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Hilda Nilsson (1876 – 10 August 1917)
was a Swedish serial killer from Helsingborg who became known as
"the angel maker on Bruks Street".
In 1917 she was imprisoned for murdering eight
children. Her trial, which included a mental examination, began on
2 June 1917. At the conclusion of the trial on 15 June 1917, she
was sentenced to death. She escaped this punishment by committing
suicide while in jail in Landskrona. She hanged herself with a
linen cloth, which she had tied to a cell door.
She is considered to be Sweden's worst female
serial killer.
Background
Hilda Nilsson and her husband Gustaf lived in
Helsingborg, Sweden. The couple had accrued large debts and needed
a way to pay their bills.
As a way to raise cash, Nilsson cared for
infants in return for money from mothers who were not married and
needed help. At that time, having a child outside of marriage was
a shameful moral crime, and caring for these children for a fee
(known as baby farming) was a common practice.
Nilsson kept her home in a good, clean
condition, which made mothers more willing to leave their unwanted
children in her care. However, the small sums of money she
received was far from what she needed to support all the children
she had agreed to take care of.
Murders
Nilsson murdered the children she took care of
shortly after their mothers left them in her care. This was
possible because the authorities rarely knew of these babies'
existence. Furthermore, the mothers almost never wanted to come
back to learn how their children were doing.
One method Nilsson used for murdering the
children was to put them into a washtub and then place heavy
objects—such as a washboard and coal scuttle—on top of them. She
then left the room and returned hours later when the children were
dead. The next step in her procedure was to burn their bodies. On
occasions when she did not burn them, she dug graves and buried
them.
Nilsson was different from other baby-farmer
child killers of that time, in that she actively killed the
children. Most others simply left the children with insufficient
food and in unhealthy living conditions, which led to their death.
Discovery, trial, and sentence
Nilsson's crimes were discovered when a woman
named Blenda Henricsson wanted to contact her child. When Nilsson
refused contact, Henricsson asked the police to investigate. The
police soon found ample incriminating evidence of the murders.
Nilsson was sentenced to death by guillotine.
Before the punishment could be carried out, she committed suicide
by hanging on 10 August 1917. The same day, and without Nilsson's
knowledge, the court had commuted her death sentence to life
imprisonment.
She was the last death penalty prisoner in
Swedish history not to be pardoned. She died before the pardon
could be officially carried out. |
