Rosa Wurtzer

Rosa Wurzer or Wurtzer of Uniontown, Washington, was a woman who sat in a Washington prison and later in a mental hospital for drowning her six children.

Wurtzer drowned them in a well on February 23, 1901. She was likely suffering from a mental illness which likely begun shortly before her husband died. She got inspired about a book which likely led her to murder them.

Wurtzer admitted to the crime and was summoned before a superior court where she had no remorse. Because she claimed that her children were "Now in heaven and safe out of this wicked world." Two physicians who examined her body had came to the conclusion that she was mentally insane and was suffering from religious melancholia. She was then sent to a mental hospital.

When her husband Joseph Wurtzer, who worked by doing masonry and who died two years before the murders of his six children was alive, he told a fellow traveler that his wife was without a doubt crazy. When her husband died, her mental illness worsened.