Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1888-03-25
A WOMAN FIEND.
A MOTHERS HORRIBLE CRIME.
She Deliberately POisOns Her Three
Children,
And CALMLY WATCHES THEIR AGONY
A Deaf Ear Turned to the Cries Of the Little
Sufferers.

NEW YORK, March 24.-Early this morn
ing a dispatch was received at police head
quarters stating thst Mrs. Minnie Leb-
kuechner, of No. 154, West Fifty. eighth
street, had given poison to her three chill
dren, Anothony. nine years old: Charles g.,
aged seven, and Christopher, four years
old.
Mrs, Lebkeuchner Is not insane. She lie
o woman driven to her act By trouble too
great to bear. She walked into the police
station, poorly dressed, pincbed and wan.
with a worn shawl thrown around her,
at two o'clock this morning. S~teadyiDg
herself against the desk, she said in a hard
voice that she had killed two of her chill
dren and that the third was dying in the
house.
The Sergeant called an officer TO 90 with
the woman at once, and they started for
Twenty eight street together. On the way
the woman told her story in o ~listless, me-
chanical way, as though ii was O worn. out
theme that long since had lost all interest
to her. Her husband was dead, she said,
had died four years ago; che struggled TO
keep the children together, but failed.
They were taken from her and sent to the
Juvenile Asylum. Only recently she had
got them back with infinite trouble, op.
posed by poverty on one side and the per
~secution of her husbands friends IN the
other, but she could not keep them.
Work was failing; food getting scarce. Sine
foresaw that she must lose them soon.
Rather than hat she decided to kill them.
She thought it over, and hy Wednesday
had made up her mind fully. She sent
Anthony, the eldest boy, to a drug store
with a quarter to buy Rough on Rats"
Mrs. Lebkuechner tied it up, and, dividing
the draught into three equal parts, gave it
to the boys to drink. This was on We'd
nesday morning. Very soon after ward all
three were taken i'll.
Watching their sufferings steadily, the
mother stayed with them all that day, 60
ing about the house without exciting the
attention of the tenants by unusual con-
Germ or any sign of alarm. Wednesday
night and all Thursday the little sufferers
lay in their dying agonies, with the mother
lowering about, seeing their little lives
out slowly and surely. They
begged for water, and with the merciless
of a fend the mother gave them
it and cried that they were on fire. They
TO be taken out into the back yard
aud have the hydrant turned on them;
they were burning up. But their feeble
cries found a deaf ear with the mother, and
did not reach the outer world Unmoved
went about finishing her work.
At two o'clock Thursday afternoon
Charles died. Three hours later the eldest
brother breathed his last. Still the young
est, the baby Of the three, was left. With
the two victims Of her awful crime lying
dead, the mother held steadily TO her fiend-
ish purpose. Thursday night she sat by
her dying child, and all Of Friday, aud not
this morning, when the little ones
grip on life still refused to yield, did she
weary OF. waiting and went out TO tell the
police.
by this time the woman and Officer had
had reached the door of her house and she
opened it to the officer. A glance inside
told him that her story was true. In the
bed lay the two boys, long dead, and the
little n gaspiDg family on the sofa. The
was meanly furnished. but clean.
The mother stood unmoved looking on.
The officer put her under arrest, took her
back to the station, and hurried call vas
sent for an ambulance. The little one was
driven rapidly to the hospital and every
thing was done there 10 save its life, but
this was deemed hopeless.
This morning the mother was taken to
to Jefferson Market Police Court and
thence sent to the Coroner's Office, where
she was committed TO the Tombs. Before
being taken to the prison she drew photo
graphs sf her children from her pocket and
asked if she would be permitted TO keep
them. When told that she could retain
them she shouted excitedly: They want
ed to take my children from me, bat they
can't do it now"
DR.. Conway, deputy coroner, cpnversed
with Mrs. C~eibkuechner for some time
and expressed the opinion that she is
suffering from acute mania.