1833: Nils Narumseie, terror of Kanten

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Mass murderer Nils Narumseie was beheaded on this date in 1833 for a horror murder spree earlier that same year.

Basically everything available about this guy is in Norwegian, and so are the links in this post.

Suspected (accurately) of stealing a silver pocket watch, Narumseie sought a psychopathic revenge on the guy who detected him, a fellow named Lars Østensen Rødnes. (As a repeat thief, Narumseie had reason to fear a stern sentence here, so an interest in preventing the amateur detective’s evidence coming against him would be the plausible objective for what follows beyond mere spite.)

On January 24, 1833, Narumseie celebrated his 25th birthday by taking a freezing winter’s night excursion to a farm called Kanten near Randsfjorden. Rødnes lived here, with his wife Ellen Marie, their three young children aged five years or younger, and an older couple who lodged with the family, Peder Mikkelsen and Inga Maria Madsdatter, plus their nine-year-old foster daughter Helene.

In this lonely, snow-ringed farmhouse, the denizens of Kanten had no means to summon help and most were not practically capable of fleeing. Like a homicidal Jack Torrance stalking the Overlook Hotel, Narumseie hunted and butchered them all in turn: Lars chased down in the snow, Peder trapped in the attic, Helene discovered cowering under the stairs. Not a single member of the large household escaped his blade that night.

Narumseie stole a few trifles from the farmhouse — he couldn’t find the incriminating watch — then set fire to the building.

Of course, all the things that had already made him an obvious suspect for the watch theft also made him an obvious suspect for this rampage, and he was brought in almost immediately.

This execution, and another one 12 days later, were the last performed by venerable headsman August Anton Laedel, who was 76 years old and showed his age on these occasions. Narumseie’s beheading was an appalling business requiring four clumsy strikes of the axe, and the follow-up execution of Christian Sand needed five.

Laedel was nudged into retiring — his son Guttorm took over the family business — and he died in 1837.

Wikipedia currently claims that the body count of eight, which is really a rather modest figure where infamous mass murderers are concerned, made Nils Narumseie Norway’s most prolific killer before Arnfinn Nesset in the 1980s.

On this day..

Possibly related executions: