ADVERTISEMENT
She looks innocent in the old photograph — a small girl with wide eyes and a tentative smile, frozen in a moment before her life unraveled. No one could have guessed that she would later become one of the most notorious women in American criminal history, her name forever tied to a series of crimes that still spark debate decades later.
Born in 1956 in Rochester, Michigan, her life was unstable from the very beginning. Her father, imprisoned for violent sexual crimes, died by suicide while serving a life sentence. Soon after, her mother vanished, leaving her and her brother abandoned at a young age. They were taken in by their grandparents, but the home offered little safety. Years later, she would describe a childhood marked by fear, neglect, and abuse — a foundation that shaped everything that followed.
Loss followed loss. Her brother died in the mid-1970s. Her grandfather later took his own life. Each event pushed her further into isolation and instability. By her early twenties, she had already made multiple attempts to end her own life, a clear sign of how deeply fractured her world had become.
Continue reading on next page…
ADVERTISEMENT