FULL TEXT: Berlin – Frau Ernestine Feige of Grunau Hirschberg in the Silesian Mountains has been condemned to death for poisoning a man named Janitschek and a woman named Brueckner who had lived with her as lodgers in the years 1903 and 1906. She was also charged with poisoning in four other cases two of her alleged victims being her mother-in-law and sister-in-law, but as these four cases went back seven years there was uncertainty as to whether the exhumed bodies would show traces of poison.
Frau Feige has been called the Silesian Lucrezia Borgia and the trial revealed that she had many points in common with the famous Roman poisoner. In all the cases it was the desire to become possessed of her victims’ money which drove her to her terrible crimes. As lodgers she always sought out incurable people possessed of means. While they were in her hands, she sought to influence them to make their wills in her favor. As soon as they did so she began her poisoning operations.
Feige used arsenic in all cases, in this displaying great cunning. The entire countryside in which she lived is arsenic producing, and the graveyard in which her victims were buried was in special degree impregnated with arsenical ores. The medical experts at the trial had to decide whether the poison found in the exhumed remains had penetrated the bodies from the earth outside the coffins or whether it had been administered during life.
[“Prisoner Must Die - Silesian Woman Charged with Causing
Six Deaths. - Adroit in Use Of Arsenic - Frau Ernestine Feige Said to Have
Committed Crimes In Order to Possess Herself of Her Victims’ Money Great
Displayed in the Use of the Fatal Doses.” The Washington Herald (D.C.), Apr. 7,
1907, p. 3]
***
FULL TEXT (translated from German): K. Breslan, May 30th. (Tel.) – Alt-Grunau is an idyllic large village in the Riesengeberge near Hirschberg. For several days, the place and the whole area has been in great excitement as a result of the discoveries that followed the death of a Mrs. Brückner.
The wife of the master tailor Brückner in Grunau lived unhappily with her husband and she then moved in with the security guard named Feige. The Feige couple have always granted old people, not so wealthy people, the opportunity to eat and drink. Frau Bruckner had a fortune of more than 1,000 marks. Last winter Mrs. Brückner made her will in favor of the Feige couple and two days later she suddenly died. When the testamentary will revealed that she had completely disinherited her family, the husband of the deceased told the public prosecutor’s office that he suspected that his wife had not died of natural causes. The Hirschberg State Prosecutor also immediately ordered an investigation the excavation of the body.
It was found that in the Leicheuterlen arsenic is contained in large quantities. As a result, an exhaustive house search was immediately carried out on the Feige couple, and a good deal of vials of contents were recovered. The result of the chemical analysis of the contents of these vials is not yet known. However, Feige, who also deals in quackery on the side, should have used these things as a “remedy.”
On Friday eight days ago, Ms. Feige was arrested on suspicion of poisoning. In the investigations that have been made, we have now come upon the curious fact that four persons, who lived in earlier years with the Fieges, have suddenly died, like Frau Bruckner, and that in all these cases the Feiges gained greater material advantages from death of these persons.
The last and most suspicious case is the worker Gustav Janitschek. He was not without means and lived for about half a year with Fiege. In 1903 he died suddenly and the Feiges claimed that he had died “as a result of consuming spoiled sausage.” His legacy of over 1000 marks passed into the possession of the Feige couple. The State Prosecutor has also already ordered the excavation and dissection of the body of the Janitschek. Under very suspicious suspicious circumstances, the sister and stepmother of the woman Feige, as well as a Mrs. Johanna Koch died in the Feige couple’s dwelling. Thorough investigations are underway on these three cases, which have been going on for some years.
If the frightful suspicion were to be confirmed in the other cases, we would be faced with a whole series of crimes, as horrible as have ever concocted in the soul of a man.
[“From the Burning Bets. The poisoners to Grunau. (Five persons poisoned by a married couple.) Prager Abendblatt (Prague, Austrian Empire), 30. Mai 1906. p. 3]
***
FULL TEXT (Translated from German): Berlin, October 4th. - The Chief Guard’s wife Feige in Grunau, who poisoned several people in order to take possession of their assets, was beheaded yesterday morning by the executioner Schwietz in Breslau [Wroclaw].
With this, a murder affair has come to an end, which at the time caused the greatest sensation. Frau Feige was arrested on May 18, 1906, on suspicion of having poisoned the tailor’s wife Bruckner, who had died suddenly on May 28, 1906, after the arsenic had been found in large quantity in the exhumed corpse. Soon, however, there arose the suspicion that Mrs. Feige could have poisoned other persons as well.
Then bodies were exhumed: of Janitschek the laborer, who died in 1903; Frau Feige’s stepmother, who died in 1899; and her sister-in-law, who died in 1897. In these four cases, Frau Feige was charged with of poisoning.
On March 16, after a three-day trial, the jury sentenced her to death in the Brückner and Janitschek cases and to abnegation of her civil rights. The appeal filed by Feige against the double death sentence was rejected by the High Court.
In addition to these four cases, six people – or, ten in all – were dug up, and there was also the strong suspicion that they had been poisoned with arsenic by Frau Feige. Even after the woman was sentenced, two more bodies were dug up. In all cases, inheritance-seeking is the probable motive for the deeds.
In the latter six cases, although arsenic was still found in some corpses, there was not enough incriminating evidence to lead to formal the charges. In the last hours before her execution, Frau Feige was very composed. The prison chaplain’s efforts to obtain a confession from her at the last minute was futile. She persisted in claiming that she had not committed the poison murders she had been charged with; she admitted only to being careless with poisons.
[“Executions with the Veil. The poisoner of Grunau.” Illustrierte Kronen Zeitung (Vienna, Austria), 5. Oktober 1907. p. 2]
***
CHRONOLOGY
1897 – Sister-in-law (Schwägerin), dies.
1899 – Step-mother (Stiefmutter), dies.
1903 – Laborer Janitschek, dies.
Mar. 28, 1906 – Schnedersfrau Brükner, dies.
Jan. 31, 1906? – Arbeiter Schaffer, dies.
May 18, 1906 – Feige arrested.
Mar. 14, 1907 – Feige trial begins.
Mar. 16, 1907 – sentenced her to death in the Brückner and Janitschek cases.
Date? – Frau Johanna Koch, dies.
Date? – Banhofwärtersfrau Heide, friend, dies.
Oct. 2, 1907 – execution; executioner Schwietz; Wednesday morning shortly after 6 a.m. in the small courtyard of the judicial prison in Hirschberg, Preuss-Silesia, Wroclaw.
NOTE: Some German language newspapers report the execution to have occurred in 1908.: Apr. 30, 1908 – Feige beheaded, Hofe des Fürstenberger Untersuchungsdefängnisses (Fürstenberg Court Prison)
[Sources: Neues Wiener Journal (Vienna, Austria), 1. Mai 1908, p. 11; Prager Abendblatt (Prague), 14 März, 1907, p. 5; Prager Abendblatt (Prague), 30 Mai, 1906.]
***
***
***
***
***
More: Female Serial Killers Executed
***
[841-4/6/19]
***
No comments:
Post a Comment