Margaret Jaeyer & S. K. Rentner, German Serial Killers of Eight - 1835

FULL TEXT: The Swabian Mercury of 29th March, contains the following article, dated Mentz, 24th March:— A frightful crime is now brought before the Court of Assizes. Margaret Jaeyer [Jaeger], a widow, and servant to S. K. [Katharina] Rentner, also a widow, both about thirty-eight years of age, are accused; the first of having killed by poison eight persons, all of whom, except one, were her near relations: the latter, of having poisoned her husband at the instigation of her servant. According to the indictment, Margaret Jaeyer poisoned, in May, 1825, her uncle; in June, 1826, her mother, sixty-eight years of age; in December, 1830, her father, seventy years old; in August, 1831, her husband; in December, the same year, her three daughters, two, five, and ten years and, lastly, in August, 1833, the husband of her mistress, with her assistance. She is said to have done all this with so much caution, that no suspicion whatever was excited by the deaths of all the seven persons, and an investigation into the causes of the death of the eighth victim, would, perhaps, have led to no result had not the criminal (so it is stated in the indictment) been led by her heated fancy to make a confession, induced, as she avers, by a spectre which appeared to her, and so terrified her, that she confessed all the dreadful crimes that she had committed on the eight parsons. We have received the following account, dated 27th, March, one o’clock, A. M.—The jury has left the hall. It has found M. Jaeyer guilty on six of the eight counts in the indictments. Both M. Jaeyer and Katharine Rentner are sentenced to death. M. Jaeyer, as a parricide, must also stand on the scaffold in her shift, barefooted, and covered with a black veil, while her sentence is read to the people: her right hand will then be cut off, and she will be executed on the spot—Dutch Papers, 1st April.

[“Poisoning On A Frightful Scale.” The True Sun (London, England), Apr. 4, 1835, p. 2]

NOTE: Other sources have the spellings as "Jaeger" and "Rentora" (first name Katherina). [“Horrible Crimes.” Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (London, England), Apr. 5, 1835, p. 2]

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[“Poisoning On A Frightful Scale.” The True Sun (London, England), Apr. 4, 1835, p. 2]

Another source for the same article using the spelling “Jaeger”:

[“Horrible Crimes.” From The Swabian Mercury (Mar. 29, 1885), Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (London, England), Apr. 5, 1835, p. 2]

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