At 1 am on the 30th April 1890, loud screams were heard from the house belonging to Edlund the painter at no. 52 Storgatan, Östersund. Twenty-three-year-old Edla Hedin Olofsdotter, who was in an advanced state of pregnancy, was running around with blood all over her hands and clothes. She knocked on several doors, shouting that her husband, Johannes Mikael Mikaelsson-Hedin, had been stabbed to death.
The landlord quickly entered his apartment in the darkness, to find him stretched out on his bed, bloody and motionless, with a gaping wound in the left hand side of his neck. Earlier on, however, witnesses had seen Edla rush out into the yard and bury the murder weapon in a vegetable patch before running back to raise the alarm. Her own testimony too was soon to give her away.
The couple came from Orrviken, to the south-west of Östersund. They had only been married for twenty-two days when they came to town to let a doctor examine the husband’s mysterious illness. It was later iscovered that Edla had made two attempts to poison him at their home, in one case by putting arsenic in his stewed cloudberries and cream. In Östersund she decided to finish the job once and for all. Her motive was said to be that she had been forced into marriage because she was pregnant, while she was really in love with another man. The local newspaper, Östersunds-Posten, referred on the 5th of May 1890 to “a murderous urge due to pregnancy”
Edla Hedin was sentenced to life imprisonment. While serving this sentence she gave birth to a son, Johan. In 1905 she was released, moving back to her parental home in Sunne. She enjoyed fifteen years of freedom before dying on the 24th of July 1920.
lyrics
Östersundsmordet
Text: C G Sundberg; Melodi: Kjell-Erik Eriksson
En visa vill jag sjunga
om ett förfärligt mord,
och lyssen gamla unga
det hänt i höga nord.
I Jämtlands sköna dalar
i staden Östersund,
man nu om mordet talar
kring hela Sveriges rund.
Och Mörderskan Edla
med tillnamnet Hedin,
som borde kärlek medla
med mannen maken fin.
Men grubblande hon tänker
att bliva honom kvitt,
hon föll i ondskans ränker
mordängeln följde fritt.
En afton hon tillagar
en dryck och mannen gav,
han räknat sina dagar
och snart är dödens slav.
Hon har ej tid att dröja
till dess han kämpat ut,
en kniv hon då ses höja
och gör på livet slut.
Och sedan ut hon hastar
och ropar folket ann,
men kniven hon bortkastar
ett gruvligt dåd minsann.
Min man har blivit mördad
hon ropte store Gud,
ja offret låg där skördad
med blod i dödens skrud.
Snart kom också polisen
och såg det hemska dåd,
var hade de bevisen
de visste knappast råd.
Och Edla blek som döden
fick icke fram en tår,
hon såg den bleka döden
som henne förestår.
Misstankar börjar falla
just uppå mörderskan,
hon avskydd var av alla
som kände hennes man.
Hon säger fräckt i rådet
att hon oskyldig var,
till gärningen och dådet
hon fick dock stanna kvar.
Tänk vilka kval den arma
skall lida i sin cell,
O store Gud förbarma
hon suckar varje kväll.
Hon sina händer vrider
och lider avgrundskval,
Tänk huru hjärtat svider
av plågor utan tal.
Och fängselpredikanten
han talar livets ord,
till hjärtat och till tanken
bekänner hon sitt mord.
Men inte ens för prästen
bekänner hon dock ej,
men tiden verkat resten
hon ständigt svarte nej.
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