Born on 1 June 1784 in Oosterwijk in what was then the Dutch Republic, Hendrikje Geerts Meilofs Doelen emerged into a modest farming community shaped by hard labor and limited prospects. Baptism records from the region—though sometimes conflicting on her exact birth year—strongly point to 1784 as the accurate year of her birth. She was the daughter of Geert Meilofs and Neisjen Harms, and likely grew up surrounded by the rhythms of rural life: tending to land, helping family, and handling the hardships of 18th-century provincial Netherlands.

On 7 May 1819, Hendrikje married Aaldert Mulder, a man approximately six years her senior, in the small Drenthe town of De Wijk. Both were described as poor day laborers—a class defined by physical toil, economic insecurity, and little room for deviation from survival. By 1827, circumstances had become so dire that the couple entered the local poorhouse, a place meant to offer basic shelter and sustenance in exchange for labor and submission to communal oversight.

Years passed in this liminal space between poverty and anonymity. Few records capture personal memories—no children named, no letters survived. By the time 1845 arrived, Hendrikje was 61—a weathered presence in the poorhouse.

In 1845, tragedy struck within the close quarters of the poorhouse world she inhabited. On April 7, her husband Aaldert Mulder died suddenly. The same day, an old woman living with them, Jantje Wichers, also died—but later investigation deemed hers a natural death.

A few days later, tragedy revisited the poorhouse: three children of Arend Hut, another resident, fell violently ill after eating oatmeal pulp Hendrikje had given them—but they survived.

Then, six months on October 14, 1845, her neighbour Grietje van Buren died after eating pancakes prepared by Hendrikje. The horror stayed—even though they may not have immediately suspected. Grietje’s young daughter Evertje fell sick from the same pancakes, and lingered until 9 August 1846, when she too died.

Investigation revealed arsenic poisoning in both the husband and Grietje. But they couldn’t legally tie her to her husband’s death—only to Grietje’s. On January 15, 1847, the provincial court in Assen convicted her of murder and sentenced her to death.

She denied guilt at trial—but later, in her plea for mercy, she confessed: she said she killed her husband due to marital quarrelling, and killed Grietje and Evertje out of spite. The Supreme Court rejected her cassation attempt, but the Minister of Justice, Marinus Willem de Jonge van Campensnieuwland, suggested mercy given her old age, even though the Supreme Court opposed it. King William II granted clemency on November 14, 1847—commuting her sentence to 20 years imprisonment.

On December 2, 1847, she was publicly displayed with a noose for half an hour on the scaffold in Assen—a grim show of judgment before her sentence was officially adjusted to imprisonment. But eight days later, on December 10, 1847, Hendrikje died in the women’s prison in Gouda—never serving more than a few days of her sentence.