Lady Bluebeard

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Lyda Southard (aka Lyda Trueblood, Lady Bluebeard) was America's second known female serial killer, a woman who called Twin Falls, Idaho her home and there committed her heinous deeds. 



Lyda was born in the flatlands of central Missouri in 1892, where she grew and met one Robert Dooley, a local boy, and easily took his heart.  When she moved to Twin Falls, Idaho he followed after her, and the pair was married in 1912, Robert blissfully unaware of the fate that awaited him.  They settled on a ranch with her brother in law, Edward Dooley, and eventually Lyda gave birth to a daughter they called Lorraine. 

In 1915, Lyda began collecting insurance policies.  In August her brother in law sickened and died, supposedly from ptomaine poisoning, and she shared the insurance payout with the brother's widow and her husband.  Only two months later her own husband came down with Typhoid fever and passed.  Lyda collected a total of $2,000 from both deaths.  Her child followed suit not six weeks later, leaving Lyda alone.

Despite the apparent tragedy of her life Lyda found love again and remarried in 1917 to William McHaffie, a waiter from her favorite restaurant.  They moved from Idaho to Hardin, Montana, where he took out a $5,000 life insurance policy on himself and tragically died of influenza not a year later.  Unfortunately the policy had lapsed from non payment, and Lyda got nothing for her troubles.

Moving once more to allay suspicion, Lyda married Harlan Lewis n Denver, Colorado n 1919, and this husband survived for two months before succumbing to 'ptomaine poisoning'.  She learned from her mistakes and this time the $5,000 policy paid out.  Only a month later she was back n Idaho, marrying a man in Pocatello named Edwad Meyer. 


Lyda tried to take an insurance policy out on her new husband, but was denied, as people had begun to cotton on to her activities.  Only two weeks later Edward was sick, and taken to hospital.  He died there on September 7th, and this husband was autopsied, finding arsenic.  Lyda fled to California while Idaho authorities built their case, where she married again.  This husband was a navy seaman, and refused to take out any additional life insurance policies.  When he was transferred to Pearl Harbor Lyda had to go along, and was collected by Honolulu MPs when the warrants came through in 1921.  Lyda died in prison in 1958.

Her grave can be visited at the Twin Falls Cemetery, where she lies with three of her victims and her parents.

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