Schmidt Is A Sane, Clever Criminal, Says Dr. M’Donald

Alienist Declares Aumueller Slayer Is Putting Up Bluff at Being Mentally Unsound.

Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald, specialist in mental and nervous diseases, retained by the State to prove the sanity of Hans Schmidt, the confessed murderer of Anna Aumueller, today gave it as his opinion that Schmidt was sane, was shamming insanity and was “the cleverest and most cunning criminal” the physician had observed. The answer was not in response to the usual hypothetical question but closed Dr. MacDonald’s direct examination by Assistant District-Attorney Delehanty.

“I found him unusually intelligent,” said Dr. MacDonald, “well educated and well read. At first he bungled, in my opinion, his effort to prove himself insane, but he rapidly learned the essentials of insanity and adapted himself to them.”

The defense had prepared a 30,000 word hypothetical question which was to be read to all the alienists together at the conclusion of Dr. MacDonald’s cross-examination.

Schmidt Is A Sane, Clever Criminal, Says Dr. M’Donald, The Evening World, 26 December 1913, page 2, column 5.