Unknown Gender History: Hester Rebecca Nepping, Serial Killer

Wikipedia: Hester Rebecca Nepping (baptized Amsterdam October 9, 1774 - June 15, 1812) was a Dutch poisoner who was sentenced to guillotine in 1812.

Nepping was born in 1774 as the only child of the master painter Johannes Nepping and Cornelia Schram. At the age of nineteen she married the Amsterdam tobacco retailer Jan Brummelkamp. Due to debts, they left the capital in 1800 for Loenen, later Hilversum, where Brummelkamp again opened a tobacco shop. After that business also failed, they moved to Hall in 1805, where they both worked in a paper mill.

In 1808 Nepping acquired a considerable inheritance, including a house in Wijk bij Duurstede and five thousand guilders in cash. The couple moved to that town and Brummelkamp bought a paper dyeing shop there. This company was also made bottles. Nepping meanwhile had an extra-marital affair with the Wijkse city messenger Gerrit Verkerk. The inheritance ran out and the couple took boarders: the elderly couple Beerenburg-Vinjole with a sister-in-law. They had to be cared for for life, for three thousand guilders at once, with an additional amount after their death.

Mrs. Beerenburg turned out not to be an easy boarder. Nepping, together with her maid Adriana van Rijswijk, planned the murder of the woman. Beerenburg died on August 31, 1811. On November 9, Nepping's old father who lived with her also died, and two days later Jan Brummelkamp. The deaths aroused suspicion, the bodies were exhumed, and the section indicated arsenic poisoning. Nepping and Van Rijswijk were arrested, as was the lover Verkerk who had provided the arsenic.

In January 1812, they were detained in Amsterdam, where the trial was to take place. All three suspects made (partial) confessions. The Assize Court in Amsterdam considered two of the murders proven and sentenced the three to the death penalty. From 1810 onwards, because of the annexation of the Netherlands to the First French Empire, French criminal law was applied and an appeal had to be made to the Court of Cassation in Paris. This court confirmed the verdict of the Amsterdam Court and on June 15, 1812, the verdict was executed with the aid of a guillotine on the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam. It was the only time that a death sentence was executed in Amsterdam in this way.

~ Watercolor illustration of the execution ~

“The execution of Hester Rebecca Nepping and her accomplices Adriana van Rijswijk and Gerrit Verkerk in 1812 in front of the Waag on the Nieuwmarkt in Amsterdam,” [Het guiliotine regt voor de eerste maal binnen Amsterdam uitgeoefend aan Hester Rebekka Nepping, Adriane van Rijswijk], pen and watercolor, by Gerrit Lamberts (1876-1850). (Nationaal Gevangenismuseum Bron [056707282], NCRD; 27,9 × 38,7 cm)

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CHRONOLOGY

Oct. 9, 1774 – Hester Rebecca Nepping born.

Aug. 31, 1811 – Beerenburg, boarder, dies.

Nov. 9, 1811 – Nepping's old father dies.

Nov. 11, 1811 – Jan Brummelkamp, boarder, dies.

Jun. 15, 1812 – Hester Rebecca Nepping & accomplices, Adriana van Rijswijk and Gerrit Verkerk, executed.

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Sources, notes and / or references

Nepping, Hester Rebecca (2015), in: Digital Women's Lexicon of the Netherlands. Consulted online, February 24, 2015.

Scratching, A. (2012); Heads roll on the Nieuwmarkt , www.isistory.nl.

Meddens-van Borselen, A. "The life of the poisoner Hester Rebbecca Nepping (1774-1812)" in: Oud-Utrecht, jg. 71 (1998), No. 5, p. 124-129

Baptism book Amstelkerk and Death certificate

In her last weeks, Nepping was assigned the pastor Willem Broes as a caretaker. He wrote in 1812 the detailed booklet about the life, character and last religious afflictions of the infamous poisoner Hester Rebekka Nepping, sentenced to death with her accomplices, for the murder of her resident, and of her husband, from which, inter alia, the main well.

Execution on the Nieuwmarkt , Ons Amsterdam , June 2012.

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