Christina Johansdotter was a Swedish woman who, in 1740, committed a murder with the explicit intention of being executed. She had been deeply in love with her fiancé, and upon his death, she lost all will to live and desired to reunite with him in the afterlife. However, contemporary religious beliefs held that suicide would condemn one's soul to hell, preventing her from seeing her fiancé again. This belief led her to seek an alternative method to end her life that would ensure her soul's salvation. ​

Johansdotter devised a plan to commit a crime that would result in her execution. She believed that by confessing and repenting for a capital crime, she would be forgiven and granted entry into heaven. Observing that the murder of a child almost invariably led to a death sentence, she decided to pursue this course of action. She approached a friend and requested to take her infant child under the pretense of showing the baby to an acquaintance. Once alone, Johansdotter decapitated the child with an axe. She was subsequently arrested and freely admitted to the crime, explaining her motives to the court. In 1740, she was executed by decapitation, and her body was publicly burned at the stake, as was customary for such crimes in Sweden at the time. ​