Tales of Female Executions

Tales of Female Executions is a comprehensive, worldwide and detailed collection of stories about women who have been put to death from early medieval times up to the present day.
Female executions have always excited more interest than those of men probably because in comparison to male executions the number of them always has been, and still is, very small. Also, the idea of a defenceless and vulnerable woman being subjected to the formal and remorseless judicial process of capital punishment seems to generate a sense of morbid fascination in many people. This is especially true if the victim is young and attractive.
In these pages you will find the “Mad”, such as 28-year-old Mary Barton “The Holy Maid of Kent”, who was executed in 1534 in London for treason. She was hanged, her head cut off and put on public display.
There are many examples of the “Bad” like Mary Ann Cotton, 32, who was hanged in Durham in the northeast of England in 1873 for poisoning twenty-one people.
In the category of “Evil beyond belief” are 22-year-old Irma Grese, the “Beast of Belsen”, who was executed by the Allies for war crimes after the end of World War II. There are also several cases of the wretched and unfortunate such as 18-year-old Mary Jones. Desperate to feed her children she stole some lace. She was sentenced to death for shoplifting and hanged at Tyburn in London in 1771.