A woman slit the throat of her own baby. A soldier shot a sailor on the street in broad daylight. A mother killed three of her children. These crimes were part of a wave of suicide-murders in the 17th and 18th centuries - a wave that swept through much of Europe but was especially common in Denmark. Insane though it may sound, people used to commit murder just so they could get executed. They even researched what crimes incurred the death penalty to guarantee they would die.