The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1893-07-14
MURDER BY WHOLESALE.
The Remarkable Career Of DR..
Henry O. W. Meyer.
A CANDIDATE FOR ELEoTRooUTIoN.

No Less Than Seven Murders Charged
Against HIm-IIas for Years Made n
business of Poisoning People in Order
to Secure Insurance Money.
DETROIT, Mich, July 14-One OF the
most notorious criminals in America has
fallen 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 DIR. Henry @. 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 Q
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 that Meyer graduated from
the Chicago homeopathic school in 1878
and his operations began year later,
he poisoned his first wife. Then he poisoned
an old man named Gilderman and married
the widow, poisoning her son, and, finally,
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
Requisition papers are expected today,
and, although there are four cases against
him in Chicago, it is likely he will be sent
to New York, where the case is alleged to
be strong enough to warrant electrocu.
tion.
Dispatches from New York announce
that the grand jury has found indictments
against Never and his wife, and the gov
ernor has demanded his extradition. In
addition to the crimes above recorded it Is
charged that in 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 20, 1892. On that day there died at
B2O East Thirteenth street man named
Gustav A. j. Baum. lie and a woman
known as his wife lived there alone. The
wifo was very attentive to her supposed
husband, and allowed no one else near
him. The attention, however, was only a
part Of plot, for the alleged wife of Gus
tav Baum is Marie Meyer, the woman
arrested in Detroit.
The cause of the death of Baum was
oivpp in fhn INbvSipinY'a t.n
as Chronic dysentery." Some months
before Baum's death he wrote to the Office
of the Mutual Life Insurance company
and had his life insured in his wife's favor
foI 5000. The wife collected the insur-
Rnce money the day after the man was bur.
led and disappeared
DIR, Gillette, the physician of the insur-
Rnce 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 accomplce in some
medical man. They learned that the med
ioal man disappeared from the city about
the same time Us the women did.
Two weeks ago the body of Baum was
exhumed, and an autopsy proved that he
had been poisoned by antimony. Coroner
Schultz OF New York, says: The case il
the most remarkable one | ever handled
1t beats anything that Zola ever wrote
believe in the Baum case the Meyers took
Baum in a measure, into their scheme. /
believe thnt they induced him to feign
sickness for week or so, saying that after
that time they would introduce a 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