Helene Auguste Geisen-Volk was an American serial killer, nurse and businesswoman who was convicted of murdering 53 babies in her care at her baby farm.
Helene Auguste Geisen-Volk was an American serial killer, nurse and businesswoman who was convicted of murdering 53 babies in her care at her baby farm.
She was the operator of an infant farm in New York City at 235 East Eighty-sixth St from 1918 to 1925. She was the widow of a Prussian army officer and a former Red Cross nurse. In May 1925 an investigation by police was opened after multiple complaints from infants relatives, and one gentleman who said she had returned a baby that was not his. In early 1925, it's estimated that up to forty-four babies died while at Geisen-Volk's two "baby farms". [1] [2] Up to twelve babies in one month were buried, most of which had died from malnutrition. During the investigation and autopsy, one infant was found to have a fractured skull. A nurse who worked with Geisen-Volk stated that one infant of 18 months was held by the heels and dashed against a wall. One woman purchased a baby from the infantorium for $100, and was paid $10 by Geisen-Volk to sign the birth certificate paperwork. [3] Mrs. Geisen-Volk was sentenced to three and a half to seven years in prison for baby substitution in which she pleaded guilty.
In total she was charged with the murder of fifty-three babies. The probation officer's report characterized her as "a woman without conscience who strangled and froze to death infants left in her care." [4] The judge described her as "cruel, bestial, and a revolting anomaly in humankind". [5]
Baby farming is the historical practice of accepting custody of an infant or child in exchange for payment in late-Victorian Britain and, less commonly, in Australia, New Zealand and the United States. If the infant was young, this usually included wet-nursing. Some baby farmers "adopted" children for lump-sum payments, while others cared for infants for periodic payments.
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Infanticide in 19th-century New Zealand was difficult to assess, especially for newborn indigenous Māori infants. Resultantly, many New Zealand women who might otherwise have been sentenced to penal servitude or capital punishment had their sentences commuted to the lesser charge of "concealment of birth" under the Offences Against the Person Act 1867. However, the relative leniency extended only to mothers of concealed or hidden infants who subsequently died. Fathers, grandparents and "baby farmers" like Minnie Dean, the only woman to be executed in New Zealand history, and Daniel Cooper in the 1920s were viewed as more culpable for the death of such infants.
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