Trollheart

Killer: Björn Pétursson
Epithet: Axlar-Björn (Shoulder-Bear)
Type: Comfort?
Nationality: Icelandic
Hunting ground(s):
Years active: 1570 - 1596
Weapon(s) used: Possibly an axe
Signature (if any):
Victims: 9 - 18
Survivors: None
Caught by: Unknown
Fate: Hanged, broken on the wheel, body dismembered after death

In all of Iceland’s history it seems there was only ever one serial killer. That’s pretty good odds for not getting murdered if you go there I guess, although what the weather would have to say about that might be another matter. Inheriting the farm of his friend, Björn Pétursson is known to have murdered anything from 9 to 18 people, though the method is not known - possibly with an axe, possibly by drowning them. It can’t be confirmed, but he seems to have carried out the murders for gain, as he always took the possessions of his victims.

When arrested, Pétursson’s farm yielded more bodies than the nine he confessed to. He tried to bluff his way through this (why? If you’re going to be - literally - hung for nine, why not eighteen? What difference does it make?) by saying he had found the remains on his farm and had reinterred them, but his attempts came to nothing and he convinced nobody. He was hanged and then broken on the wheel, after which his body was dismembered and each piece put on a stake.

Interestingly, there seems to have been a kind of thread of evil running through the family. His wife, suspected as an accomplice and also sentenced to death, escaped by virtue (presumably) of being pregnant, but the fruit of her womb was rotten, and her son was hanged for rape. As if that wasn’t enough, his son was also executed as a criminal. Bad seeds, all.

Killer: Geordie Bourne
Epithet: None
Type: ?
Nationality: Scottish
Hunting ground(s): English East Marches
Years active: Unknown, died in 1597
Weapon(s) used: Unknown
Signature (if any):
Victims: 7 confessed to
Survivors: None known
Caught by: Robert Carey, Earl of Monmouth
Fate: Executed (no idea by what method, given that he was a thief and given the time, probably hanging)

Not a lot much to add really. Bourne was a thief and raider who ranged along the English East Marches where they bordered Scotland. He was an inveterate womaniser (“I lay with over 40 men’s wives”, he boasted, though whether this was consensual or not is unknown) and though he was a friend of the Scottish Middle March Warden Robert Ker, no plea for clemency or appeal was launched on his behalf. He had been captured in a raid by the Earl of Monmouth and beaten into submission, then brought to trial.

Killer: Catalina de los Rios Lisperguer
Epithet: La Quintrala (Mistletoe)
Type: Power/Control
Nationality: Chilean
Hunting ground(s): Santiago, Chile
Years active: (very approximately) 1624 - 1660
Weapon(s) used: Unknown, but probably poison
Signature (if any): n/a
Victims: 40
Survivors: 2
Caught by: n/a
Fate: Died of natural causes; never convicted for her crimes

The daughter of Chilean plantation owners and descended from Inca nobility, Catalina was nicknamed not for her murders, as such, but for the red colour of her hair, which was said to be like the quintral plant, a parasitic form of mistletoe native to Chile. However it was also postulated that the epithet derived from her practice of using the branches of this same plant to whip her slaves. She was a true Spanish beauty, daughter of a conquistador and so used to using people and getting her own way, and uninterested in the feelings of others. Murderous intent must have run in the family, as her mother and her aunt had been accused - though it was never proved - of poisoning the governor of Chile, Alonso de Ribera, out of spite, it says here, though I can’t uncover any historic enmity between the two families. La Quintrala though certainly took after her mother, accused of poisoning her own father when she served him dinner as he lay ill in bed. She did not stand trial for the crime though, even when her aunt reported it to the authorities, possibly due to the social standing of the family and the reluctance to create a scandal.

Her grandmother thought the best way to tame this twenty-two year old was to get her married off, and so Catalina married Colonel Alfonso Campofrio de Carvajal y Riberos, a man almost twice her age. She bore him a son, the only child she would ever have, but he did not survive, dying at age eight or ten. Two years after her marriage, and one year after the birth of her ill-fated son, her sister died and Catalina became even richer, inheriting her sister’s vast plantations. It was soon after coming into this inheritance that she is said to have begun to kill in earnest. Her first victim (not including her father when she was eighteen years old) was a servant or vassal whom it is said she invited to her home (though this is disputed by historians as Catalina is supposed to have written a love letter to him, and it was known that she was unable to write, and could barely read at all) and then stabbed, blaming his death on a servant who was then executed. The big mouth of Enrique Enriquez (no, really) de Guzman got him a knife in the back too, as he bragged about how he had been able to trifle with her affections, calling her a loose woman.

Things began to heat up when she moved to one of her properties, a plantation in the mountains of the suburbs of Santiago, and having killed a slave for no apparent reason (did a slaveowner need one?) she instructed that he not be buried for two weeks, and as her cruelty reached new extremes her slaves decided to head for the hills, rebelling - or, really, just running away: that’s not a rebellion - but were brought back and executed. She kept the local judges and lawyers in her pocket, as rich people do, and also relied on her family connections to protect her from any reprisals or accusations. However this could not last forever; people will turn a blind eye for so long, but eventually they will look to their own survival, and as complaints against the cruel mistress of the plantations and ranches mounted up, she was eventually taken into custody.

But while the wheels of justice could not be stopped, they could be slowed, and influence, threats and bribes, coupled with the general lack of appetite among the court (all of whom were picked from the noble classes, of course) to prosecute led to the very slow progress of the trial and her eventual acquittal. Well, really: who was going to advocate for slaves against a wealthy and powerful noblewoman? And who would benefit from her conviction? It wasn’t as if reparations would be paid to the families of the slaves, now was it? I think the prevailing attitude was, they’re dead, **** them, let’s move on. And where’s my big bag of cash, senora?

In 1654 her husband died (nothing is said about whether she was responsible, but it’s unlikely as she seemed to at least hold him in high regard even if she did not love him) and a new trial was opened in 1662, but she was by now quite ill and getting worse, and died in 1665 at the age of 61, never having atoned for, nor even been brought to justice for her crimes. As a sort of attempt to maybe buy history (and God) off, she left money in her will for masses to be said for the souls of her loved ones - including “those who had lived under her charge”, which perhaps might have been a tacit admission of her crimes, though far too late for her to be punished by any earthly power - and the establishment of chaplaincies. Despite this, she threw a dark and threatening figure across history and her assets were auctioned off after her death, her properties abandoned as nobody wanted anything to do with her. She remains a figure of hatred and anger in Chile, the symbol of the abusive woman and of the oppression of Spain on the country.

Killer: Giulia Tofana
Epithet:
Type: Profit
Nationality: Italian (at the time, The Papal States)
Hunting ground(s): Naples, Rome
Years active: 1633 - 1651
Weapon(s) used: Poison
Signature (if any): n/a
Victims: + 600 (admitted during torture)
Survivors: 0
Caught by: Papal authorities
Fate: Executed

Another case, it would seem, of like mother like daughter, Tofana’s mother was executed for having killed, possibly poisoned her husband, Giulia’s father, who it is also said was abusive to her, his daughter. She was also something of a dark entrepreneur, perfecting a poison herself (or the formula may have been passed down to her by her mother) and selling it to women who wished to escape abusive marriages. Divorce was not allowed, nor even envisioned, at this time, and any women who married - often against her will, at the wishes of her father - an abusive man had no option and no legal recourse but to stay with him. Therefore a large percentage of women took the only way out left to them, and began poisoning their husbands to escape from their marriage.

The poison was slow-acting, so as not to raise suspicions, and acting of another kind was something else she tutored her clients in: how to cry and grieve the loss, how to demand a coroner’s examination, so as to remove the possibility in the authorities’ minds that they might have been responsible. As Chambers’ Journal noted, in 1890, “To save her fair fame, the wife would demand a post-mortem examination. Result, nothing — except that the woman was able to pose as a slandered innocent, and then it would be remembered that her husband died without either pain, inflammation, fever, or spasms. If, after this, the woman within a year or two formed a new connection, nobody could blame her.”

Tofana disguised it as a cosmetic product, or a devotional healing oil, so that it could be hidden in plain sight without arousing any concerns. It was potent, only four drops needed to begin the process of death, tasteless, colourless and odourless, and over a course of days or weeks the victim would slowly pass away, in considerable discomfort and pain. The first dose caused weakness, exhaustion but was nothing compared to what the victim could expect on intake of the second: stomach pains, terrible thirst, vomiting and even dysentery.

For fifty years she plied her deadly trade, never suspected, and it was in fact one of her many customers whose betrayal led to her eventual arrest. The woman, who had bought her concoction, Aqua Tofana, a mixture of lead, arsenic and belladonna to poison her husband had second thoughts, and having already used the stuff in his soup had to warn him not to eat it. He of course became suspicious - perhaps due to the large amount of husbands dying before their wives at the time, or maybe he just really wanted that soup - and questioned her, probably using one of nature’s best-known and trusted inquisitors, the fist and the open hand, until she admitted she had poisoned his food.

He then turned her over to the authorities, who wrung from her - possibly under torture - the name of her supplier. A warrant was issued then for Tofana’s arrest, but she was so popular that she was warned in advance and legged it to a church, where she claimed sanctuary, as in this most holy of cities, it was uniquely qualified to do. Nobody would think ordinarily of breaching the sanctity of a church, even in pursuit of an accused murderer, as it was recognised as a place of sanctuary, a place apart from all others where those seeking the church’s protection could hide in safety.

This did not last long, however, as a rumour she had poisoned the town’s water supply led to her arrest, and under torture she confessed to over 600 murders in Rome. There may have been more, or less, as torture is always an unreliable way to get to the truth. But nevertheless she was certainly guilty of multiple murders and was executed, along with her daughter, and later some accomplices and customers in 1659. As a final insult, her body was thrown over the wall of the church that had provided her sanctuary.

Killer: Jasper Hanebuth
Epithet:
Type: Hunter
Nationality: German
Hunting ground(s): The Eilenriede Forest, Hannover
Years active: - 1652
Weapon(s) used: Gun, possibly rifle/musket
Signature (if any):
Victims: 19
Survivors: 0
Caught by: German police
Fate: Broken on the wheel

A highwayman who didn’t particularly care whether you stood and delivered or not, Hanebuth had been a mercenary in the Thirty Years War, and though a German had fought for Sweden. During his service it is said he performed many robberies and murders - to be fair, the war was so vicious and went on for so long that it seems everyone was doing the same thing - and when he was discharged at the end of his service, he teamed up with other ex-soldiers to prey upon, well, anyone they could really. Hanebuth, of low birth (his father had been a peasant in Hannover) was known to have a violent temper and would kill people for no reason, though if there was cash or valuables to be had, he’d have them too, danke schon!

It was his change of occupation that did for him in the end. He became a horse dealer, and acquired his stock through what would be called in the Old West two hundred years later rustling, i.e., he stole them from others. When he was reported by one horse owner for having stolen his livestock, he was taken into custody and tortured. But here’s where I feel it gets a little weird. He confessed, not only to the theft of the horse(s), but to nineteen murders also. Now, certainly, under torture a man or woman will say anything to stop the pain, but usually this is in response to questions from the torturer. I’m not certain Hanebuth was suspected of any murders (maybe he was, it doesn’t make it clear) but if not, why then venture information which was sure to get him executed? I don’t know what the penalty for horse theft was back in the seventeenth century, but I doubt it was death. Maybe it was; they executed people back then for crimes we would today consider quite trivial. Either way, by confessing to the murders he had signed his own death warrant, and there seemed no need. Though if he was suspected, of course, the interrogators may have demanded he confess.

Thinking about it, maybe it was this way: he was suspected of the murders but there was no proof (possibly due to his modus operandi of often shooting his victims from a distance, therefore being able to sod off before the law arrived, or any witnesses turned up?) and the cops had been waiting to catch him. When the horse rustling charge was made against him, perhaps they saw their opportunity to force him to admit to the killings, and so used the torture session as a means to gain a confession and so make him pay for all those murders. Oh wait: now I read he wasn’t tortured, just threatened with it, and confessed. Pussy.

All speculation, but in any event he was thrown in jail for a year (why, I don’t know; I doubt such things as appeal procedures existed back then, and if they did, a common soldier would surely have little recourse to them) after which he was taken out and broken on the wheel. They didn’t hang around (no pun intended) in those days. Notwithstanding the year in prison, he was sentenced on February 3-4 1653 and executed on February 4. Swift justice. Sort of.

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