A Mother Killed Her Baby To Escape A Horrible Predicament

In February 1775, a Danish woman killed her four month old baby. When Authorities found her, she told them she would happily die for her crime. But why?

Because at the time, a murder was more forgivable than suicide

A woman slit the throat of her own baby. The crimes were part of a wave of suicide-murders in the 17th and 18th centuries - a wave that swept through much of Europe but was especially common in Denmark. Insane though it may sound, people used to commit murder just so they could get executed. They even researched what crimes incurred the death penalty to guarantee they would die.

During that time in history, suicide was not only a crime - it also meant your soul would be condemned to Hell for eternity. Unlike people who committed public suicide, suicide-murderers were terrified of killing themselves - and so they committed capital crimes punishable by death. Unlike the suspicious suicides in history, these murderers were upfront about their crime and their motivation. One man even sang on his way to the gallows because he was so happy that he was about to die.

Shockingly, suicide-murders were common at the time for religious reasons, as murderers justified their actions by pointing to Martin Luther himself. And the crime wasn't uncommon - hundreds of people killed others just so they would be executed. How did people justify killing to guarantee their own deaths? And how did Denmark stop the crime wave caused by murderers who wanted to state to execute them? This bizarre and shocking trend was serious enough that it took well over a century to fix.

On February 25, 1755, Cicilia Johansdatter slit the throat of her four-month-old baby. She didn't try to hide her crime. Instead, she sat with her hands on the dead baby's head, declaring that she would happily die for her crime. After being convicted of murder, Cicilia was decapitated with a sword and her head was stuck on top of a pole.

Why did Cicilia kill her child? She was a 22-year-old housemaid, an unwed mother at a time when there was a strong stigma against having a child out of wedlock. Her fiance had stopped visiting; the engagement was off. But Cicilia was still trapped with a young baby. She was suicidal, but if she committed the act herself, she would be condemned to Hell.

So Cicilia killed her child and happily walked to her execution.

As shocking as this sounds, she wasn't the only person committing suicide-murder. 

Source: Amazing Human 

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