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IN PLAIN SIGHT
Shady world of female assassins – from Hollywood movie copycat in chilling disguise to small-town killer STILL on run
Watch criminologist David Wilson in the video player above
CONTRACT killings are becoming more frequent in Britain - but female assassins are a very rare breed.
This week American Aimee Betro, 44, shocked the nation when she was unmasked as the hitwoman hired to carry out a contract killing of a family in a revenge execution in Birmingham.
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Betro, who is from Milwaukee in Wisconsin, is currently on the run after her gun jammed in the botched attempted murders.
West Midlands Police said efforts to find Betro "continue".
Despite Betro's story, crime expert David Wilson told The Sun during his research he only uncovered one hitwoman - Te Rangimaria Ngarimu.
The 28-year-old Maori gunned down Graeme Woodhatch, 38, in north London in May 1992.
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David said: "She was a Kiwi who was working in a bar in London.
"She accepted some money from two men that she met in the bar to kill a former business partner of theirs.
"She was very successful. She dressed as a man and killed the guy.
"Then she went back to New Zealand. We'd never have known about her work.
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"But she had a religious epiphany and she felt that she should admit to what she had done.
"So she came back to Britain to fess up and was sent to prison.
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"She's now been released from prison and gone back to New Zealand where she works as a personal fitness trainer."
The professor of criminology at Birmingham City University classified hitmen into four categories - novices, journeymen, dilettantes or masters.
Criminologist David claims Betro would correspond with the "dilettante".
He explained: "This is somebody who says I'll do anything to make £5,000.
"I'll do anything to get this particular thing that I want. Somebody says they overhear them and says, well, I'll give you the money.
"If you take out my former business partner or if you kill my lover."
However David said 10 years on from his major academic study titled The British Hitman a fifth category has emerged - "fantasy" hitman.
He continued: "Betro would fit with both dilettante but also this new category of fantasist.
PURE EVIL
HERE, the Sun Online looks at some of the female assassins who make Killing Eve's protagonist Villanelle seem tame.
The 'Granny Ripper' who boiled heads in a saucepan
Name: Tamara Samsonova
Born: Russia, 1947
Kill count: up to 11
Status: Alive, Imprisoned
Twisted Tamara Samsonova, 68, appeared to be like any other OAP to her neighbours - until she was caught dumping a pan of human remains into a rubbish skip.
Thought to have killed up to 11 victims over a period of 20 years, the murderess drugged and killed her elderly friend.
She then cut off her head, boiled it in a saucepan and then tried to dispose of it.
Like many other female killers, Samsonova's preferred method was poisoning and she slipped sleeping pills into her friend's food before taking a knife to her throat.
And if that wasn't cold-hearted enough, the killer is thought to have eaten parts of her suspected victims, who include another lodger she admitted to cutting up and dumping around Russia in plastic bags.
She even admitted to a friend that she had killed her mother-in-law, and many think the ferocious female disposed of her own husband after he went 'missing', having told police he had left her for another woman.
The warped killer is now in custody while Russian forces try to determine how many she murdered - last appearing in court in 2016, where she blew a frightening kiss to men passing by.
The 'Tigress' who seduced the men she bombed
Name: Idoia López Riaño
Born: Spain, 1964
Kill count: 23
Status: Alive, Released
Nicknamed 'La Tigresa', or the Tigress, because of her sexual prowess, Idoia Lopez Riano was a leading commando in deadly political group ETA.
Her violent campaign, demanding independence for the Basque region of Spain, led to her planting a bomb in the Spanish capital of Madrid which killed 12 police officers in 1986.
Later that year, the then 22-year-old killed five more in another bombing, earning the female terrorist a spot on Spain's most wanted list in 1994.
But she was most notorious for seducing policemen in the days before carrying out her attacks, often having sex with officers and then killing their colleagues over the following nights.
The 55-year-old had originally been sentenced to 2,000 years in prison but she went on to renounce violence, quit ETA and apologise for her crimes, reducing her sentence.
It was enough for the Tigress to be freed early.
She was released in 2017, much to the outrage of her victims' families, and is now studying to become a journalist.
The female killer who shot seven men at point-blank range
Name: Aileen Wuornos
Born: Michigan, USA, 1956
Kill count: 7
Status: Executed
Aileen Wuornos shot and killed seven men at point-blank range over a period of a year while working as a prostitute and hitch-hiking across Florida.
The American serial killer would ask for a ride in her victim's car before turning on them inside the vehicle and shooting them at close range - some as many as six times.
Her seven victims were all dumped in the woods, and while some were recovered, others were never found - with Aileen not giving up the secrets of where their bodies lay.
She was only caught when she was pulled over by police over an accident in a stolen car, with her fingerprints confirming she was the killer by matching those from her victim's cars.
She originally contested the murders and sickeningly told the court that all the men had tried to sexually take advantage of her and that she had acted in self defence - but she wasn't believed.
Aileen was first sentenced to death in 1992 and was given a total of six death sentences by 1993. She was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2009.
"It's almost like she had developed a belief that she could be a hitperson.
"She had read books about it or she had seen TV programs about it or because she had watched movies about it.
"I really got this element of fantasy about her. She uses her credit cards. She uses her passport.
"She books into a hotel in her name. She pays for her meals in a way that can identify her.
"She also give us a sense of the geography of her trip so we can place her where the hits going to take place.
"This is somebody who's not following even the most obvious rules about what one should do in a hit."
Today it was revealed that Betro has been communicating with friends from her hometown while on the run in Asia, according to .
One male friend shared an article about the murder-for-hire plot with Betro on Facebook yesterday and wrote: "Lot what are you up to?";
She is said to have replied: "Dude I saw, like wtf I don't even know where to start with all the misinformation that's said about me.
"It's a f**king sh*t show."
The friend, who hasn't seen Betro for about a year, messaged back: "I'm glad you are OK! Do you need anything or can I help you somehow?"
She responded: "Idk dude. I don't think there's anything you can help with but I really appreciate you reaching out."
Commenting on the social media correspondence, Betro said: "This is a woman who is at the centre of a court case in Britain and she's still replying to people on Facebook.
"There's this sense of narcissism. This sense of the need for a belief that somehow she's a super predator, super intelligent.
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"But in fact really she is just one of those people who has watched too many movies and believe that they're good.
"They can be good at what they would like to be good at and they're not."
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