Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Female serial killers in the early modern age? Recurrent infanticide in Finland 1750–1896

2013; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 18; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1081602x.2013.775068

1873-5398

Mona Rautelin,

Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes

Abstract This article examines multiple infanticide in early modern Finland in which the same woman killed several newborns after repeated hidden pregnancies and childbirths. A well-documented case in Lohja, Nummi and Pusula Court of Assizes in 1874 is compared with nine other recurrent infanticides in Finland in the period 1750–1896. The context of the series of crimes and the reasons why it took so long to apprehend the murderers differed from the majority of reported infanticides, which were quite unplanned and the perpetrators of which were apprehended within days of the act. These offenders were serial killers who experienced a need to kill even if they were not literally serial killers according to modern conceptions of male-oriented serial killing. They did not deliberately get themselves pregnant with men in order to obtain psychological gratification from killing newborn babies. Rather, they resorted to killing several of their illegitimate babies as a solution of birth control because their first such crime went unreported or unprosecuted, probably as a result of the complicity of others. Such a perpetrator in the early modern age is labeled a 'love-child murderess' or a 'burker of newborns', depending on her relationship with the father or fathers of the victims. Serial killings of newborn babies as a solution of birth control continue to exist in modern times as serial neonaticide. It is suggested that a perpetrator of this category of crime in all ages be labeled a 'birth controller'. Keywords: recurrent infanticideinfanticideserial killercomplicityabetmentconnivanceunreported crime Notes 1. 'Love child' is a common euphemism for an infant born out of wedlock. 'To burke' means to kill in a way that leaves few or no marks of violence. The infants in question were all illegitimate. They were usually smothered or died of abandonment. A third probable category of female serial killers of the early modern age was the murdering 'baby-farmer', which is not studied here. This category was called the 'angel-maker' in contemporary Finnish and Swedish newspapers.