The Sun.
London, England, 1829-09-05 00:00:00

CRIMES OF A BAVARIAN PRIEST.

A trial for murder of a very singular and hor-
rible kind, before the Supreme Criminal Court in
B:tvaria, has just terminated. The trial oc-
cupied no less than four years, and the pleadings
and documents amounted to forty-two volumes :
the criminal was examined one hundred times,
and it was only at the last examinations that a
confession of his guilt was wrung from him.
Riembauer, the criminal, was born in the lowest
rank ; but at a very early age gave marks of an
intellect of a superior order. His ambition was
to enter the ecclesiastical state ; and through the
medium of the curate of his native village, Ran-
derstadt, he was enabled to gratify it. Riem-
bauer was born in 1770 ; at the age of fourteen
he was admitted to the Lyceum of Ratisbon,
where his conduct and progress were exemplary
rapid ; in 1795 he was ordained a priest, and
performed the duties of assistant-vicar in dif-
ferent villages ; in 1807 be underwent, with
much honour to himself, an examination for a
curacy ; in 1808 he was appointed curate of
Priel ; and in 1810 be was promoted to the
curacy of Randerstadt. Riembauer carried his
customary zeal to the exercise of his sacred
duties ; in the performance of which he was ap-
parently as sincere as he was punctual. His
sermons were eloquent ; his denunciations of
vice severe and frequent. It is not wonderful
that, so accomplished and gifted as he I,as, with
an elegant person and seductive manners, Riem-
bauer should be looked on by the country people
as a saint of the first water. The crimes with.
which Riembauer was charged were chiefly in-
continency. He had a child by the curate of
Huskerchen's cook-maid ; another by Anne
Marie Eichlaetter, the curate of Hernsheim's
servant ; a third by a milliner of his acquaint-
ance ; a fourth by another curate's serving-maid ;
a fifth by Madeline Frauenkneicht,--whose
father he swindled out of 5,000 florins, and
whom, together with her mother, he poisoned ;
and lastly, he had several more children by Ann
Weinegar, his last kitchen-maid. With all his
victims he performed a marriage ceremony at the
altar. The crime for which he was at length ar-
rested was the murder of Anne Marie Eichlaet-
ter. The girl had importuned him on several
occasions for money, and threatened, on being
refused, to expose him. She was induced to
visit him at the house of the farmer Frauenk-
neicht, and was there murdered by him. Whilst
the monster was in the act of cutting the unhappy
girl's throat, Catherine, the youngest daughter
of Frauenkneicht, happened to peep through the
key-hole, and observing what was going on,
called her mother and sister Madeleine to witness
the scene of hlood. The mother was anxious to
denounce the murderer ; but on his expressing
profound repentance, and threatening to commit
suicide, she was induced to bury the transaction
in silence. Shortly after this murder, Madeleine
and her mother fell sick, Riembauer compounded
their medicine, and they died—the one within
five days of the other. Catherine, who was
twelve years of age at the period of the murder,
became subject to fits of melancholy, and to con-
vulsions, from its effects on her imagination ;
and at length, unable to retain the secret, told it
to her confessor, with the other particulars ofl
Riembauer's conduct. The confessor, who
thought to turn the confession to Catherine's
pecuniary advantage, wrote (in Latin) the fol-
lowing letter to the poisoner of her mother and
sister, and robber of her father :—" A case has
been submitted to me which you alone can solve.'
A certain man, whom you well know, owes a
certain stranger somewhere about 5,000 florins.
If your conscience be awake, pay this debt. If
you do not answer within four weeks you may
tremble for the consequences." No answer was
returned, and Riembauer was accordingly de-
nounced. Among other particulars, Catherine
stated, that Anne Marie Eichlaetter had a pe-
culiarly fine set of teeth ; and after her deposition
was taken, in a closet where the body had been"
deposited a skeleton with a case of teeth as de-
scribed, was discovered. In the confession of
the criminal, it is worthy of remark, that be de-
fended himself on that dogma of the Jesuits,—
that it is allowable to kill another if there be no
other means of saving one's honour or good re-;
nown ; the fallacy of which Pascal has so trium-
phantly shown. " I also (he says) recollected
that other principle of the Jesuits, " that thei
end sanctifies the means." 1 reflect upon thei
great evils that the public scandal with whirl,;Anne Marie menaced
.me would causeto.thei
people and to my sacred profession, and I said

,to myself, " if a priest of such unblemished Fe.;
putation were found to be a sinner, great would
the detriment thereof be to religion ;" therefor?,
as there were no other means of avoiding public
scandal but by the death of Anne Marie, and
that this death tended to produce a laudable re'
stilt, I do not think that I have acted criminally'
for my intentions were pure, and ad majoras
Dei Gloriam. Moreover, before killing Ann!
Marie, I exhorted her to repent of her sins, and
I gave her absolution." This holy ruffian has.
been condemned to imprisonment for an unh
mited time.