Past Event

The Little Old Lady Killer:
The Sensationalized Crimes of Mexico’s First Female Serial Killer

The Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice is pleased to host an on-line talk by Dr. Susana Vargas Cervantes.

Registration is required.
Zoom Webinar
Thursday, March 10th, 2022
5:30pm ET

REGISTER HERE

Based on her book, The Little Old Lady Killer: The Sensationalized Crimes of Mexico’s First Female Serial Killer (NYU 2019), this talk examines Mexico City police’s struggle to find the person responsible for the deaths of forty elderly women, many of whom had been strangled in their homes with a stethoscope by someone posing as a government nurse. When Juana Barraza Samperio, a female professional wrestler known as la Dama del Silencio (the Lady of Silence), was arrested as the Mataviejitas (the little old lady killer), her case disrupted traditional narratives about gender, criminality, and victimhood in the popular and criminological imagination.

Marshalling ten years of research, and one of the only interviews that Juana Barraza Samperio has given while in prison, Dr. Vargas Cervantes deconstructs the complex, gendered aspects of the case, asking: Who is a killer? What does it mean to be Mexican? Who “counts” as a victim? And, what does serial killing represent to us?

This event is open to Carleton students, faculty, and staff.

Zoom webinar details will be provided closer to the date.
For more information please contact Lara Karaian at lara.karaian@carleton.ca