You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Danish. (December 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must follow the LLM translation guideline, revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Danish Wikipedia article at [[:da:Dagmar Overby]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|da|Dagmar Overby}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

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Dagmar Overbye
Born	Dagmar Johanne Amalie Overbye (1887-04-23)23 April 1887 Skanderborg, Denmark
Died	6 May 1929(1929-05-06) (aged 42) Copenhagen, Denmark
Children	3
Conviction	Murder (9 counts)
Criminal penalty	Death; commuted to life imprisonment
Details
Victims	9–25
Span of crimes	1913–1920
Country	Denmark

Dagmar Johanne Amalie Overbye (Danish: [ˈtɑwmɑ ˈɒwɐˌpyˀ]; 23 April 1887 – 6 May 1929) was a Danish serial killer. She murdered between nine and 25 children, including one of her own, during a seven-year period from 1913 to 1920. On 3 March 1921, she was sentenced to death in one of the most noted trials in Danish history—one that changed legislation on childcare.^[1] The sentence was later commuted to life in prison.

Overbye was working as a professional child caretaker, caring for babies born outside of marriage, and murdering her own charges. She strangled them, drowned them, or burned them to death in her masonry heater. The corpses were either cremated, buried, or hidden in the loft.

Overbye was convicted of nine murders as there was insufficient proof of the others.^[2] Her lawyer based the defense on Overbye being abused herself as a baby, yet that claim did not impress the judge. She became one of the three women sentenced to death in Denmark in the 20th century, but she – like the other two – was reprieved.^{[citation needed]}

She died in prison on 6 May 1929 at the age of 42. Notes relating to her case are included in the Politihistorisk Museum (Museum of Police History) in Nørrebro, Copenhagen.

The Danish author Karen Søndergaard Koldste wrote a novel called Englemagersken (The Angel Maker) based on her.^[3] Teatret ved Sorte Hest in Copenhagen has performed a play named Historien om en Mo(r)der (Morder meaning "murderer" and moder meaning "mother") based on her life.

Premiering at Chicago Horror Film Festival in 2024, Peder Pedersen's feature film Englebørn AKA Lost Angels stars Agnes Born as a troubled young artist whose traumas resurface as she hears the sound of crying babies appearing from nowhere; it turns out she is living in one of the apartments where Dagmar Overbye committed her infanticide.^[4]

Overbye is a character in the 2024 film The Girl with the Needle, directed by Poland-based Swedish director Magnus von Horn, where she is portrayed by Trine Dyrholm as a candy shopkeeper who quietly advertises she can get babies adopted for a fee, but in fact kills them after their mothers drop them off.^[5][6] The film premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.^[6]

• List of serial killers by country
• List of serial killers by number of victims