Early 20th-century Denmark was shocked by the sickening actions of a disturbed female. She promised happy-ever-after homes for unwanted kids, but sadly she was the authoress of more grisly endings.

On the outskirts of Denmark’s capital city, Copenhagen, in the early 20th century, a young woman tempted mothers unable to keep their children with an ideal – if expensive – solution. In exchange for a princely sum, the female offered to find these desperate women’s babies a loving home. Business boomed until years later, when one of the clients had a change of heart – only to find that her baby had disappeared without trace.

Dagmar Johanne Amalie Overbye was born on April 23, 1887, in Assendrup, a village near Denmark’s second city, Aarhus, some 116 miles west of the country’s capital. Born into a poor farming family, Overbye grew up to be a sad and withdrawn child who expressed her unhappiness with acts of petty thievery. After being caught stealing a purse at the tender age of 12, her parents sent her away to work on another family’s farm on the island of Funen, some 50 miles away.

Overbye was worked hard in her new job, and she soon tired of her onerous duties and left to seek employment elsewhere. But even though she successfully secured a number of servant roles, Overbye found it difficult to stay on the “straight and narrow.” Caught thieving once more, she was imprisoned in a women’s penal facility for ten days.

After her release from prison, Overbye left the island and traveled to Aarhus where she started working as a waitress. Soon she began a relationship with a customer known only as Bisgård, and gave birth to a son. However, the couple soon separated, and the infant tragically passed away. At the time, the authorities decided that pneumonia had been the cause.

Image: via NY Daily News

By 1912, at the age of 25, Overbye was pregnant again. But after falling in love with a Jens Sorensen Fine, who was not the baby’s father, she gave the baby girl, Erena, up for adoption. Another pregnancy followed a year later, but Fine did not want children. Although Overbye refused to get an abortion, she abandoned her son in a haystack shortly after he was born. If she had done this to please Fine, it was all in vain; the man refused to marry her and she tried to commit suicide.

Three years later, Overbye reunited with Erena. Together, mother and daughter traveled to Copenhagen, where Overbye started up a confectionary business. It was in her candy shop that she found love once more, with a man called Svendsen. Shortly after, the three of them moved to the Nørrebro district on the outskirts of the capital. But when her retail business failed, Overbye found herself searching for a new career.

One day, Overbye was reading a newspaper when an article caught her eye. Apparently, a local woman had been paid 500 kroner in return for giving a newborn baby an adoptive home. At the time, that was more than twice the annual wage that a domestic servant could expect to earn. Intrigued, Overbye decided that an adoption agency might be the perfect business opportunity for her.

By 1916, the progressive King Christian X had been on the throne of Denmark for four years. But although his reign saw some degree of advancement in women’s rights, having a child out of wedlock was still considered taboo. At the same time, abortion was a criminal offense. This placed many unmarried Danish women who unexpectedly fell pregnant in a bind. So when Overbye established her unofficial adoption agency, she found no shortage of willing clients.

Overbye took charge of her first baby on April 15, 1916, after responding to a newspaper advertisement placed by an unmarried mother. That day, 26-year-old Rasmine Kirstine Jensen gave her three-week-old son, Harry, into Overbye’s care. Handing over the maintenance money provided by the father of the baby, Jensen promised to continue paying Overbye on a monthly basis. In return, the 28-year-old Overbye said she would provide Harry with a loving home.

However, Overbye had something altogether more sinister in mind. Immediately after Jensen left, she put Harry in his pram and took him for a walk. Fittingly enough, it was to a nearby cemetery where she strangled the baby boy and disposed of his body in a public restroom. But although the remains of the infant were discovered days later, tragically it would be much longer before Overbye would be uncovered as the perpetrator and brought to justice.

Over the next few years, a clear pattern began to emerge. Overbye would prey on desperate young mothers with babies they couldn’t look after. Overbye would convince them that she could give their children a better life. She would take care of their baby, she claimed, before finding a respectable family who would raise the infant as their own. Unsurprisingly, many vulnerable mothers in unhappy personal circumstances fell for Overbye’s promises.

In fact, Overbye was so convincing that some mothers paid 12 months’ wages in order to place their babies in the woman’s care. However, as soon as the mothers were out of the picture, the children would meet with a macabre fate. After accepting the money, Overbye would murder the babies, either burning, drowning or strangling her innocent young victims.

Afterwards, Overbye would dispose of the bodies by burying them, cremating them in her stove or hiding them in her apartment. Shockingly, these crimes continued for four years. Then, in July 1920, Karoline Aagesen placed an newspaper advertisement seeking a home for her three-week-old baby girl. Apparently, Aagesen’s deeply religious parents could not accept the illegitimate child, and to her adoption seemed the only way out.

By that time, Overbye had moved to a residence in Copenhagen’s up-and-coming Vesterbro district. She promptly replied to the advertisement, and Aagesen brought her baby girl, Sarah, to Overbye’s apartment. Reassured that Overbye would find an appropriate home for her daughter, she paid the 200-kroner fee and then left.

The next day, however, Aagesen regretted having given her baby up. She travelled back to Overbye’s apartment, and asked for Sarah to be returned. Strangely, Overbye told her that the baby girl had already been found a home, but she could not remember the new family’s full address. Sensing that something was seriously wrong, Aagesen went to the police.

The following day, law officers arrived to search Overbye’s apartment. It was not long before they discovered Sarah’s clothes. Searching further, they made a grislier discovery – charred fragments of skull and bone among the ashes in the stove. Overbye was arrested on the spot, and eventually confessed to having murdered 16 children over a period of seven years.

Despite Overbye’s confession, police were only able to recover nine sets of remains. Therefore, she was only charged with that many counts of murder. However, investigators at the time believed that Overbye may have been responsible for the deaths of at least 25 children. This appalling headcount was thought to include her own child.

In March 1921, Overbye was found guilty of the murders and sentenced to the death penalty. However, she was spared this fate by the intervention of King Christian X. In his desire to rule over a more modern Denmark, the King decided that the sentence was inappropriate for a woman. It was commuted to life in prison instead.

It was to prove quite a short life. On May 6, 1929, Overbye passed away behind bars aged 42. To this day, she is remembered as one of the worst serial killers that Denmark has ever seen. Writers from that country have featured Overbye in their work, including Karen Søndergaard Koldste’s novel Englemagersken in 2007 and Danish actress Lotte Arnsbjerg’s 2006 stage drama Historien om en Mo(r)der. The latter title utilizes the Danish words for mother and murder.

But although Overbye’s tale is a shockingly brutal and bloody one, nevertheless it heralded a positive new chapter for Danish women. No longer would unmarried mothers struggle under the country’s cruel legislation. In 1923, two years after Overbye’s trial, progressive new laws were passed in Denmark. They would provide facilities for unmarried women and their illegitimate children and also introduced inspection powers over foster homes. The country was determined that the horrific story of its most notorious serial killer would never be repeated.