The Cross-Dressing Husband-Killer For Hire: Viktoria Foedi Rieger - 1933

Total suspected murder count: 18: Boerstock murder, plus 5 with evidence, plus another 12 suspected.

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Proper Hungarian name: Rieger Pálné Fődi Viktória;  commonly known as Pipás Pista (Pipe-smoking Peter) – born in Átokháza, 1886 – died Oct. 10, 1940 in prison). Sentenced to death in 1933, she received reprieve on Christmas 1933 from Governor Miklós Horthy.

In the past few years there has been a tremendous interest in the case: two books published (2006; 2013), a play (“Pozsgai Zsolt: Pipás Pista”; premier: Jan. 25, 2013), a rock song (band: Virrasztók, 2013), a historical museum exhibition (Mora Ferenc Museum, Feb. 22, 2013), and an exhibition) of comic artists interpretations of Rieger (Somogyi Library of Szeged Comics Festival, Mar. 31, 2013).

An award-winning  documentary film on Rieger, directed by Judit Ember (“Pipás Pista és társai,” 1983), was aired in September 1984 on MTV-2.

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ILLUSTRATION CAPTIONS: The  Procedure of the Murders Was Always the Same, the Hungarian Police Assert. The Wide and “Smoking Peter” would prepare the noose and Place Under it a Box.

“Come out to the barn, I’ve some thing to show you,” the Wife Would Say to the Husband. The Husband Would See the Rope and Ask, in Wonder, What  It Was for.

“That’s for you to hang yourself with,” She Would Answer.

And then “Smoking Peter” Would Rise Up From Her Hiding Place, Strike Him With Her Sandbag, and the Two Women Would Put the Husband’s Head in the Noose, Kick the Box From Under Him, and the Coroner’s Verdict Was Always “Suicide.”

The  Procedure of the Murders Was Always the Same, the Hungarian Police Assert. The Wide and “Smoking Peter” would prepare the noose and Place Under it a Box.

“Come out to the barn, I’ve some thing to show you,” the Wife Would Say to the Husband. The Husband Would See the Rope and Ask, in Wonder, What  It Was for.

“That’s for you to hang yourself with,” She Would Answer.

And then “Smoking Peter” Would Rise Up From Her Hiding Place, Strike Him With Her Sandbag, and the Two Women Would Put the Husband’s Head in the Noose, Kick the Box From Under Him, and the Coroner’s Verdict Was Always “Suicide.”

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FULL TEXT: BUDAPEST – When the guards started to give “Smoking Peter,” the Hungarian cowboy “widow-maker” from Tisza Valley, his regulation first bath in jail, they discovered that this strange crusader, who went about relieving wives of husbands who were no longer wanted, was a woman. It was this same Tisza Valley that not long ago startled the world by laying bare a long series of poisonings by which wives had been making themselves widows without any assistance.

The authorities thought they had put a stop to these “graveyard divorces” when they hanged five of the self-made widows and sent a score more into life imprisonment.

They suspected nothing when this was followed by an epidemic of suicides in which husbands had apparently gone out to their barns at night and hanged themselves. In most cases it was common knowledge that the widows were not entirely inconsolable at their bereavement.

In fact it was known that they had bedeviled their husbands and married life as unhappy for them as they could. However, if a wife can make her husband’s life so unhappy that he prefers to take it by his own hand that is perfectly legal and there is nothing to be done about it.

Had the police suspected that these were not unassisted hangings, a brief investigation would have shown one suspicious item connected with them all. In each case a certain hard-riding, hard-drinking and above all hard-smoking cowboy, known as “Smoking Peter,” because, he was never seen without a pipe in his mouth, had been a close friend of the widow for some time before the tragedy.

Neighbors, especially women, had not failed to note this coincidence, but they misunderstood its significance. Never having any reason to doubt that “Smoking Peter” was a man, they figured the rest out by the accepted rules of gossip. There must have been a love affair between “Smoking Peter” and the wife which had stimulated her dislike for her husband and aggravated her meanness toward him until finally, after some unusually bitter quarrel, he had gone out and ended it all.

That would leave the widow free to marry her supposed lover, “Smoking Peter.” What puzzled and confused the gossips was that none of the widows ever did marry him and, even more surprising, they showed no jealousy at seeing him attach himself to another married woman. Such unfeminine absence of jealousy could only be explained by abandoning the idea that there had ever been any romance, and without thin they could imagine no theory by which “Smoking Peter” could have had anything to do with the hangings.

But it takes a man to go the limit in misunderstanding a woman, and finally one did so the other day with such completeness that in his blunderings he revealed the secret to the police -- otherwise the epidemic, of “suicides” might have gone on indefinitely. The gentleman who performed this public service was John Vecsernyes, coming to the police full of jealous fury to tell them that the widow of John Boercsock, a wealthy cattle miser, had confessed to him that she had paid “Smoking Peter” to hang her husband for her.

Looking up their records, the police were skeptical, because those snowed that the man had died by strangulation with no marks of a struggle or signs that his arms and legs had been tied. How could he explain that?

Vecsernyes related the method. First the scoundrel rigged the noose in the barn, with the knot all tied at the proper height with a tall box under it. Then, after supper when it was dark, the wife had gotten her husband to come out to the barn on some pretext. Seeing the noose and box, he had walked right up to it wondering out loud what they were for.

“For you to hang yourself with, John,” his wife had replied. When the astonished husband turned to see what his wife meant by such a remark, “Smoking Peter” had stepped out of the darkness and hit him on the back of the head with a sandbag. This is where Peter’s skill came in. He claimed to know how to hit a person just hard enough to knock him senseless for a few minutes without fracturing his skull or raising a bump. But some skulls are thicker than others and it has since been found that sometimes he hit too hard, as crusaders often do.

Anyway, the instant the husband dropped from the blow, Peter and the wife, climbing up onto the box, pulled up the unconscious form and placed the noose around the neck, tipped over the box as if it had been done by the “suicide” himself and left him to die by strangulation while still insensible.

As soon as death was certain, Peter received his pay and went home. The wife, cheered by the knowledge that she was a widow, went to bed. In the morning she went out to the barn, pretended to make the discovery and ran screaming to the nearest neighbor.

The police, still dubious, wanted to know how their informer had learned all this and why he was informing them. Vecsernyes explained that after Boercsock’s death he had been the widow’s lover and she had confessed to him. He would never have told on her if she had not recently tired of him and, looking around for the reason, he heard that she was seeing “Smoking Peter” again, a thing that he had always feared because he doubted that a man would commit a murder for any such small sum as this woman would be likely to have in ready cash. Mad with jealousy, he saw an easy way to be rid of the supposed rival. Therefore he was now doing his somewhat belated duty and hoped they would not punish his beloved.

“Smoking Peter,” the widow and her son were arrested but all stoutly denied their guilt at first. Then the police tried the old trick of telling each that the other had confessed and confronted the widow with the supposed cowboy. They merely glowered at each other until n police detective remarked :

“This man claims that you never paid him for ridding you of that mean old husband of yours.”

“That’s a lie,” answered the woman hotly. “I paid him 3,000 good silver crowns for the job, and that’s more than he got from anyone else.” Instantly “Smoking Peter’s” fist made a powerful swing for the widow’s jaw. The policeman who blocked it with his wrist stated that had it landed Mrs. Boercsock might well have been silenced forever.

They pinioned “Peter’s” arms but let “him” curse the woman for an ungrateful liar.

“You did it for charity, did you?” sneered the widow. “Perhaps you are thinking of your dear little friend, the widow Dobak. I happen to know for a positive fact that when you hanged Anton Dobak for her, all you got was a lambkin and a little wine.”

“Idiot!” yelled “Peter” in despair, “you will hang us all.”

This prophecy seemed likely to be fulfilled, because when they arrested Frau Dobak she confessed and described almost the identical technique in getting her husband out of the way. Faced with this second confession, “Smoking Peter” admitted, so the police allege, both murders, but curiously enough still denied that the Boercsock woman ever paid her the 3,000 crowns.

The police thought they had enough evidence to convict “Peter” of five more hangings and expected to connect her services with still another dozen, at least, though the arrival of a lawyer put an end to any more confessions.

When her sex was revealed, “Peter” made no attempt to conceal her identity. In the prison of Szeged, she said that her maiden name was Viktoria Foedi, that she was the daughter of a wealthy peasant who had married her off at the age of 18 to Paul Rieger, a rich old widower, 21 years ago. According to her story, Rieger and his two grown daughters had treated the girl bride as a servant, even after the birth of her daughter. Two years of this was all she could stand and then one night she had fled, taking her baby with her. The husband, seemingly glad to be rid of them, made no attempt to get them back and after a while divorced Viktoria.

Rieger confirmed this except that he said the trouble had been caused by the young woman’s mean disposition and ungovernable temper. He admitted that she had been a beautiful creature when he married her 24 years ago. Physicians who examined the prisoner found her suffering from a glandular disorder which had developed after her running away and transformed the young woman into a sturdy person with a deep voice and muscular frame.

As her grievance against her husband was preying on Viktoria’s mind at the time, they believe that it gave her the fixed idea that all wives were abused and therefore it would be a sort of noble crusade to go around liberating as many wives as she could from the misfortune of having a husband.

Dressing, looking, talking and working like a man, she turned up as a farm hand on a lonely farm north of Szeged, whore thousands of cattle, and horses are bred by picturesquely-dressed equivalents of the American cowboy, being a man-hater, she shunned the male sex which looked upon her as a sort of Don Juan because she was seen going around only with married women.

As a woman who hates her husband usually makes no effort to hide her feelings, Viktoria had no difficulty in finding those who yearned to be rid of their husbands but could not do so by divorce.

Of course murder is also forbidden by all churches but, unlike divorce, it might be hidden. Viktoria’s ingenious scheme of covering murder with pretended suicide was accepted, the Budapest police officials assert, by discontented wives the more readily because it was what psychologists call “wish fulfillment.” Every woman who hates her husband enough is bound to wish that he would get off the earth in some way that would not get her into prison. Aside from sickness or accident, suicide is the only way this could be expected to happen. In their ignorance of anatomy and medical matters this woman and her clients did not realize that they would have been caught at the start except for the good luck of careless medical examination in that sparsely settled country.

Old Rieger, remembering the feminine young thing that had run away from him, could not believe that Viktoria had palmed herself off for 22 years as a man, especially after he saw the coarse, masculine features of the prisoner when her pictures were printed in the papers. So he went to Szeged Prison and asked to look at his former bride. As he stared through the bars at the weather-beaten features and toil-worn hands of this pipe-smoking person, he shook his head and told the jailers that she must be a fake. Just then the prisoner snapped at him.

“You accursed old devil! You are the cause of all my hardships and even this. I was a fool not to begin on you.”

Rieger stopped shaking his 74-year-old head and began to nod it vigorously.

“You!” he cackled. “If she hadn’t said that, I wouldn’t have recognized her. I hope she is hanged.”

He will get his wish. Smoking Peter has just been convicted of two of the murders and sentenced to dangle at end of the same kind of noose she had prescribed for Mmmes. Boersock’s and Dobak’s husbands. It appeared that in the Dolak case, she received as a fee a year’s room and board at the home of the widow, and tobacco. The two widows were sentenced to life imprisonment, Vecsernyes, the apprehensive lover, was given 15 years at hard labor and young Imre Boercsock two years for not reporting the “suicide” as murder the moment they knew what it was.

Smoking Peter was acquitted of active complicity in seven other cases, but it doesn’t do any good. Anybody hanged for two murders is as dead as one hanged for a hundred. About fifteen other cases are still being investigated.

[“Wanted to Be Widows So They Hanged Their Husbands – Epidemic of ‘Suicides’ in the Same Hungarian Valley Where 100 Wives Were Recently Arrested for Husband-Poisoning Reveals an Ingenious Murder Plot With a Strange Man-Hating Woman as its Leader,” The American Weekly (San Antonio Light) (Tx.), Mar. 12, 1933, p. 9]

NOTE: Female serial killer suspected of 24 murders

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SEE an article published following this Viktoria Rieger post on The Unknown History of Misandry: Joni E. Johnston, Psy.D., “Albert Knobbs with an Edge: The cross-dressing serial killer,” May 31, 2012 in The Human Equation (column), Psychology Today

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For more than two dozen similar cases, dating from 1658 to 2011, see the summary list with links see: The Husband-Killing Syndicates

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[16,291-9/15/20]

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Masculine Female Man-Hater & Serial-Killer, Viktoria Rieger - 1933

For a long article on this case see: The Cross-Dressing Husband-Killing Syndicate Maven

FULL TEXT: Budapest, Saturday. – Since her divorce in 1907, Victoria Rieger became a man-hater. She adopted male guise, worked as a farm laborer and perpetually smoked a pipe. The masquerade was not suspected until she was arrested for murdering two farmers, at the behest of their faithless wives.

Rieger in each case lassooed her victim, hoisted him to a beam in the barn and left him to die. Then she collected the reward of two bottles of wine and 5/ [5 shillings].

She was to-day sentenced to death, and the wives to long terms of imprisonment.

[“Manhater Murders Husbands.” syndicated, The Advocate (Burnie, Tasmania), Jan. 16, 1933, p. 1]

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For more cases of misandric fixation see: What Is Misandric Fixation?

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N.O.W. Presents 13 Murderesses You've Probably Never Heard Of

N.O.W. (Never Overlook Women) Presents 13 Empowered Women Who Thought and Acted “Outside the Box”

This post serves to inform the public of examples which might be though to somewhat contradict the “women are not violent,” “women are always victims” and “women only use violence in self-defense” stereotypes that are promoted so frequently and widely by misandrists.

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Lizzie Halliday, known in New York state in her day as “the worst woman on earth,  murdered at least six persons, attempted to murder two others and is suspected of having murdered others. Among her victims were two husbands – one of whom survived a poisoning attempt – a retarded step-son, two neighbor women and two attendants in the insane asylum where she was sent in lieu of execution for three 1893 murders. One of the female attendants survived a strangling in 1895, the other Lizzie stabbed with scissors more than 200 times.

Maria Jager is unusual in having made a living as a serial killer in two separate enterprises in her village in Hungary. She started off as a midwife and “baby farmer” (archaic term for child care provider) who murdered babies for a fee. Later in life she switched to selling poison to those who wished to murder family members. She formed a small gang to help her in the business. In 1897 she was sentenced to life in prison for having participated in murdering a hundred men and women. A contemporary journalist noted that it “was her chiefest joy – to see the poison gripping at the vitals of the condemned. She watched their fight for life, and a fierce and horrible jubilation possessed her.”

Jeanne Weber, “The Ogress,” had a passion for strangling children to death. A simple French peasant who was tried for murder on three separate occasions, and found not guilty each time, was championed by famous lawyers and intellectuals who defended her as a supposed victim of persecution. Following her third acquittal in 1908 she was caught in the act of strangling and finally sent away to an insane asylum. In total she murdered seven children, including her own child and other relatives.

Énriqueta Martí, known after her arrest in 1912 as “the Vampiress of Barcelona,” kidnapped children, prostituted children to pedophile clients and murdered children to provide ingredients for “magic potions” she sold to wealthy citizens. “As ultimately pieced together by authorities, Enriqueta’s local crimes claimed at least twelve victims. But it is thought there were more victims because she kidnapped, prostituted, and killed children over a twenty year time period.” (Wikipedia) Martí died in prison in 1913, apparently having been murdered by inmates.

Mrs. Albert Steele, of Muskegon, Wisconsin, murdered her 11-year-old step-daughter out of jealousy for her husband’s love for the child. The murder took place in 1915. Other women have done such things for the same reason, but Mrs. Steele went about her business in a fashion that was unusual. She tied the girl to a chair, blindfolded her and then poured acid down her throat. Then, in an effort to simulate a botched abortion in order to give an explanation for the death as well as providing support for a false allegation of incest to be used after the “abortion” was discovered, the step-mother, mutilated the corpse and threw the naked body in an alley, partially covering it with sand. Mrs. Steele was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

Dianorah Galou, was known in Paris as “The Cat-Eater.” “If she is not one of the most monstrous women ever arraigned in a French court, certainly she is one of the most mysterious. Even the detectives who, in 1925, worked for months on her case were unable to agree as to just why she kept her wretched home running over with babies and to explain how she got them all and what finally became of them. What shocked the public most of all in the trial of Dinorah Galou was the prosecutor’s charge that she was quite probably one of many women who rent stolen babies at so much per hour or day to beggars and street venders of matches, flowers and other things.”

Helen Geisen-Volk was a professional child care provider in New York City. She was also a serial killer of children, with victims estimated to number between 23 and 53. Like scores of other child care providers in North America who were investigated and prosecuted for serially murdering and torturing the children they were paid to care after, Geisen-Volk was never convicted on a homicide charge.

Dorothea Irene Turley, of rural Arizona, had been in earlier life a beauty queen. In 1933 she decided to rid herself of her husband, so she plotted to have him killed by his own 15-year-old daughter, Mattie. Trial testimony show that on November 17, Mattie raised her own shotgun given to her by her dad and killed him as he carried a pail of milk from the cowpen. she testified. Having no animosity toward him, she did this tragic thing solely because the ouija board had commanded her to, and because her mother had assured her that edicts of the ouija spirits must be obeyed. Mattie understood, she declared, that “mother must be freed in order to marry the handsome cowboy.” The girl herself pleaded guilty in juvenile court and wan sentenced to an Arizona reform school. The mother, after fighting long and futilely for dismissal, was tried in the county court at St. Johns and convicted. Penalty for intent to murder is five years to life.

Viktoria Foedi Rieger hated men, and she acted on her feelings. Known by the nickname “Smoking Peter,” the divorced Hungarian woman dressed as – and passed herself of as – a man. After her arrest in 1933, it was discovered that Rieger was responsible for a long string of “suicides” of married men in the region. She had devised a routine in order to assist wives who wished to rid themselves of husbands whereby the victim would coaxed by the wife into a barn in which a pre-prepared noose was in place, then knocked on the head by “Smoking Peter,” placed into the noose and finished off by a “suicidal” hanging.

Piroska Jancsó Ladányi – Törökszentmiklós, Hungary – In 1954, along with her mother, Prioska strangled five girls to death, an 11-year old, three 13-yesar-olds and a 17-year old. Her mother wanted the victims clothing to sell and Prioska wanted to engage in sexual activities with the corpses. She was hanged as the age of 20.

Georgia Tann, of Memphis, Tennessee is perhaps the most overlooked serial killer in history. It is quite possible that she was the most prolific serial killer of all. The number of her victims will never be known, but her murder spree lasted decades and records show that during a single winter, in 1945, her victims seem to have numbered 50. Miss Tann, who operated professionally from 1924 to her death in 1950, was famous as a child care expert and for having single-handedly established the adoption business as a respectable industry. She was also a pedophile, child kidnapper and child torturer who sold children for a substantial profit and would murder any unsaleable merchandise she had on hand. The children who lived, those whom she “placed” (including many kidnapped from the parent with the collusion of a female judge acting as accomplice) numbered 5,000. The murdered children are likely to have numbered in six figures as well.

Leonarda Cianciulli murdered three women, cut up their bodies and made soap and tea cakes out of their remains between 1939 and 1940 in Coreggio, Italy.

Rosa Pena, of San Antonio, Texas, murdered her three sons, David, 6, Alvin, 4, and Richard, 2, by drowning in the bathtub in 1958. Mrs. Pena openly told police why she did it: “I didn’t want my husband to have them. If I can’t have them, no one can.”

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NOTE: Among these cases, four are fairly well-known to students of crime: Cianciulli, Renczi, Marti, and Weber. Rieger is found in some compendia of serial killers, but the full story is not never given. The rest are virtually unknown to crime buffs and scholars.

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[3580-11/7/21]

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This is What a Misandrist Looks Like

For a long article on this case see: The Cross-Dressing Husband-Killing Syndicate Maven

FULL TEXT: Budapest, Saturday. – Since her divorce in 1907, Victoria Rieger became a man-hater. She adopted male guise, worked as a farm laborer and perpetually smoked a pipe. The masquerade was not suspected until she was arrested for murdering two farmers, at the behest of their faithless wives.

Rieger in each case lassooed her victim, hoisted him to a beam in the barn and left him to die. Then she collected the reward of two bottles of wine and 5/ [5 shillings].

She was to-day sentenced to death, and the wives to long terms of imprisonment.

[“Manhater Murders Husbands.” syndicated, The Advocate (Burnie, Tasmania), Jan. 16, 1933, p. 1]

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Henrietta Bamberger, St. Louis “Wholesale Murderess” - 1899

FULL TEXT (Article 1 of 3): St. Louis, Nov. 18. – If the charges against Midwife [Henrietta] Bamberger are true, she is one of the greatest criminals in the history of the world. Sworn statements accuse her of killing no less than 300 women and infants during her career in St. Louis.

The grand jury has returned one indictment for murder and four for manslaughter against her. her resort, on Chouteau avenue, was a veritable charnel house, it is said, where unfortunate girls met death and where infants were killed and then burned to destroy evidence of horrible crimes. Sworn statements in support of these charges have been made by Lizzie Rieger, Mary Haar And Katie Bleckinger, who reside now at 1829 South Tenth street,  but were formerly employed in Mrs. Bamberger’s house. As a result of this testimony, Mrs. Bamberger has been indicted for murder in the first degree on specific charges, and, besides, there is an indictment pending against her for manslaughter in the first degree and on three other charges.

The sworn statements of the three women charge that among some of Mrs. Bamberger’s victims was Louisa Miller, whose body was found in the Meramec river, near Luxembourg. The witnesses claim that Mrs. Baumberger packed this girl’s body in a trunk, paid an expressman $50 to haul it away from her house and with her own hands threw the trunk from the wagon into the Meramec river from a bridge.

Lizzie Bessert disappeared in September, 1897, but her body was never found. It is charged that it was buried in Mrs. Bainberger’s cellar.

A Bohemian woman, who lived near Ninth and Southard streets, is said to have been disposed of in the same manner.

Miss Colekamp (or Kulkamp), a girl of Mexico, Mo., died in March, 1894, and her death has never been explained.

Ida New, of Marino, Ill., died April 3, 1894, in the Bamberger house.

A child of Mrs. Dugan, of Thirteenth street and Blair avenue, also died there.

It is also charged that bogus certificates were secured to bury some of the victims, that a fake doctor on South Broadway issued the certificates for $50 in each case. The authorities worked up the present case against Mrs. Baumberger as a result of the expose that 37-year-old Wilhelmena Spoeri, of 3432 Illinois avenue, met death in the resort. Mrs. Baumberger and John B. Texler, the young man in the case, were arrested at the same time, and their trial comes up next Wednesday. These facts developed in the Spoeri affair, enabled the authorities to dig up other alleged crimes. All of the cases specified above are sworn to by the three young women mentioned.

[“Wholesale Murderess – St. Louis Midwife Charged With an Awful List of Crimes. They May Aggregate Fully 300 – Children and Young Women Killed In Her Resort – And Were Buried Secretly.” The Pittsburg Press (Pa.), Nov. 19, 1899, p. 2]

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FULL TEXT (Article 2 of 3): Mrs. Henrietta Bamberger, midwife, of 919 Chouteau avenue, St. Louis, Mo., is a murderous fiend in woman’s form, a life-taking monster, slaying women and babies under the cloak of a ministering physician, if the evidence on which the grand jury indicted her recently be true. The testimony of four persons stamps her as a degenerate of the Holmes type, a murderess, brutal as Mrs. Nack, a creature without an atom of humanity in her heart.

She burned and drowned babes, and killed young women and disposed of their bodies. One she carted off in an express wagon and cast into a river.

Another she buried in the cellar or her own stable, a third she buried under a fictitious name from her own house. Eye-witnesses have testified to the crimes. They charge that as many as four babes were burned in one day and the total number of these crimes charged by the witnesses is almost incredible. The details of the specific killing alleged against Mrs. Bamberger are almost past belief. The woman stands indicted for four murders. One is a murder in the first degree; the others manslaughter. Information alleging other crimes is being investigated. The Chouteau avenue house will be thoroughly searched for further evidence. The cellar will be searched for traces of craves. Any number of crimes that may be alleged against the woman would not surprise the officials who have been engaged in bringing about her indictment. The crimes charged in the indictments were committed durlne the last five years. Mrs. Bambereer was in business in the same house many years before that.

It is not probable that her motnoas were ever different from the present.

The testimony on which the indictments were found was given by women formerly in Mrs. Bamberger’s employ as nurses or servants. This testimony is corroborated in part by material evidence, such as jewelry and clothing worn by the victims, and a photograph of one of them. The young women who are said to have died through Mrs. Bamberger’s instrumentality, dis appeared from their homes and none has been heard of by relatives since.

The discovery of the true character of Mrs. Bambereer’s business and tho crimes for which she now stands indicted was made by accident. An inkling the murders reached the office of Circuit Attorney Eggers six months ago. He made an investigation. The developments corroborated his first information. He applied to the police department for assistance. Detectives Lally and Harrington wore assigned.

Since that time Mr. Eggers, his assistant, Mr. Hodgdon and Detectives Lally and Harrington have worked in conjunction to unearth the crimes charged. They encountered many obstacles and overcame seemingly impassable barriers in the investigation.

The other day they had placed before the grand jury sufficient evidence to warrant indictments. Mrs. Bamberger was arrested by the detectives, who merely told her that the chief of police wanted to see her. Mrs. Bamberger was locked up in the holdover.

Subsequently Mr. Eggers swore out a bench warrant for her and the woman was placed in jail. The evidence is considered almost sufficient as it now stands, but the circuit attorney and the detectives are working to secure additional corroboration. It is charged that Mrs. Bamberger committed the crimes for hire. It was her business in perform operations and destroy evidences of this business. Women from far and near placed themselves under her care. Under the circumstances which surrounded the contracts between Mrs. Bamberger and her patients it is reasonable to suppose that the patients did not tell friends and relatives of the compacts. Consequently when one of the patients died, her relatives were not notified. She was considered missing. Mrs. Bamberger’s former nurses declare that as many as twenty patients were treated in one day. They say thousands of babes were burned. This latter statement is considered extravagant. Lizzie Rieger, the chief witness, declared that she saw five babies burned in one day.

She said hundreds of infants that she did not see were destroyed. She declared that Mrs. Bamberger tossed one infant into a tub of water and then grasping it by the neck, choked it and held it under water several minutes. Lyda Bressert went, according to the story, to Mrs. Bamberger for treatment in September, 1897. Mrs. Bamberger locked her in one of the rooms to smother her cries, that they might not be heard from the street.

The nurse was at Lyda’s side while the latter died. The nurse declared that Mrs. Bamberger tied the girl’s arms across her breast with a towel and swore like a fiend because she said she would have to pay “him” another $50 to get rid of that one. Mary Hohlcamp of Mexico, Mo., the witnesses say, died from an operation some time early in November. 1896. The nurses declare that the girl asked Mrs. Bamberger to notify her parents at Mexico should she die, but that Mrs. Bamberger did nothing of the kind. Annie Zimmerman of Marine, Ill., became a patient at the Bamberger house in October, 1894. An operation was performed and the girl died some days later. The nurses declare that Mrs. Bamberger doubled up the corpse, placed it in a trunk and had it carried to the Merrimac river, they say.

Unlocked the trunk, liftef th body out alone, und heaved it over tho bridge railing into the water. Names of those known to the circuit attorney:

Infant (mother not positively known), strangled and drowned in 1895 and body burned in a range. Lyda Bressert, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Bressert of 2113 Madison street, in September, 1897, and buried in cellar under Mrs. Bamberger’s stable.

Mary or Ida Zimmerman of Marine, Ill., died in October, 1894, body thrown into the Merrimac river and buried by St. Louis county authorities as an unidentified suicide.

Mary Kohlcamp of Mexico, Mo., died in November, 1896. buried by the undertaking firm of Henry C. Meyer & Co., 905 Chouteau avenue, St. Louis, as Mollie Jackson, Nov. 16.

Mrs. Wilhelmlna Spoerl of 3432 Illinois avenue, St. Louis, died at her home, July 11, 1899, after treatment by Mrs. Bamberger on July 1.

The house is a three-story brick structure, and stands back from the pavement and there is a side yard. The building is dingy on the outside. There is no front entrance. There is a small porch on the side of the house. The door hear leads into a hall at the foot of a stairway. Doors open from this hall into the parlor and into the second room. There are nine rooms in the house, three on each floor. The front room on the first floor was furnished as a parlor in plain style. The second room was the operating room.

There was an operating table in the apartment. A corner at the back of the house is cut off by a porch, which gives the kitchen less width than the other rooms. Doors from this porch lead into the middle room and into a hall that runs between the kitchen and the building wall. This hall runs from a door opening into the rear yard to the door opening into the middle room.

It was in this hall that the baby was strangled and drowned. There was one witness in the kitchen and an other in the hall when the murderess committed the deed. A back stair
way runs up from this hall.

The party of officials ascended the front stairway, preceded by Kinzle.

They had inquired of the latter the location of his mother’s instruments and he had told them that he knew nothing about his mother’s possessions. Mrs. Bamberger declares that she is innocent. She asserts that the evidence against her is false, and that it was inspired by motives of revenge.

[“Her Fiendish Crimes - Terrible Criminal Record Of  A Female Butcher. - Killed Little Innocents by the Score to Hide Other Deeds or Lesser Evil - Henrietta Bamberger of St. Louis Believed to Be a Monstrosity.” Kansas Agitator (Garnet, Ks.), Dec. 22, 1899, p. 2]

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FULL TEXT (Article 3 of 3): St. Louis, Mo., March 16. – The jury in the case of Mrs. Henrietta Bamberger, the midwife, today returned a verdict of guilty of the charge of manslaughter and fixed her punishment at five years in the penitentiary. It was charged that she caused the death of Wilhelmina Spechir [or, Spoeri], a girl who came to Mrs. Bamberger for relief.

[“Mrs. Bamberger Gets Five Years.” The Witchita Daily Eagle (Ks.), Mar. 17, 1900, p. 8]

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To learn more details about murderous child care providers in history, including baby farmers, adoption agents and baby sitters, see “Death on the Baby Farm,” by Robert St. Estephe, Female Serial Killer Index.

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For more cases of this category, see: Female Serial Killers of 19th Century America

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[2573-6/2/19; 2903-7/11/20]
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