New Ulm review., 1909-05-19

most intimate sense. On the night G
the party Wednesday night, before1
the murder several of Arbo-
CASTS friends were entertained and a
prospective trip to the Yukon had
been discussed, Louise was more than
usually restless. All that night she
remained awake, walking through the
house, passing and repassing the door
OF the room in which her parents
slept.
Mrs. Arbogast, who had been i'll
for some time, arose about four o 'clock
and went to the bathroom where she
remained for some minutes. When
she returned to her room she was
Mortified to find Louise standing in the
doorway, while the bed was on fire and
her husband was lying in the flames,
his head crushed in and the pillows
covered with blood. Mrs. Arbogast
said she pushed her. daughter aside
and rushed into the room, where she
tried to extinguish the FIRE. But in
the excitement she tainted and fell on
the bed, thus accounting for the burns
she herself received.
Mrs. Arbogast remembered nothing
more until Ida, one OF her daughters,
who had been sleeping in an adjoin-
ing room, ran in and pulled her away
from the fire. Louise was gone
nowhere to be seen-and the room was
filled with smoke. She and Ida strugg-
led, Ida to get her away and she to go
back to her husband. The whole
household was aroused.
Realizing who had done the murder
and knowing that police investigation
would surely follow, the sisters hur-
riedly cleaned up what blood they
could that might betray the identity
of the murderer and the whole family
united in determination to keep the
facts within their own knowledge.
But the younger children became
excited, and when they ran into the
street crying for help and thus attrac-
ted the police, the work of conceal
ment had not been completed,
Mrs. Arbegast said further that
Louise had an hallucination that
some one was trying to harm her, and
she was constantly On the lookout for
an attack. The mother explained the
use of gasoline by her daughter. She
said the gasoline was used for house
cleaning. The house had been cleaned
only recently, but Louise insisted
upon cleaning it again, on the day
before the murder. She was permit
ted to do so, only to humor her, the
argument being that physical employ
ment would save her mental distur-
bance. The cunning Of insanity dis
played itself there, according to the
mothers story, for after using the
gasoline for house-cleaning purposes,
she hid it away to use in the cremation
she had planned for her fathers body.
In the light of her relation of com
panionship with her father, it has
been difficult to explain why she should
attack him; but it seems that her only
hallucination had been that harm was
to come to her through man, and
she might have attacked any other
man, had she been seized with the
frenzy at any other time or in any
other surroundings. Her first fear OF
man began with prediction by 8
fortune teller, that the house would be
entered by a man who would attack
herself and Ida, her sister. She was
| for several months in deadly fear OF
this mysterious stranger, and use6
personally to see to all the door and
window fastenings. Recently, the
hallucination become more general as
to who would make the attack an6
more confined as to who was to be at
Il tackled, as she became convinced thai
a man within the house would attack
her and her only. AS there was only
one man in the Arbogast home, al
the children being girls, it was easy
for the hallucination to become de.
finite and her fear to be fixed on he1