Under the guise of adopting and caring for them in loving homes, Amelia Dyer killed between 300 and 400 babies in Victorian England.
In Victorian England in the 1800s, unmarried mothers could pay midwives and wealthier people to care for their babies in exchange for payment. Depending on the health of the baby or the father’s involvement, the price could be as much as £80.
In most cases, farmers placed the babies in a new home where they would be lovingly cared for. Sometimes they would return the babies to their mothers when they became more financially stable.
And sometimes, like in the case of Amelia Dyer, they would brutally murder them and use their deaths for personal financial gain.
However, Amelia Dyer was not always a murderer. She was born Amelia Elizabeth Dyer in 1837 to a large family near Bristol. She was well educated, often spending time reading literature and poetry, and was a natural nurse.
When Amelia was still a child, her mother fell ill with typhoid fever and soon began to suffer fits and bouts of extreme mental instability. Amelia nursed her until her death in 1848, after which she lost contact with most of her family and married George Thomas, a man 35 years her senior.
The couple had one child together, after which the elderly Thomas died. Finding herself alone with a new baby, Dyer was desperate for income. During her marriage, she trained as a nurse with a midwife, who taught her how to breed babies. However, Dyer decided to take things a step further.
She began placing ads in local newspapers, claiming to be a respectable married woman who would provide a safe and loving home for children. In exchange for her services, she demanded a substantial one-time fee.
However, rather than spend the money on boarding and caring for the children, Dyer realized that there was an easier way to pocket the money: by getting rid of the children.
Amelia Dyer
A newspaper cartoon depicting a baby farm, with the babies shown as montage cutouts.
She initially overdosed the babies using an opioid solution intended to calm crying infants. She would then call the coroner to confirm the death, claiming shock that the child had died so early and feigning grief over its death.
In 1879, a doctor became suspicious of the number of deaths he was being called to and wondered if they were all accidental. He reported her to the authorities, but instead of being charged with murder or manslaughter, she was sentenced to six months in a work camp for neglect.
But that didn’t matter to Amelia Dyer. After she was released, she posted more safe house wanted ads and continued collecting fees for babysitting. If a child she had killed had parents who wanted it back, she would simply give them another child.
Amelia Dyer also realized the error of her ways when coroners declared babies dead, and she began disposing of the bodies herself. She would wrap the bodies in rags and bury them, or throw them in the river, or hide them around town. She would also kill them in different ways so as not to create a discernible pattern for herself.
She also kept a close eye on the authorities. If she felt they were close to catching her, she would fake a breakdown and check herself into a mental hospital, claiming suicidal thoughts. She even tried to overdose on one occasion, but her high tolerance to opium, caused by long-term abuse, saved her life.
Dyer also moved frequently to new cities, each time taking on a new identity to throw the police off her trail, as well as parents who wanted to be reunited with their children.
Over the course of nearly 30 years, Amelia Dyer is believed to have killed more than 400 children and pocketed the money from each one. Researchers believe that number could have doubled if she had not been caught after one careless dumping of corpses.
In March 1896, a bargeman sailing down the Thames fished a carpet bag out of the river. Inside, he found the tiny body of a girl wrapped in brown paper. One resourceful policeman noticed a name, almost faded, written on the corner of a piece of paper – Mrs. Thomas – and an address.
The address belonged to Amelia Dyer, and although the police had traced her to the body, they still could not connect her with the crime. So they set a trap.
Photograph of Amelia Dyer
Using the young woman as bait, they advertised for a child in need of a good home. Dyer responded and arranged to meet the woman, but was ambushed by the police.
When the police searched her house, they found the smell of human decomposition, a tailor’s ribbon similar to that found around the neck of the baby’s corpse, adoption telegrams, messages and letters from mothers asking about their children.
They also found packed belongings, as if Dyer was planning to move again.
The police arrested her and dredged the Thames for more bodies. They found six, all of which Amelia Dyer confessed to killing. She even told the police that she knew she had a white ribbon around her neck.
At her trial, she pleaded guilty to only one murder and pleaded insanity as a defense, citing numerous stints in and out of the asylum. However, the jury decided that these had been fabricated to avoid prosecution.
It took them just four and a half minutes to convict her. At 9 a.m. on June 10, 1896, Amelia Dyer was executed.
The Dyer case attracted national attention due to the number of deaths and how long Dyer had eluded conviction. It also revolutionized adoption laws, prompting authorities to police child farms and crack down on abuse.
Some historians have drawn parallels with the Jack the Ripper case, suggesting that Amelia Dyer may have been involved. After all, both cases involved large numbers of bodies and occurred at the same time, although they have never been proven to be related.
While her total number of victims is thought to have been between 300 and 400, only three have been identified and attributed to her.