“Women are strong, beautiful, & capable…of violent crime” (click for a good laugh).

But in all seriousness, it’s time for another Thorny Rosies episode, where we highlight some Rosies who used their powers for not-so-good.

Christiana Edmunds

Christiana Edmunds was born on October 3, 1828, in Kent, to William Edmunds, an architect, and Ann Christiana Burn. She was born into a privileged life and received private education. However, her life was plagued by potential familial and personal history with mental illness, as it was believed her father, one brother, and one sister were also afflicted.

In her early twenties, Christiana was diagnosed with hysteria, a common diagnosis for women during the Victorian era. After her father’s death, she was living with her mother and sister in Brighton when she began having an affair with local doctor Charles Beard, which lasted for about a year. The exact degree and nature of the affair is not entirely known, but it is confirmed that love letters were exchanged in which Christiana extravagantly declared her affections.

Dr. Beard claimed the affair never had a physical component, but there are suspicions that it did. At some point, Dr. Beard called off the affair for reasons unknown, which Christiana did not take well. Perhaps she thought that if she could do away with Dr. Beard’s wife, Emily, they could continue their relationship.

A few days later, Christiana went to the local confectioner and bought some chocolates to give to Mrs. Beard while the doctor was out of town. Mrs. Beard began to eat one piece but tasted something was wrong with it and spat out the chocolate. However, she had ingested enough of something to fall ill, but she recovered. Dr. Beard suspected Christiana had tampered with the confections but did not want to involve the police and potentially expose the scandal of an affair, so he confronted Christiana.

He accused her of attempting to poison his wife, which she denied, and forbade her from visiting their house again. Christiana’s extracurricular activities started picking up big time at this point. Unclear if this was an effort to shift the blame and maintain innocence or to try and get back at the Beards in a very roundabout manner, but Christiana’s activity escalated.

Christiana purchased strychnine from a local chemist, stating she needed it to poison some stray cats (not cool), and would purchase chocolates from the confectioner. She would then lace the chocolates with strychnine and return them to the store, stating they weren’t quite what she wanted. Eventually, to reduce the amount of face time she had with the confectioner to try and cover her tracks, she began having local boys purchase the chocolates for her, swap them out for poisoned batches, and have them return them to the store.

During this time, many people in the community were falling ill, but no connections had been made just yet. All of that changed when, in June 1871, a 4-year-old named Sidney Barker on vacation with his family, died after ingesting chocolates from the confectioner’s shop. The coroner identified strychnine as being present in Barker’s system, but his death was ruled accidental.

Strychnine, when administered in fatal doses, affects the nervous system to cause violent, spasming convulsions that eventually lead to suffocation, taking anywhere from 15-60 minutes to kill a person. An inquest was conducted in response to Sidney’s death, and Christiana even gave evidence against the confectioner, but had to continue her plan after no blame was placed on him.

Christiana was now sending chocolates and other confections, some of which she traveled to London to purchase, to prominent individuals throughout the community laced with arsenic, including Mrs. Beard AND HERSELF, to throw suspicion onto the confectioner himself, but the police eventually figured out the connection between all the poisonings. After her arrest, Christiana’s actions were investigated, and the extent of her plan became clear. She had been sending chocolates and other confections laced with arsenic to prominent individuals throughout the community, including Mrs. Beard and herself, to throw suspicion onto the confectioner himself.

During the trial, witnesses gave testimony regarding Christiana’s method of sending young boys into the shop, as well as the testimony of both the chocolatier, John Maynard, and local chemist, Isaac Garrett. Christiana’s mother also testified that mental illness ran in both sides of the family and had afflicted more than one individual within their nuclear family.

Entering into an insanity plea, a famed psychologist Dr. Henry Maudsley said of Christiana, “belonged to the ‘morally defective’ group of lunatics – a Victorian precursor for the later term of psychopath.” An expert witness testified that Christiana was indeed guilty by reason of insanity, as she was unable to distinguish right from wrong.

Christiana was found guilty and initially sentenced to death, but by entering into the insanity plea deal, she was committed to the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, where she remained for the rest of her life until she died in 1907.

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Ma Barker

Arizona Donnie Clark “Kate” Barker, popularly known as Ma Barker, was born in 1872 or 1873 near Springfield, Missouri. Despite having an “ordinary” childhood, Kate was fascinated by the stories of outlaw Jesse James and his gang riding through her hometown. She later married George E. Barker in 1892 and raised their family of four sons in Aurora, Missouri. However, George was shiftless, and the family lived in poverty, moving from Webb City, Missouri, to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

As soon as the Barker sons were old enough, they turned to a life of crime, with activities that included highway robbery and murdering a police officer. In 1927, Kate’s oldest son Herman killed himself to avoid jail time, and in 1928, the remaining three boys were all in prison. During this time, Kate kicked her husband out and lived in even worse poverty from 1928 to 1931. She apparently collected a few lovers during this time period and was living with Arthur W. Dunlop/Dunlap in a “common law” marriage in 1930.

However, things turned around in 1931 when son Fred was released early from prison and came home with friend and fellow prison inmate Alvin Karpis. They formed the Barker-Karpis gang and used the shack where Kate lived as their hideout. They then quickly robbed a department store and were confronted by the sheriff the next day, after which they shot the sheriff dead. This started the legacy of crime and terror that the gang had on the United States. For the first time, Ma Barker was officially recognized by law enforcement as an accomplice to their crimes. A $100 reward was offered for her capture, and her face was plastered on wanted posters.

The next year, sons Arthur and Lloyd were released from prison and joined the family business. The gang moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, aided by the corrupt chief of police. The Barker-Karpis gang escalated from bank robberies to kidnappings and ransom. Common law husband Arthur Dunlap apparently had quite loose lips when drinking and was found dead, naked in Webster, Wisconsin, due to a single gunshot wound in the head.

The FBI soon connected one of the kidnappings to the Barker-Karpis gang via fingerprints, which was brand new technology during this time. The Barker-Karpis gang then left St. Paul for Chicago to avoid capture and launder the ransom money from their recent kidnappings. However, January 8th, 1935, signaled the beginning of the end for Ma Barker and the Barker-Karpis gang. Arthur Barker was arrested, and the FBI confirmed the location of other gang members in Florida.

FBI agents surrounded the Florida house where Ma and Fred were hiding out early in the morning of January 16th. Special agents demanded that Ma and Fred surrender, to which someone responded, “All right, go ahead.” FBI agents interpreted this as a surrender; however, a four-hour shootout then began. Tear gas bombs and shots from rifles and machine guns were exchanged, and local high school students soon showed up to watch the whole thing go down.

Once the shots were no longer returned from inside the house, the FBI slapped a bulletproof vest on a local handyman named Willie Woodbury and had him go into the house to make sure it was safe. FBI agents then entered the residence to find Ma and Fred Barker dead. Ma Barker had died from a single bullet wound next to her son and the machine gun she was probably using.

Ma Barker’s body was displayed publicly next to her son Fred and then went unclaimed until October 1st that year when relatives buried them back in Oklahoma next to son Herman. Popular media has long depicted Ma Barker as the criminal mastermind behind the gang’s activities. However, gang members have disputed this portrayal, arguing that Ma Barker was not involved in their criminal operations and was simply a supportive mother who was unaware of her sons’ illegal activities. Despite this controversy, Ma Barker has become an iconic figure in American popular culture, often portrayed as a ruthless and cunning criminal mastermind. Her story has been the subject of numerous books, films, and television shows, perpetuating her myth as one of the most notorious female gangsters in American history.

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