Dagmar Overby

Dagmar Johanne Amalie Overbye (; 23 April 1887 – 6 May 1929) was a Danish serial killer. She murdered between nine and 25 children, including one of her own, during a seven-year period from 1913 to 1920. On 3 March 1921, she was sentenced to death in one of the most noted trials in Danish history—one that changed legislation on childcare. The sentence was later commuted to life in prison.

Overbye was working as a professional child caretaker, caring for babies born outside of marriage, and murdering her own charges. She strangled them, drowned them, or burned them to death in her masonry heater. The corpses were either cremated, buried, or hidden in the loft.

Overbye was convicted of nine murders as there was insufficient proof of the others. Her lawyer based the defense on Overbye being abused herself as a baby, yet that claim did not impress the judge. She became one of the three women sentenced to death in Denmark in the 20th century, but she – like the other two – was reprieved.

She died in prison on 6 May 1929 at the age of 42. Notes relating to her case are included in the Politihistorisk Museum (Museum of Police History) in Nørrebro, Copenhagen.

In popular culture The Danish author Karen Søndergaard Koldste wrote a novel called Englemagersken (The Angel Maker) based on her. Teatret ved Sorte Hest in Copenhagen has performed a play named Historien om en Mo(r)der (Morder meaning "murderer" and moder meaning "mother") based on her life.

Premiering at Chicago Horror Film Festival in 2024, Peder Pedersen's feature film Englebørn AKA Lost Angels stars Agnes Born as a troubled young artist whose traumas resurface as she hears the sound of crying babies appearing from nowhere; it turns out she is living in one of the apartments where Dagmar Overbye committed her infanticide.

Overbye is a character in the 2024 film The Girl with the Needle, directed by Poland-based Swedish director Magnus von Horn, where she is portrayed by Trine Dyrholm as a candy shopkeeper who quietly advertises she can get babies adopted for a fee, but in fact kills them after their mothers drop them off. The film premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.