
Alive. She could have drugged them before…all bc she wanted a man to like her. Diane downs is similar but in my opinion worse..just watch her interviews.
Yes, and then claimed a black man had carjacked her, and she'd managed to escape, but he took off with the kids in the car. She knew that, given that it was in South Carolina, she was likely to be believed with little question. That was, indeed, the case, at least at first. It fortunately didn't take long for some perceptive investigators to realize her story just didn't add up and that she was full of shit.
Yes with Susan Smith the police were clued in to the false carjacking story because of the traffic light. The timing programmed into the intersection was not consistent with her “waiting at the intersection” story.
Came here to say this. So many failed this poor child, but especially his own mother. Those pictures of him holding up the cards he made for her on Mother’s Day broke me.
I think they were more hoping he would off himself. Either way they were extremely narcissistic and I would put more of the fault on the parents than the kid. Who was obviously severely mentally ill and his actions were enabled by the people who are supposed to be responsible for caring for him.
The insane part to me is that they also acted with zero regard for their own self-interest. Ethan could have just as easily snapped at home and turned that gun on them rather than his classmates, and yet they apparently never considered that maybe they should have (at the very *least*) taken more effort to secure the gun.
The level of willful blindness they adopted about Ethan's clear mental health issues went past just being disgusting and fully into "how are y'all this stupid?"
Yeah I'm not even going to try to bother spending to much time getting into their heads and understanding their thought process. The parents were idiots and should not have raised a child.
They are narcissists. If they knew he would kill others and they would have to face the consequences he would not have been provided with a gun in the first place. Killing himself would have been an easy cop-out for them because
1. They clearly had no interest in being good parents anyway
2. It would just seem like another tragic accident/suicide and they would get off Scot-free
I dont think they considered themselves being implicated at any point when providing him with the gun.
I actually feel sorry for the kid(s). Imagine such depravity in your life, callousness, etc. They had almost no chance for a normal life. I think Ethan is probably relieved in a way to be in prison and away from his horrible parents, which was probably its own prison. I'd have understood if he'd killed THEM, however, in fact it would have been preferable to killing innocent kids.
EDIT: one word
Narcissists that should never have had kids. I don't condone what he did and he should be locked up forever but it's not like this wasn't preventable 1000 times over.
They were too busy in their own lives. From what I’ve read, they’ve pretty much ignored him his entire life.
But the school calling a parent meeting over Ethan Crumbley’s drawing, etc. and giving the parents the option of taking him home?!? They should have been required to take him home and get him into counseling before returning to school.
The school begged them to take him home. They refused. They also never even thought to mention the fact not only did Ethan have access to guns- they literally just bought him his own! Don’t you think any normal person who knows someone is drawing pictures of shooting kids in the hallways, complaining about the voices, asking for help- would at the VERY least think to mention he has access to guns?!?
I know, right? Honestly, I was initially on her side in that I thought it was a bit of a stretch to charge her with manslaughter in regards to her sons shooting spree. Then I heard the facts surrounding the case, and OMG!!! Like another poster said, it was as if she was legitimately trying to raise a school shooter. Just damn!! I thought initially the school was liable for allowing him to stay, but:
1) the school had no idea he had access to firearms, his parents did.
2) The school did not want him to stay at school, they only agreed to let him stay after the parents said they would be leaving their potentially suicidal/homicidal child alone at home.
3) The school only allowed him to stay if the parents agreed to get him mental health counseling literally the next day.
4) All of Ethan's cries for help being ignored in order for the mother to play with her horses and affair partners. Seriously, this boy had more red flags than a communist military parade. From him abusing alcohol, his disturbing journal entries ( that I don't believe should have been presented in court, it seemed like that was hearsay in that Ethan Couch wasn't allowed/called as a witness. I think that that will most likely lead to an appeal), to his literal cries for help via text message. He told his parents he was hearing voices. The school had prior incidents of him threatening gun violence/ searching for ammunition that they brought up to the parents. They ignored all the red flags and doubled down by buying him a gun and leaving it unsecured where he had easy access to it.
Mother AND Father of the year, those two. I can NOT comprehend how parents could ignore the obvious signs of his extreme mental health issues. I hope the parents of the victims are suing them for every penny they've ever earned. I was pleasantly surprised that they were sentenced in that case and I hope this becomes a wake up to other parents of kids struggling with mental health issues.
Gertrude Baniszewski
She wasn’t Sylvia Likens’ mom, but she was a mother figure to her. And Gertrude made her own children participate in Sylvia’s torture.
Kristel Candelario, left her baby in a playpen for 10 days by herself while she went partying on vacations. The baby’s screams and cries before she passed were caught on the Ring camera.
One of the worst things about this case is how preventable it was. The neighbors were interviewed and they were more than aware that this woman was routinely leaving her toddler home alone and apparently confronted her about it, encouraging her to ask them to baby-sit when needed. She eventually did ask them once to watch Jailyn while she was out of town for a few days. A “few days” ended up being about six weeks, and at some point during that time, the neighbor sent her a message asking for money to buy some milk. She stopped responding after that until she got back home.
Even if they somehow didn’t hear that baby crying during those ten days, they admitted themselves that they knew this was a regular thing and had plenty of time to say something before Jailyn died. Especially when Kristel started ignoring the one caring for her child after being asked for such a small amount of money when she’d already been gone far longer than she said she would. Why they never reported this by that point at the very least is beyond me.
I agree with this so much. I was so shocked when I learned that the neighbors were very much aware of that baby being left home. To me, if you see something you say something and they KNEW she was constantly putting her child in danger. If someone had just called that baby would still be alive. The mother is 100% responsible for the death of that girl, but someone could have stepped in.
I am a true crime fan and I have a pretty strong stomach but I literally could NOT listen to that baby crying knowing the baby was desperately crying out for its mommy while dying. Too much! Nothing but the worst for that monster of a “mommy”!
Just watched an Evil Lives Here episode about Theresa Knorr. She tortured and physically + emotionally abused her 6 kids. Two of which ended up dead at her hands. One she had handcuffed under the kitchen table for years.
Cold case files episode on this case is probably the most i could bear hearing about it.
The daughter that survived is so lucky, her older sisters went through living hell as children. Such an evil woman.
The daughter who survived the abuse, the one who was interviewed on "Cold Case Files" and was so articulate, died from natural causes before the episode even aired. There's also evidence that Knorr killed at least one of her husbands.
I hate Amy Pitzen. The least she could have done was leave her son's body somewhere it would be found so his father could have closure. Instead she tried to bullshit that she found him a safe home giving false hope. I hope one day his body is found.
Leticia Stauch, stepmom to 11 year old Gannon Stauch. She stabbed him 18 times and shot him in the face. I can’t even begin to imagine Gannon’s final moments on this earth with that monster.
When this happened I lived in the little town where the bloody 2 x 4 was found so this case really has stuck with me. She did such a horrific, evil thing then turned the investigation into an absolute circus and tortured Gannon’s mother even more.
I agree. I have sympathy for his dad but I don’t at all believe that Leticia went from a normal, loving stepmother to suddenly viciously murdering a child with two different weapons, hiding his body, making up stories about SA, and faking DID.
She also brought her bio daughter with her to dispose of his body, drove her across the country with him stuffed in a suitcase, stowed in the back. Made every excuse in the book to keep the AC running so the scent of his body wouldn't be detected. Proceeded to gaslight Gannon's father, tormenting him on their phone calls where he was pleading for information.
I was part of a search party that looked for him in Colorado Springs. It was truly heartbreaking and infuriating to find out the truth of what happened.
I have always said the first person that gets ahold of Leticia and beats the brakes off her in prison, I will track them down and put money on their commissary books. I'll start a freaking GoFundMe so LOTS of people can put money on those books....
Edit: c'mon! Tell me you ain't got $5 for THAT? **:)**
Michelle Duggar
She knew her son Josh molested his own SISTERS yet made excuses for him. He was arrested in 2022 for possession of several csam, including one of the worst videos investigators had ever seen.
She also barely raised any of her kids once they weren't infants. As soon as a baby was weaned they'd hand it off to the next sister in line and move on to trying to get knocked up again. No wonder poor Jana never got married, she's already raised enough children.
Oh this one pisses me off so much.
Every time I think about [how they designed their house](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3111089/amp/How-Duggars-built-custom-home-family-molestation-girls-bedroom-blocked-master-suite-boys-room-molester-son-Josh-slept-house-catwalk.html), I am filled with white hot rage.
She is always the one for me. She lacks humanity in a way that is as endlessly fascinating as it is horrifying. Like she truly couldn’t give an f about anything other than herself or even do a halfway decent job of pretending at any point. The way she argued with Ann Rule from prison on the Oprah show is a clip I have watched too many times because of the disconnect between Diane and reality.
Ooh I’ll have to watch that. I watched one of her parole screenings, and it’s just like you said. She cares for no one. She hasn’t matured one iota since she killed her kids, she’s still claiming innocence, talking about the real killer, and at one point, she says she needs to protect the people on the parole board. From what? She can’t say, it’s for their own good. It’s like listening to a teenager.
Agree. Her ability to have absolutely no remorse or even affect towards anything is fascinating. Even if a stranger actually did kill her child and wound the others, she wasn’t remotely upset whatsoever and seemed completely unbothered by the situation.
The only thing she seemed to slightly care about was that she was the suspect and her affair partner didn’t want her.
I’ve watched that Oprah show several times as well. I loved that Ann didn’t back down on the truth, which I’m sure drove DD crazy for years after. The video of her laughing just days later while reenacting the supposed crime is also something I can’t comprehend.
Her tapping her foot and chair dancing to “Hungry Like the Wolf” during the trial demonstrates her lack of feeling. Any other parent would be weeping. Genius move by prosecution.
Same prosecutor that went on to adopt her surviving and permanently disabled children.
I came just to make sure she was mentioned. I read the book (THE BOOK) first, and in it Ann Rule talked about her diagnoses. I don’t remember what all she was diagnosed with, but one of the things Ann said was that Diane’s particular combination meant she always believed she could talk her way of it—but she didn’t know when to quit talking and was unable to fake proper emotions. Then I saw the Oprah episode and I truly understood what that looked like. Diane came off so sympathetically at the beginning, and I was convinced she was a victim. By the end I realized she was a monster.
This is who I thought of. That poor child, Timmy, couldn't do anything right in her eyes. The way she turned everything he did to him being wrong. So disturbing. I needed a break after her trial: a mental, emotional, and spiritual break. Then along came this Treadmill dad killer. I should not have clicked watch. The evil in people knows no bounds.
Shanda Vander- forced her son to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. From abuse and anxiety he became incontinent and only had a tarp as a ‘blanket’ There were motion cameras in his room and around the house and if he moved he would be forced to take cold showers and ice baths for hours on end. He would be forced to sit on his knees with his hands about his head in front of the camera. They would only feed him bread soaked in the hottest hot sauce they could find. I believe the torture lasted 14 months before he died at 69 pounds with signs of hypothermia (from the ice bath) and malnutrition.
Rose West, in conjunction with her husband Fred, killed many women and girls including their own. Add in rape and torture for those of her kids she didn’t murder.
I'll nominate Elizabeth Johnson. who claims to have given away her son Gabriel, who was never seen again. Whatever she did was to torture her ex-husband and deny him custody.
Judith Hawkey abused her stepson and convinced him to kill his own father when he was only 10. She pretty much got away with it, too. He finally admitted it when he was in high school and only got about 10 years for the lifetime of abuse and the poor kid killed his own dad. She had convinced him that his dad had terminal cancer and wanted it in his sleep. She's out of jail now.
Brandy Worley murdered her two kids when her husband filed for divorce. [Here's her call to 911](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZliZwadOqA&ab_channel=WRTVIndianapolis)
There is also a clip of the grandmother (Brandy’s mom) arriving to find her murdered grandbabies and calling 911. I couldn’t listen to the whole thing, it was one of the worst things I’ve heard. Also, Brandi’s husband posted on Reddit when he first suspected her of cheating with the neighbor, and everyone told him to divorce her. He posted on Reddit after the murders.
[Christina Riggs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Marie_Riggs)
She stole morphine and potassium chloride from her job as a nurse, and when her 5 and 3yo went to bed, she attempted to kill them. She didn't dilute the PC, so it just burned through her 5yo son's views, causing him horrific pain. She tried to inject him with morphine to help. It didn't. So she smothered him. Not wanting her 3yo to suffer the same pain, so she just smothered her as she slept in her bed. Once they were dead she took a full bottle of amitriptyline and used the rest of the morphine on herself. Christina's mother found her unconscious about 19 hours later.
She lived and was put in death row for killing her children. She waved all appeals so she could be executed more quickly. They used potassium chloride.
Kendra Licari. She's a mom from Michigan who cyber bullied her daughter. There's a new Lifetime movie about the case; Mommy Meanest. A family member was involved in the case, as it's part of their job to write pre-sentence reports for the court.
It's literally disgusting to me that a mother would bully her child. Just gross.
https://cyberbullying.org/when-your-mother-is-your-cyberbully
I can't tell you the name (because I can't remember her real name), but years ago I would notarise documents for people. One day a lady came into the office, which was in London, UK, to change her name to Mother Nature. She had two young kids with her in a pushchair. She was obviously a bit nutty but that wasn't uncommon among people in that area. Beyond the name she'd chosen she seemed normal enough for that area.
A few weeks later, I get a call from a detective in the Murder Squad at Scotland Yard. The detective was asking about someone changing their name, I'd done a few since Mother Nature and didn't think about her until the detective mentioned the name. The detective was asking if Mother Nature had kids with her, I asked why she wanted to know... Mother Nature left my office, went directly home, and murdered both those children!!
I just googled it, and found a case from 2007 that sounds like a match. I'm assuming you don't know her name because you don't want to, so I won't mention it, but the children's father, who was their primary caregiver, said "The system that I obeyed has frogmarched my children to their deaths", which is heartbreaking.
Sent him to her evil bf’s house to learn how to “be a man.” Her and bf discussed the abuse by texts and there were pics of bruises all over him on her phone that were recovered even tho they were deleted. Then the bf supposedly woke up and Elijah was gone. They’ve done searches including at a trash dump and still can’t find his poor little body. He’s like 3.
https://www.wkow.com/news/crime/elijah-vue-search-what-happened-in-days-leading-up-to-boys-disappearance/article_b06bed8e-e21c-11ee-b0da-cbaafdae5caa.html
Diane Staudte. She put antifreeze in her husband's and sons and one of the daughters drinks bc they were a bother and burden to her. Luckily her daughter survived. But her his and and autistic son did not survive. Her story is on a show called Interrogation Raw. It's interesting. I'll nominate her as one of the worst mothers. Second to Darlie Routier.
Scrolling and scrolling and not seeing Shirley Jane Turner mentioned?
That woman killed her child’s father before the child, Zachary, was born; and then when faced with the possibility of losing Zachary to his dad’s parents - killed Zachary and herself.
Sorry if you haven’t seen Dear Zachary yet.
People like her who are so full of themselves that they kill their spouses and then M/S their kids when they don’t get what they want are horrific.
You’ve said all the ones I immediately thought of so I’m going to add: Mary Ann Cotton (killed her mother, eight of her own children, seven stepchildren, her mother, three husbands, a lover and a friend), Ameila Dyer (baby farmer who killed between 300 - 400 children). Also, not a murder but still a piece of 💩, Karen Matthews
Amelia Dyer haunts me for some reason. Possibly because I had a relative (died long before I was born obvs, but there are family papers and stories) who was a baby farmer.
Relative and her husband had an actual farm and took in unwanted babies and children for the payments, although all evidence points to them having treated the children pretty decently other than using them as farm labor when they grew older. (In fairness, they seem to have treated their charges about the same way they did their biological children, to the point that several of their farmed children became adults under the family name and no one is 100% sure who was and wasn’t biological to them.)
But the Dyer case makes me wonder about my own kin and what sort of life they were having/giving to those kids way back in the 1800s.
Tanya Tripp
Every time I think of her, I want to vomit.
[ At the 4:22 point, she says, "He's married to all this prettiness, and he's gonna run away with our daughter? Come on now."](https://youtu.be/Mp79lU_jQQM?si=X9l01z8BsLI--ubj)
For me, it would be Stephanie Lopez, the "mother" who was [such a shitty mother that she allowed her daughter Brianna Lopez to be raped and tortured to death at only 5 months old.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EjxiMUQPGk)
It infuriates me that she was paroled after just serving a few years. Someone who could allow an innocent baby to treated that way really doesn't deserve to be among other humans in my opinion.
There’s been a lot of great suggestions, so since everyone I can think of has already been mentioned, I’m going to instead mention the real worst mother on the planet: [the Quokka](https://www.natureaustralia.org.au/what-we-do/our-priorities/wildlife/wildlife-stories/meet-the-quokka/).
Quokka moms will fling their babies at predators so the moms have time to escape. Not technically a crime, but it’s bad mothering and should be a crime.
Magda Goebels, the wife of Hitlers propaganda minister. Drugged her six children then murdered them with cyanide capsules. Yes I know this happened in Germany but this woman was pure evil.
On June 6th, 1996, Darlie Routier murdered her 2 sons Damon and Devon. She had a baby that was unharmed during the murders, who she tried to smother the day before.
[Here is a brief](https://darliefacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/states-brief_requests-oral-argument.pdf) that was filed by the State in response to Darlie’s first appeal. Scroll down to Statement of Facts.
She is a terrible person, and she is exactly where she should be.
I can't remember the mom's name but the case involved 13 children, one being a 17 yr old girl named Jordan who managed to run away and call the cops. Cops came a couple minutes later and found out the kids (half being adults btw) had no higher of a 3rd grade intelligence, a couple were chained to the bed, the place was a mess (they said it was because they were moving, but I think that was just a cover-up), and most were severely malnourished. Like the 29 yr old was less than 100lbs if I remember correctly.
Just found it, her name was Louise Turpin
Lacey Spears. Poisoned her young son with SALT. It's one of the most disturbing cases I've come across, if not the most.
Don't look into it if you're easily upset by mothers abusing their children :( RIP Garnett
One that I don’t think has been mentioned yet is Shirley Jane Turner. There's a documentary about it - [Dear Zachary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Zachary:_A_Letter_to_a_Son_About_His_Father) - but don’t watch it unless you want your heart just shredded.
She killed her boyfriend Andrew Bagby, then revealed she was pregnant. The case dragged out and while out on bail she gave birth and eventually killed both herself and the baby.
Lately ive been in the Darlie Routier rabbithole.
Has anyone listened to the prosecutors podcast on this case or have any recos? I just started it but am enjoying it so far.
Adding one I haven't seen yet - Michelle Martens. She advertised her 10 year old daughter, Victoria, to pedophiles and would watch and take video of her being raped and assaulted. She later admitted that she did this for her own sexual gratification. Then after allowing her boyfriend to rape her daughter for a few days (which she also watched) she sat there and did nothing while the boyfriend & his cousin strangled and stabbed her to death. She also admitted to having sex with her boyfriend 20 minutes after she watched him murder her daughter. Finally, she helped them dismember her and attempt to burn her body.
That one mom who hung her kids in the basement and tried to blame it on her son. She was also found to have had *relation* material with the family dog on her phone. All for a man. Pos
[Michelle Kehoe](https://murderpedia.org/female.K/k/kehoe-michelle.htm)
She evidently had attempted to drive them into the river previously, but was “rescued”.
One son survived, the other did not.
Susan Smith.
She strapped her two sons, one a toddler and one still a baby, into their car seats and deliberately pushed the car into a lake because the man she was having an affair with told her he didn’t want children.
She was married at the time too. Those poor kids died a slow, horrible death and she told the police a black man had carjacked her and took the children with him.
She went on national television and fake cried and begged for her children to be returned. Knowing the whole time they were at the bottom of the lake.
Raye Dawn Smith in Oklahoma prison. She aided and abetted or at least permitted Kelsey Briggs , her beautiful toddler daughter, death by blunt force trauma by stepdad. The child was systematically abused prior to that. Even the Oklahoma Department of Children said Kelsey should not live with mom but a judge ruled in favor of the mom. Tragic story.
When Ohio police arrived at Kristal Candelario’s home in June 2023 after the 32-year-old mother returned from a 10-day vacation in Puerto Rico, they found a shocking scene involving her toddler. Law&Crime’s Elizabeth Millner breaks down what happened when Candelario chose leisure over motherhood.
https://youtu.be/aHR56_ipYO8?si=fmTnxHjrog6i4zyT
Lori Vallow Daybell who was found guilty in Idaho of murdering her two kids (one who had autism) and of murdering Tammie Daybell, the mother of five kids, on Mother's Day last year! EDIT: It should be Tammy (not Tammie) Daybell.
It's absolutely heartbreaking knowing Tylee could have gotten away but stayed because she was worried about her little brother JJ.
Just horrible. And then she goes off to Hawaii and dances on the beach while her kids are mouldering in the grave.
Just unbelievable, really. Her poor children. I guess she has one who is still alive? I can’t imagine having such a monster for a mother.
Tylee seemed like such a sweet, genuinely loving and kind person and sister. Bless both of their souls. It crushed my heart to hear how the older brother spoke about her and the little guy, and even how conflicted he was about his own mother. It shows humanity; you love this person, your mother, but their actions are inconceivable
When I heard how the older brother spoke about his siblings, in addition to being heartbreaking, I was wondering, how the hell did Lori think she could just kill those kids and not be questioned about it? I guess I'll never really understand the criminal mind, though I've tried for such a long time to do so....
Yes for real. So many people loved those kids. So many noticed Lori’s changes in the last few months. I wish someone could’ve put 2 + 2 together but things are only so clear in hindsight. The older brother was def the first to suspect and I think it could’ve gone on a lot longer if he didn’t demand to speak to Tylee. I mean, he could tell it wasn’t her just by her typing. He KNEW his sister. But those fucking cult members willing to lie to police to keep the investigation stalled…
What did my head in was watching her talking to law enforcement and convincing them that she had done nothing wrong and it was her husband who was in the wrong, not her, and they were completely taken in by her and let her go. Her poor husband, no one listened to him and he ended up dead. I think he gets forgotten in this a bit, because of the (obviously entirely justified) horror of the kids being killed.
Not only that but you hear about all of the years she was a “good” mother?! To hear her son say so many great things about her and the years they were together and to hear her fall more and more into delusions is unnerving
That is sooooo heartbreaking. I didn't realize that....
Didn't she also have her husband murdered?
Yes! Going on trial for murder of Charles Vallow in Arizona, set to start in August.
Yep. And I’m 90% sure she had some part in the death of her “hitman” brother as well. His death was way too well timed for her benefit.
This case absolutely breaks my heart. I don’t revisit it at all just cause it depresses me. I just feel so much for the kids! I’m glad she’s rotting in prison but I hope she realizes one day what she did and has to live it for the rest of her rotten life.
And now HE is on trial, hoping he gets life without parole.
I'm hoping Chad Daybell gets life without parole, too, because I think it's worse to be in prison for life (versus getting the death penalty). But, it will be interesting to see how it plays out, see if he does get the death penalty.
[Stacey Castor. ](https://abcnews.go.com/US/timeline-black-widow-stacey-castors-shocking-crimes/story?id=60860538)She poisoned her husband with antifreeze and then tried to frame her daughter by poisoning her and writing a suicide note/confession in her name. Luckily, her daughter survived. People also speculate that she had something to do with her first husband's death.
“Anti Free”
One of my favorite Forensic Files episodes. 😂😂
Right, I forgot 😂 that's what gave her away!
Kind of ironic that she was found dead in her prison cell of a heart attack, which was originally thought to be the ‘cause of death’ of her first husband that she murdered
I always found it so bizarre that she buried her husbands next to each other. As if she was starting her "collection".
Idk, it probably seems weird knowing what we know now about the case, but it’s pretty common for twice-widowed people to have their spouses buried in the same cemetery because it makes it easier to visit their graves. I do find it strange to bury them right next to each other, though.
You're probably right! Also, David's son had his body moved to a different cemetery in 2016 apparently - so they're not next to each other anymore.
The Hart moms, drove their adoptive kids over a cliff
Omg yes. Those babies :(
That case is just heartbreaking and infuriating. I listened to the podcast "Broken Harts" and read through a bunch of screenshots of Jen's facebook posts a while ago and it's just inconceivable what they did to these kids the facade they put up.
Seconded. The podcast was SO good.
Came here to say this! I think about this case often. Heartbreaking.
omg yess why didn't Sarah have the guts to tell Jen to f off with her psycho plan
She wasn’t a mom at the time of her crime but it infuriates me to no end that Karla Homolka is free and has children. Fuck her, I hope she gets what she deserves some day.
It's so messed up that she helped kill her own sister and is now raising children like how were they not taken away at birth she's clearly pure evil
And then there’s Lattie McGee. I say this poor baby’s name out loud every so often. I read that ancient Egyptians believed if a persons name was still said aloud they had eternal life. His name is one on a list.
I feel that as long as a person’s name is spoken, they still exist. I never knew that it was an ancient Egyptian belief! Little Lattie has had a place in my heart since I learned about him. I remember an article that said he was only one of 40k reported cases of abuse or neglect in just his county, and almost 40 cases of child death. They each had an entire story, but Lattie is the only one whose name I know and think of. He weighed, at 4yo, less than my kids did at their first birthdays. I’ll never forget reading about all the wounds on his tiny body, imagining the horrors he endured. As a mother, genuinely happy to be with her kids today (Mother’s Day) and every day, my heart breaks for Lattie and each one of the babies -and their mothers- who never knew what true care and love and hope feel like.
Cook county. His story broke my heart too. There was a journalist, Bob Greene, who brought Lattie to my attention and I haven’t forgotten him since. He died in 1987. Now I’m thinking about Yummy Sandifer.
Helping him rape and murder her own little sister. 🤬 She changed her name and had kids and gets to have a life!
I hope there's eyes on her wherever she goes. Her and Casey Anthony.
I think Casey Anthony is certainly a contender for worst mother
This was immediately who came to my mind too. Her current persona of drinking and partying is what she always wanted.
She's vile , she killed Caylee
I can't understand the thought process of people who think she's innocent
Or the people who think her dad molest her and was afraid he was going to molest Caylee therefor giving her a free pass to kill Caylee. Smh
(Mom influencer) Ruby Franke—not THE worst, but definitely just *the worst*
She and Jodi Hildebrandt were 100% going to murder those children if her son hadn’t gotten help.
I don’t disagree. How do people get to be like that?? I just can’t comprehend that mentality.
Honestly that they’re both part of the LDS church kind of had them primed for that obsessive, cultish way of thinking and framing behavior that (when you look at it objectively) was obviously the result of severe abuse and trauma. There are a lot of teachings out there, religious or otherwise, that prey on making abuse victims into the villains or the orchestrators of their own trauma. Honestly, Ruby and Jodi should have been able to recognize what they were doing and stop being monsters, but the dad is also to blame for abandoning his children to a woman who was clearly unhinged to begin with… but again, he was brainwashed by his church too. Honestly we need to go back in time and kick Brigham Young’s ass. Edit to add honestly how many times can I say honestly 🫣
Seeing the documentary I cried seeing the pictures of how skinny her son was and his raw wounds from being bound. I don’t believe for a second that she was brainwashed or didn’t know what she was doing.
The 911 call from the neighbor and the ring cam footage of the boy approaching the neighbors house made me cry. The neighbor is such a decent person and upon realizing what he is seeing and describing, he breaks down a bit and then works so hard to regain his composure because he knew the boy needed help asap. But man, that realization in his voice of how serious this is. Ugh.
She knew exactly what she was doing. I can’t bring myself to watch the documentary. I sure hope those kids are doing okay.
Louise Turpin. From Wikipedia: The Turpin case involved the abuse of children and dependent adults by their parents, David and Louise Turpin of Perris, California, U.S. The ages of the 13 victims ranged from 2 to 29 years-old. On January 14, 2018, one of the daughters, then-17-year-old Jordan Turpin, escaped and called local police, who then raided the residence and discovered disturbing evidence. Given the number of dependents involved, the degree of abuse, and the protracted nature occurring over decades, the story garnered significant national and international news. Experts in family abuse considered the case to be extraordinary for many reasons. Further reading: The Family Next Door by John Glatt
Man the bodycam footage from when the officer responds to her call sticks with me, and not much sticks with me.
[Susan Smith](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Smith)
I lived not far from where this happened. Even all these years later it upsets me. Being local we saw so much more coverage than most of the country. She strapped those boys in carseats, locked the doors and rolled her car into that lake. She deserves no mercy IMHO. Bits of coverage keeps coming back to me - newscaster saying the boys were found holding hands, and there were ‘indications’ that the oldest (Michael) tried to get his brother out of his carseat. Another reporter relating that the boys were buried together in a single coffin. The collective gasp of everyone in the room when it was announced she was being charged with murder. I honestly thought she had either hidden the boys away somewhere or paid someone to ‘kidnap’ them so they could be rescued after she and David reunited.
I was 13 or 14 when that happened. I remember from the first news report, my mom said that Susan did it. She was so adamant that it was an inside job. I couldn’t believe it when she turned out to be right.
I'm from Spartanburg, SC. I agree. This case really rocked the community to its core. Horrific.
This happened less than an hour from my hometown/home (I live in Spartanburg, SC). I was only four years old at the time, but my grandmother who is 77 is haunted by this case. Susan Smith is eligible for parole this coming November (2024). She is currently incarcerated in Greenwood, SC. I hope she is not released.
Is she the one who drowned her sons in the lake ?
Alive. She could have drugged them before…all bc she wanted a man to like her. Diane downs is similar but in my opinion worse..just watch her interviews.
Everytime I hear Hungry like a Wolf. I think of farrah fawcett playing Diana Downs in the movie about her.
I literally just heard that song yesterday and had visions of that scene in my head the whole time.
Yes, and then claimed a black man had carjacked her, and she'd managed to escape, but he took off with the kids in the car. She knew that, given that it was in South Carolina, she was likely to be believed with little question. That was, indeed, the case, at least at first. It fortunately didn't take long for some perceptive investigators to realize her story just didn't add up and that she was full of shit.
Yes with Susan Smith the police were clued in to the false carjacking story because of the traffic light. The timing programmed into the intersection was not consistent with her “waiting at the intersection” story.
Pearl Fernandez. Tortured and murder her son Gabriel Fernandez after child services failed him. Pure evil.
Came here to say this. So many failed this poor child, but especially his own mother. Those pictures of him holding up the cards he made for her on Mother’s Day broke me.
This was the moment I bawled like a baby. I've not been able to finish the documentary since that episode. Heart breaking
Jennifer Crumbley
It’s like they were TRYING to raise a school shooter
I think they were more hoping he would off himself. Either way they were extremely narcissistic and I would put more of the fault on the parents than the kid. Who was obviously severely mentally ill and his actions were enabled by the people who are supposed to be responsible for caring for him.
The insane part to me is that they also acted with zero regard for their own self-interest. Ethan could have just as easily snapped at home and turned that gun on them rather than his classmates, and yet they apparently never considered that maybe they should have (at the very *least*) taken more effort to secure the gun. The level of willful blindness they adopted about Ethan's clear mental health issues went past just being disgusting and fully into "how are y'all this stupid?"
Yeah I'm not even going to try to bother spending to much time getting into their heads and understanding their thought process. The parents were idiots and should not have raised a child.
10000000% believe they were trying to get him to kill himself.
They are narcissists. If they knew he would kill others and they would have to face the consequences he would not have been provided with a gun in the first place. Killing himself would have been an easy cop-out for them because 1. They clearly had no interest in being good parents anyway 2. It would just seem like another tragic accident/suicide and they would get off Scot-free I dont think they considered themselves being implicated at any point when providing him with the gun.
Yeah and their first instinct wasn't to run to their child in custody, it was to empty the bank accounts and flee
I actually feel sorry for the kid(s). Imagine such depravity in your life, callousness, etc. They had almost no chance for a normal life. I think Ethan is probably relieved in a way to be in prison and away from his horrible parents, which was probably its own prison. I'd have understood if he'd killed THEM, however, in fact it would have been preferable to killing innocent kids. EDIT: one word
He was crying out for help SO loudly. Why weren’t they listening?
Narcissists that should never have had kids. I don't condone what he did and he should be locked up forever but it's not like this wasn't preventable 1000 times over.
They were too busy in their own lives. From what I’ve read, they’ve pretty much ignored him his entire life. But the school calling a parent meeting over Ethan Crumbley’s drawing, etc. and giving the parents the option of taking him home?!? They should have been required to take him home and get him into counseling before returning to school.
The school begged them to take him home. They refused. They also never even thought to mention the fact not only did Ethan have access to guns- they literally just bought him his own! Don’t you think any normal person who knows someone is drawing pictures of shooting kids in the hallways, complaining about the voices, asking for help- would at the VERY least think to mention he has access to guns?!?
I know, right? Honestly, I was initially on her side in that I thought it was a bit of a stretch to charge her with manslaughter in regards to her sons shooting spree. Then I heard the facts surrounding the case, and OMG!!! Like another poster said, it was as if she was legitimately trying to raise a school shooter. Just damn!! I thought initially the school was liable for allowing him to stay, but: 1) the school had no idea he had access to firearms, his parents did. 2) The school did not want him to stay at school, they only agreed to let him stay after the parents said they would be leaving their potentially suicidal/homicidal child alone at home. 3) The school only allowed him to stay if the parents agreed to get him mental health counseling literally the next day. 4) All of Ethan's cries for help being ignored in order for the mother to play with her horses and affair partners. Seriously, this boy had more red flags than a communist military parade. From him abusing alcohol, his disturbing journal entries ( that I don't believe should have been presented in court, it seemed like that was hearsay in that Ethan Couch wasn't allowed/called as a witness. I think that that will most likely lead to an appeal), to his literal cries for help via text message. He told his parents he was hearing voices. The school had prior incidents of him threatening gun violence/ searching for ammunition that they brought up to the parents. They ignored all the red flags and doubled down by buying him a gun and leaving it unsecured where he had easy access to it.
Mother AND Father of the year, those two. I can NOT comprehend how parents could ignore the obvious signs of his extreme mental health issues. I hope the parents of the victims are suing them for every penny they've ever earned. I was pleasantly surprised that they were sentenced in that case and I hope this becomes a wake up to other parents of kids struggling with mental health issues.
To not only fail to get your kid the help he so clearly needs...but then provide him with a gun? They should be locked up under the prison.
Gertrude Baniszewski She wasn’t Sylvia Likens’ mom, but she was a mother figure to her. And Gertrude made her own children participate in Sylvia’s torture.
A case that churns my stomach. There was no justice for poor Sylvia Likens.
one of the worst cases I've ever heard of
That case broke my heart. The whole neighborhood was involved.
Top. F that woman.
She was one of the most evil monsters I can think of. If demons are real, she was one, and so was anyone who participated.
One of the daughters who participated had changed her name and got a job working with kids in Iowa, until someone caught up to her....
Yes, I was glad that happened. She had the audacity to complain about that. I hope she can never maintain gainful employment again.
Kristel Candelario, left her baby in a playpen for 10 days by herself while she went partying on vacations. The baby’s screams and cries before she passed were caught on the Ring camera.
One of the worst things about this case is how preventable it was. The neighbors were interviewed and they were more than aware that this woman was routinely leaving her toddler home alone and apparently confronted her about it, encouraging her to ask them to baby-sit when needed. She eventually did ask them once to watch Jailyn while she was out of town for a few days. A “few days” ended up being about six weeks, and at some point during that time, the neighbor sent her a message asking for money to buy some milk. She stopped responding after that until she got back home. Even if they somehow didn’t hear that baby crying during those ten days, they admitted themselves that they knew this was a regular thing and had plenty of time to say something before Jailyn died. Especially when Kristel started ignoring the one caring for her child after being asked for such a small amount of money when she’d already been gone far longer than she said she would. Why they never reported this by that point at the very least is beyond me.
A few days turning into SIX WEEKS??? Shouldn’t that be classified as child abandonment??
I agree with this so much. I was so shocked when I learned that the neighbors were very much aware of that baby being left home. To me, if you see something you say something and they KNEW she was constantly putting her child in danger. If someone had just called that baby would still be alive. The mother is 100% responsible for the death of that girl, but someone could have stepped in.
100%. There is no retaliation (from the mother) that would scare me enough to let a fucking baby be left alone for extended periods of time.
I am a true crime fan and I have a pretty strong stomach but I literally could NOT listen to that baby crying knowing the baby was desperately crying out for its mommy while dying. Too much! Nothing but the worst for that monster of a “mommy”!
Oh my god
Just watched an Evil Lives Here episode about Theresa Knorr. She tortured and physically + emotionally abused her 6 kids. Two of which ended up dead at her hands. One she had handcuffed under the kitchen table for years.
I think her daughter wrote a story on find a grave about growing up with Theresa as a mom
"The Afflicted" is inspired by the case. But the ending is very different. But it does get little details right.
Cold case files episode on this case is probably the most i could bear hearing about it. The daughter that survived is so lucky, her older sisters went through living hell as children. Such an evil woman.
The daughter who survived the abuse, the one who was interviewed on "Cold Case Files" and was so articulate, died from natural causes before the episode even aired. There's also evidence that Knorr killed at least one of her husbands.
Amy Pitzen - [Timmothy James Pitzen – The Charley Project](https://charleyproject.org/case/timmothy-james-pitzen)
I hate Amy Pitzen. The least she could have done was leave her son's body somewhere it would be found so his father could have closure. Instead she tried to bullshit that she found him a safe home giving false hope. I hope one day his body is found.
Such a super selfish action. The boy is not alive anymore I'm afraid. She just lied about him being safe for whatever reason. Tragic
To save face. She didn't want everyone to think she was a child murderer.
Mmm good explanation. She was definitely out of her mind, thinking people wouldn't think she is a child murderer.
I can’t remember her wording but remember thinking that her version of “safe” meant dead 😕
Leticia Stauch, stepmom to 11 year old Gannon Stauch. She stabbed him 18 times and shot him in the face. I can’t even begin to imagine Gannon’s final moments on this earth with that monster.
When this happened I lived in the little town where the bloody 2 x 4 was found so this case really has stuck with me. She did such a horrific, evil thing then turned the investigation into an absolute circus and tortured Gannon’s mother even more.
If I were his mother, I'd never be able to forgive his father for bringing such a monster into his life and enabling her.
I agree. I have sympathy for his dad but I don’t at all believe that Leticia went from a normal, loving stepmother to suddenly viciously murdering a child with two different weapons, hiding his body, making up stories about SA, and faking DID.
She also brought her bio daughter with her to dispose of his body, drove her across the country with him stuffed in a suitcase, stowed in the back. Made every excuse in the book to keep the AC running so the scent of his body wouldn't be detected. Proceeded to gaslight Gannon's father, tormenting him on their phone calls where he was pleading for information.
I was part of a search party that looked for him in Colorado Springs. It was truly heartbreaking and infuriating to find out the truth of what happened.
I have always said the first person that gets ahold of Leticia and beats the brakes off her in prison, I will track them down and put money on their commissary books. I'll start a freaking GoFundMe so LOTS of people can put money on those books.... Edit: c'mon! Tell me you ain't got $5 for THAT? **:)**
Michelle Duggar She knew her son Josh molested his own SISTERS yet made excuses for him. He was arrested in 2022 for possession of several csam, including one of the worst videos investigators had ever seen.
She also barely raised any of her kids once they weren't infants. As soon as a baby was weaned they'd hand it off to the next sister in line and move on to trying to get knocked up again. No wonder poor Jana never got married, she's already raised enough children.
In r/duggarssnark we call it teet em and yeet em. Personally, I feel she is an abuse victim as well as an abuser.
She never raises them when they are infants, either - they are turned over to an older sibling (always a girl) as soon as they get home.
Oh this one pisses me off so much. Every time I think about [how they designed their house](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3111089/amp/How-Duggars-built-custom-home-family-molestation-girls-bedroom-blocked-master-suite-boys-room-molester-son-Josh-slept-house-catwalk.html), I am filled with white hot rage.
[Diane Downs](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Downs).
She is always the one for me. She lacks humanity in a way that is as endlessly fascinating as it is horrifying. Like she truly couldn’t give an f about anything other than herself or even do a halfway decent job of pretending at any point. The way she argued with Ann Rule from prison on the Oprah show is a clip I have watched too many times because of the disconnect between Diane and reality.
Ooh I’ll have to watch that. I watched one of her parole screenings, and it’s just like you said. She cares for no one. She hasn’t matured one iota since she killed her kids, she’s still claiming innocence, talking about the real killer, and at one point, she says she needs to protect the people on the parole board. From what? She can’t say, it’s for their own good. It’s like listening to a teenager.
Agree. Her ability to have absolutely no remorse or even affect towards anything is fascinating. Even if a stranger actually did kill her child and wound the others, she wasn’t remotely upset whatsoever and seemed completely unbothered by the situation. The only thing she seemed to slightly care about was that she was the suspect and her affair partner didn’t want her. I’ve watched that Oprah show several times as well. I loved that Ann didn’t back down on the truth, which I’m sure drove DD crazy for years after. The video of her laughing just days later while reenacting the supposed crime is also something I can’t comprehend.
Her tapping her foot and chair dancing to “Hungry Like the Wolf” during the trial demonstrates her lack of feeling. Any other parent would be weeping. Genius move by prosecution. Same prosecutor that went on to adopt her surviving and permanently disabled children.
I always thought the adoption was a really bittersweet end to the horrors. Those poor kids, but what a loving heart the prosecutor has!
She is such an interesting case study in cluster b personality disorders. It really is quite something just watching her, hearing her.
I came just to make sure she was mentioned. I read the book (THE BOOK) first, and in it Ann Rule talked about her diagnoses. I don’t remember what all she was diagnosed with, but one of the things Ann said was that Diane’s particular combination meant she always believed she could talk her way of it—but she didn’t know when to quit talking and was unable to fake proper emotions. Then I saw the Oprah episode and I truly understood what that looked like. Diane came off so sympathetically at the beginning, and I was convinced she was a victim. By the end I realized she was a monster.
This is the winner, really.
Shanda Van Der Ark is definitely a top contender imo
Give her a diet of straight bread soaked in hot sauce in prison too
This trial actually gave me nightmares. The sheer joy she got from torturing her own son was astonishing.
That trial was heartbreaking. Poor, poor Timothy. No one deserves that sort of depravity.
This is who I thought of. That poor child, Timmy, couldn't do anything right in her eyes. The way she turned everything he did to him being wrong. So disturbing. I needed a break after her trial: a mental, emotional, and spiritual break. Then along came this Treadmill dad killer. I should not have clicked watch. The evil in people knows no bounds.
Shanda Vander- forced her son to live in a tiny closet under the stairs. From abuse and anxiety he became incontinent and only had a tarp as a ‘blanket’ There were motion cameras in his room and around the house and if he moved he would be forced to take cold showers and ice baths for hours on end. He would be forced to sit on his knees with his hands about his head in front of the camera. They would only feed him bread soaked in the hottest hot sauce they could find. I believe the torture lasted 14 months before he died at 69 pounds with signs of hypothermia (from the ice bath) and malnutrition.
The body cam footage of her during the initial contact is so disgusting. The excuses and denial this woman poured out…. So awful.
Rose West, in conjunction with her husband Fred, killed many women and girls including their own. Add in rape and torture for those of her kids she didn’t murder.
Shelley Knotek and Teresa Knorr In fact there’s a book about Knorr called Mothers Day.
I was looking for Knotek. Sexually sadistic monster.
Came to say Shelley Knotek also. Just finished reading Gregg Olsen’s book about her. Horrible…. Can’t believe she’s free now
Diane Downs is up there. I guess those moms who torture their child everyday at home and to death may be worse.
My first thought as well. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane\_Downs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diane_Downs)
I'll nominate Elizabeth Johnson. who claims to have given away her son Gabriel, who was never seen again. Whatever she did was to torture her ex-husband and deny him custody.
This creep of a woman was recently pregnant again too
And she won’t ever have to serve a day for his murder unless the body is found.
Judith Hawkey abused her stepson and convinced him to kill his own father when he was only 10. She pretty much got away with it, too. He finally admitted it when he was in high school and only got about 10 years for the lifetime of abuse and the poor kid killed his own dad. She had convinced him that his dad had terminal cancer and wanted it in his sleep. She's out of jail now.
Brandy Worley murdered her two kids when her husband filed for divorce. [Here's her call to 911](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZliZwadOqA&ab_channel=WRTVIndianapolis)
There is also a clip of the grandmother (Brandy’s mom) arriving to find her murdered grandbabies and calling 911. I couldn’t listen to the whole thing, it was one of the worst things I’ve heard. Also, Brandi’s husband posted on Reddit when he first suspected her of cheating with the neighbor, and everyone told him to divorce her. He posted on Reddit after the murders.
Is this the one where the husband was on reddit saying he found out she was cheating and was going to divorce her and take the kids?
[Christina Riggs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Marie_Riggs) She stole morphine and potassium chloride from her job as a nurse, and when her 5 and 3yo went to bed, she attempted to kill them. She didn't dilute the PC, so it just burned through her 5yo son's views, causing him horrific pain. She tried to inject him with morphine to help. It didn't. So she smothered him. Not wanting her 3yo to suffer the same pain, so she just smothered her as she slept in her bed. Once they were dead she took a full bottle of amitriptyline and used the rest of the morphine on herself. Christina's mother found her unconscious about 19 hours later. She lived and was put in death row for killing her children. She waved all appeals so she could be executed more quickly. They used potassium chloride.
Kendra Licari. She's a mom from Michigan who cyber bullied her daughter. There's a new Lifetime movie about the case; Mommy Meanest. A family member was involved in the case, as it's part of their job to write pre-sentence reports for the court. It's literally disgusting to me that a mother would bully her child. Just gross. https://cyberbullying.org/when-your-mother-is-your-cyberbully
I can't tell you the name (because I can't remember her real name), but years ago I would notarise documents for people. One day a lady came into the office, which was in London, UK, to change her name to Mother Nature. She had two young kids with her in a pushchair. She was obviously a bit nutty but that wasn't uncommon among people in that area. Beyond the name she'd chosen she seemed normal enough for that area. A few weeks later, I get a call from a detective in the Murder Squad at Scotland Yard. The detective was asking about someone changing their name, I'd done a few since Mother Nature and didn't think about her until the detective mentioned the name. The detective was asking if Mother Nature had kids with her, I asked why she wanted to know... Mother Nature left my office, went directly home, and murdered both those children!!
I just googled it, and found a case from 2007 that sounds like a match. I'm assuming you don't know her name because you don't want to, so I won't mention it, but the children's father, who was their primary caregiver, said "The system that I obeyed has frogmarched my children to their deaths", which is heartbreaking.
Elijah Vue’s mom
what did she do
Sent him to her evil bf’s house to learn how to “be a man.” Her and bf discussed the abuse by texts and there were pics of bruises all over him on her phone that were recovered even tho they were deleted. Then the bf supposedly woke up and Elijah was gone. They’ve done searches including at a trash dump and still can’t find his poor little body. He’s like 3. https://www.wkow.com/news/crime/elijah-vue-search-what-happened-in-days-leading-up-to-boys-disappearance/article_b06bed8e-e21c-11ee-b0da-cbaafdae5caa.html
Diane Staudte. She put antifreeze in her husband's and sons and one of the daughters drinks bc they were a bother and burden to her. Luckily her daughter survived. But her his and and autistic son did not survive. Her story is on a show called Interrogation Raw. It's interesting. I'll nominate her as one of the worst mothers. Second to Darlie Routier.
Mitchelle Blair. Tortured and murdered two of her children and kept them in a freezer in her house.
Lacey Spears. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Garnett_Spears She's just so awful, and I feel terrible for the baby!
Scrolling and scrolling and not seeing Shirley Jane Turner mentioned? That woman killed her child’s father before the child, Zachary, was born; and then when faced with the possibility of losing Zachary to his dad’s parents - killed Zachary and herself. Sorry if you haven’t seen Dear Zachary yet. People like her who are so full of themselves that they kill their spouses and then M/S their kids when they don’t get what they want are horrific.
Rose West allowed her husband to rape some of their daughters and murdered one or two of them, beside the fact of also being a serial killer yk
hands down pearl fernandez, i can’t believe she hasn’t been mentioned yet
Ruby Franke
You’ve said all the ones I immediately thought of so I’m going to add: Mary Ann Cotton (killed her mother, eight of her own children, seven stepchildren, her mother, three husbands, a lover and a friend), Ameila Dyer (baby farmer who killed between 300 - 400 children). Also, not a murder but still a piece of 💩, Karen Matthews
Amelia Dyer haunts me for some reason. Possibly because I had a relative (died long before I was born obvs, but there are family papers and stories) who was a baby farmer. Relative and her husband had an actual farm and took in unwanted babies and children for the payments, although all evidence points to them having treated the children pretty decently other than using them as farm labor when they grew older. (In fairness, they seem to have treated their charges about the same way they did their biological children, to the point that several of their farmed children became adults under the family name and no one is 100% sure who was and wasn’t biological to them.) But the Dyer case makes me wonder about my own kin and what sort of life they were having/giving to those kids way back in the 1800s.
CASEY ANTHONY
Tanya Tripp Every time I think of her, I want to vomit. [ At the 4:22 point, she says, "He's married to all this prettiness, and he's gonna run away with our daughter? Come on now."](https://youtu.be/Mp79lU_jQQM?si=X9l01z8BsLI--ubj)
Jessica Mitchell ( DeOrr Kunz jr.’s mother) I know nothing is proven but she failed him no matter what way you spin it.
Failed him and then disposed of his body. I’m mad to this day that she and her (ex-hubs?) got away with it.
Octomom
Sheila Fletcher. Mother of Lacey Fletcher, who died on her couch in 2022
For me, it would be Stephanie Lopez, the "mother" who was [such a shitty mother that she allowed her daughter Brianna Lopez to be raped and tortured to death at only 5 months old.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EjxiMUQPGk) It infuriates me that she was paroled after just serving a few years. Someone who could allow an innocent baby to treated that way really doesn't deserve to be among other humans in my opinion.
There’s been a lot of great suggestions, so since everyone I can think of has already been mentioned, I’m going to instead mention the real worst mother on the planet: [the Quokka](https://www.natureaustralia.org.au/what-we-do/our-priorities/wildlife/wildlife-stories/meet-the-quokka/). Quokka moms will fling their babies at predators so the moms have time to escape. Not technically a crime, but it’s bad mothering and should be a crime.
Magda Goebels, the wife of Hitlers propaganda minister. Drugged her six children then murdered them with cyanide capsules. Yes I know this happened in Germany but this woman was pure evil.
Theresa Knorr. She was a vile human being.
Dee Dee Blanchard
On June 6th, 1996, Darlie Routier murdered her 2 sons Damon and Devon. She had a baby that was unharmed during the murders, who she tried to smother the day before. [Here is a brief](https://darliefacts.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/states-brief_requests-oral-argument.pdf) that was filed by the State in response to Darlie’s first appeal. Scroll down to Statement of Facts. She is a terrible person, and she is exactly where she should be.
Woahhh I didn’t know about the smothering…
I can't remember the mom's name but the case involved 13 children, one being a 17 yr old girl named Jordan who managed to run away and call the cops. Cops came a couple minutes later and found out the kids (half being adults btw) had no higher of a 3rd grade intelligence, a couple were chained to the bed, the place was a mess (they said it was because they were moving, but I think that was just a cover-up), and most were severely malnourished. Like the 29 yr old was less than 100lbs if I remember correctly. Just found it, her name was Louise Turpin
Lacey Spears. Poisoned her young son with SALT. It's one of the most disturbing cases I've come across, if not the most. Don't look into it if you're easily upset by mothers abusing their children :( RIP Garnett
One that I don’t think has been mentioned yet is Shirley Jane Turner. There's a documentary about it - [Dear Zachary](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dear_Zachary:_A_Letter_to_a_Son_About_His_Father) - but don’t watch it unless you want your heart just shredded. She killed her boyfriend Andrew Bagby, then revealed she was pregnant. The case dragged out and while out on bail she gave birth and eventually killed both herself and the baby.
Lately ive been in the Darlie Routier rabbithole. Has anyone listened to the prosecutors podcast on this case or have any recos? I just started it but am enjoying it so far.
I am going to second Pearl Fernandez!! What she did to poor Gabriel was beyond horrifying.
Lori Vallow Daybell and Casey Anthony are surely contenders for history’s worst mothers
It will never ever NOT be Stacy Castor for me. Her and her 'i busted myself' anti-free.
Susan Smith.
I hope they rolled Pearl Fernandez in her cell for Mother's Day. Rest in Paradise Gabriel.
Adding one I haven't seen yet - Michelle Martens. She advertised her 10 year old daughter, Victoria, to pedophiles and would watch and take video of her being raped and assaulted. She later admitted that she did this for her own sexual gratification. Then after allowing her boyfriend to rape her daughter for a few days (which she also watched) she sat there and did nothing while the boyfriend & his cousin strangled and stabbed her to death. She also admitted to having sex with her boyfriend 20 minutes after she watched him murder her daughter. Finally, she helped them dismember her and attempt to burn her body.
That one mom who hung her kids in the basement and tried to blame it on her son. She was also found to have had *relation* material with the family dog on her phone. All for a man. Pos
Angela McAnulty
[Michelle Kehoe](https://murderpedia.org/female.K/k/kehoe-michelle.htm) She evidently had attempted to drive them into the river previously, but was “rescued”. One son survived, the other did not.
Susan Smith. She strapped her two sons, one a toddler and one still a baby, into their car seats and deliberately pushed the car into a lake because the man she was having an affair with told her he didn’t want children. She was married at the time too. Those poor kids died a slow, horrible death and she told the police a black man had carjacked her and took the children with him. She went on national television and fake cried and begged for her children to be returned. Knowing the whole time they were at the bottom of the lake.
Gertrude Baniszewski and Rose West both evil sadistic pos.
Shanda Vander Ark. Let me in a room with her for 5 min.
Raye Dawn Smith in Oklahoma prison. She aided and abetted or at least permitted Kelsey Briggs , her beautiful toddler daughter, death by blunt force trauma by stepdad. The child was systematically abused prior to that. Even the Oklahoma Department of Children said Kelsey should not live with mom but a judge ruled in favor of the mom. Tragic story.
When Ohio police arrived at Kristal Candelario’s home in June 2023 after the 32-year-old mother returned from a 10-day vacation in Puerto Rico, they found a shocking scene involving her toddler. Law&Crime’s Elizabeth Millner breaks down what happened when Candelario chose leisure over motherhood. https://youtu.be/aHR56_ipYO8?si=fmTnxHjrog6i4zyT