Hilda Nilsson (24 May 1876 – 10 August 1917) was a Swedish

serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

from

Helsingborg Helsingborg (, , , ) is a city and the seat of Helsingborg Municipality, Scania (Skåne), Sweden. It is the second-largest city in Scania (after Malmö) and ninth-largest in Sweden, with a population of 113,816 (2020). Helsingborg is the cent ...

who became known as "the angel maker on Bruks Street". She is one of Sweden's most notorious female serial killers. 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 execution punishment by committing suicide while in jail in

Landskrona Landskrona (old da, Landskrone) is a town in Scania, Sweden. Located on the shores of the Öresund, it occupies a natural port, which has lent the town at first military and subsequent commercial significance. Ferries operate from Landskrona t ...

. She hanged herself with a linen cloth, which she had tied to a cell door, and was thus the last person sentenced to death in Sweden not to have the sentence commuted.

Background

Hilda Nilsson and her husband Gustaf lived in

. 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 unmarried mothers who 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 Baby farming is the historical practice of accepting custody of an infant or child in exchange for payment in late- Victorian Britain and, less commonly, in Australia and the United States. If the infant was young, this usually included wet-nu ...

) 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 look after.

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 A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secured with stocks at th ...

for eight murders. Before the punishment could be carried out, she committed

suicide by hanging Suicide by hanging is the intentional killing of oneself (suicide) via suspension from an anchor-point such as an overhead beam or hook, by a rope or cord or by jumping from a height with a noose around the neck. Hanging is often considered t ...

on 10 August 1917. She was the last death penalty prisoner in Swedish history whose sentence was not commuted.

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