Irene Leidolf

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Maria Gruber, Irene Leidolf, Stephanija Meyer, and Waltraud Wagner made up one of the most unusual crime teams in 20th Century Europe. The four Austrian women were nurses working at Lainz General Hospital in Vienna, and they shared an unusual hobby -- murdering patients.

Wagner, 23, was the first to take the plunge and "end a patient's suffering" with an overdose of morphine. She recruited Gruber, 19, and Leidolf, 21, and eventually the "house mother" of the group, 43-year-old Stephanija Mayer.

However, lethal injection didn't provide enough excitement, and soon the self-styled "death pavilion" had invented their own murder method: while one held the victim's head and pinched their nose, another would pour water into the victim's mouth until they drowned in their bed. Since elderly patients frequently had fluid in their lungs, it was an unprovable crime.

They were caught through their own arrogance, having been overheard laughingly recounting one of their escapades over drinks in a public tavern. The four confessed to 49 murders, but may have been responsible for as many as 200.