Friday, November 23

     Welcome to the Wannaskan Almanac for Fat Friday.

      Warning: this post contains disturbing material.

     On this day in 1910 Johan Alfred Ander became the last person executed in Sweden. He was the first and last person to be executed by Sweden's new guillotine, imported from France. Previously, condemned prisoners had been beheaded manually.
     Ander had started life well. After completing his military service, he got married and bought a hotel, but the hotel did not do well. He reportedly drank excessively and beat his wife, neither of which is good for business.
     He became a petty thief and spent time in prison. In 1909 he and his wife moved into his parents house on an island near Stockholm. Not thinking clearly, he robbed a money exchange office in Stockholm and beat the clerk so severely she later died. The staff at his hotel near the exchange agency told police Ander had been acting strangely. He left his suitcase behind along with the clerk's wallet and most of the blood-stained money.
     Ander had returned to his father's house on the island. Ferry workers remembered Ander and he was soon arrested. The murder weapon, a steel balance bar from a scale, was also found. At his trial Ander claimed he had received the money from an unknown man at his hotel. He was sentenced to death. King Gustaf V refused the appeal for clemency from Ander's father.
     On November 23, Ander was taken to the execution room at Långholmen Prison. He was calm and asked to say a few last words, but for some reason the executioner said no. He hadn't executed anyone in ten years, and that one had been with an ax. Maybe the newfangled guillotine made him nervous. During the autopsy, a large piece of porcelain was found in Ander's stomach, possibly an attempt at suicide.
    During the next ten years, several people were condemned to death, but either their sentences were  commuted or they committed suicide. Take Hilda Nilsson for example. Nilsson was a baby farmer. In the early 1900s in Sweden it was considered a disgrace to have a child out of wedlock. Unmarried mothers would pay a fee to older women to care for their babies.
     Most of these mothers never came back. The state also had little interest in these children. By killing some of her charges, Nilsson was able to increase her profit substantially. She, like Ander, had money problems. Finally one mother did come back and when Nilsson could not produce her child, Nilsson's game was up.
     Nilsson was condemned to death, but hanged herself in her cell first. She didn't know that her sentence was about to be commuted to life imprisonment. When the executioner died in 1920, there was pressure to abolish capital punishment, which was done the following year. Sweden is one of the most civilized counties in the world, but all of us have a dark side somewhere in our past (or future). Watch out for those money problems.