Victim Of Priest Had Cash Enough For Her Burial
Relatives Resent Coroner Feinberg’s Appeal to Millionaire Jury for Aid.
Coroner Feinberg’s melodramatic appeal to his “Hundred Million Dollar Jury” in the Aumueller inquest yesterday for funds to provide burial for the dismembered remains of the victim of Hans Schmidt’s murder lust aroused an emphatic protest today from Joseph Igler and his wife. Mrs. Igler is a cousin of Anna Aumueller.
The Iglers called at the District-Attorney’s office and said they were willing and able to give Christian burial to the remains of the murder victim. They were informed that insomuch as the Public Administrator has in his custody $300, which Anna Aumueller had in a savings bank at the time she was killed, there is no necessity for extra funds for burial expenses. Whatever is left over after the expense of a simple funeral has been settled will be sent to the murdered girl’s mother in Germany.
The Iglers said they would like to see the portions of Anna Aumueller’s body in the morgue. Permission was given and they volunteered to arrange for the funeral as soon as the time arrives for burial.
Case To Be Presented To Grand Jury On Wednesday
The case against the priest, with the verdict of the Coroner’s jury that he killed Anna Aumueller, will be presented to the Grand Jury next Wednesday. An indictment will be returned probably on Thursday. On that day the alienists who have been retained to examine Schmidt will meet and prepare a report, which will reach the District-Attorney on Friday.
Should the alienists report that Schmidt is insane, or should there be a difference of opinion, Judge Foster will arrange for a formal trial in lunacy. A jury will be impanelled and all the testimony as to Schmidt’s mental state will be submitted. Then, if the jury concludes that Schmidt is insane, he will be committed to Matteawan Asylum to remain until he recovers his reason or until he dies.
Should the jury decide that Schmidt is sane he will be tried on the indictment charging him with murder. Owing to the congested condition of the calendar it will not be possible to call him to trial before the first or second week in November.
Alphonse G. Koelble, Schmidt’s cousin, believes that the alienists will find his client insane. Mr. Koelble holds that Schmidt’s outbreak in the Coroner’s Court yesterday, when he threw a rosary and a handful of small change into the faces of spectators seated near him, was conclusive proof of a disordered mind. In case Schmidt is called to trial for murder his defense of course will be insanity.
Schmidt Puzzles Alienists By Insisting He Is Sane.
Mr. Koelble, after a visit to Schmidt in the Tombs today, said he found his client in bad physical shape. His violent outbreak yesterday had brought on an attack of illness. Mr. Koelble also said that Schmidt’s mental disability appears to be more pronounced.
The alienists who are examining Schmidt admit that they are up against a puzzling case. Invariably in a murder case when an accused man is suspected of shamming insanity the alienists find that he bends all his efforts toward showing that he is insane. Schmidt, on the contrary, calmly insists that he isn’t insane and, ostensibly, engages himself in a sincere attempt to show that he is mentally normal.
“Stop your shamming,” said Dr. Carlos F. MacDonald to Schmidt the other day. “You know you killed that girl and are fully responsible for your act.”
“Certainly,” replied Schmidt without a moment’s hesitation. “That’s what I’ve been telling you. I am perfectly sane and I want to by punished.”
Victim Of Priest Had Cash Enough For Her Burial, The Evening World, 4 October 1913, page 3, column 7