FULL TEXT: Oil City, Sept. 24 – Thursday afternoon Mrs. Cora Lichtenfels, the woman who is alleged to have subjected her stepdaughter, Minnie Lichtenfels, to horrible torture last week, was given a hearing before Alderman McCready. At the conclusion of the testimony Mrs. Lichtenfels was held to the November term of quarter sessions court, bail being fixed at $500, which was furnished by the woman’s husband.
Mrs.
Lichtenfels was represented by Attorney John C. McGill argued that the court
could not legally hear the case, Mrs. Lichtenfels having been tried before an
alderman last Friday and fined $10 and costs on a charge of cruelty arising out
of the same offense. District Attorney Goodwin argued that inasmuch as the
woman was not tried before a jury on Friday she could be tried again, the
charge at yesterday’s hearing being aggravated assault and battery with intent
to maim and disfigure.
Minnie
Lichtenfels appeared and testified that Tuesday of last week her stepmother
took her to the attic of their home and there the elder woman threw the girl to
the floor and then sitting on the child’s head gouged great patches of skin and
flesh from her chest and back using a pair of pinchers [sic]. The girl swore
that last winter her stepmother struck her over the head with a brass curtain
rod and on another occasion had struck her over the back and head with a
broomstick. Mrs. W. B. Jayne, the lady in whose home the girl has been staying
since the inception of the case, testified that last Friday morning her maid
had found the child sitting on the porch of the Jayne home. She swore that it
took a physician an hour and a half to soak the child’s shirt from the wounds
made on her back and chest by the pincers [sic] in the hands of Mrs.
Lichtenfels.
Mrs.
Lichtenfels entered no testimony in defense.
After
the woman had been held to court, Attorney McGill stated that he believed that
Mrs. Lichtenfels was unsound mentally. She has, been in poor health for a long
time, having undergone three surgical operations in recent years. The girl was
given into the care of Humane Officer Hiram Brown, who will provide her with a
home.
[“Inhuman
Stepmother Was Held For Court – Attorney Hints That Woman is Insane,” Warren
Mirror (Pa.), Sep. 24, 1909, p. 1]
For more cases, see: Women Who Like to Torture
[746-1/31/19]
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