The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-07-24
CAUGHT
Man Who Murdered His Aunt
for Her Money
Is Captured and Makes q Full
Confession.
MONEY is RECOVERED.
He Leads the Police to Where
He Had Buried 1t.
He Had Shot Himself in the Leg
as a Blind.

New York, July 24.-Drawn back
to the scene of his crimes by force
he could not resist August Eberhard,
self confessed murderer of his aunt.
Mrs. Ottillie Eberhard, Viennesse
widow whom he lured to lonely spot
in New Jersey a-few Gays ago, and
\ shot to death, was captured near
Paterson, N j., and is now a prisoner
in the Hackensack jail.
The reason Eberhard gave for COM
hitting the crime was that he was IN
love with a New York girl and that
he needed money to marry her. know-
ing that his aunt had $4,000 he plotted
to kill her and stea1 the money.
Eberhard says he also intended to kill
his pretty cousin, OttillIe Eberhard, to
whom he was engaged so that nothing
would be in the way of his marriage
to the New York girl. The police have
the name OF the girl mentioned by
Eberhard and she will be brought to
the murderer.
Hollow eyed, cheeks drawn and with
the look of a hunted animal on his
face, Eberhard was found lying on the
lawn of residence JUST outside of
Paterson. There was an ugly looking
wound in his right leg. which the muir
derer first said had been inflicted by
Italians who attacked him, but which
he afterwards confessed was inflicted
by himself to make the police be-
lieve he had been wounded on the
night his aunt was killed. Morbid
brcoding over his inhuman crime has
apparently unbalanced the mind of
Eberhard, but he showed some of the
cunning that he displayed in the
murder plot when the police Ques-
= to- h1, -
Eberhard did not Immediately con-
fess to the police. When he was
placed under arrest he expressed sur
prise that he should be suspected of
the foul deed and told most in
genious story to account for his dis
appearance after the shooting of his
| aunt, to the effect that on the night
of the murder he had tried to defend
his aunt from the aryacK of a party
Of Italians. He said he made his
cousin run on ahead and then re-
turned to help his aunt, but the muir
derers overpowered him after shoot
ing him in the leg. Then he said he
lost consciousness and remembered
nothing until he came to in the
Preakness mountains. He gave a
graphic description OF his alleged
wanderings through the mountains.
Relieved His Mind.
The inquisitors did not believe this
story and they kept Eberhard on the
grill until he weakened and made a
confession. The murderer seemed to
feel relieved when he had finished his
remarkable narrative of the murder
he asked the prosecutor. to whom he
had confessed, for a cigar and when it
was given him he smoked it as though
he had no other care in the world.
An important point in the confession
was the statement by Eberhard that
he had an accomplice in the murder
NIL ho IL
complete had no hand in the killing of
| Mrs. Eberhard. This man, who was
one Of Eberhard's friends, has fled to
| the west and the police are looking for
| him. They have his name.
Eberhard told the police that he had
planned the murder two months ago.
He wrote many letters to his aunt in
| his efforts to induce her to sell her
home in Germany and come to this
country to live. He even promised to
marry her daughter and make a COM
Portable home for her here.
| Then Eberhard recounted the arrival
of his aunt and his cousin. Ottillie OF
his finding rooms for them at a hotel
of the trip to New Jersey and the fatal
walk up to the railroad tracks A
binding rainstorm came up while they
were waking up the Susequehanna
tracks and this aided the murderer in
! his purpose. AS the two unsuspecting
! women were plodding along in front
of him he drew his revolver, took care
full aim and fired. Mrs Eberhard fell
at the first shot, but to make sure of
her death, the assassin fired another
bullet into her body as it lay on the
tracks. Then he went in pursuit of
his cousin and tried to kill her. The
poor girl believed he was trying to
protect her and even up to yesterday
she insisted that she did not believe
her cousin had murdered her mother.
She accounted for his disappearance
by the theory that probably he was
shot by the murderers.
When Eberhard was searched not
penny was found in his pockets Eber-
hard said that he had buried the mon
| ey he stole from his aunt. He led the
detective to a tree near Little Falls
and there dug up a bundle of bills.
There was s., 400 in the bundle which
| is the amount that was stolen. Eber-
hard had also buried his own pocket
book, containing $26. so as to bear out
his story that he had been attacked by
Italians and robbed.
When Ottillie Eberhard was told of
her cousins confession she was
astounded She is living in Hacken-
sack and has been receiving the atten-
lions of a young steward named Held,
who was on the steamship on which
she and her mother came to this coun-
try. It is believed that she will marry
Held as soon as the present trouble is
over.