Dagmar Overby - Case story

Dagmar Overby  - 1887-1929

  

Dagmar Overby acted as the good woman who helped young girls who had given birth to an illegitimate child. She posted an article in the newspaper to inform the young girls about what she did with the childrens after they were handed over to her. At least, what she wanted the young mothers to believe she did with them.

She promised a new and good home with loving parents and a promising life. But what she actually did with them in many of the cases was to strangle only few hours old babies and burn them in her own stove. Of course some of the children she was handed got a new home, but many of the children were never that lucky. She killed at least 25 children over a few years and the exact numbers are unknown. A young woman handed her infant to Dagmar and then, just a few hours later, she regretted it and returned to her place, where she discovered what Dagmar was doing. When she came back to Dagmar’s house, she wanted her baby back, but Dagmar had already strangled the child and she now tried to tell the young girl that she already had handed the baby on to a new family, but the girl didn’t believed her. So she forced her way into the house and met the horrible sight of her child strangled on the kitchen table ready to get in the stove.

In the court Dagmar Overby was sentenced to death, but the last case of a person being executed was in 1869. Therefore her punishment got changed to prison for life.

I definitely think her punish were hard enough but I cannot agree with myself if I think she should have been executed.