10 Historical Babysitters That Are Notorious

Babysitters come from all walks of life and play a valuable role in just about every culture in the world. They are by and large wonderful human beings. But human they are, so there are bound to be a few bad apples in the bunch. We don’t mean to single any out, so we’ll make a whole list of them instead. Here are 10 historical babysitters that are notorious.

1. Heidi Fleiss – Her notoriety came from her later occupation as the infamous Hollywood Madam, but Ms. Fleiss had a much earlier career as a babysitter. It was during that time when she realized she had a knack for business which ultimately changed the course of her life and career.
2. Daisy Wright – Sound familiar? She’s the nanny who came between actor Jude Law and his fiancee Sienna Miller after a torrid affair back in 2005. Then she went and spilled the details to a gossip rag to boot.
3. The Pit Bull – Historically, according to some sources, the pit bull had once been known as the Nanny Dog for its outstanding disposition with children and its reliability when entrusted with their protection. My, how things have changed for the breed, whose notoriety has more to do with bad owners than it has to do with them.
4. Louise Woodward – English au pair who stood trial for the involuntary manslaughter of eight-month old Matthew Eappen in 1997. The trial garnered a great deal of media coverage, and everything in it was scrutinized, from evidential findings to polygraph tests, to the interpretation of witness statements. Though she was found guilty of second-degree, and faced a minimum sentence of 15 years to life, her conviction was reduced to involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to time already served.
5. Kennedy Babysitter – Michael Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, was discovered to have been engaged in an affair with his family’s former babysitter, who was no more than 16 years old when it began. She did not cooperate with prosecutors seeking to charge Kennedy with statutory rape. Kennedy and his wife separated and later that year he was killed in a skiing accident.
6. Christine Falling – Babysitter serial killer who confessed to the murders of six children under her care, and was convicted for three of them. She claimed that she was responding to a voice inside her telling her to,”Kill the baby, kill the baby”.
7. Amelia Dyer – English-born 19^th century mass murderer of hundreds of infants, whom she took in to nurse, from destitute mothers. Ultimately, although evidence pointed to many, many more victims, Dyer was only convicted of one infant murder.
8. David Wayne Jones – Unsuspected by anyone who knew him, or thought they did, Jones had the trust of parents, friends and employers alike. None of them knew him to be the pedophile next door.
9. Myra Hindley and Ian Brady – Together this English couple committed between 1963 and 1965 what would come to be known as the Moors Murders. At least five children, between ages 10 and 17 were sexually assaulted and murdered. Hindley, who worked as a babysitter was regarded as “the most evil woman in Britain”.
10. Oakland County Child Killer  – A serial killer who has never been identified, was responsible for the sexual assault and murders of at least four children, age 10-12 in Oakland County, Michigan. Because all of the victims had recently been bathed, the killer was nicknamed, “The Babysitter”.

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