Madame Bedwarska, Polish Midwife & Serial Killer - 1892

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FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 2): St. Petersburg, Dec, 14.— The midwife Bedwarska, in Lodz [Poland, Russian Empire], tried for murdering more than one hundred babies, was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment. Great indignation was caused in Lodz by the light sentence. The woman was shown to be guilty of suffocating 117 babies whose bodies wore found buried in her cellar. As she had been at such work for twenty years there is little doubt but that her victims have been hundreds.

[“Russian Justice,” Sandusky Daily Register (Oh.), Dec. 15, 1892, p.1]

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FULL TEXT: St. Petesburg, Dec. 16. — The midwife Bedwarska, in Lodz, tried for having murdered more than a hundred babies, has been sentenced to one year imprisonment, Great indignation has been caused by the lightness of the sentence. The woman was shown to be guilty of suffocating 111 children whose bodies were found buried in her cellar. As she had been at such work for nearly twenty years there is little doubt but that her victims numbered in the hundreds. She was saved from the full penalty of her crime by the powerful influence of some of her former patrons.

[“Saved by Powerful Influence.” Dec. 16, 1882, p. 1]