Criminologist Kathryn Whiteley goes face-to-face with killers on death row
Sitting in a cold grey interview room on death row, across from some of the United States’ most prolific women serial killers, former Queensland criminologist Dr Kathryn Whiteley wants to know what leads them to crime.
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As the metal prison doors swing shut behind her, Kathryn Whiteley PhD finds herself staring into the eyes of one of America’s most prolific female killers.
Despite being in an interview room on death row at State Correctional Institution – Muncy, one of the United State’s most notorious prisons, she feels calm. And enthusiastic.
For Dr Whiteley the crimes – no matter how heinous – are not what’s important. It is recognising and understanding the woman who has committed them.
“They have killed, but I refer to them as women who have been incarcerated for a violent crime such as murder,” Dr Whiteley said.
“When I sit across from someone I am not thinking ‘killer, killer’. I’m not thinking about the crime or giving them the label of a vicious, bad, monstrous woman. I speak to them as a human being.
“Even though much of society would argue they shouldn’t be given the title of human being, I want to understand her motive, who she was before she committed the crime and did that have something to do with why she committed the crime?
“I want the human piece, I want to understand that as opposed to using the term ‘killer’.”
Two decades on, unanswered questions still drive Dr Whiteley. What continues to lead her here, to meet with women who are incarcerated for murder?
A long way from her upbringing in Dalby, Pennsylvania college professor Dr Whiteley has spent the past two decades interviewing violent female offenders in prisons across Australia, America and Ireland, many of whom are serving life or facing death row.
Dr Whiteley and producer AJ Nutter run the popular podcast Self-identities: Conversations with Convicted Women and returned to Australia in late 2024, touring her research across podcasts in Sydney and Melbourne.
From interviewing a mass shooter to a serial killer Dr Whiteley has sat opposite some of the world’s most high-profile incarcerated female offenders across three continents.
Dr Whiteley said her first taste of interviewing women behind bars came while she was conducting research in Australia during her PhD
“The first woman I met was in Brisbane while doing some work for Sisters Inside. They asked me to go and pick her up after she was released, take her to get some food then take her home and she was the first women I met who had spent time in prison,” she said.
“The first women I officially interviewed was Caroline Reid Robertson and she killed a 15 year-old ballerina that she used to babysit.
Dr Whiteley said her perspective on incarcerated women changed after an interview with a woman early into her career.
“Undertaking my doctoral research at that time, I wanted to focus more on women’s crime, hence their motive,” she said.
“Looking back then and now decades later, it is still what most of society wants to learn of and hear about, no matter what country, however, it was my interview with another woman incarcerated at the Dame Phyllis Frost Centre that changed everything,” she said.
“Her name was Nese Arkan, she was 37 and she had been incarcerated for approximately five years. Following our introduction, I went into ‘criminologist mode’ in pursuit of better understanding her motive for her violent crime.
“I vividly recall Nese kindly interrupting and saying to me that if I wanted to understand why women kill, you needed to learn first about their three lives, which included her. She stated, ‘I am more than a crime. I lived a good life, my first 28 years. I made a terrible mistake for which I am paying for’.
Born and raised in a working class Dalby family as the youngest of six, Dr Whiteley said the flat plains of the Western Downs region were a far cry from the cold winters of Pennsylvania.
Dr Whiteley went to St Columba’s Convent before graduating from Dalby State High School in year 10. After leaving school she got her start as a table hand at the Dalby Herald at 16.
Continuing her education she was awarded her Ph.D from the Queensland University of Technology before going on to become a feminist criminologist before going on to become a professor at Penn State.
‘I always wanted to work with females who were less fortunate, to some capacity, possibly facing extreme personal challenges that many of us don’t: those not having a voice. That’s when I considered women who were incarcerated, specifically for violent crimes,” she said.
Through her decades of research, Dr Whiteley has interviewed more than 100 incarcerated women and said it was foolhardy to view all female murderers in the same light.
“A large percentage, 75 per cent, may be in there because of a domestic violence situation or self defence, however there are a smaller cohort that aren’t, so you have to look at have they suffered trauma prior to the crime, a large percentage have, but another percentage didn’t,” she said.
“The prevailing thought that women most often kill within the throes of domestic violence or self-protection is incorrect. There are several women I have worked with who made a conscious choice to kill, they killed for some of the same rationales as men, such as jealousy, financial gain, or to simply remove someone from the landscape of their life.
“Compared to men who have killed, women who kill have more extensive histories of childhood trauma. The majority have histories of harsh emotional, physical and sexual abuse and neglect.”
Remaining impartial would be hard for many sitting across from women who have done monstruous things, but for Dr Whiteley it was important to have a conversation that allowed them to speak authentically about what led to their offending.
“I try to avoid reading the media depictions. It’s not until after we meet, or if she raises it first in our conversations, that I will later read some of the media coverage. My goal has always been to learn about the larger life of the woman as opposed to what she did and why did she do it,” she said.
“People ask how I can sit there, but the point is they have already been punished. My job is to hear them talk about different issues, find out what happened prior to committing that crime and what’s happening to them while in prison.
“I’ve learnt to be empathetic rather than sympathetic.”
Dr Whiteley’s latest series of Self-identities: Conversations with Convicted Women podcast episodes have recently dropped where she conversations with women incarcerated for murder in a state maximum-security prison, SCI-Muncy in Pennsylvania.
Dr Whiteley is also working on several books including one researching women who have sexually offended and with director Nathan Skulstad has produced an educational documentary, “Until We Have Faces: Women Serving Life.”
To view Dr Whiteley’s work visit her website here.
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