Iconic triple murder at the Ringdijk Haarlem in 1854

🔪 Triple Murder at the Ringdijk (1854)

Market gardener Prickwinkel (also spelled Preckwinkel) lived at the Ringdijk with his wife, three children, a housemaid and several farmhands.

During the night of 20 July 1854, his pregnant wife Petronella Ariensen and two of their children — aged 8 and 3 — were brutally murdered with an axe. The third child and the housemaid miraculously survived the attack.

The perpetrator turned out to be Johann Heinrich Kemper, a former farmhand of Prickwinkel. After the crime he fled via Den Helder to London, intending to continue on to New York. He was arrested in London and extradited to the Netherlands. The bloodstains on his clothing subsequently provided sufficient evidence of his crime.

This Act of Accusation (in my stock with number 53472) describes the full course of events, including a floor plan of Prickwinkel’s house.

⚠️ Spoiler alert: although Kemper denied premeditation, he was sentenced to death by hanging.
He would become the last person executed in Amsterdam.

See also the illustration of the gallows and the trapdoor.