Could the worst serial killer in British history really have been an unassuming nurse called Amelia Dyer? The evidence certainly suggests it, with the diabolical Dyer even declaring herself to be an "angel-maker". In other words, a murderer of innocents. Her victims were infants born to penniless Victorian mothers who - due to social stigma or simple poverty - were forced to give their offspring to "baby farmers" who would take in the children for a fee.
The grim truth was that many baby farmers maximised their profits by simply letting the children die, either from neglect or by repeatedly sedating them with opium syrup. Amelia Dyer was more ruthlessly efficient than that - she casually strangled babies after taking them off their mothers' hands, and dumping the little bodies in the Thames. She's estimated to have killed literally hundreds of infants before she finally hanged for her horrific crimes.
