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Boxholm Doe was an infant whose remains were found inside a cupboard. The case was deemed a murder, but the case went unsolved, and the child's parents, as well as their identity, remain unknown.
Case[]
On 13 June 1826, Lovisa Utterberg, the youngest daughter of Peter Bruse and Lena Danielsdotter, along with her husband Carl Johan Grell, went up to the attic of their croft and noticed an old and locked cupboard. Out of curiosity, the two decided to break the lock off to open the cupboard in case it held something of value; however, once they opened it, they found the skeleton of an infant.
The police arrived and, at the scene, observed that the infant was placed inside a knitted stocking with their knees bent towards their chin with a linen ribbon tied around the child's neck like a snare. This was soon declared a murder, and the remains were sent to the local physician for examination.
The physician determined the child to be 17.5 inches in height and that it belonged to a fully developed fetus, but he was unable to determine whether it was stillborn or killed after birth. But considering the ribbon tied around its neck, infanticide was strongly suspected. He also observed that the body had been severely mistreated, and he estimated that it had been in the cupboard for 17 - 18 years, although for unknown reasons, this estimate was revised to 10 years at the absolute latest.
The family and Carl Grell fell under suspicion and were investigated. On 4 July and 24 July, they were ordered to testify at an official inquiry on two separate occasions. Peter Bruse and Lena Danielsdotter, along with the other witnesses, explained that they had never touched the cupboard. They used the attic for 22 years with the cupboard having always been there, and four years before the discovery of the infant that had decided to stop using the cupboard and locked it and paid it no mind, assuming it to be useless.
The family denied any involvement in the murder of the unknown child. Furthermore, Lena had already given birth to 4 children before the discovery. Given the physician's estimate about the body being in the cupboard for 10 years, Lena would've been in her late 50s - early 60s and thus unlikely to bear any children, and the family likewise seemed genuinely shocked by the discovery. They were the ones to report it to the authorities, so this, paired with the lack of real evidence, led to the family being cleared of all suspicion, and the case went unsolved.
Sources[]
- Södermanlandsposten: