Who among us isn’t entranced by Piper Chapman, the lead character on television’s must-see summer hit Orange is the New Black? Of course, Piper’s story calls to mind some of the most notorious, fascinating and terrifying female criminals who have haunted our courts, from Celeste Beard—who hired her lesbian friend to shoot her husband in the stomach—to Shoko Tendo, a reformed Japanese mobster, to the creator of OISNB itself, Piper Kerman. Here, we round up nine real-life inspirations for Litchfield’s favorite blonde.
San Diego Union-Tribune, via AP; John Pedin/NY Daily News, via AP; Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters, via Landov; Owen Brewer/Sacramento Bee/MCT, via Getty
According to reports, Beard-Johnson’s lesbian lover, Tracey Tarlton, shot Celeste’s much-older husband Steven Beard, a self-made multi-millionaire, in the stomach on the night of October 2, 1999. The assault didn’t immediately kill him, but he died several months later as a result of an infection caused by the open wound. The pair of women had apparently met in a mental health facility, after Beard-Johnson reportedly threatened Beard after he refused to allow her access money for her shopping sprees. When police delved further into the story, they discovered that Beard-Johnson had spun a story of lies to lure Tarlton into her crooked scheme. Beard-Johnson is currently serving a life sentence for her role in the murder.
How she's like Piper: Piper Chapman was also an accomplice for the crimes of her former girlfriend, drug-runner Alex Vause.
(AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)
Pat Sullivan/AP
Schoolteacher Carolyn Warmus was always an obsessive girlfriend. Past boyfriends remember her as the stalker type, who would use private investigators to track them down. She would often send them notes months after a break-up, sometimes claiming that she was pregnant with the ex’s child. Sometimes, Warmus would call up her ex’s families,begging them to persuade the man to take her back. This behavior turned deadly on the night of January 15 1989, when she shot her then-lover’s wife nine times in the back and legs and pistol-whipped her about her face. Warmus was sentenced to a 25-years-to-life sentence.
How she’s like Piper: Piper probably killed “Pensatucky” in a fit of rage.
(AP Photo/John Pedin/NY Daily News)
John Pedin/NY Daily News, via AP
This is your classic case of killing for life insurance money. In the 1980s, Puente owned a boarding house for the elderly and disabled in Sacramento, California. Unbeknownst to them, she would routinely steal their Social Security checks, and when they complained, she would drug them to death. Puente was sentenced to life in jail, where she died in 2011.
(Owen Brewer/Sacramento Bee/MCT)
Owen Brewer/Sacramento Bee/MCT, via Getty
Gorgeous, blonde Joyce Lemay Cohen enjoyed the finer things in life. She had houses in Coconut Grove, Florida and Steamboat Springs, Colorado that she shared with her husband, Stan. However, she quickly became unhappy in her marriage; allegedly, she was a cocaine addict and he was fooling around with other women. Ultimately, she wanted a divorce, but she didn’t think that she would be left with any money. Wanting all the wealth for herself, she decided that the only way that she could do that was to kill her husband. He was found naked in their Florida home, shot in the head. A court convicted Cohen to life in prison.
Florida Department of Corrections
Shawna Forde was your classic American Texas Blonde. That is, until she was the founder of a vigilante border group, funded by stolen cash and drugs, which targeted illegal immigrants. Under Forde’s guidance, the group murdered a young girl and her father—both of whom were American citizens of Latin-American descent. For her role in the deaths, Forde was sentenced to death.
(AP Photo/Pima County Sheriff's Department)
Pima County Sheriff's Department/AP
As the writer of the book Orange is the New Black, on which the television show is based, Kerman’s own life inspired the character Piper Chapman. Though she states that there are many discrepancies between the film and her own experience—such as the fact that she was not in prison with her own “Alex” and only saw her in court—some aspects of the show were indeed very real. For example, Kerman says she was indeed groped by the guards and that the food and showers in prison were disgusting.
How she’s like Piper: Real-life counterpart to her literary doppelganger.
(Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Netflix)
Jesse Grant/Getty for Netflix
Yet another housewife driven crazy by her husband’s wandering eye. California socialite Broderick ended up killing her ex-husband and his new wife in 1989. Dubbed “Angry Betty” by the press, she was denied parole in 2010 when a parole board decided she harbored little remorse for the killings and still blamed her ex for provoking her actions. At the hearing, her own children asked that she be kept in jail.
How she's like Piper: Piper probably killed “Pensatucky” in a fit of rage.
(AP Photo/San Diego Union-Tribune)
San Diego Union-Tribune, via AP
Born into a family connected to yakuza, or the Japanese mob, Tendo says she spent her adolescence in a haze of drugs and sex until turning her life around and writing a memoir in her thirties about being a gang leader’s daughter. While she served no jail time herself, her story of her life in the underworld shocked Japan when it was published.
How she’s like Piper: Tendo desired to lead a mainstream life, but feared her family connections and her past would prevent her from a healthy future.
(REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon /Landov)
Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters, via Landov
Beth Ann Carpenter was a go-getter—confident and smart, a real-estate attorney in Connecticut. Her younger sister Kim was a screw-up who married a male stripper. After her brother-in-law, Anson “Buzz” Clinton, thwarted Beth over a family custody dispute, Beth allegedly seduced her boss and lover into gunning Buzz down and going on the lam with her. A court handed down a life sentence to Carpenter, who still maintains she was framed in the murder.
How She’s Like Piper: The Connecticut connection.
(AP Photo/John Cogill)
John Cogill/AP
