The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-07-15
MURDER BY WHOLESALE
The Remarkable Career of Dr..
Henry G. w. Meyer.
A CANDIDATE FOR ELEoTRooUTIoN.

u UANDlUAIb FUR ELEOTRUUUTION
No Less Than Seven Murders Charged
Against Him-Has for Years Mad. n
Business of Poisoning People in Order
to Secure Insurance Money.
DETROIT, Mich, July 14.-One of the
most notorious criminals in America has
falien into the hands of the Detroit police,
and Chicago, New York and Toledo has
begun legal war for his custody Two
local detectives, guided by Detective Julian,
OF New York. and two Pinkerton men ar
rested Dr. Henry G. w. Meyer. Julian and
the Pinkerton men have been on his track
for two years, and finally cornered him in
Detroit, collecting in the meantime evil
dence which, they say, will cause Meyer to
suffer the death penalty. His wife Mary
is also under arrest. Together with her 9
year-old son she was lodged in the Wood
bridge street police station. Later she was
removed to Harper hospital, as she is in a
delicate condition and will soon be con-
fined.
Julian says thnt Meyer graduated from
the Chicago homeopathic school in 1878,
and his operations began a year later when
he poisoned his first wife. Then he poisoned
an old man named Gilderman and married
herself. Meyer then removed from Chicago
to New York, where he went into partner
ship with man named Brant, their scheme
being to beat insurance companies Brant
was to take out heavy insurance, become
sick. and apparently die, corpse being
procured from some other source. and used
to get the insurance. Brant took some
medicine to render him unconscious, and
then, it is charged, Meyer poisoned him,
collecting the insurance.
In some way Meyer persuaded an Indian
apolis girl to accompany him to Toledo,
where he also poisoned her. He is known
to have collected $1,000 from insurance
companies and the detectives feel conf
dent there are more cases to hear from
acquisition papers are expected today,
and, although there are four cases against
him i'll Chicago, it is likely he will be sent
to New York, where the case is alleged to
he strong enough to warrant elcctrocu-
ton.
Dispatches from New York announce
that the grand jury has found indictments
against Meyer and his wife, and the gov
ernor has demanded his eXtradtion. In
addition to the crimes above recorded it is
charged that i'll New York Meyer and his
wife worked together on many cases, but
the only one which the police have any
positive information about happened on
March 70, 1872. On that day there died at
800 East Thirteenth street a man named
Gustav y. j. Baum. He and IL woman
known rs his wife lived there alone. The
wife was very attentive to her supposed
husband, and allowed no one else near
him. The attention, however, was only
part of plot, for the alleged wife of Gus
tav Baum is Marie Meyer the woman
arrested in Detroit.
The CallSp of the Ianth cf J2nu,, ,.,,u
given in the physicians burial certificate
as Chronic dysentcry" Some months
before Baum's death he wrote to the office
of the Mutual Life Insurance company
and had his life insured in his wifes favor
for $4,000. The wife collected the inst,r-
ance money the day after the man was bur
led and disappeared.
DIR. Gillette, the physician of the insur-
ance company, had seen Baum after his
death, and became suspicious. When the
alleged wife disappeared so suddenly he
began to work on the case with the aid of
detectives. The detectives learned that
Baum's wife had an accomplice in some
medical man. They learned that the med
ical man disappeared from the city about
the same time as the women did.
Two weeks ago the body of Baum was
eXhumed, and I'm autopsy proved hat he
had been poisoned by antimony. Coroner
Schultz, of New York, says: 1.-The case is
the most remarkable one | ever handled
1t beats anything that lola ever wrote. 1
believe i'll the Baum case the Meyers took
Baum, i'll measure, into their scheme. /
believe that they induced him to feign
sickness Tor II week or so, saying that after
that Time they would introduce dead
body which The insurance people would be
deceived into believing was Baum's. Baum
became sick sure enough, but it was no
feigned sickness