Heli Freymond

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Heli Freymond

Héli Freymond (* 1843 in Corrençon ; † January 10, 1868 in Moudon ) was a Swiss criminal on whom the last death sentence was carried out in the canton of Vaud . He was the last person to be executed with the sword in Switzerland .

Life

Freymond was born in Corrençon in the Broye Valley , where his parents ran a small farm . In 1866 he married Elise Olivier from Saint-Cierges , the daughter of rich farmers, who brought him a substantial dowry . At the same time, however, he had been having an affair with his cousin Louise Freymond for three years, who dreamed of a marriage to Héli and made him promise that his now pregnant wife would not live long.

Freymond got arsenic from a field mouse ( mouse catcher) at the market in Moudon and passed it on to Louise, who secretly administered it to Elise. Elise survived this first attempted murder but suffered a miscarriage as a result . On May 23, 1867, she died as a result of being poisoned again with arsenic. Her death, however, aroused no particular suspicion and was explained by her poor health.

Héli Freymond did not marry Louise, as she expected, but began courting Elise's sister Méry Olivier, who had inherited half of Elise's fortune. Méry Olivier was already in a relationship with Jean Mettraux, so Freymond wanted to get rid of him too. On the evening of June 30, 1867, he gave Mettraux a roll prepared with strychnine on the road from Lausanne to Corrençon . When Mettraux collapsed soon afterwards from convulsions , Freymond took his valuables and left him to his fate. However, Mettraux survived the attempted murder and was rescued by a passerby after five hours.

Trial and Execution

Execution of Héli Freymond (drawing by Charles Vuillermet, 1868)

After Mettraux filed a criminal complaint against Freymond and the authorities opened an investigation, Elise's sudden death was remembered. Her body was exhumed and examined, which revealed that arsenic poisoning was the cause of death. Freymond was arrested and sent to Moudon prison, where he made a confession on August 16, 1867.

The Moudon trial of Freymond began on November 11 and lasted five days. Freymond tried to shift the blame on Louise. The court sentenced Louise to twenty years in prison , but Freymond to death. On January 7, 1868, the Grand Council of the Canton of Vaud rejected his petition for clemency .

Three days later, on January 10, 1868, Héli Freymond was publicly beheaded with the sword in Moudon . More than 20,000 spectators attended the execution. The painter Charles Vuillermet made a drawing of the execution on behalf of the prosecutor . In his report it is said that after the sword was blown , the audience stormed the scaffold in order to see Freymond's severed head up close.

Héli Freymond's execution marks the last execution of the death penalty in Switzerland before its temporary abolition in the constitutional revision of 1874. It was not used again until 1892 with the execution of Ferdinand Gatti in Lucerne .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Carl Stoos : The death penalty . In: The basics of Swiss criminal law, Verlag H. Georg, Basel / Geneva 1892, pp. 285–303
personal data
SURNAME Freymond, Heli
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss criminal, last execution in the canton of Vaud
DATE OF BIRTH 1843
PLACE OF BIRTH Corrençon
DATE OF DEATH January 10, 1868
Place of death Moudon