The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1907-05-18
RICH WOMAN
soon TO FACE
TRIAL FOR LIFE
Case Of Mrs. Emma Kaufman.
Sioux Falls Woman Charged
With Murder, Set.
WILL BE CALLED
EARLY NEXT WEEK
In Circuit Court - Defense
Will Enter Plea of Insanity
The Story.

Associated Press to The Evening" Tlmes.
Sioux Falls, s. D., May. 1s.-The
case of Mrs. Emma Kaufman, wife of
a rich brewer of this city, charged
with the murder of Miss Agnes Pol
reis, her sixteen-year-old domestic,
will be taken up for trial in the state
circuit court here next week. Since
week or two after her arrest last
June, Mrs: Kaufman has been at lib
erty on bonds of $25,000. The best
obtainable legal talent in the entire
northwest has been engaged to de-
fend the accused woman, and the trial
undoubtedly will be among the most
notable in the history of the judiciary
of South Dakota.
The girl whom Mrs. Kaufman is
alleged to have killed, Agnes Polreis,
was Bohemian and could speak but
little English. She died in terrible
agony at local hospital early last
year, a few months after taking en-
ployment as a maid in the Kaufman
household. Her body was inferred at
ParkstOn, s. D., the home of her par
ents.
1t was but short time until ugly
rumors regarding the manner of the
girls death were circulated. The re-
mains were exhumed. and according
to the statements of the physicians
then the body was mass of bruised
and scalded flesh, covered with gashes
and scars. Through the testimony of
other servants of the Kaufman house
hold. who told tales of almost fiendish
brutality, the wife of the millionaire
brewer was placed under arrest,
charged with having caused the death
of the girl.
At the preliminary hearing the
coachman declared that he had seen
Mrs. Kaufman knock Agnes Polreis
down, and that many times he had
witnessed the girl on her knees plead
ing pitifully for mercy while her mis-,
tress was beating her. Shortly be-.
fore the girl was sent to the hospital,
suffering from the injuries which
caused her death, the coachman tes-
titled that he was called to the house
by his mistress where he found the
maid lying on the floor in pool of
water which he believed had been hot.
The coachman was told by Mrs. Kauf-
mann to carry the girl to her room.
Shortly adterward he said Mrs. Kauf-
mann followed him with solution
containing a strong admixture of lye
and instructed the coachman to bathe
the girls feet and legs with it, saying
that it would take the soreness out.
Other fiendish acts. alleged to be
true, were related by other witnesses,
and Mrs. Kaufman was bound over
and placed in the custody of the sher-
iff. 1t is rumored that the attorneys
for the woman will enter a plea OF
insanity. The statements of former
servants in the Kaufman household
sustain this view to some extent. The
death of Mrs: Kaufmann's only daugh-
ter is said to have caused a temporary
arrangement from which the woman
never entirely recovered. Many wit
nesses stated that they had often seen
Mrs. Kaufman sitting before "a life
sized portrait of her dead daughter,
staring at it moodily for a time and
then bursting forth into blasphemous
curses against God for bereaving her.
After these spells, it is said. she
would be seized with fits of anger, in
which she was cruel and vindictive
against all young girls who came In
her way.