When the Richest Woman of Europe Presumably Was Buried Alive

In 1796, at the tender age of 16 years, Giertrud Birgitte Bodenhoff married her relative, the exceedingly rich merchant and shipwner Andreas Bodenhoff. Five months later he died and left her a rich, young widow, actually the richest woman of Europe at her time. Everything seems to go fine for her and for her large inheritance as she proves to be a rather clever business woman. However, disaster strikes when she falls ill with excruciating pains so that she is most likely over treated with morphine. This kills her, or so it seems, but one of her elder half brothers does not like to see her in her coffin with "red cheeks". To him she does not look dead although all normal functions seems to have stopped. She was her mother's only child and she grieves her deeply so that she is not interred until several days after her presumed death. Still she looks alive, but the doctors assure the grieving mother that she is dead and on the 23rd of July 1798 the young woman is brought to her final resting place in the family mausoleum at the famous Assistens Kirkegard (: the Assistens Churchyard) which also houses e.g. Hans Christian Andersen and Soren Kierkegaard.

For several years I often took a daily stroll at this churchyard and then I used to stop up at Giertrud Birgittes Bodenhoff's magnificent mausoleum. It is very elaborate and indicates wealth. Nonetheless, the inhabitant of it has been reputed to have turned into a ghost which I find fully understandable after such a lifetime. As it is, she may not only have been over dosed and maybe even buried alive, but it is also possible that she was murdered after being revived in her grave.

When an old, decrepit, but repenting scoundrel who had been a sexton at the churchyard many years prior to his own death asked to see a priest nobody could imagine all the sins he wanted to confess before dying. The priest was told of his and his friends' diligence as grave robbers where they had dug into the new graves to steal coffins for woods to their furnaces, clothes or whatever they could find buried with the dead man or woman. As to Giertrud Birgitte Bodenhoff then it was well known that the grieving mother had dressed her in a rich necklace or ear plugs and this the grave robbers wanted to get their hands on. When they ripped the jewelry off the presumably dead woman she woke up and pleaded for her life, but in vain. They dared not let her live to report on them so they killed her.

This is sad, but it may not be anything but a legend as it has never been conclusively proven. However, when she was examined some years ago it was found that her legs were in a strange position as if she had moved them in her coffin.