Minnie Dean is a local legend, like Babayka. New Zealand children were told that if they misbehaved, the evil Minnie Dean would come after them and drag them to hell. She was (and is likely to remain) the only woman to be executed in New Zealand, a land of green meadows and idyllic landscapes. Dean gave shelter to children who were abandoned by their parents, and then - according to rumors - she killed them.
Here is the story itself …
Villamina Dean was born in 1844. She was the daughter of an ordinary conductor, although she posed as an educated middle-class woman. Dean earned money by giving shelter to children abandoned by her parents - of course, for money. It is known that 27 children were under her supervision at different times, 10 of whom survived, 6 died, the fate of the rest is vague. Dean herself claimed that seven children were adopted, and the adoptive parents did not want to disclose their identities and asked to keep the adoption secret. But the police were sure that the missing children did not end up in caring families, but were killed.
Who was she?
Now we would call Minnie Dean “the guardian,” but back then the term “baby farmer” was used. In those years - we are talking about the middle to the end of the 19th century - children born out of wedlock were subjected to social ostracism. Dean arrived in New Zealand from Scotland. A woman convicted of dishonor faced severe punishment or even death. But for as little as £ 10-20, women like Minnie Dean could solve the problem. Desperate families paid Minnie money, and she promised to take care of the unwanted child. It is known that at least 16 of Minnie's 27 children were illegitimate.
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Minnie was not the only woman who traded in this way. Some families were quite loving, but this was not their main function. “Children's farmers” had to rid a woman of an unwanted child, and this is the main thing.
Villamina sailed to New Zealand straight from Scotland, according to rumors, to somehow hide her own illegitimate child. There she met Charles Dean, a weak-tempered and sloppy man. Charles loved to drink and did not go well with his work. They lived for some time in Southland, sometimes mired in poverty, then emerging from it for a short time. But in the end, the family moved to Winton.
Charles Dean began to raise pigs, and Villamina took unwanted children to her place for a fee, just to make ends meet. In the years 1880-1890, Minnie even gave several anonymous advertisements to the newspaper: "Dear married lady wants to adopt a child, comfortable house in the country."
The historian Linley Hood, in her book Minnie Dean: Her Life and Crimes, writes: “There can be no doubt that Minnie loved her children (perhaps some more than others), and she intended to care for them as best she could."
In 1890, the police became interested in the activities of the Dean family: by that time, they were in charge of about 9 children under three years old. Of course the house was overcrowded. He was dirty, the children were unkempt, and a year ago a six-month-old baby died. Which, however, was not so uncommon for those times - infant mortality was high. But the Dean family continued to advertise that they would take in more children. What happened to the kids outside the doors of their house is a mystery that the police were going to solve.
In 1895, the police discovered something. The newsboy saw Minnie Dean get on the train carrying a child and a hatbox. But when she returned, the baby was gone.
Dean later admitted that when she got on the train, she put the baby on a pillow. The baby was asleep. Dean gave the girl a lethal dose of laudanum, a tincture of opium that was used by literally everyone in those days. Without calculating the number, she killed the child, and to hide her own crime, hid it in a hatbox. The body of the dead girl and two other children were found buried in the garden of the Dean family, Minnie was sent to court.
It was a sensation: not for the first time a woman appeared before a court, but for the first time such serious charges were brought against her. The process was somewhat theatrical.
Local dodgers concocted a creepy business at all - they sold dolls depicting babies in hat boxes.
Dean was portrayed as a monster, a child killer. Worse, she belonged to the "children's farm" system. The women had already appeared in court for infanticide before, but the death penalty was replaced with life imprisonment.
Minnie Dean became a brand, her trial turned into a performance that everyone, young and old, eagerly attended.
God, don't let me suffer
On a summer morning in 1895, Dean was hanged. When the sheriff asked if she only wanted to say something in the end, Minnie replied: "No, except that I am innocent." Newspapers later claimed that when the hatch underneath opened, Dean cried out, "God, don't let me suffer!"
The police, on the other hand, were busy with the children's farms. Since then, if parents left their children under the age of four in someone's care for several days for money, this place had to be registered as a foster family.
Not everything is so simple
For a century, Dean has held a firm footing in New Zealand folklore. She was frightened by children who behaved badly, her ghost often appeared here and there, not boasting anything good. But after a hundred years, Minnie Dean was talked about differently.
Was she not a villain at all? This does not mean that she did not kill the children - she could well have poisoned them due to illiteracy and carelessness, but she did it unintentionally.
In 2009, a distant relative of Villamina paid to have a gravestone placed on her grave. And although flowers are still not laid there, its story now looks far from so unambiguous.