Psychopathic female assassins have become all the rage since the television drama Killing Eve shot the character of Villanelle to anti-hero greatness. She was evidently based on a notorious Spanish hit-woman, Isola Lopez Riano, who killed 23 people for the Basque separatist group ETA in the 1980s. She was dubbed La Tigresa (The Tigress) because of her legendary sexual prowess, often seducing policemen before she killed them. The dramatist who translated her across to television described her as narcissistic and completely lacking in empathy.
She joined the group aged 18 and spent 10 years fighting with them, with her most infamous attack being the 1986 car bomb in a Madrid square which killed 12 Civil Guard and injured 50 people. Later that year she killed five more with another car bomb, gunned several policemen and four soldiers, and attempted to kill a high court judge. ETA finally pensioned her off and she was arrested in 1994 in southern France, served time for terrorism offences and was then extradited to Spain where she was sentenced to 2,000 years in prison, though was released in 2017. In prison she renounced violence, apologised to relatives of the victims and was declared persona non grata by ETA.
She was born 18 March 1964 in San Sebastian, Spain, and lo and behold La Tigresa is the personification of a Neptunian monster – a Sun Mars and Chiron in Pisces trine Neptune in Scorpio. She might have been a dancer or a yoga teacher. With admittedly Mars in a wide opposition to Pluto which would fit with a ruthless streak. Her Venus in tactile and indulgent Taurus was trine Pluto and Uranus as well as opposition Neptune so she would have a seductive way about her.
Her 18th Harmonic which is often strong with serial killers is very marked joining together the megalomaniac Neptune Pluto with the Sun – she found a cause that gave her permission to wield ultimate power.
The same warped ambition is found in her midpoints with her Pluto falling on her Neptune/North Node midpoint along with a brutal Mars square her Sun/Pluto and a methodical Sun conjunct Jupiter/Saturn.
Not a show I watched after the first half season but the inspiration is chilling enough.