The Killing of Emma Gross (34 page)

Later that Sunday afternoon, in the village of Oberkassel near Düsseldorf, twenty-six year-old domestic servant Gertrud Schulte accepts a stranger’s offer to escort her to the nearby outdoor market at Neuss. The stranger introduces himself as Fritz Baumgart. According to Schulte’s statement, when they come to a meadow near the market, Baumgart forces Schulte to the ground and attempts to remove her panties. Schulte tells him she’d rather die, to which he replies, ‘Well die then,’ and stabs her several times before fleeing. A group of youngsters hear Schulte’s cries and take her to hospital. Medical exam reveals 13 stab wounds and the point of the blade used in the attack lodged in Schulte’s back. Schulte describes Baumgart to police, putting him in his mid-thirties.

End of Aug 1929

Based on the August attacks, Düsseldorf Kriminalpolizei (Kripo) conclude the following:

1) Fritz Baumgart is likely the same man who attacked Frau Mantel, Anna Goldhausen and Heinrich Goldblum on 21
^st
August;

2) despite lack of semen or other evidence of sexual violation, the killings of Hamacher and Lenzen were likely lust murders, either for the thrill of the kill itself or with the unconsummated intention of sexual violation;

3) Baumgart was not the same man who killed Hamacher and Lenzen. They are looking for at least two criminals.

Writing later, Berg says: ‘We had formed the opinion that a sadist who had satisfied his sexual appetite on Saturday by the murder of two children would not have troubled to tackle a victim capable of offering a stout resistance already by the following Sunday…strangulation, a characteristic common to all the other crimes, was here absent.’

The press goes big on the attacks and begins to criticise Kripo for lack of progress.

Mon 30 Sept 1929

Body of domestic servant Ida Reuter found at 7am in meadows on Düsseldorf outskirts. The girl's underwear and handbag are missing and the body lies with bare legs parted and genitals exposed. The head bears a circle of bruises which Karl Berg in his initial exam of body believes to be the marks of hammer blows; this conclusion is confirmed via detailed examination of victim's skull during autopsy. Autopsy yields 2 ccm of sperm from Reuter's dissected vagina. From this, the digestive state of stomach contents and the body's complete rigor mortis on discovery, Berg assumes a time of death of before midnight on the 29
^th
.

Due to use of new weapon, Düsseldorf Kripo now suspects a third killer has entered the scene.

Weds 2 Oct 1929

Düsseldorf Kripo requests consultation with the Berlin homicide department, at this time the only specialised homicide detective unit in Germany. Düsseldorf Kripo has been operating under the common system of assembling temporary murder commissions to solve specific murders. Since formation in 1925 under leadership of Chief Inspector Ernst Gennat, Berlin homicide has had an average annual clean up rate of around 97%. With Gennat's expert advice, Düsseldorf Kripo concludes that it is now looking for up to four different sex killers.

Sat 12 Oct 1929

Elisabeth Dorrier, unemployed servant girl, found wounded and unconscious in Flingern district at 6.30am. Crime scene shows Dorrier was attacked and then dragged to the spot where she was found, similar to the Reuter crime scene. Dorrier also bears similar bruises to Reuter on the left temple. Her attacker has torn her vagina and left the imprint of his finger nails in the mucous membrane.

Sun 13 Oct 1929

Dorrier dies without recovering consciousness. Karl Berg performs autopsy: 'After comparison of the head wounds I came to the following conclusions: the wounds of Reuter and Dorrier conform to such an extent that it is necessary to presume the same criminal and the same instrument of murder in both cases.'

Fri 25 Oct 1929

Frau Meurer, thirty-four, attacked on way home. Stranger accosts her at 8pm while she walks along the Hellweg in Flingern. According to her statement the man asks, 'Aren't you afraid? Quite a lot of things have happened here already.' She ignores him and he attacks her. An hour later some passersby bring her into hospital. She is unconscious and her forehead and right ear bear oval wounds 2cm in diameter which are deep enough to expose her skull. She regains consciousness but with no memory of the attack itself. Two weeks later she is well enough to leave hospital. Berg later says her wounds could have come from hammer blows and points out: 'This episode was important because two weeks earlier in that same place Dorrier had been killed by similar wounds.'

Later that evening, prostitute Frau Wanders is approached in the Hofgarten by a stranger she takes for a potential client. They negotiate prices for sex before the man knocks her out with a blow to the head. Wanders regains consciousness soon after and, being a good citizen, goes to the police to give a statement before going to hospital in search of treatment. Doctors treating her find four head wounds. Later, Karl Berg examines her. He finds 'a square depression fracture' over the left ear and 'two smaller depression fractures' on the crown and the right temple: 'They were square hammer impressions.'

According to Margaret Seaton-Wagner, author of
The Monster of Dusseldorf: the Life and Trial of Peter Kurten
(1932), police try to avoid leaking too much information to the press about these last two attacks: 'Not only were the police at a dead end; they were the subject of embittered press attacks...' She mentions that local Communist newspaper
Freiheit
has been the most consistent critic of the police investigation so far. It is the only paper publicly to claim Johann Stausberg's innocence of the February murders.

Thurs 7 Nov 1929

Last sighting of five-year-old Gertrud Albermann, at 6.45pm in Flingern. Press goes big with the story, stoking what Seaton-Wagner calls 'mingled feelings of wrath, terror, and the sense of being fooled by a maniac of almost supernatural powers.'

Sat 9 Nov 1929

Gertrud Albermann's body found among brick rubble and nettles, lying against a wall surrounding the factory yard of a firm called Haniel and Lueg in the Düsseldorf outskirts. Body lies face down, legs parted. On removing the girl's coat, police find that her killer removed her clothes to expose her bottom, tearing her underwear in the process. Berg performs the autopsy and writes later: '[Albermann's] body...was discovered in so typical a position that she must have been killed and sexually violated where she was found. The position, with the knickers torn up behind, arouses the inevitable suspicion that the child had been put in this position in order to rape her from behind.' Autopsy reveals facial congestion and thumb marks indicative of strangulation, two stab wounds in the left of the head and thirty-four stab wounds in the breast. From stomach contents and details of meals eaten at 2pm and 4pm on the 7
^th
, Berg estimates a time of death of 7pm on the 7
^th
, some fifteen minutes after Gertrud was last sighted. Rainfall on the 7
^th
and 8
^th
washed most blood from the crime scene; the girl's clothes absorbed the rest. Berg concludes that the killer strangled the girl at the place her body was found, until she passed out and fell to the ground. The killer then stabbed her through her coat. He removed the coat and arranged her so he could rape her, only to change his mind and replace the coat without following through.

A few hours after police discover Gertud's body, the
Freiheit
newspaper receives a letter posted on the 8
^th
and purporting to be from the killer. The letter includes a sketch map showing the location of Gertrud's body which tallies with the crime scene. The outer edge of the map shows some forest and a cross, along with the words: 'Murder at Pappendelle. In the place marked with a cross a corpse lies buried.' Police headquarters receives a similar letter and is forced to go public with the murder, since
Freiheit
already has the information. Unfortunately the letter casts more bad light on the investigation. As Berg comments: 'Once already, on the 14
^th
of October 1929, the police had received a peculiar communication describing the interment of a body at the edge of the woods and containing a plan on which the burial place was marked.' According to Seaton-Wagner, the earlier letter mentions a 'big flat stone' which supposedly indicates the exact spot of the murder. Berg neglects to add why police did not follow up on the October letter, but Seaton-Wagner says that police treated such previous letters as 'hoaxes'.

Police investigation gets second wind. Besides the Haniel and Leug factory, the Pappendelle district comprises meadows, woods and ploughed fields. Not far from the factory is a café which receives little passing trade except on Sundays. Police think it likely that any missing person from the area went missing on a Sunday. The investigation:

1) sifts local missing persons cases;

2) begins to dig at and around the spot marked on the sketch map;

3) photographs a battered straw hat and set of keys a local farmer found on his land in the preceding weeks.

Tues 12 Nov 1929

Police publish photos of the keys and hat in local press.

Weds 13 Nov 1929

Local novelist recognises keys and contacts police; the woman's housekeeper, Maria Hahn, originally from Bremen, had left the house for a Sunday afternoon off in August and never returned. Police make enquiries and analyse records from Düsseldorf and Bremen. There is no record of anyone having seen Hahn alive since Sunday 11
^th
August.

Ripper stories reappear in local and national press, which stresses that the London Ripper of 1888 also wrote to police to inform them of his work. Tone is critical of police, some articles claiming there could be hundreds more bodies buried in the fields around Düsseldorf. Press is indignant, as Seaton-Wagner puts it, 'that in these days of enlightenment, telephone and aeroplane, any old-time tale of mystery and terror could repeat itself.' Much like the tone of the London papers in 1888.

Two women come forward; they claim to have seen Hahn on 14
^th
August with a man in his early thirties who wore horn-rimmed spectacles and a smart suit. They stress his apparent good manners. Police appeal for snap shots taken that day, describing Hahn as pretty, fair-haired and wearing a pink silk dress on the day she disappeared. Dozens of letters arrive at police headquarters containing sketches and photos and hints of further murders.

Local police make two arrests, both of young men who are released without charge. Budapest police arrest a man for accosting a woman and implying he is the Düsseldorf murderer when she refuses to accompany him on a walk in the woods. In Düsseldorf, 'any man seen talking to a child ran the risk of being followed as a suspect' (Seaton-Wagner). Neighbours vent grudges by reporting each other’s nightly prowlings to police. Women report hearing screams from the woods on the city's outskirts.

Prussian Justice Ministry intervenes and sends murder squad detectives from Berlin Kripo to Düsseldorf. Seaton-Wagner: '[This] aroused some local jealousy but it helped to restore the faith of the population in those responsible for public law and order.'

Fri 15 Nov 1929

Digging detectives – now under direction of Berlin Kripo – find flat stone mentioned in October letter. Further digging at that spot uncovers Maria Hahn's body. Body is unclothed and police deduce it is Hahn from her hair and build.

Berg conducts the autopsy: 'A comparison of the autopsies of the Albermann child and Maria Hahn show a considerable affinity. Evidence of throttling could not, of course, be proved in the latter case, but the stab wounds were alike in both cases. Each body had stabs in the temple. In the skull there were the same triangular forms showing a knife with a rather broad back. The largest stab, in the case of Hahn, was in the forehead.' Berg concludes that Hahn was killed close to where her body was buried.

Winter 1929-1930

With the discovery of Maria Hahn's body, the Düsseldorf killings come to an end. Police are no closer to finding a killer or killers.

Police refine theory of four perps and believe they are looking for:

1) a strangler;

2) a stabber;

3) a hammer killer;

4) a 'homosexual maniac'.

However, during a press conference announcing his involvement, Berlin's Chief Inspector Gennat talks up the Jack the Ripper link, claiming that the original 'was a mere beginner compared with his Düsseldorf disciple' and that 'no such case is known in the whole history of criminology'. (Seaton-Wagner)

Berg summarises the case later: 'It is only necessary to consider the facts as I have related them to appreciate how few were the clues in the hands of the police to assist them in their search for the perpetrator. Indeed, two of the attacks were perpetrated by Stausberg; the murder of Gross was at the hand of an unknown criminal; and, these three crimes apart, there remained an insufficient number of common factors upon which a theory could be constructed pointing unequivocally to a single criminal.

'Where a series of crimes are committed, the same technique inevitably suggests the same criminal. That is an old aphorism of criminology. But just this very thing is missing in our cases. Certainly, there were points in common. In five murders the sexual motive was perfectly clear from the condition of the genitals. In the other cases, that of the murdered Scheer or the stabbed Kornblum, or again, in the case of Frau Meurer, it could not be definitely demonstrated.