Amelia Sach

Victims
1 convicted; dozens suspected
Years active
1900 - 1902
Location
London, England, United Kingdom
Method
Poisoning (chlorodyne, a medicine containing morphine)
Status
Executed by hanging at Holloway on February 3, 1903, alongside Annie Walters. Theirs were the first executions carried out at the prison.

Amelia Sach ran a lying-in home in Finchley that took in the babies of unmarried women for a fee and had them killed. She and Annie Walters were hanged together at Holloway in 1903, and were the first executions carried out there.

She was born in 1873. Her advertisements offered accommodation for confinement and adoption of the child for a payment of between twenty-five and thirty pounds: a large sum, and more than the cost of keeping a baby. The infants were passed to Annie Walters, who gave them chlorodyne, a medicine containing morphine, and disposed of the bodies. They were known afterwards as the Finchley baby farmers.

Walters was caught in November 1902 carrying a dead infant, and Sach was arrested on November 18. Both were convicted of the murder of one child, Walters having been observed with him. The number of babies who passed through the house over two years was never established and contemporary estimates ran into the dozens; the figure reflects those estimates rather than any finding.

They were hanged side by side at Holloway on February 3, 1903.