Dorothea Widmer

The head of Dorothea Widmer (copper engraving 1781 commissioned by JK Lavater)

Dorothea Widmer (* 1758 in Burghof ; † August 29, 1781 in Zurich ) was a Swiss spouse murderer whose execution caused a sensation due to the circumstances of the crime.

Life

Dorothea Widmer lived in the Thurgau community of Erzenholz , today a district of Frauenfeld . Dorothea Widmer could not endure her early marriage to a violent alcoholic. In 1780 Dorothea Widmer and her accomplice Bartholome Gubler eliminated the husband with the ax. Gubler was initially able to flee to Corsica , but returned due to remorse and surrendered to the authorities. Dorothea Widmer was sentenced to death for her husband's murder in early 1781 . The sentence was initially not carried out because of a suspected pregnancy. Dorothea Widmer was executed in Zurich on August 29, 1781, 11 days after her accomplice. The trial and execution caused a sensation due to the beauty of the accused and the rawness of the husband. Dorothea Widmer was stylized as the second Beatrice Cenci . Johann Kaspar Lavater had the head of the executed Dorothea Widmer, drawn by Johann Heinrich Werdmüller , engraved in copper by Matthias Stumpf and signed the engraving: “Boldly atrocities, strangled in pleasure and pain, when it leaves God, the most innocent heart becomes. "

literature

• Johann Konrad Werdmüller-Ott: Brief description of the peculiarities of the eighteenth century in our fatherland . With Johann Caspar Näf, Zurich, 1802, p. 267 [1]