There are many women in world history who made a splash in their time, kept everyone in fear and influenced society. This list includes ten formidable ladies who once wreaked havoc in America. Some of them killed in a sophisticated manner, others instilled fear in the authorities with their political views, but all of them were extremely cunning and even cruel in getting what they wanted. Some of them died decades ago, but they are still remembered. 
1. Griselda Blanco 
Griselda Blanco is a Colombian "cocaine queen" who was involved in large-scale cocaine smuggling from Colombia to the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. She grew up in poverty, and since childhood she has been involved in various stories. For example, at the age of 11, Griselda kidnapped and killed a boy in her native Colombia. In the 70s, she discovered the drug trade, and began working with the famous drug dealer Alberto Bravo, who became her second husband. Bravo was soon killed, presumably in an assassination attempt ordered by Blanco. She took over the trade completely.
Griselda is responsible for hundreds of brutal murders, including those of her competitors. When her trial came in 1985, the police could not prove her involvement in the murders, so she served less time in prison than she should have. In 2004, she was released and deported to her native Colombia. There she moved away from crime and quietly spent her old age... But in 2012, in the city of Medellin, she was shot by a passing motorcyclist. Griselda herself at one time perfected the scheme of killing competitors on a motorcycle.
2. Eve Kruger 
At first glance, Iva Kruger resembles a sweet grandmother, but née Lucille Hopper, first arrested in her youth, has accumulated a long string of criminal cases in her old age. At one time, she posed as a military nurse, got into debt and secretly stole things, traveled to different cities and hid. In 1954, she married Ralph Krueger, who also had debt problems, and by 1961 they moved into a hotel in Northern California. There, Iva became friends with Mildred and Jay Arneson, the owners of the hotel across the street.
A few weeks later, the owners suddenly went missing. When the police began their investigation, arriving at the hotel, they saw Iva at the reception desk - she said that she was the new owner of the hotel, and the previous owners had simply left. Police later obtained a search warrant to search the hotel property. While searching the yard, they found Mildred and Jay - they were killed and buried in the hotel garage. By that time, Willow was no longer there - but she was caught when she tried to escape to the Mexican border. The woman was sent to prison, but after 20 years she was released early. In 1975, free Iva continued her criminal path, committing petty crimes. By 2000, she died under unknown circumstances.
3. Bonnie Parker 
Bonnie and Clyde are a famous duo in the criminal world. Born in the slums of West Dallas, Bonnie Parker was one of the best students in school as a child, she was passionate about acting and poetry... But her family's (and Clyde's) difficult experiences during the Great Depression left their mark. In 1929, before meeting Clyde, Bonnie worked as a waitress, while Clyde cracked safes, robbed stores and stole cars. In 1930, they met and began committing crimes together, teaming up with the gang that Clyde had formed by that time.
It all started with store robberies and ended with murders, bank robberies and car thefts. On May 23, 1934, the famous outlaw couple was shot and killed by Texas Rangers after being tracked down. Many people across America idolized Parker for her beauty and criminal image, calling her the first female gangster. The couple themselves also received a lot of press coverage, and became a kind of symbol of “criminal romance.”
4. Kate Bender 
Kate Bender's family committed numerous murders in Kansas in the late 19th century. Her mother, father, brother and Kate herself ran a hotel for many years, where they allegedly held sessions of spiritualism and communication with spirits. 23-year-old Kate was a pretty and charismatic girl, and easily attracted clients to the hotel. She posed as a professor and psychic, and led clients into the room where the rest of the family carried out the murders.
All this time, the Benders thought that they could get away with it all, but one day Dr. William Henry York became interested in them - he decided to find out why the Benders’ clients were strangely disappearing. He arrived at Bendery, but did not return himself. Then his brother, Alexander, took up this matter - but when he got to their house, the ill-fated family had already disappeared. Literally, the Benders disappeared without a trace, and no one knew where to look for them. Perhaps they moved to a distant place where they continued their spree of crimes. Dozens of bodies of murdered men were found on the territory of their house.
5. Belle Gunness 
In the early 20th century, Belle Gunness was a notorious man-killer. She was married twice, and both of Gunness' husbands passed away. She received considerable insurance payments for this, so most likely the deaths were faked. Then, widowed for the second time, she moved to a farm in the town of Laporte. Belle advertised herself in the dating sections of several newspapers. There was a line of single men waiting to meet her. They all brought the lady expensive gifts and money, but then... disappeared without a trace. One of the suitors, Andrew Helgelein, sold all his property for her sake and brought her a large sum of money.
After Helgelein's disappearance, his family raised the alarm - but as they began to investigate, Belle's farmhouse caught fire. A total of 17 buried bodies were discovered under the remains of the house. Among them were at least 13 men, and the other bodies belonged to Belle and her adopted children... As the police initially thought. The woman’s body had no head, and she was smaller in height than Belle herself, so there were versions that she faked her own death. Nobody knew anything more about her.
6. Bernardine Dorn 
In the 1970s, one of the most dangerous women in the United States was a modest law graduate named Bernardine Dorn. She graduated from the University of Chicago in 1964 and received her law degree three years later. But by 1968, Dorn began active anti-government and anti-capitalist activities. She organized student riots at Columbia University in New York, and in 1969 formed a group of left-wing activists and her own organization, the Weather Underground. They opposed the police department and incited unrest in the community by championing their anti-government rhetoric.
Dorn even contemplated bombing government buildings and was involved in planning terrorist attacks and postal attacks. Dorn was soon placed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list, making her the most wanted woman in America. At this time, Dorn abandoned her rebellious activities and went into hiding. She suddenly appeared in the early 1980s, married and with three children. The police only fined her $1,500. Bernardine later became a professor of law at a US university. One of her sons followed in his mother's footsteps and also became a law professor.
7. Mary Mallon 
Irish-American Mary Mallon or "Typhoid Mary" made waves in the late 19th century. She moved to New York City in the late 1800s, where she worked as a cook and servant for several families. Without knowing it, Mary was an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever. After the illnesses appeared, the woman went to work for another family, and thus changed several jobs. While working as a cook in a wealthy family, a little girl died of typhus. Then the head of the family turned to typhoid researcher George Soper, who asked Mary to get tested.
But the woman denied the disease, declaring that she was healthy and had never had any symptoms. She was later taken in by the New York City Department of Health, which was able to confirm that Mary had asymptomatic typhus. In 1907, she was quarantined in a hospital on North Brother Island. She spent almost 3 years there. Mary could not be stopped - after her release, she began to take up work again and continued to infect people. After that, she was sent to a second, lifelong quarantine. At the age of 69, she died of pneumonia while in quarantine.
8. Delphine LaLaurie 
Delphine LaLaurie was one of the most brutal female killers of the 19th century who lived in New Orleans. She lived in the wealthy French Quarter with her third husband, Dr. Leonard Louis Nicholas LaLaurie. Like many others at the time, their estate employed many black slaves. In 1834, there was a major fire at the family's mansion. Firefighters found an elderly slave cook in the house, chained to the kitchen stove. She claimed that she was treated horribly and that she deliberately started the fire to expose her cruel mistress. It turned out that in the attic LaLaurie kept seven slaves, mutilated and emaciated. Many graves were also discovered in the mansion's courtyard. Soon after the fire was extinguished, an indignant crowd gathered at the LaLaurie mansion and destroyed their residence. Madame Lalaurie managed to escape the wrath of the crowd by fleeing the city with her children. She went to Paris and is believed to have died there in the 1840s.
9. Emma Goldman 
Emma Goldman was at one time both loved and hated for her radical views. She was born in 1869 and emigrated to the United States with her family in 1885. Already in the first days in New York, she “made friends” with anarchism and became its ardent follower. She traveled around the country giving speeches in support of the leftist movement, spoke to workers, campaigned for freedom of speech, and in 1892 she was involved in the assassination attempt on plant owner Henry Clay Frick. A few years later, she was even involved in the tragic assassination of President William McKinley.
Her loud speeches, charisma and rigid views made her a dangerous figure in the eyes of the authorities. Goldman was feared by state and local governments, as well as business owners. But this only strengthened the activist’s resolve to fight for her beliefs. Goldman paved the way for future generations of activists by advocating for social and political change, but her public figure remains controversial. Goldman became one of the most persecuted women of the early 20th century, until her death in 1940.
10. Mary Harris Jones 
Mary Harris Jones is another social activist and labor rights activist who once struck fear into government officials. She was born in Ireland in 1837, and emigrated with her family to Canada as a child. She then moved to the United States, where she married and had four children. Alas, her husband and children died of jaundice in 1867, after which Jones moved to Chicago and began life with a clean slate.
In America, Jones started a clothing business, but it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871. She began working in community organizations, and by the end of the 19th century she had attended hundreds of labor strikes. Jones once participated in a violent coal mine strike that resulted in her being sentenced to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit murder. Her sentence was later commuted, but her habit of rebellion remained. The woman spoke at several more events, and the last time she spoke publicly was in 1926. She then went to her friends' farm and died at the age of 100.
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