The goal here is not to debate terminology, but to present this unusual class of female criminal in its larger framework of females who commit murder more than once. We have already touched on some of the infamous names in the history of female killers. It is convenient, but confusing to label these women serial killers. They tend to kill face to face, one on one. There is usually no relationship between victim and murderer.
Motives are, for the most part, fuzzy.
Murders generally display a gluttonous violence, a brutality, and a bloodbath. Marked differences between the male and female serial killers are quite distinct. While males regularly stalk strangers, females largely tend to slay those close to them intimately, family members and people dependent upon their role as caregiver. When men kill repetitively, their motive is half the time sexually driven. The longevity of a male's killing spree ranges from several months to, at the extremity, four years.