10 Serial Killers Who Got Away With It

3. Marie Delphine LaLaurie

Murders: 12 confirmed

Dates Active: 1831-1834

New Orleans is famous for lots of reasons. Traditional jazz music, bustling street life, and of course voodoo magic and mishaps to name a few. But an incredibly dark past lies deep within the heart of the French Quarter at 1140, Royal Street.

Marie Delphine LaLaurie was a socialite in New Orleans, attending many fashionable social gatherings and was extremely well respected. She was married three times, twice widowed, and had five children who lived with her in her mansion on Royal Street. However, these were not the only people residing here, as LaLaurie had many slaves for many differing reasons - cooking, cleaning, brutally torturing, and killing.

When a fire broke out at the household in 1834, villagers rushed to their aid, offering to help pour water on the fire and evacuate the family safely. However, upon arrival at the house, they found LaLaurie alone.

A few villagers found this very odd, as a mansion without slaves at that time was unheard of, so they took it upon themselves to search the mansion for anyone who may have been left behind. What they found forever changed the perception of LaLaurie and she has since been deemed one of the most brutal women in history.

Reportedly, when the villagers ransacked the mansion, they found a number of slaves in the attic who had clearly been subject to torture. There were at least seven slaves scattered around who had been beaten to an inch of their lives, had their eyes gouged out, their skin flayed, and that wasn’t the most horrifying part either. According to an eye witness, there was also a woman whose bones had been broken and reset so that she resembled a crab, and that another lady was wrapped in human intestines. The witness also claimed that there were people with holes in their skulls, and wooden spoons near them that would be used to ‘stir their brains.’

After the discovery, over 4,000 villagers ransacked the mansion, and LaLaurie reportedly fled to France with her family, never to be seen in New Orleans again...