One of the most notorious criminals of the Victorian Age was Jack the Ripper. Known for killing prostitutes, Ripper murdered over five women,but what makes him so notorious is not how many he killed, but how. He mangled bodies including cutting off limbs, and even turning to cannibalism. Although his true identity was never discovered and he was never truly captured, several of his letters were archived. ("Events")
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Dagmar Overbye is another baby farmer. Although not as flagrant as Dyer, she killed between nine and twenty-five children. (Lindsey, Jordan) Overbye confessed to twenty murders, and was convicted of nine. Her victims were all infants that were either drowned, strangled, or burned to death. While her sentence was death, she was later "commuted to life in prison," ("Is Denmark’s) where she died at the age of 42 in 1921.
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William Parsons, aged 48 in the picture to the right, was convicted of arson. He was convicted in March of 1891 and spent twenty years in prison (Reporter, Daily Mail). In the Victorian Era, criminals were tried harder for their crimes. "Sentences of 7 or 14 years were common... however there was no procedure for return [of the criminals] after the sentence expired" ("Background and Reasons"). Considering the severity of his crime, Parsons was lucky that he wasn't sentenced to a harsher punishment.
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