Serial Female Killers: film Quiet Killers
An in-depth look at some of the most ruthless female serial killers that history has overlooked and why men are sought out to be the target of these crimes.
Quiet Killers (2020) focuses on some of the world’s most notorious women serial killers who are often overlooked and do not experience the same infamous attention that men serial killers receive. Murder is not just a man’s world. Though, society has rejected the pure thought that women could commit such crimes. A lot of times, women’s cases are just as gruesome as men's. The three horrid women serial killers: Debra Denise Brown, Jane Toppan, and Aileen Wuornos, are all left out of the serial killer scheme. The film’s narrative unfolds through a series of storylines that can change any perspective on these murderers and how horrific their tales are. You will not categorize women as weak or anything close to such after finishing this murderous, shocking and appalling documentary.
Have you ever wondered why the first picture that people imagine when they hear the words “serial killer” is a man? It is estimated that 90% of the world's homicides are perpetrated by men. This means that women are constantly left out of the serial killer narrative. This expository documentary lasting around 60 minutes exposes viewers to a thought that is rarely ever considered. One reason that female serial killers gather little attention is by their methods of targeting relatives; usually the elderly, or the sick, using inconspicuous weapons. “We call these women ‘the quiet killers’, ” says Eric W. Hickey, who founded some of the first studies on female serial killers, “they’re not detected as easily”. Women are always the lesser-known when it comes to talking about murder. Because of female essentialism; women are eternally thought to act polite, civilized, and mature, but who says that that should always be the case?
In history, there are women who are just as horrific as men. By demonstrating this idea of female essentialism, vintage clips of women and the general “ladylike” ideology will be shown to prove that this phenomenon was and still is prominent in today's era. This will then juxtapose the next scene including a video of women without this stereotypical appearance. Throughout the documentary, viewers will be able to dive into the mind and actions of some of the world’s most notorious female killers while achieving a deep understanding of their crimes with detailed explanations. These explanations will show a clear and visual backstory of the women’s lives and how they committed the homicides, including scenes of compiled pictures and portraits, methods of how they have killed, their quotes, and a few interviews of those who are experts on the matter. The documentary will also conclude with a thorough response as to why men become famous for these homicides compared to women who do not get this platform. These scenes will contain a social experiment with students and a series of pictures of women and men serial killers, these volunteers will be asked to identify these people. Throughout the experiment, the viewer will come to understand that most students have a hard time knowing who these diabolic women are but immediately can pick out the men. The idea of this is to prove that men are more known as these criminals compared to women. Hickey then stated that “women are less likely to be seen as capable of serial murder ... historically, they get away with it for as long as or even longer than the men do because no one suspects them.”
Over the course of the documentary, it is key to constantly remind the viewers as to why female killers do not get the same type of attention for their crimes all while describing the lives of the murderers and their horrific acts. In the documentary, the focus will be on female serial killers who have been caught doing terrible crimes, yet weren’t given platforms as close as what men had received. Characters will be mentioned in the documentary by explaining the stereotypical views of women compared to men. The idea is that women are seen as harmless, gentle individuals who would not even think of killing a fly.
The three female murderers who will be analyzed are Debra Denise Brown, Jane Toppan, and Aileen Wuornos. Indiana’s Debra Denise Brown was Alton Coleman’s girlfriend and partner in crime. The two spent their time going on killing sprees through several Midwestern states; Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. Before this period, Brown had already been diagnosed as being “borderline mentally retarded”. Once Brown met Coleman, she quit her job, abandoned her family, left her fiancé, and ran off with her new boyfriend to complete these monstrous slaughters. Brown was born in 1962 and Coleman, in 1955. This made her 21 years old and her boyfriend, 28 years old at the time of these killings, in 1984. This couple often befriended strangers which resulted in them assaulting and raping them. The victims were mainly randomly chosen people including children and elders. When caught, they both received life sentences of 40 years in prison. Although, when people speak of these horrendous killings, they always say that Brown was the “side killer” or even, don’t mention her at all. This is quite intriguing since she committed just as many murders as Coleman.
Moving onto Jane Toppan, the nurse serial killer who was nicknamed “Jolly Jane” because of her charming personality towards her patients. Between 1880 and 1901, this woman murdered at least 31 of her patients while experimenting with Atropine and morphine. All she wanted was to be loved, but she thought it was impossible. As a result, the only “possible” way to gain love was to kill people and hold them close as they died. She confessed, “I held my sister in my arms and watched with delight as she grasped her life out.” Toppan would get sexually aroused and start caressing her victims as they slowly died. The hysteric confessed that she took on the act of killing because a previous boyfriend dumped her at 16 years old and fell in love with someone else. Another factor was that she grew up poor in Boston without a mother, since she had died when she was only one year old, resulting in a very unbalanced life. Toppan never felt true love. These murders were her way of gaining this since she also said, “If I had been a married woman, I probably would not have killed all of those people.” These murders were her solution to obtaining an emotional tie with someone as she enjoyed the suffering of her patients. After the trial, she was found not guilty by reason of insanity. She spent the rest of her days at Taunton State Hospital.
Aileen Wuornos was born on February 29, 1956. She found prostitution very early in life. At the age of eleven years old, she had been trading sexual favors for cigarettes with those attending her elementary school. Although, this early habit was not something she suddenly picked up. Wurnos’ father was a convicted sex offender and abandoned her and her mother before she was even born. Her father ended up hanging himself in his prison cell during Wuornos’ early teenage years. As for her mother, a Finnish immigrant, she had already abandoned her daughter by that time and left her in the care of her grandparents. Less than a year after Wuornos’ father committed suicide, her grandmother died of liver failure. This resulted in her being left her with a grandfather who at the time had been beating and raping her for several years. When she turned 15 years old, Wuornos dropped out of school to give birth to her grandfather’s friend’s baby at home. However, after having the child, she left home and lived in the forest outside of Troy, Michigan. She had no choice to give up her son for adoption and she got by from petty theft and prostitution. At the age of 20, Wuornos attempted a life of escape by hitchhiking to Florida and then marrying a 69-year-old successful businessman name Lewis Fell. They soon moved in together, but then she began to abuse Fell and claimed to beat him with his own cane. This unstable life full of criminality and atrocious men resulted in her even taking men’s lives. Wuornos would tell inconsistent stories about her murders. She would claim to have been the victim of rape or attempted rape with every single one of the men she killed. At other times, she admitted she was trying to rob them. Depending on who she was talking to, her stories always had a different ending. Wuornos murdered a total of seven men and finally, not only did she confess, but she sent a recording to the court as documentation for the case: “I am so sick of hearing this ‘she’s crazy’ stuff. I’ve been evaluated so many times. I’m competent, sane, and I’m trying to tell the truth. I’m one who seriously hates human life and would kill again.” She also said, “I need to die for the killing of those people,”. Aileen Wuornos was convicted and executed by lethal injection in 2002.
The topic of female serial killers is important because it shows the reality of “inequality”. Stereotypes of women include being graceful, elegant, polite, and sweet. As a result, people would not imagine a lady taking part in such a diabolic crime. Those who would be interested in this documentary would be those keen on feminism, psychology, gender roles, and social differences. This interest in serial killers has been popularized since the 1970s. Additionally, no specific age group would be particularized in being an audience, though children would not be encouraged because of such violence.
The social relevance in the documentary features the stereotypes of both men and women, and how society portrays them in being more or less violent while that is not the case. In today’s society, there is greater gender equality that is more present than ever before. Although, through the years, we have seen injustice take place toward women. The documentary takes a turn and displays society’s bias towards men’s brutality and criminal presence and transforms this into women’s criminal affairs which have never been seen in depth before. This documentary is timely because people in this day in age have a strong interest in understanding the lives of criminals. They strive to learn about their motives, thoughts, and differences, and bringing the excluded women serial killers into this conversation would further enrich that. The themes present in this documentary would be gender equality and stereotypes regarding female murderers. These themes raise many questions including why men are perceived more as criminals, why women do not obtain as much “glory” for committing these crimes, and why women have the stereotypes of not being violent yet can have every possibility to be so. We are the best candidates for bringing this documentary to life because, firstly, we are girls, as a result, we’ve lived through the stereotypes reinforced to our image. Secondly, all three of us are interested in the facet of crime and injustice. We had liked to learn more on this subject specifically that of female serial killers and making this documentary would further develop our knowledge on the topic. Lastly, we all feel that a documentary on this subject, which is hardly ever spoken of, would be ideal for those interested or intrigued to have a light shone onto it. Instead of having it stored away, the documentary will create a platform for this inequality.
Throughout the script, there are many musical approaches, mainly involving songs that feature a theme of dangerous women and maintain deep beats that correlate to the overall look of the documentary, a dark and evil style. This subject is not a light topic, as a result, the artistic approach chosen will be just as dark as the theme of the film. The narrator will have a low and strong voice to catch the audience's attention and continue to blend in with the theme. Also, the women whom the documentary will be explaining are very disturbed and deranged, the color scheme will be dark, mainly black or grey in order to spread this message. For example, the filter and settings of interviews won’t be outside in the bright sun but somewhere more interior and gloomy to really get you involved. To conclude, this documentary will be in a direct style which means we will have a narrator speaking as a voice-over explaining what’s on screen while giving screen time to some of the different interviewees proving facts to help get the message across.
