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We've all seen a bad mom, maybe we've even been a bad mom once or twice on accident, sometimes moms just screw up. They're like everyone. But at the end of the day, you can trust them. It's like a pact. The unwritten rule is they have kids, too. They get it. They'll look out for your baby. Right. It's mom's instinct. But that's why today's crimes are so messed up.

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These top ten dangerous moms go against all instincts. They hurt other people's children and sometimes even their own. It's sickening and it leaves you wondering what went wrong in their brains.

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Hey, all you weirdoes, welcome to the podcast Original Crime Countdown.

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I'm Ash and I'm Olina. Every week will highlight 10 fascinating stories of history's most engaging and unsettling crimes, all picked by the podcast Research Gods.

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This episode, we're counting down the top ten most dangerous moms.

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You know who is the least dangerous mom? Who are mom? She is. She is where I get my hippie vibes from. Oh, she's the best. I love her. You know what? And as a mom, I can safely say there's never a reason to become a dangerous mom.

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No, kids are so cute. Kids don't have motivations to, like, upset you, like they rely on you. This is the job you signed up for.

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Well, that's the thing. Of course, it gets hard. It's stressful. Yeah, of course. But in my opinion, the benefits far outweigh all of that.

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A man I want, like five of those little suckers. So cute. Well, we're going to work through all of that on this episode. Remember, Elaina has five dangerous moms and so do I, but we don't know which mommy dearest. The other one has intrigue. Let's start the countdown. Ten starting off our list of most dangerous moms at number 10 is Casey Anthony. Oh, Casey gained notoriety when she went on trial for the murder of her two year old daughter, Caylee, and she was found not guilty in a controversial verdict.

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Many feel the evidence proved otherwise. Do two year old specifically are the cutest? They really are. They are at that point where they're just these like fluffy, little chubby things that can barely form sentences. And they're just hilarious when they find, like, everything cool. Like, I remember when your kids were two and it rained like we're just like standing in the doorway like the dog was.

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It's so why Caylee Anthony was last seen alive on June 16th, 2008. But for some reason, Casey didn't report her missing for another month. You know what I think it was? I think it was because Casey is like an evil child killer. So I think that that shows that. I agree. That might have been why she's also a liar. She sure.

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The first thing that she told police was that Caylee was with the babysitter, Zenaida Gonzalez. But that was a lie. Of course it was, because all she does is a lot like a liar.

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The officers searched Casey Anthony's car and a cadaver dog picked up the unmistakable scent of human decomposition. This case infuriates me.

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The fact that they found the scent of like decomposition in her car and she was found not guilty. What does it make sense to you? They tried to claim it was like trash. I think they are old pizza was old pizza like old garbage pizza? Nope. I think those two things smelled different. I can tell you from experience you get a decomposition does not smell the same as old pizza. I can I would assume so.

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You heard it here first, folks. Glad to have that confirmed. Casey continually lied about everything from her nanny's existence. She also lied about her job. She said that she worked at Universal Studios. Dream big, I guess. I mean, Universal Studios. I'm sure that's a cool job.

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Like, why lie about. That's a random thing to lie.

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A very random there was a lot of back and forth in this case with the prosecution and the defense. Obviously, the prosecution argued that Casey didn't want to be a mom, so she killed her daughter, which is what I believe is exactly what happened.

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They argued the truth. The defense ultimately argued that Caylee drowned accidentally. No, I don't believe what. So why does her car smell like a dead body? And why was she looking up chloroform? Right. None of that adds up. Yeah, I think she wanted to keep her two year old quiet. She figured she could give her a little boop boop chloroform and maybe not for a little while.

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You're right. Maybe that part was an accident, like she gave her child too much or something. But I think she was I just can't I think she's just an evil monster. I agree.

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The case was sensational. And Casey Anthony has remained a recognizable name as many still don't believe the final verdict. Count me among them. Me, too.

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Nine. At number nine is Wanda Holloway, a mom from Channel View, Texas, who in the early 90s masterminded a failed plot to kill the mother of her daughter's high school cheerleading rival.

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We once you heard that right, a failed plot. And it was the mother of her daughter's high school cheerleading rival, Nelda Kay. Yes, the intended target was Vernon Heath, the mother of her daughter's rival. Why she killing the mom? Oh, don't worry. You're going to find out the reason for her going after the mom is even more evil than like going after the kid. I feel like I know I don't know what it was like going up to the kid.

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So Wanda believed that if she killed Virna, the daughter would be too distraught over the death and murder of her mother to try out for cheerleading. That is the most horrific thing I have ever heard. Also, what a stage mom. The strangest of mom, though. She's one of those mom that's like living vicariously through their kid. Like she did not make the squad because another girl was better than her. Oh, yeah. There's no way Wanda made the squad in high school.

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No way. I wonder if her daughter knew.

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I wonder because I'd be like, mom, really? Like, you don't think I can just try out? Yeah, like you don't think I'm talented.

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Mom, thanks a lot. Real nice. Cool. I appreciate that. It's also one of those things like the celebrities who paid for their kids to go to college and now they're being found. Oh, yeah. Because it's like, OK, so your kid doesn't have the talent that you didn't teach them enough to or they don't want to go. Right. And you're just creating this for them. It's like what? That's the thing. A lot of times they don't even want to like maybe her daughter didn't even care if this other girl tried out.

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If your kid's not going to cheerleading, she's not going to make the squad like certain things in life. There sure are. Well, Wanda went to her former brother in law to help arrange the hitman deal, ex brother in law, her former brother in law.

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Apparently, she was close enough to go like, hey, can you kill someone for me? Do you know anyone that can maybe bump off a cheerleader's mom? What did he say? Well, he was like, oh, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

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And then he contacted the sheriff's department.

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OK, OK. He was like, totally I thought this was going to be like even crazier. And he was like, yeah, it's me. He was just like, you know what?

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Wait here. And then he was like, Hello, Sheriff's Department. Wait, you're crazy. So she ended up meeting with her ex brother in law in a Pasadena motel, and they were going to hash out all the details. She was ready to, like, get this thing go.

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And she was on board. This is mind boggling. But he was recording. The whole conversation was good for the brother in law.

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So Wanda was later arrested and charged with solicitation of capital murder.

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And she was nicknamed Are You Ready for the greatest nickname in the history of nicknames?

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What was it? The pom pom pom. So now she's like out there in jail, stomp in the yard as pom pom mom. Can you imagine if pom pom mom she's like, yeah, it's me, the pom pom mom. What's up? I be like, wow, you're not going to survive in here. I feel. Yes, it's going to be tough for you. Well, she was sentenced to 10 years and her final trial, but was let out on probation after only six months, only six, six months.

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So who's to say that she's not going to carry out a hit on somebody else for like, I don't even know what she would do it for, much less, I would assume.

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Wants to say, not me.

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Eight. Number eight on our countdown of top ten dangerous moms is Wanetta Helly throughout the 1960s, when Adawi at first seemed like she was having some very bad luck as all five of her young children died unexpectedly. But an investigation found that she had been murdering them. That's shocking, right? That's horrible. That's a lot of kids. It is. When when that his first child, Eric, died, it was attributed to SIDS, which we know is sudden infant death syndrome and is the scariest thing on planet Earth when you have kids.

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Seriously, it's the scariest thing because it's unexplainable. It's all you think about for like the first two years. I can't imagine a parent is walking in there and putting your finger under their nose to make sure that I would just like, sleep on the floor of their bedroom.

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Much so after the death of her third child, Renata and her husband turn to a medical researcher because they're like, what's going on? And he specialized in SIDS. And they're like, we need to find out what's wrong. So the doctor explained that SIDS had a possible genetic factor and that's why their family was being affected so much. That would've been like groundbreaking. It would have. And he published a landmark paper on their case where he said SIDS could be genetic and related to sleep apnea, except she was murdering them.

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That's the big, big problem here. Not genetic. Nadr is not genetic. It's not, I hope. No. In the early 90s, a forensic pathologist tipped off the D.A. about the case and an investigation was opened to forensic pathologist God doing the job. So then in 1995, when Nado was convicted of murdering her kids and she was sentenced to 75 years in prison, which I feel like is not enough at all. She needs five hundred and seventy five years and even that would not be enough.

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She also confessed that she had smother all of them. But of course, she later recanted that confession in true Gerke form. And you know what I can believe certain like false confessions. I believe that that happens a lot. But when you confessed to murdering your own kids, you murdered your own kids. Well, I don't think I'll confess to murder them. They didn't die of SIDS.

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No, absolutely not. Seven. At number seven this week, Gertrude, a chef, Saeki, a very unpleasant woman, to say the least, who, along with the help of her own children, tortured and killed a young girl who was staying in her home.

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Is this the Sylvia Likens case? It is. I hate that. This awful they are.

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This case bums me out. On October 26, 1960, five police found Sylvia Likens body in the Indianapolis home of Gertrude Baniszewski. Sylvia and her sister Jenny's parents were unstable.

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Yes. Yeah, they were. They moved around a lot. I believe they were Carneys. They were, yes. So they were going everywhere all the time. When they were gone, they boarded their daughters with Gertrude for a small fee while they continue to do their thing. I wish they could have just brought them with them. And if you see Gertrude, you're like, oh, no, I the first thing I would do is not leave my precious children with her and you just start running because her evil is on the outside.

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Oh, it is. She looks like a demon. She truly does. I would have been like, oh, I'll find something else.

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Thank you. I'll find literally anyone else.

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And they were paying Gertrude but the payments were starting to dwindle. And instead of just being like, hey guys, you need to come get your kids because you're not paying for me to take care of them. Thank you. Goodbye. She singled out Sylvia to torture her over it. I don't understand your pain. It's like, what did she have to do with that? The abuse was first verbal, but then escalated to an unimaginable amount of physical abuse.

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This case actually makes my stomach hurt. The details of this one are so hard to read. They're insanely hard, Cirlot, Gertrude, even.

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And this is where it gets worse. She wasn't even the only one doing it if she had done it. I mean, she's a mother herself. She was like brainwashing bad enough. She had her own kids in the neighborhood. Children help her torture Sylvia, who she had confined to the basement. That's so terrible. And even before that, she had them like chasing her to school off the bus and everything.

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This poor girl. So Sylvia's parents visited but somehow weren't aware that anything was wrong.

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That just makes absolutely no sense, which I'm like, OK, so you have several seats. Yeah, Sylvia's right over there. Yeah.

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Because, you know, there's no way you don't know something's wrong with your child and the extent the torture that she was experiencing. Yeah. How did you not how do you not know. Well Jenny, her sister was threatened not to talk so she wasn't allowed to say anything which must have been horrific. I think she was able to later on the stand. Yes, she was. But also.

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Six. Also on our list at number six is Nanny Dos, also known as the giggling granny, that's so much I feel like it's so terrifying. And she was an unsuspecting, matronly woman who you'd never guess murdered 11 people between the late 20s and early 50s. I would not guess that an old lady would do that. Not giggling, Granny.

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So at age seven, she sustained a head injury, which never was never going to work to your favor. Now, it resulted in blackouts and depression. And she also blamed the injury for her mental instability. Yeah, she might have been right. I was going to say, you know what? I don't think she was wrong. No. So her first marriage was when she was 16. It was well, it was like a different time. It was, you know.

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You know, it was back then. Yeah. That marriage was like a super unhappy one for, I'm sure, plenty of reasons, but especially because her middle two children died mysteriously of food poisoning.

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Hmm. Which I'm like, you died of food poisoning.

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Mysterious, mysterious. And then a divorce happened because I think her husband was like, yeah, I don't believe you. He watched her, was like, yeah, no, I'm dippin. He was like, not mysterious, mysterious.

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He?

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S nanny remarried, of course, and in the marriage gained two grandchildren. Oh, both of those grandchildren were super young and both of them died. Oh. And one of them, she got the insurance money for that.

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That wasn't a plan or anything. No, definitely not. But also insurance money is never good. No, it's not. Never it's a sign of things to come. It is. Then there was another terrible marriage. So we're on to like forty five here. That's bad. Her husband reportedly raped her after a night of heavy drinking and then I know rough and the next day she poisoned him well and he died. All right.

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Then she got married a third time and after that husband's unexpected death, their house burned down and she collected guess what, insurance money. Yes, correct.

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To ease the pain, of course. All in all, Nancy Doss killed four husbands, two children, our sister, her mother, two grandsons. Let me take a breath. Her mother in law. All right, who has bingo, she has bingo eight times. So damn, that's a lot of people like Nancy. Wow. Just stay ghiglione.

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Wow, Nanny Dos was scared. She was real scary. My goodness. I knew Casey Anthony was going to be on the list. Casey Anthony, I'm shocked, is not number one, to be honest. You know, I'm surprised that I haven't seen that is Diane Downs. Yeah. I'm like, where is she? Where is she? Where are you, Diane? There's a lot left. There are a lot left. I'm ready for it.

[00:15:56]

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[00:16:02]

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All right, let's jump back in with number five on our countdown of dangerous moms starting off. The second half of our list is Diane Downs.

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So in nineteen eighty three, Diane claimed an unidentified mad man had flagged her car down while she was out sightseeing with her kids at night and shot all of them. But all that turned out to be a lie. Of course it did. Her pants were on fire.

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I'm so glad that she's on this list. I hate Diane Downs so much. I hate her so very much. The worst.

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So in May nineteen eighty three, Diane Downs rushed her children into an emergency room crying for help. Crocodile tears, crocodile.

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So all three of her children had been shot by a stranger. She said, quote unquote, quote unquote. One of the children had already died, unfortunately, and the other two were clinging to life. And I mean, clinging downs was also shot.

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But weirdly, her wounds were not life threatening.

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Isn't it always so weird how, like the person that does these things, it's so fortunate for her? Superficial.

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Yes. So fortunate. At age eight, Christie Downs was the only child old enough to be a reliable witness to what happened. She was the oldest, so they immediately went to her. But unfortunately, she had suffered a stroke that had rendered her speechless. A stroke at eight years old, Roquette, eight years old, because your mother shot you while you were sightseeing at night.

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True nightmare material. However, Diane Downs apparently talked too much, so she talked enough for everybody.

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And the more Diane talked, the more investigators and reporters were like, oh, what? Diane, you want to say that one more time? Have you tell a different story every time? Have you seen some of her interviews? Oh, yeah. Like, girl, you need to calm down.

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Times five.

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She did not study Merrill. No, because her acting is terrible. She's like smiling through half of them. Yeah.

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She can't hide how evil she is and she loved being on camera. Oh she loved it. Well this sounds frustrating already because you're like we have a little witness and she could tell us how well her daughter Kristy regained her speech. And in a damning testimonial, she cited her mother as the one who had turned the gun on them. I can't imagine being in that jury and being told what and she's got to sit there and be like, my mom was the one who shot me.

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That's awful. It's insane.

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I remember you did this case for morbid. And didn't you say that there was like a specific song playing?

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Oh, yeah. She was playing hungry. Like, is it hungry like the wolf. Oh, yes. Hungry like the Wolf by Duran Duran. I can't listen to that song anymore. In fact, it came on one of my playlists the other day and I was like, goodbye.

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And you know what? I love Duran Duran. I know. And I love that song. I hate that that got put in my brain. Murderers ruined things.

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You know what, though? She's not ruin it for me because I'm going to listen to Simon LeBon because he did nothing wrong. Right. And during the trial, Diane Downs was pregnant, mind blowing. Yeah. She was pregnant, wearing the maternity dresses, rubbing her belly like she was not a vicious monster. You just go ahead and walk into the courtroom with both middle fingers and exactly because that's exactly what it was.

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But this worried prosecutors, because they were like, OK, sure, she's a monster. We all know that. Right. But now she's a pregnant monster.

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And any pregnant monster or woman like messes with their head, people automatically see pregnancy as like vulnerability, maternity. She could never being harmless, really like, it's it's just hell. And she was wearing like, you know, she knew it. She knew it. Well, it didn't work because she was sentenced to life in prison. Plus fifty years old. She did escape the first prison she was in and she had to be relocated to a more secure facility.

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She escaped in a crazy way to. She did. I think that was like barbed wire on top of that. And she, like, threw a shirt over it. She's no joke.

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She really not. For. Landing at number four this week is Gunnis Balagan US was born in Norway but immigrated to the US looking to get rich, make a couple of bucks, you know, in our search for wealth. It's believed she murdered more than 40 people between eighteen eighty four in nineteen eighty eight before she just disappeared without a trace.

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You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet I guess.

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What in a search for wealth, she killed 40 people. I've never heard that before. You never heard that? No. I love you. I love you too.

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Well, a few years after coming to the US, Belle lived in Chicago and she got married and things were going great. Yeah, but then unfortunately, their house, quote, burned down, unquote, and they were able to collect insurance money. Wow. I feel like by the end of this count on insurance money is going to have lost all meaning to me. Yeah. So they use that insurance money to buy a business and also that business mysteriously burned down.

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Wow. Which led to even more insurance money. This can happen, though. Some people are just genetically followed by fire. Yeah. You know how that arson is just in their genes, genetic garcés. Yeah, it's very unfortunate. It is. I've never known anybody affected by it directly, but.

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But she's afflicted with it. Here she is.

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The couple soon had four children and they fostered another child too, but two children. And Belle's husband died of mysterious circumstances. She needs to stop collecting kids. Okay. I feel as though she did this.

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I feel as though that, too. I feel as though after their deaths, she moved with the three remaining children to a farm and she got remarried.

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Obviously, man, these ladies collect husbands to like it's no big deal because you know what? Husbands come with life insurance.

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That's very true. So that husband and one of his daughters died pretty much as soon as she stepped on the scene. It's getting weird again. They got murdered getting weird.

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And she pretty much killed everybody off at that point. And she was living on a farm. She needed some help on that farm. Yeah. So she started posting notices in the paper, like looking for men to come help on the farm.

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And those men tended to disappear, obviously.

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Well, you know what? They should have looked at the personal ad a little more closely and saw that it said I killed off all my help. I need some more. Come to my farm and help me. You know, they tell you to read the fine print. You got to look at it closely. I know. Well, on April twenty eighth nineteen eighty eight, the farmhouse, what do you know? Burned down. It's a terrible affliction.

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What is it called again. Genetic are genetic arson. Yes. And allegedly it was from arson but unfortunately her children were in the house.

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Oh that's the worst. I know there was a body of a woman found that was thought to be bald, but the body was headless and it's not confirmed to actually be her. Oh, man, you're not crazy. I just found a headless body in the tree. This could be her. That's Bell unconfirmed.

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More and more bodies were found each day that the compound was investigated to the point where people even began showing up to just like, watch this whole thing happen. Hello. I would have been one of those people. I know you want one hundred percent. I'm not into that. I wouldn't be there.

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Three. Number three on our list of dangerous moms, we've got Mary Ann Cotton, Mary Ann Cotton was a nurse and housekeeper who reportedly killed 21 people between the 18 50s and 18 70s. She's considered Britain's most prolific female serial killer.

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Wow. Ann Marion had eight or nine children by her first husband. And we say eight or nine. It was like eight or nine, eight or nine, give or take, because record keeping was poor and not all children had birth or death certificates.

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So they just estimated there, like, you know what, put your hands around them, your arms around them, gather the men and be like, yes, about eight or nine. That's about an armed force, about an armful. I got to arms full of kids. I got one and a half armfuls of kids. So over the next few years, her husband and most of her children had died of cholera or typhus fever, which that sucks but does.

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What's weird is both of these illnesses produce similar symptoms to arsenic poisoning.

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That's like gruesome, real gruesome. Now, by the time she had married her second husband, only one child remained alive.

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Out of all those kids, just one out of eight or nine. And this one kid, she's like, I can handle this, I guess. And then all of a sudden she's like too much. And she sends it to her mother to live. Well, maybe she was too tempted to like murder again. And she was like, I can't do it.

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Like you started off with eight or nine, you're down to one and you can't handle that. You're like, well, there goes that. At least she didn't get murdered. Jeez Louise. I know. That's good. Unsurprisingly, she had taken out life insurance on all husbands, all of us, and as many children as she possibly could. You don't say she took out life insurance on all those. I told you husbands come with life and they do.

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That's just like part of the deal. I'm not signing up for that. Don't. In fact, I got like a notice in the mail and it went directly into the paper shredder. You were like, no, no, sir, who do you want to be? You're like fifteen hundred dollar bills this year.

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I know that. I know that game.

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So her second husband, he didn't live either. Wow.

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He died of intestinal problems and she quickly married a third whose infant died soon under her care, an infant.

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Infants really sad, like tiny little baby. That's so terrible.

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Also, like these women have the power to just snag dudes to marry. Isn't that crazy? I got one to propose to me.

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And I was like, phew, I'm not even there yet.

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Did it? All right. All right, we're done. We did it. Marianne went to visit her ailing mother, which as soon as I read that, I was like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

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She's not a visitor that you're going to be excited to see. Tell the hospital that she's not on what? Marianne, I'm actually super busy today.

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Well, she went to visit her ailing mother who was recovering but suddenly died of the same intestinal complaints as Maryanne's other victim.

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Know her own mom. Weird coincidence. Yep. Her own mom, her third husband, he was suspicious. Finally, he was like, things are weird. Her third husband.

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Yeah, her third husband was like, you know, what happened to the other two things have gone awry. What made him suspicious was that she was very much insisting on a life insurance policy and he threw her out because he found out that she had also been stealing from him. So he was like, yeah, too much. She just sign this thing that I'm going to kill you after you sign. I mean, just take your wallet real quick.

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Why not it?

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When her fourth husband and his children died, an investigation was opened finally. So four husbands, countless children. And finally they were like, we should look into this.

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We should maybe do something about all the weird like killings. She has such bad luck, this weird disappearances surrounding this woman.

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Well, luckily, she was found guilty and she was hanged on March 24th, 1873. Salita go. Bye bye, Marianne. We will miss you.

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Who these are some bad moms, bad moms, Diane, down. Are you taking notes like what not to do?

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You sure do not murder children. I got it. Don't kill John. You know what? I can remember that one that ends up in my head. Just a mental note.

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Don't kill John. Don't kill kids. Got it. Just make sure you remember.

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I'm glad I'm learning from this. You're welcome. Who would you say is like the most surprising on here so far?

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You know, at first, Casey Anthony still to me is like the worst. I don't know what it is about her. It's just I think it's the fact that she just, like, partied after her, that she got away with it.

[00:28:57]

Yeah. That she got away with that. She got away with it.

[00:28:59]

But Diane Downs, she is crazy. When you told that story on morbid, it like she took me to my core.

[00:29:05]

It's one of like the cases that interests me the most just because I'm like, how did you have that? And also, why did you think that people were going to buy that you were sightseeing at night? Because you make you know, I can't see it the best time to sightsee, obviously. I guess especially with little kids. Duh. Who doesn't love bedtime?

[00:29:22]

Let's go sightsee. But she's the worst because she ruined Duran Duran. So, yeah, she's out of here. Who do you think is going to be the final two? I don't know. You know, I did well, I know one of them. I wonder who it's going to be. What you got.

[00:29:45]

To. The runner up spot on our countdown of dangerous moms number two is one of Baraza, one of her, as I had a terrible mother of her own before she went on to have her own children become a Mexican wrestler. And then in the early 2000s, she started to secretly murder elderly women. That escalated quickly.

[00:30:07]

It didn't seem like she had a baby. She got a job. Oh, no. Well, one is alcoholic.

[00:30:13]

Mother sold her to another man when she was young, apparently just for three years. So she Charlie Manson to her. I wrote that down. Yeah, she Charlie Manson her. That doesn't end well. Never does. Yeah. Clearly makes a murderer learn from the mistake. And that right there obviously set one up for resentment toward mother figures. Yeah, I can understand. You can't be mad at them all though. But like I get it, it's deep seated.

[00:30:36]

Your mom sold you. So yeah. To also was raped at one point, which is very sad. She became pregnant by her rapist. Awful. I know. After that she ended up in Mexico City with her son looking for a job. While there she became a super big fan of Mexican wrestling. And actually she even worked as a popcorn vendor at the events. Wow. And then she eventually became a wrestler herself, a girl. So, like, she's doing the thing, moving on up.

[00:31:02]

But then a lot of elderly women begin turning up dead. Who and at first, the police suspected that a transgender woman was responsible because of the rarity of like CIS gender female serial killers. What a leap. I know, right? Like it must have been. Yeah, it cannot be. No, but obviously they were wrong because it was Waagner. Sure was. And she was methodical. She found women over 60 that lived alone, that were on government assistance so that she could pose as a government worker the worst.

[00:31:32]

They figured that she had most likely gained the trust of these old women. And that's how she was able to get in the house so easily because she's like, look at me, an unassuming government worker.

[00:31:42]

How do you prey on old people? I don't know. I don't get it. She would have robbed them. But the thing is that the crimes, like, didn't seem motivated by money because the amounts were super small or she would just take small tokens.

[00:31:54]

So this was all like mommy issues, mommy. She's like mother figures. Got to get rid of them. Yeah. And all in all, she was charged with eleven murders, but she's believed to have killed 40 to 50 people.

[00:32:07]

She's all elderly women. That's awful. It really is.

[00:32:10]

You're the worst one to hate you. One. That brings us to number one on our countdown of the top ten dangerous moms. It's Amelia Dyer. Amelia Elizabeth Dyer was one of the most prolific serial killers in history, despite having children of her own. She spent 30 years in the mid to late, eighteen hundreds secretly murdering many others. My God, this story is going to blow your brain apart. It's really going to take its spot. At number one, she was a baby farmer.

[00:32:54]

A what? Just let that settle in a baby farm. Erm, I'm just picturing cute little babies in overalls.

[00:32:59]

That is not at all but I love that visual.

[00:33:02]

No, it was a practice in Victorian England where a poor mother would give up her baby for a fee so that it could be adopted and cared for. OK, Dyer would murder the infants given to her. No, by neglecting them or by violence and then would hide their bodies and pocket the money from their mothers instead of caring for them.

[00:33:21]

What do you get out of killing an infant?

[00:33:23]

You have to be on some like next level, like Dante's Inferno killer, like you're on a whole nother playing field of you're a serial killer of babies and infants that is just the purest of your little baby killer.

[00:33:38]

Well, she initially was only charged with neglect and not murder and punished with only six months of hard labor before being freed, six months, six months for murdering babies, for murdering many babies after she got freed from her six months of, like, I don't know, doing nothing.

[00:33:58]

I'm just like picking up trash, probably and dumb. She returned to baby farming immediately. Of course she did. But she just was more discreet this time. That's what she figured out for six months. Yeah, that's that's the lesson she took from it. Like, don't get caught now using estimates based on timelines and years active. This is so crazy. What she likely kills between 200 and 400 children, 200 to 400 kids, babies, babies.

[00:34:30]

How do you do that? It's unreal. And after bodies of infants were found in the Temse, she was found guilty by a jury on May 22nd, 1896. Thank God she was actually stopped at that point. Did she get six months? Another six?

[00:34:45]

She was hanged at age fifty nine, which was a very rare sentence for a woman in Victorian England, but very fitting. My goodness, she earned it. She definitely, certainly earned it. Her crime spurned reforms in the baby farming industry and eventually fathers of the children could be held liable to support them. Like you should have done that in the beginning. That would've been a nice place to start. I think Father said, you know, let's hindsight.

[00:35:09]

Let's get rid of baby farms.

[00:35:10]

Yeah, let's not do that. Wow. No one was number one, if no one was anywhere else on this list out of him, like I got to go. I mean, look, what are you doing? It included the word baby farm.

[00:35:30]

Baby farm. That's yeah. I guess the only lady missing on here is like Joan Crawford.

[00:35:34]

And I think it's just because she didn't kill anyone she was dating.

[00:35:38]

She was scary, but she wasn't like killer kids. Dangerous. That's true that we know of.

[00:35:43]

Yeah, that we know. That's for sure. What was your personal favorite? Is Diane down still? It I mean, Diane Downs is definitely Diane Downs and Casey Anthony are the ones that like enrage you just get the most angry at them. And I'm pretty mad at this baby. Pharmalink. Yeah, they have the most punchable face. They do. But the baby farming woman.

[00:36:01]

Yeah, I think Amelia Dyar takes the cake as the absolute worst. I completely agree. Well, thanks for listening.

[00:36:09]

We'll be back next week with another great episode. Remember to follow Crime Countdown on Spotify to get a brand new episode delivered. Every week you can find all episodes of Crime Countdown and all other podcast originals for free on Spotify. Spotify has all your favorite music and podcasts all in one place. They're making it easier to listen to whatever you want to hear for free on your phone, computer or smart speaker.

[00:36:34]

And if you can't get enough of dangerous moms', check out our After Crime Countdown podcast playlist on Spotify, where we've handpicked even more episodes about this week's stories that we think you'll enjoy.

[00:36:45]

And if you like this show, follow app podcast on Facebook and Instagram and app podcast. Network on Twitter. And if you like us, go follow our other podcast, Morbid. You can find that on Instagram at more of a podcast and on Twitter at a morbid podcast.

[00:37:00]

Do It by Everybody by Crime Countdown was created by Max Cutler and as a podcast studio's original, it is executive produced by Max Cutler, Sound Design by Kevin MacAlpine, produced by Jon Cohen, Jonathan Rateliff and Kristen Acevedo. Crime Countdown starts Ash Kelly and Elena Erkan.

[00:37:25]

It's the most powerful position in American politics and arguably the world, but behind the oath to preserve, protect and defend lie dark secrets posed to leave some legacies in disgrace.

[00:37:40]

Don't forget to check out the new Spotify original from podcast, very presidential with Ashley Flowers every Tuesday through the 2020 election. Host Ashley Flowers shines a light on the darker side of the American presidency, exposing wildly true stories about history's most high profile leaders.

[00:38:00]

To hear more follow very presidential with Ashley flowers free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.