St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-03-25
She Determines to End Their
Misery by Poisoning the
Whole Family.
The Playfulness of Her Babe
Partly illustrates Her
Fearful Deed.
Details of the Fearful Crime
She Killed Them Because
She Loved Them.

morning dispatch was received at pO-
lice headquarters stating that Mrs.
Minnie Lebkuechner had given poison
to her three children, Anthony, nine
years old; Charles, seven, and Christie
pher, four years old. Anthony and
Charles are dead, and the other has
been taken to the New York hospital,
but will not live. The mother was
locked up i'll Capt. Reilly's station
house, suffering from the effects of
poison. Nothing more awful has been
recorded on the police blOtters since
the wife of Albert Fritz, German en-
graver, killed herself and her three
children with pruSsic acid, in
a Grand street tenement, years
ago, or since DR.. Seguin's wife
played blind mans buff with her child
rem and shot them to death in their pa
latial home on Murray Hill. In either
of these two cases insanity furnished at
once the excuse and the explanation of
the unnatural deed. Mrs. Debkuechner
is not insane. She is woman driven
to her act by trouble too great to bear.
She walked in poorly dressed, pinched
and wan, with a worn shawl around
her, at 2 o'clock this morning. Steady
ing herself against the desk, she said in
a hard voice that she had killed two Of
her children, and that the third was
dying in the house. The sergeant called
an officer to go with the woman at once,
and they started for Twenty-eighth
street together. On the way the
WOMAN TOLD HER STORY,
in listless, mechanical way, as if it
was worn out theme, that long since
had lost all interest to her. Her hus-
band was dead, she said, had died four
years ago. She had struggled to keep
were taken from her and sent to the
Juvenile asylum. Only recently She
had got them back with infinite trouble,
opposed by poverty on one side and the
persecution of her husbands relatives
on the other, but she could not keep
them. Work was failing, food growing
scarce. She foresaw that she must lose
them soon. Rather than that she de-
cided to kill them. She thought ii over,
and by Wednesday had made up
her mind fully. She sent Anthony,
the eldest of the boys, to
drug store with quarter to buy rat
polooH' IIIC ClIIu DOublJ ~ CtHlSE
worth of Trough on Rats" Mrs. Leb-
kuechner stirred it in tea, and dividing
the draught into three equal parts. gave
it to the boys to drink out of cup.
This was on Wednesday morning.
Very soon afterward all three were
taken ill. Watching their sufferings
steadily, the mother stayed with them
all that day, getting about the house
without exciting the attention of the
tenants by unusual concern 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
ebbing out slowly and surely. They
begged for water, and with the merci-
less
CRUELTY OF FIEND,
the mother gave them whisky to drink.
The two eldest drank and cried that
they were on fire. They begged to be
taken out in the back yard and 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. I'm
she went about finishing her
work. At 2 o'clock Thursday morning
Charles died. Three hours later his
eldest brother breathed his last. Still
the youngest. the baby of the three,
was left. With the two victims of her
awful crime lying dead, that mother
held steadily to her fiendish purpose.
Thursday night she sat by her dying
child Not until Saturday morning,
when the little ones grip on life still
refused to yield, did she weary
waiting, and went. out to tell
the police. By this time the woman
and officer 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 their bed lay the two
boys. long dead and the little one gasp
ing family on the sofa. The room was
meanly furnished, but clean. The
mother stood unmOved looking ON. The
officer put her under arrest. He took
the woman to the station and a hurried
call was sent for an ambulance. The
little one was driven rapidly to the hos
pital and everything was done there to
save its life, but this was deemed hope
less.
FURTHER PARTICULARS.
Mrs. Liebkuechner's face is thin and re-
pulsive looking. 1t is SCARED by erysip-
elias, from which she has suffered for
years. Her look is stony and her man
ner Indifferent, but beyond an absence
of all natural feeling she gave no evil
dence of mental arrangement. She is
about thirty-fOur years old. Ten years
ago she was a pretty servant in the
house of Jacob Liebkuechner, then
wealthy brewer. With her acquaint-
ance with the brewer the troubles
of her life began. He was over fifty
nine and a widower. He took a liking
to his smart cOuntrywoman and mar
ried her against the protest of his
grown up children. They refused to
recognize their stepmOther, and when
the first child was born their hatred in
creased. Liebkirechner's brewery
failed. His children married and went
into business for themselves. The fail
ure tended to widen the split in the
family. The old man stuck to
his young wife, and started a sa-
loon. That failed because of his
being in i'll health. The elder children
got him away from his wife and the
latter eventually got him back and he
died in the house with her. He had
sum of life insurance due
him, but it all went to his children; she
got nothing. The saloon was gone and
she lived by scrubbing and washing.
Her earnings were not sufficient to keep
the children. Rather than part with
them, she determined to
KILL HERSELF AND THEM.
One night she threw herself into the
river with the oldest boys so that they
might die together, but they were res
cued and the two children taken from
her by the police and sent to the Juven-