Nannie Doss
| Nannie Doss | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Nancy Hazel November 4, 1905 Blue Mountain, Alabama, United States |
| Died | June 2, 1965 (aged 59) Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, Oklahoma, United States |
| Cause of death | Leukemia |
| Other names |
|
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment |
| Motive |
Life insurance money Search for "the real romance of life" |
| Killings | |
| Victims | 11 |
|
Span of killings
|
1927–1954 |
| Country | United States |
| State(s) | |
|
Date apprehended
|
October 1954 |
Nannie Doss (born Nancy Hazel, November 4, 1905 – June 2, 1965) was an American serial killer responsible for the deaths of 11 people between the 1920s and 1954. Nannie Doss was referred to as the Giggling nannie, Lonely Hearts Killer, The Black Widow, Lady Blue Beard and was called "self-made widow" by a newspaper.
She finally confessed to the murders in October 1954, after her fifth husband had died in a small hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In all, it was revealed that she had killed four husbands, two children, her two sisters, her mother, a grandson, and a mother-in-law.
Doss was born on November 4, 1905 in Blue Mountain, Alabama, now part of Anniston, as Nancy Hazel to Louisa "Lou" (née Holder) and James F. Hazel. Doss was one of five children; she had one brother and three sisters. Both Doss and her mother hated James, who was a controlling father and husband with a nasty streak. She had an unhappy childhood. She was a poor student who never learned to read well; her education was erratic because her father forced his children to work on the family farm instead of attending school. When she was around 7 years old, the family was taking a train to visit relatives in southern Alabama; when the train stopped suddenly, Doss hit her head on the metal bar on the seat in front of her. For years after, she suffered severe headaches, blackouts and depression; she blamed these and her mental instability on that accident. During childhood, her favorite hobby was reading her mother's romance magazines and dreaming of her own romantic future. Later, her favorite part was the lonely hearts column. The Hazel sisters' teenage years were restricted by their father; he forbade them to wear makeup and attractive clothing. He was trying to prevent them from being molested by men, but that happened on several occasions. He also forbade them to go to dances and other social events.
Doss was first married at age 16, to Charley Braggs. They had met at the Linen Thread factory where they both worked, and with her father's approval they married after 4 months of dating. He was the only son of a never-married mother who insisted on continuing to live with her son after he married. Doss later wrote:
I married, as my father wished, in 1921 to a boy I only knowed about four or five months who had no family, only a mother who was unwed and who had taken over my life completely when we were married. She never seen anything wrong with what he done, but she would take spells. She would not let my own mother stay all night...
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