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NewsCrimeCrime Photo Gallery

PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers

Some of Arizona's most heinous crimes have been perpetrated by women. Information was compiled from Associated Press reports, Murderpedia.com and ABC15 archives. 

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Connie Villa

    DOB:  1978

    Date of Murder: 12/25/2013

    Victim: 13-year-old daughter

    Murder weapon: Strangled

    "I was just stabbed by my ex-wife. I'm heading to the hospital," said Adam Villa Connie's ex-husband. Later that Christmas Day Connie was found to have suffocated her oldest daughter when the girl wouldn't take prescription narcotic drugs. The other children, ages 3, 5 and 8, were treated at a hospital and released. Police say they had trace amounts of opiates in their systems. She's been sentenced to life in prison. 

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Shari Lee Tobyne

    DOB:  7/24/1956

    Date of Murder: 11/24/2009

    Victim: Husband

    Murder weapon: Gun

    Tobyne was arrested after shooting her husband, then dismembering him and dropping his remains in three Arizona counties. She then used and Dwight Tobyne's cell phone and e-mail to make it appear he was still alive. After family members reported him missing, Shari said he had gone to Mexico, but police located his abandoned vehicle in Phoenix. Shari later told police that she was trying to commit suicide when Dwight was shot trying to stop her. She later pleaded guilty to the murder. 

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Angela Simpson

    DOB:  11/25/1975

    Date of Murder: 8/5/2009

    Victim: Stranger

    Murder weapon: Tire Iron, knife

    Simpson lured Terry Neely, a disabled man, to her apartment promising drugs and sex. She then tortured and murdered him by pulling Neely's teeth out, driving a nail into his head, bashing him with a tire iron, stabbing him 50 times, and strangling him. Then she chopped up his body and threw the pieces in a trash can, which she lit on fire. Heely's charred remains were found in a dumpster after the fire department responded to a trash fire. Simpson believed Neely was a "snitch." 

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Jessica Renae Riggins

    DOB:  6/16/1967

    Date of Murder: 8/5/2007

    Victim: Husband

    Murder weapon: Handgun

    Jessica Riggins was convicted of shooting her husband in the back, killing him, in their Flagstaff home. After the murder, she went to California where she gave family members a credit card with about $30,000 on it, to care for her children. She was arrested entering the U.S. from Mexico, after spending several days there. She maintained that she was assaulted the night of the murder. Riggins and her husband were in divorce proceedings at the time of the murder.

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Pamela Phillips

    DOB:  1958

    Date of Murder: 11/1/1996

    Victim: Ex-husband

    Murder weapon: Pipe Bomb

    Pamela Phillips was sentenced to life in prison without parole after hiring a hit man to kill her ex-husband. Gary Triano was killed when a car bomb exploded as he was leaving a Tucson area County Club. Phillips paid $400,000 to an ex-boyfriend to carry out the hit. When Triano, a real estate developer, lost his money, Phillips divorced him and moved to Aspen. Prosecutors said she was planning to cash in on Triano's $2,000,000 insurance policy. Phillips still maintains her innocence.   

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Valerie Pape "The Torso Killer"

    DOB:  7/29/1952

    Date of Murder: 1/23//2000

    Victims: Husband

    Murder weapon: Gun

    Pape, a Scottsdale hairdresser, pleaded guilty in 2002 to second-degree murder in the death of her husband, 60-year-old Ira Pomerantz, whose headless and legless torso was found in a trash container behind a Mesa grocery store in January 2000.

    Pape admitted to shooting Pomerantz during a fight but has said nothing about how he was dismembered or where the remains are.

    She was released from prison in 2016 after serving her 16-year sentence and was deported to France.

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Marjorie Ann Orbin

    DOB:  10/29/1961

    Date of Murder: 9/8//2004

    Victims: Husband

    Murder weapon: Gun

    In September 2004, Orbin reported her husband Jay as being missing. His torso was found in a 55-gallon plastic container in North Phoenix. The body was frozen after death and cut up with a saw. He was identified through DNA testing. The former Las Vegas showgirl was said to have had several affairs and wanted to keep them a secret until she could inherit her husband's money from his business as an art dealer. 

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Diane Lynn Marsh

    DOB:  1968

    Date of Murder: 3/22/2007

    Victims: 5-year-old autistic son

    Murder weapon: Hands, Cold Medicine

    Diane Marsh was convicted of negligent homicide and child abuse for the death of her 5-year-old Autistic son. She admitted to giving her son 12 Tylenol PM tablets. She was also accused of scalding her son for punishment. The autopsy report concluded that the boy had a skull fracture and died of blunt force trauma. She was sentenced to 10-years in prison but was released in September of 2012. 

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Winnie Ruth Judd "The Blonde Butcher"

    DOB:  1/29/1905

    Date of Murder: 10/16/1931

    Victims: Friends 

    Murder weapon: Handgun

    Judd shot and killed two friends because they were interested in the same man. She stuffed the victims in two trunks, a valise, and a hatbox, dismembering one of them. Judd boarded a train to L.A. with the trunks. After smelling the foul odor, the trunks were tagged to be searched. The bodies were found, but Judd had escaped. She surrendered five days later. Judd was convicted but found mentally incompetent. She was paroled and released in 1971 and died in 1998.

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Carol Hatley

    DOB:  1970

    Date of Murder: 7/30/2012

    Victim: Mother

    Murder weapon: Knife

    Carol Hatley was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison for murdering and dismembering her mother. On July 30, 2012,  Officers arrived at the home as 73-year-old Deborah Hatley was being dismembered. Hatley claimed she was wrapping her mother in plastic to take her to the hospital. Police found several large garbage bags in the home. 

     

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Galareka Harrison

    DOB:  3/26/1989

    Date of Murder: 9/5/2007

    Victim: Roommate

    Murder weapon: Knife

    Harrison was selected to be part of a program at the University of Arizona for Native American students. Soon after being paired with Mia Henderson she was accused by Henderson of stealing her Social Security card and campus debit card. Harrison admitted to taking the items and cashing a $500 check from Henderson bank account. On September 5, Harrison stabbed Henderson several times in her sleep. She then penned a suicide note in Henderson's name. 

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Shawna Forde

    DOB:  12/6/1967

    Date of Murder: 5/30/2009

    Victims: Father-Daughter

    Murder weapon: Gun

    Forde and two others dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a home in Arivaca, Arizona about 10 miles north of the Mexican border. They shot a woman and fatally shot her husband and their 9-year-old daughter. Forde was the leader of the Minutemen American Defense border watch group. Their plan was to steal money and drugs from the home to fund their group. She was sentenced to death in 2011.

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Eva Dugan

    DOB:  1878

    Date of Murder: 1/1927

    Victim: Former employer 

    Murder weapon: Ax

    Dugan worked as a housekeeper for Andrew Mathis, a chicken rancher in Pima County. After being fired, Mathis was missing and his money and car were stolen. Dugan was found and convicted for vehicle theft. Mathis body was later found and it was determined that Dugan had killed him with an ax. Known as  'Cheerful Eva' she paid for her own coffin by giving interviews and selling embroidered handkerchiefs.  

    Her hanging in 1930 resulted in her decapitation and led Arizona to switch to lethal gas. 

     

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Marissa Suzanne Devault

    DOB:  11/6/1977

    Date of Murder: 1/14/2009

    Victim: Husband

    Murder weapon: Hammer

    On January 14, 2009, Devault beat her husband Dale Harrell with a hammer while he slept. He died several weeks later. Devault initially claimed another man struck Harrell with the hammer to protect her as she was being attacked by Harrell. She later confessed to hitting him with the hammer multiple times before the other man took the hammer from her. Her claims of abuse were not substantiated. She was sentenced to life in prison. 

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Doris Ann Carlson

    DOB:  2/4/1962

    Date of Murder: 10/25/1996

    Victim: Her elderly mother in law

    Murder weapon: Knife

    In October 1996 Carlson and her two roommates drove to a nursing home where her mother-in-law, Lynne Carlson lived. One roommate stabbed the wheel-chair bound victim multiple times, severely injuring her. Lynne suffered for six months before succumbing to her injuries. Carlson and her husband were in financial trouble and plotted to kill his mother for the insurance money and inheritance.  

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Wendi Elizabeth Andriano

    DOB: 8/6/1970

    Date of Murder: 10/8/2000

    Victim: Her terminally ill husband

    Murder weapon: Knife and barstool

    When Joseph Andriano got cancer, his wife Wendi began plotting on how to profit from his death. She had counterparts pose as her husband so she could get a life insurance policy. She also began to slip sodium azide into his drinks. In October, she stabbed him in the neck and beat him with a barstool, claiming it was self-defense. Authorities showed that Joseph was too weak from the poisoning and chemotherapy to attack her.  She remains on death row.

  • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    Name: Jodi Ann Arias

    DOB: 7/9/1980

    Date of Murder: 6/4/2008

    Victim: Ex-boyfriend

    Murder weapon: Knife, gun

    Arias was convicted in May 2013 of killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander. He was found in his shower with multiple stab wounds, his throat slit and he had been shot. The trial and Arias 18-day testimony gained worldwide media attention and was followed live via the internet. The trial was later made into a TV movie called: Jodi Arias: Dirty little secret. 

  • KNXV - Phoenix, Arizona

    PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers

    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers
    • PHOTOS: Arizona's 17 notorious female murderers

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    Name: Connie Villa

    DOB:  1978

    Date of Murder: 12/25/2013

    Victim: 13-year-old daughter

    Murder weapon: Strangled

    "I was just stabbed by my ex-wife. I'm heading to the hospital," said Adam Villa Connie's ex-husband. Later that Christmas Day Connie was found to have suffocated her oldest daughter when the girl wouldn't take prescription narcotic drugs. The other children, ages 3, 5 and 8, were treated at a hospital and released. Police say they had trace amounts of opiates in their systems. She's been sentenced to life in prison. 

    Name: Shari Lee Tobyne

    DOB:  7/24/1956

    Date of Murder: 11/24/2009

    Victim: Husband

    Murder weapon: Gun

    Tobyne was arrested after shooting her husband, then dismembering him and dropping his remains in three Arizona counties. She then used and Dwight Tobyne's cell phone and e-mail to make it appear he was still alive. After family members reported him missing, Shari said he had gone to Mexico, but police located his abandoned vehicle in Phoenix. Shari later told police that she was trying to commit suicide when Dwight was shot trying to stop her. She later pleaded guilty to the murder. 

    Name: Angela Simpson

    DOB:  11/25/1975

    Date of Murder: 8/5/2009

    Victim: Stranger

    Murder weapon: Tire Iron, knife

    Simpson lured Terry Neely, a disabled man, to her apartment promising drugs and sex. She then tortured and murdered him by pulling Neely's teeth out, driving a nail into his head, bashing him with a tire iron, stabbing him 50 times, and strangling him. Then she chopped up his body and threw the pieces in a trash can, which she lit on fire. Heely's charred remains were found in a dumpster after the fire department responded to a trash fire. Simpson believed Neely was a "snitch." 

    Name: Jessica Renae Riggins

    DOB:  6/16/1967

    Date of Murder: 8/5/2007

    Victim: Husband

    Murder weapon: Handgun

    Jessica Riggins was convicted of shooting her husband in the back, killing him, in their Flagstaff home. After the murder, she went to California where she gave family members a credit card with about $30,000 on it, to care for her children. She was arrested entering the U.S. from Mexico, after spending several days there. She maintained that she was assaulted the night of the murder. Riggins and her husband were in divorce proceedings at the time of the murder.

    Name: Pamela Phillips

    DOB:  1958

    Date of Murder: 11/1/1996

    Victim: Ex-husband

    Murder weapon: Pipe Bomb

    Pamela Phillips was sentenced to life in prison without parole after hiring a hit man to kill her ex-husband. Gary Triano was killed when a car bomb exploded as he was leaving a Tucson area County Club. Phillips paid $400,000 to an ex-boyfriend to carry out the hit. When Triano, a real estate developer, lost his money, Phillips divorced him and moved to Aspen. Prosecutors said she was planning to cash in on Triano's $2,000,000 insurance policy. Phillips still maintains her innocence.   

    Name: Valerie Pape "The Torso Killer"

    DOB:  7/29/1952

    Date of Murder: 1/23//2000

    Victims: Husband

    Murder weapon: Gun

    Pape, a Scottsdale hairdresser, pleaded guilty in 2002 to second-degree murder in the death of her husband, 60-year-old Ira Pomerantz, whose headless and legless torso was found in a trash container behind a Mesa grocery store in January 2000.

    Pape admitted to shooting Pomerantz during a fight but has said nothing about how he was dismembered or where the remains are.

    She was released from prison in 2016 after serving her 16-year sentence and was deported to France.

    Name: Marjorie Ann Orbin

    DOB:  10/29/1961

    Date of Murder: 9/8//2004

    Victims: Husband

    Murder weapon: Gun

    In September 2004, Orbin reported her husband Jay as being missing. His torso was found in a 55-gallon plastic container in North Phoenix. The body was frozen after death and cut up with a saw. He was identified through DNA testing. The former Las Vegas showgirl was said to have had several affairs and wanted to keep them a secret until she could inherit her husband's money from his business as an art dealer. 

    Name: Diane Lynn Marsh

    DOB:  1968

    Date of Murder: 3/22/2007

    Victims: 5-year-old autistic son

    Murder weapon: Hands, Cold Medicine

    Diane Marsh was convicted of negligent homicide and child abuse for the death of her 5-year-old Autistic son. She admitted to giving her son 12 Tylenol PM tablets. She was also accused of scalding her son for punishment. The autopsy report concluded that the boy had a skull fracture and died of blunt force trauma. She was sentenced to 10-years in prison but was released in September of 2012. 

    Name: Winnie Ruth Judd "The Blonde Butcher"

    DOB:  1/29/1905

    Date of Murder: 10/16/1931

    Victims: Friends 

    Murder weapon: Handgun

    Judd shot and killed two friends because they were interested in the same man. She stuffed the victims in two trunks, a valise, and a hatbox, dismembering one of them. Judd boarded a train to L.A. with the trunks. After smelling the foul odor, the trunks were tagged to be searched. The bodies were found, but Judd had escaped. She surrendered five days later. Judd was convicted but found mentally incompetent. She was paroled and released in 1971 and died in 1998.

    Name: Carol Hatley

    DOB:  1970

    Date of Murder: 7/30/2012

    Victim: Mother

    Murder weapon: Knife

    Carol Hatley was convicted and sentenced to 22 years in prison for murdering and dismembering her mother. On July 30, 2012,  Officers arrived at the home as 73-year-old Deborah Hatley was being dismembered. Hatley claimed she was wrapping her mother in plastic to take her to the hospital. Police found several large garbage bags in the home. 

     

    Name: Galareka Harrison

    DOB:  3/26/1989

    Date of Murder: 9/5/2007

    Victim: Roommate

    Murder weapon: Knife

    Harrison was selected to be part of a program at the University of Arizona for Native American students. Soon after being paired with Mia Henderson she was accused by Henderson of stealing her Social Security card and campus debit card. Harrison admitted to taking the items and cashing a $500 check from Henderson bank account. On September 5, Harrison stabbed Henderson several times in her sleep. She then penned a suicide note in Henderson's name. 

    Name: Shawna Forde

    DOB:  12/6/1967

    Date of Murder: 5/30/2009

    Victims: Father-Daughter

    Murder weapon: Gun

    Forde and two others dressed as law enforcement officers and forced their way into a home in Arivaca, Arizona about 10 miles north of the Mexican border. They shot a woman and fatally shot her husband and their 9-year-old daughter. Forde was the leader of the Minutemen American Defense border watch group. Their plan was to steal money and drugs from the home to fund their group. She was sentenced to death in 2011.

    Name: Eva Dugan

    DOB:  1878

    Date of Murder: 1/1927

    Victim: Former employer 

    Murder weapon: Ax

    Dugan worked as a housekeeper for Andrew Mathis, a chicken rancher in Pima County. After being fired, Mathis was missing and his money and car were stolen. Dugan was found and convicted for vehicle theft. Mathis body was later found and it was determined that Dugan had killed him with an ax. Known as  'Cheerful Eva' she paid for her own coffin by giving interviews and selling embroidered handkerchiefs.  

    Her hanging in 1930 resulted in her decapitation and led Arizona to switch to lethal gas. 

     

    Name: Marissa Suzanne Devault

    DOB:  11/6/1977

    Date of Murder: 1/14/2009

    Victim: Husband

    Murder weapon: Hammer

    On January 14, 2009, Devault beat her husband Dale Harrell with a hammer while he slept. He died several weeks later. Devault initially claimed another man struck Harrell with the hammer to protect her as she was being attacked by Harrell. She later confessed to hitting him with the hammer multiple times before the other man took the hammer from her. Her claims of abuse were not substantiated. She was sentenced to life in prison. 

    Name: Doris Ann Carlson

    DOB:  2/4/1962

    Date of Murder: 10/25/1996

    Victim: Her elderly mother in law

    Murder weapon: Knife

    In October 1996 Carlson and her two roommates drove to a nursing home where her mother-in-law, Lynne Carlson lived. One roommate stabbed the wheel-chair bound victim multiple times, severely injuring her. Lynne suffered for six months before succumbing to her injuries. Carlson and her husband were in financial trouble and plotted to kill his mother for the insurance money and inheritance.  

    Name: Wendi Elizabeth Andriano

    DOB: 8/6/1970

    Date of Murder: 10/8/2000

    Victim: Her terminally ill husband

    Murder weapon: Knife and barstool

    When Joseph Andriano got cancer, his wife Wendi began plotting on how to profit from his death. She had counterparts pose as her husband so she could get a life insurance policy. She also began to slip sodium azide into his drinks. In October, she stabbed him in the neck and beat him with a barstool, claiming it was self-defense. Authorities showed that Joseph was too weak from the poisoning and chemotherapy to attack her.  She remains on death row.

    Name: Jodi Ann Arias

    DOB: 7/9/1980

    Date of Murder: 6/4/2008

    Victim: Ex-boyfriend

    Murder weapon: Knife, gun

    Arias was convicted in May 2013 of killing her ex-boyfriend Travis Alexander. He was found in his shower with multiple stab wounds, his throat slit and he had been shot. The trial and Arias 18-day testimony gained worldwide media attention and was followed live via the internet. The trial was later made into a TV movie called: Jodi Arias: Dirty little secret. 

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