In 1914, Tillie Klimek predicted that her first husband would die in just a few weeks. And he did. Later that same year, Tillie predicted her second husband would die, and three months later, he did. Instead of suspecting foul play, people close to Tillie wondered if she was a psychic. But when husband #3 died and husband #4 fell gravely ill, that’s when eyebrows finally lifted in suspicion. This is the story of Tillie Klimek, Chicago’s Lady Bluebeard.
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Where we got our info, so that you, too, can travel down a rabbit hole:
This week in history: Chicago serial killer Tillie Klimek dies in prison | Chicago Sun Times
The ‘girl reporter’ who exposed terrors of immigration | The Chicago Tribune
Books mentioned in the podcast:
Women Who Kill: A Chilling Casebook of True-Life Murders by Al Cimino
Description from Amazon:
Women commit just 4% of homicides in comparison to men. But this disproportion can make their crimes seem all the more shocking.
In this chilling casebook, Al Cimino explores 34 female murderers. From hospital nurses to slaughterhouse workers, the range of women in these pages prove there is no archetypal killer. In some cases, women had suffered years of psychological trauma before their eventual crimes. Other times their heinous acts seemed to spring from nowhere, with an unpredictability that is haunting.
These illustrated case-studies include:
– ‘Angel of Death’ Kristen Gilbert who induced multiple cardiac arrests among her patients while working as a hospital nurse
– Enriqueta Martí, the ‘Vampire of Barcelona’ who killed children to make cosmetics
– ‘Man-hater’ Aileen Wuornos, who murdered at least 7 men in their cars while she worked as a prostitute
– Karla Homolka who, along with her husband Paul Bernard, drugged, raped and murdered several young women including her own sister.
– Katherine Knight who served up her husband’s corpse with vegetables for his children to eat
And many more shocking cases.