True Crime Historian18 Apr 2025

Gypsy The Serial Killer Elephant

Rampage in Valdosta

Ad-Free Safe House Edition

Episode 126 concerned this podcast’s first non-human perpetrator, a great big crazy brilliant elephant first known as Empress when imported into the United States in 1871. She killed so many handlers that she was sentenced to death many times, but doing so was so difficult that she was just passed from show to show. Along the way someone changed her name to Gypsy, and she spent the last decade of her tragic life with the Harris Nickel Plate Circus. She claimed at least seven victims, but she was crazy for a reason, and if you’re an animal lover, I’ve got to warn you that you’re about to get a big dose of outrage and indignation.

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