Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-01-09
WAS HE GUILTY.
The Csrcumstantial Evidence Which Hung
Martin KinkOwsky.

The Csrcumstantial Evidence Which Hung
| Martin Kinkowsky.
| Tie GLOBE Saturday morning contained the
full account of the hanging OF Martin Kin
kowsky at Jersey City the previous day. His
wife remained with him until late hour
Thursday night, and as she embraced him be-
fore she left the Jail, she said to him: "Martin,
If you were guilty I could bear this with
fortitude; but you say you are innocent, and
! am forced to believe you, for cannot
think you would tell your wife falsehood at
this last meeting" Kinkowsky answered:
my wife, tell you, before God, am an in
| nocent man.
He continued to protest his innocence
with his last breath. It is difficult
| to conceive how man can 60 into the other
| world with lie on his lips, but correspond
ent gives the "other side" in the following
manner:
The crime for which Kinkowski was
hanged was remarkable for the mystery in
| which it was at first involved, and for the
curious chain of evidence, wholly circumstan-
tial in character, which fastened the deed
upon the murderer. On Friday, May Is, 1881,
the body OF young woman was found in a
little grove a shors distance outside the city
iiAhilS VI hoDohen, N. y. AROUND the SPOC
were evidences of o fearful struggle. The
woman's dress was half torn from her person.
Hair pins, two black hair switches, and
shreds of her dress were found hundred feet
from the body. Two stones, Weighing about
ten pounds each, were covered with blood
and hair. The woman's skull had been
crushed in, and the brain was oozing from the
wound. Near by was bottle of Rhine wine
wrapped in copy of the Stats -Zeitung. It
yySls of fret hot
victim of outrage as well as murder. The
body was partly decOmposed, and the coroner
thought the crime had been committed nearly
two weeks before. On Tuesday, May II,
THE FIRST cLEw
was found. Mrs. Christian Fink, whose hus-
band kept a beer saloon about mile from
where the body was found, told the detectives
that or Tuesday, May 3. two young people, a
man and a woman called at her place. The
woman had bottle of Rhine wine, and asked
for paper to wrap it in. She was given q
Staats-Zcitumg. Mrs. Fink described the wo-
mans clothing which cOrreSponded with the
garments found on the body. The man was
short, with heavy black mustache. He wore
dark clothing and a rundown collar. The
woman paid for some beer and then they went
on. On Wednesday, May Is, Edward Sabel
said that the coupe, described by Mrs. Fink
also stopped at his place on May 3. The
woman, who was about 80 years old ard rath-
err handsome, was very talkative, and told
Mrs. Sabel that she had just been married to
the man by the Rev. DR.. Mahon, pastor of the
Grove Reform church, near by. She bought
bottle OF Rhine wine, which she said she in
tended to give to DR.. Mahon. She offered a
IS gold piece in payment, and displayed
pocketbook filled with bank notes and gold
pieces. She and her husband, she said, were
going to France to live. The man did not
come into the saloon, but waited outside. The
Rev. DR.. Mahon was then interviewed. He
had
MARRIED THE CUUPLE,
he said. The man gave the name of Louis
Kettier. aged 33, bricklayer by trade, resi-
dence No. 1911 Second avenue, New York.
The woman said her name was Nina Schmidt
She was single, her age was 81: and her resi-
dence was PAT Third avenue, New York.
She offered him S. as fee, but he refused SO
large q sum, and she went to Sabel's saloon
for change. When she returned she offered
him bottle of Rhine wine as present, but
he refused it, and the couple went away.
TIE same afternoon Simon Muller, a cigar.
maker, and Anna Schmidt, called at the cOro-
ner's office. They had just read of the
murder, and believed the body was that
of Nina Muller, whom Simon had mar
ried nv, years before. They had
lived unhappily together, and six months
before they had separated. Anna said
that in the latter part of April, her sister,
Nina Muller, came TO see her. She said she had
met a man at last whom she could love. His
name was LOUIS Kettler. He was a decent
fellow, butcher, and had property in Null
hansen, Alsace. They intended 10 sail for
Hayre Wednesday, Maya. Muller went to the
pier that day, but didn't find his wife among
the passengers. He had never seen Keller.
Muller and Anna Schmidt both
IDENTIFIED THE BODY
and the clothing as that of Nina Muller. At
No. ISL Second avenue, where Nina Muller
had lived, it was found that on May she had
had four trunks containing her ward
robe and other property removed to
the beer shop of Theodore Scherrer
No. IT'S Christopher street. On April man
calling himself Louis Kettler took a
room with the woman at Scherrer's. He said
that she was his wife, and that on the follow
ing Wednesday they intended to sail on the
steamer L'Amerique for Mulhausen, Alsace.
and was very loquacious. The detectives
made up their minds that Kettler, after MUIR
dering the woman, had sailed for Europe.
AS in the Chastne Cox case, it fell to the
lot of newspaper reporter to find the MUIR
derer. The trunks of the murdered woman
had been taken from Scherrer's on the evening
of the day she was killed. Gustavus A. Seide,
of the Jersey City Euemimg Journal, resolved
to trace them up. Scherrer did not know the
name Of the expressman who had removed the
trunks, but he gave a minute description Of
him. Seide loitered around the docks
for couple of days, and fin
ally found his man. Strange was his
name. He said he had taken the trunks to
Mrs. Cnfford's boarding house, on Charles
street. Kettler lodged there from the day of
the murder until Friday, May Is, when he told
his landlady he was going to California.
Strang moved the trunks again and took
them this time to a tenement house at No.
SO West Thirty-sixth street. Seide and
Strang
SHADOwED THE DOORWAY
until they saw their man enter the house.
Then, on the evening of May %, seventeen
days after the brutal murder, Martin Kinkow-
ski, alias Louis Kettler, was placed
under arrest. In the apartments oc-
cupied by his wife and two chill
dren were found the trunks of Nina Muller,
full of her clothing. In his pockets were
printed papers of the shrenrith lodge, to which
Nina belonged. Scherrer and all the other
parties in this city and Hoboken who had seen
the couple together identified him as Louis
Kettler.
The poor fool thought that because no
human eye saw him kill the woman the deed
could never be traced to him. He had lnred
her to her death to- get possession of her
money. He had been away from home ten
nights, but had gone daily to see his wife, and
told her that the reason he did not come
home was lecause he had q job of
night work. He told her that the
trunks which he had brought to the house be-
longed to friend, and he had tax en- them tenn
pOrarily for safe keeping.
His trial was short and he was promptly
CONVICTED.
He admitted his association with tie woman
| and their fraudulent marriage. His&1efense
was very weak He said that after Nina and
he had left the parson and beer shops of Ho-
boken, two men crossed their path with whom
she was evidently acquainted. She went off