Sarah Lockwood Winchester (née Pardee; 1839 – September 5, 1922) was an American heiress who amassed great wealth after the death of her husband, William Wirt Winchester, and her mother in law, Jane Ellen Hope. Her inheritance included $20 million ($536.3 million in 2020) as well as a 50% holding in the Winchester Repeating Arms Company, which made her one of the wealthiest women in the world at the time.

Sarah Winchester is best known for using her vast fortune to continue construction on the Winchester mansion in San Jose, California, for 38 years. Popular legends, which began during her lifetime, held that she was convinced she was cursed by the spirits of those killed by the Winchester rifle, and the only way to protect herself was to continually add on to her California home. Since her death, the sprawling Winchester Mystery House has become a popular tourist attraction, known for its staircases that lead to nowhere, along with its many winding corridors and doors that lead