Gesche Gottfried
Encyclopedia
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
who murdered 15 people by arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
poisoning in Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
and Hanover, Germany, between 1813 and 1827. She was the last person to be publicly executed in the city of Bremen.
Gottfried's victims included her parents, her two husbands, her fiancé and her children. Before being suspected and convicted of the murders, she garnered widespread sympathy among the inhabitants of Bremen because so many of her family and friends fell ill and died. Because of her devoted nursing of the victims during their time of suffering, she was known as the "Angel of Bremen".
Gesche Gottfried's victims
- 1 October 1813: Johann Miltenberg (first husband)
- 2 May 1815: Gesche Margarethe Timm (mother)
- 10 May 1815: Johanna Gottfried (daughter)
- 18 May 1815: Adelheid Gottfried (daughter)
- 28 June 1815: Johann Timm (father)
- 22 September 1815: Heinrich Gottfried (son)
- 1 June 1816: Johann Timm (brother)
- 5 July 1817: Michael Christoph Gottfried (second husband)
- 1 June 1823: Paul Thomas Zimmermann (fiancé)
- 21 March 1825: Anna Lucia Meyerholz (music teacher and friend)
- 5 December 1825: Johann Mosees (neighbor, friend and advisor)
- 22 December 1826: Wilhelmine Rumpff (landlady)
- 13 May 1827: Elise Schmidt (daughter of Beta Schmidt)
- 15 May 1827: Beta Schmidt (friend, maid)
- 24 July 1827: Friedrich Kleine (friend, creditor; murdered in Hanover)