They thought their husbands were normal, handsome, or influential, but they had no idea these 13 men led double lives of horror.
Primrose Shipman
Primrose Oxtoby met Harold Shipman while he was a medical student at Leeds University. In 1966, they married and eventually had a family of four children.
Shipman went on to become Britain’s deadliest serial killer. He was convicted in two thousand of killing fifteen of his patients. However, a later public inquiry found that he had probably murdered at least two hundred fifteen patients, and perhaps as many as two hundred sixty.
Primrose sometimes assisted at her husband’s medical practice as a receptionist. She maintained her belief in his innocence long after he was convicted. During the inquiry she stated that she still did not believe Harold had killed his patients.
What sets her story apart from other wives who readily accepted that their husbands were killers is that she continued to believe Harold innocent even after he was convicted.
Nadezhda Alliluyeva
Joseph Stalin married Nadezhda Alliluyeva in 1919 when she was a child bride. Stalin was quickly gaining power in the Bolshevik party when he married her.
As Stalin’s personal power grew, so too did the severity of repression throughout the Soviet Union. This included collectivization and mass killings. Stalin and his wife constantly fought and there was great tension in their relationship.
Nadezhda committed suicide in November 1932 after a dispute with Stalin. Historians continue to grapple with the motivations behind her suicide, with no single, definitive cause readily identifiable.
Minnie Williams
Minnie Williams was another victim of America’s original serial killer, con man H. H. Holmes. Holmes presented himself as a thriving businessman and physician, leading Williams to transfer valuable Texas land into his possession.
Williams and her sister Nannie later vanished. Holmes was suspected of killing both women though parts of their deaths are still disputed.
Paula RaderÂ
Paula Dietz was married to Dennis Rader for over 30 years. Dennis lived in Park City, Kansas, working as a code-enforcement officer. He went to church regularly, coached Cub Scouts, and had two children.
His wife, Paula, was seemingly unaware of his secret life as a killer. When police arrested Rader in 2005 and he confessed to being the BTK killer, Paula had to face the fact that her husband had killed 10 people from 1974 to 1991.
She was granted an emergency divorce following his arrest.
Judith Mawson
Judith Mawson married Gary Ridgway back in 1988. Their marriage lasted for roughly 14 years. She thought she had finally found the love of her life in Gary.
She stated that he was the most loving husband too. He left her love notes, brought her flowers, made coffee, and helped her around the house. She had no clue that he was the Green River Killer, who had been preying on women in Washington for a long time.
Ridgway was arrested in 2001 when they found his DNA at a crime scene. He eventually pled guilty to 48 murders that he had done. Police believe he killed more than what he confessed to.
Carole Ann Boone
Carole Ann Boone worked at the Washington State Department of Emergency Services with Ted Bundy. And Boone was convinced Bundy had nothing to do with the murders he was facing charges for.
During Bundy’s 1980 Florida trial, where he was acting as his own lawyer, Boone married him in the courtroom. She later gave birth to Bundy’s daughter Rose while he was on death row.
Boone divorced Bundy in 1986 after he began confessing to several murders. What makes Boone’s narrative so poignant is her struggle to acknowledge Bundy as a murderer.
Julie Baumeister
Julie Baumeister was married to Herb Baumeister and together they had three children. The Baumeisters lived at Fox Hollow Farm, a large acreage in Westfield, Indiana.
Herb owned and operated a franchise of thrift stores. Herb seemed like he was living the American dream, but some odd things started to happen.
Julie and Herb’s son found what they thought were human bones buried in their property in 1994. Herb told them that it was actually a medical-school skeleton that had belonged to his father. Julie later confessed to detectives that she did not believe Herb’s story, but didn’t know how to react.
Following the breakdown of her marriage to Herb, Julie granted police permission to search their property. Eventually over 10,000 human bone fragments were recovered from the property. Authorities suspected Baumeister of killing a number of men, but he faced no charges or trial for these alleged crimes.
Linda Yates
Linda Yates was the wife of Robert Lee Yates. She raised five children with him in Spokane, Washington.
Robert Yates had been a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Army and seemed to be a quiet family man. Linda suspected he had affairs, but could never have guessed his dark secret.
Authorities apprehended him in 2000, connecting him to a string of women’s murders in Spokane. Yates ultimately plead guilty to killing 13 people in Spokane County and was later found guilty of two more murders in Pierce County.
Elizabeth KloepferÂ
Elizabeth Kloepfer (later writing as Elizabeth Kendall) dated Ted Bundy for years in Seattle.
Kloepfer had a toddler daughter Molly that Bundy helped raise. To her, Ted was often romantic, loving, and handy around the house. Yet, as reports of missing women surfaced and Bundy’s appearance matched a police sketch, doubt began to creep in.
She called authorities and gave them information on Bundy, though she was still having a difficult time connecting him to the killer from the newspapers.
Magda Goebbels
Magda married Joseph Goebbels in 1931, around the time he began his climb through the ranks of the Nazi Party. He would go on to become Hitler’s minister of propaganda, one of the regime’s most powerful officials.
Magda remained devoted to both her husband and Nazism even when Germany began persecuting, murdering, and committing genocide against millions of people. Together with Goebbels, she saw to the deaths of their six children before taking her own life in Hitler’s bunker in May 1945.
Sonia Sutcliffe
Sonia Szurma met Peter Sutcliffe while he was in prison; they married in 1974. Sutcliffe would later murder 13 women between 1975 and 1980 and attack many more, earning him the nickname “Yorkshire Ripper”.
Working as a lorry driver, he was often on the road travelling to different locations around the area. When police arrested Sutcliffe in January 1981, Sonia claimed that she had no idea that he was the Yorkshire Ripper.
She continued to support her husband through his trial, and they divorced in 1994.
Khieu Ponnary
In 1956, Khieu Ponnary married communist activist and teacher Saloth Sar, who would later become known to the world as Pol Pot, the dictator of Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge.
Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea earned a terrible reputation for its execution sites, forced work, widespread starvation, and unspeakable suffering. Estimates place the number of Cambodian deaths during the Democratic Kampuchea regime at around 1.5 to 2 million.
Ponnary eventually joined her husband in the communist revolution. She became a leader in the Democratic Kampuchea Women’s Association. However, she suffered from severe mental illness later in life, and Pol Pot divorced her in 1979.
Carole HoffÂ
Carole Hoff married John Wayne Gacy in 1972 and moved into his house with her two daughters from her previous marriage.
Gacy portrayed himself as a business tycoon and got involved in politics and civic activities. However, Carole slowly began to pick up on strange clues. Gacy confessed to her that he was bis**ual, was spending more time away from home, and was bringing teenage boys to his garage to work on cars.
She also found wallets and IDs belonging to men and homos**ual po**ography throughout the house. Carole filed for divorce in 1975, and they were divorced in March of 1976 years before Gacy’s crimes were unveiled.
Gacy was convicted of killing 33 young men and boys.
Sources: Please see here for a complete listing of all sources that were consulted in the preparation of this article.
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12 people who seem wonderful but are actually dangerous monsters
Friendly smiles and fame can take you very far, to the point where some of the most evil monsters used them to seem like safe people.
12 people who seem wonderful but are actually dangerous monsters
