Female Killers Who Served Their Victims for Dinner

The horrendous practice of cannibalism is not limited to men. Although some of the more well-known cases of cannibalism involve men, there are a number of female murderers who ate their victims as well.

The rationale for eating victims varies between genders. Some studies show that men get sexual satisfaction out of eating their victims. On the other hand, women are more likely to consume the meat of their lover or spouse. There are exceptions to this theory however, as some of the women listed below have also consumed the meat of their own children, neighbors and even complete strangers.

This list includes female killers who ate their victims. In some cases, the women callously hacked through meat and bone, while others took the time to skillfully peel the skin off the meat and cut up the flesh of their victims. Some female killer cannibals enjoyed their appalling meals alone; other women turned their sadistic ritual into celebration by serving their manmade dishes to unsuspecting neighbors, friends, relatives or even their kids.

In February 2000, Katherine Knight stabbed her then-partner John Charles Thomas Price at least 37 times, after Price revealed his reluctance to divorce his ex-wife. After killing Price, Knight, who was "obsessed" with knives, used her skills as an abattoir worker to peel all his skin off in one piece.

She left the skin hanging on a meat hook inside the living room. Soon after removing the skin, Knight removed his head and cooked part of his buttocks with pumpkin, baked potato, zucchini, beetroot, yellow squash, and cabbage, then served the dish with some gravy. When police arrived at the home, two plates containing the dead man’s remains were on the dining room table; Knight wanted to serve her partner’s fileted remains to his two adult children.

Knight’s experience slaughtering animals made her an expert with knives. As the skin was removed in one piece, this made it possible for the mortician to sew the skin back on after performing the post-mortem examination.

Italian Leonarda Cianciulli obtained the moniker "la Saponificatrice di Correggio," or "Soap-Maker of Correggio,” for killing three women and using their remains to make teacakes and soap. Cianciulli was a superstitious mother of four. When her eldest son Giuseppe signed up to join the military and fight in the World War II, she believed human sacrifices would protect her favorite child.

Between 1939 and 1940, Cianciulli drugged three female shop visitors and killed them using an axe. She then boiled their bodies in a pot filled with caustic acid. Cianciulli scooped the coagulated blood off the basin and cooked it in the oven. She mixed the blood with some flour, chocolate, milk, eggs, margarine, and sugar to make teacakes. Several shop visitors ate the crunchy desserts, as did Cianciulli and her son.

The court sentenced Cianciulli to 30 years in prison and an additional three years in an asylum. Herinfamous pot now sits in Rome’s Criminological Museum.

In October 1991, 24-year-old Omaima Aree Nelson stabbed her husband of one month, William E. "Bill" Nelson, with a pair of scissors then bashed his head with an iron inside their home in California. Nelson chopped off her husband’s head and hands and peeled the skin off his torso and lower body; she fried his hands were fried vegetable oil. Police would later discover the husband’s cooked head stored inside a blue plastic container as well.

Omaima believed she needed to kill Bill or he would sexually abuse her. According to her psychiatrist’s testimony in 1993, Omaima admitted to cooking her husband’s ribs in barbecue sauce. She feasted on his ribs while wearing a red dress, hat, high heels, and lipstick. Approximately 80 pounds of his flesh, including his genitalia, have never been found.

In May 2007, police stationed near Brno in the Czech Republic, responded to a call made by a neighbor of the Mauerova family. When the police explored the Mauerovas' cellar, they discovered the partially skinned body of a young boy. Klara Mauerova had been slowly torturing and eating her sons, 8-year-old Ondrej and 10-year-old Jakub.

The two boys had been chained and abused for months. They had also been given knives and forced to slice themselves. Mauerova installed a baby monitor so she could watch the boys’ torture sessions from inside the kitchen.

According to local news reports, police arrested the 31-year-old mother, along with her sisters Katerina Mauerova and Barbora Skrlova, her brother Jan Skr,i and friend Jan Turek were members of the Grail Movement. The cult’s leader, known only by the name “Doctor,” had instructed them to feast on Ondrej’s raw flesh.

Much like the tale of Sweeney Todd's Margery Lovett, the women of this crime trio made pies out of human meat. In 2012, Jorge Beltrao Negromonte da Silveira, his wife Isabel Cristina Pires, and his mistress Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva were arrested and charged for the disappearance and murder of at least three women. After killing their victims, the trio dismembered the bodies, seasoned the meat with cumin and salt, and put it in pies. They ate some of the pastries and sold the others to neighbors, school children, and hospital personnel.

The Brazilian trio believed that eating their meat would cleanse their souls. Their most horrific crime involved killing a teenage mother in the presence of her 18-month-old daughter. Negromonte da Silveira admitted feeding the girl parts of her mother’s flesh. Silva raised the child for four years until the threesome was caught by police. In 2014, they were each sentenced to at least 20 years in prison.

In 1995, a 60-year-old woman was sentenced to six months in jail for illegally practicing witchcraft. Filita Mashilipa, a resident of western Zambia, was accused of killing seven of her nine children and eating their flesh. In her home, they found tools that she believed gave her magical powers. She believed these devices would help her fly and transform victims into little people.

In 1981, Anna Zimmerman, a 26-year-old resident of Monchengladbach, Germany, killed her boyfriend. She then cut up his body into small pieces and stored the meat in the freezer, including his penis and ear. Zimmerman served her lover’s meat to her two kids, aged four and six at the time. Prior to feeding her kids human meat, Zimmerman had also cut up their family pets and served them for dinner.

In 1983, restaurant owner Philippa Mdluli was hanged in the African nation of Swaziland for serving meals containing the body parts of young girls. The case for which she was convicted her involved a 5-year-old girl. In this region, young girls were considered a delicacy and Mdluli even had loyal customers who frequently purchased her dishes. She paid one of her employees to surrender his daughter to her and served the child in her restaurant. The 48-year-old woman was the last person in the country executed for this type of crime.

In 2002, in the small town of Manturovo, Russia, 36-year-old mother Valentina Dolbilina spent a night of heavy drinking with four people. At some point, one of her drinking buddies, 26-year-old Vitaly Bezrodnov, got hungry. Together, the two got an axe and began hacking at one of their unconscious comrades. They selected and fried approximately 15 pounds of human meat. The smell of the meat cooking woke up their remaining companion. He decided to join them for an impromptu meal, not knowing that the meat came from his dead brother.

In March 2009 in Siberia, after a heated argument with her neighbor, Olesya Mostovschikova grabbed an axe and killed 32-year-old Tatiana Romanchuk. Mostovschikova used the weapon to slice off her ears, an arm, a hand, and an eye. She then cooked the body parts in her kitchen and ate the meat in front of her seven-year-old son.

One of Mostovschikova’s friends,identified only as "Julia," helped her hide the body in a cellar. She joined in the feast, which consisted of Romanchuk’s fried buttocks, cheeks and breast, and even asked for seconds.

A day after the murder, Mostovschikova took additional slices of the victim’s body, then dumped the legs in a nearby trash can. The rest of the body was buried in the garden. Mostovschikova’s neighbors contacted the police after discovering Romanchuk’s legs in the trash bin. Both Mostovschikova and Julia were picked up by police.