The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-09-11
KIDNAPPING HAS .' AROUSED PEOPLE 7-Year-Old Wisconsin Girl
 Is Murdered A CHILD OF POVERTY Entire Poulation of Madison Stirred By High Feeling Following Dis
 covery of Hideous Crime.
 Perpetrators at Large
A CHILD OF POVERTY
By JAMES FRENCH TORRANCE

Annie Lemberger was torn from her bed in a lean to of her fathers house in South Madison through a screen of cent mosquito netting as white as the night gown in which she had gone to bed. For four days her Kidnapping" was the sensation of Wisconsin. This morning at 5:3o o'clock George Younger. a cement worker, on his way | to work saw Annie Lemberger's body | floating in Lake Moronga. the body of water which fronts Wisconsins capitol. In that moment Wisconsin's greatest Kidnapping case was turned into one of the | most brutal murders in the history of the state. As for mystery the killing of the " ear-old girl is almost without par alel.
 Madison was not more aroused over the burning of the capitol building than it has been today over the unquestioned murder Of this baby daughter of dollar day laborer
 Die it matter if he lived in a shack in Greenbush, the poorest section of Madi- l son? Did it matter that her father worked for s1 50 G day digging ditches for gas com- papy?
 | Die 1t matter that he did not even hold a union card?
 It certainly did not The first subscrip- ton to the fund for the arrest and pros ecuton of the murder of the Lemberger child came from one of the richest so- ciety women in the city. The business men came next. They met with Mayor Schubert at noon, and it took but a moment for them to vote s1GO0 reward The city council will ratify it at the next meeting, and the s1O00 guaranteed by the citizens will go to hire detectives
 The labor unions forgot that Lemberger did not hold card and voted their DOT tion to the general fund, the answer to which Is now just Who murdered Annie Lemherger?'
 Captain of Police shaughnessy has been busy all day evaporating clews to the possible murderer. He has come to the final conclusion that it was the work of degenerate.
 q can only figure this awful crime as the work of degenerate said the chief today. We have two or three men under suspicion, and are watching their every movement at this moment
 The chief refused to further identify the suspected men. From another source 1t was learned that they were well along in years. men of means, and one of them man with family.
 The Kidnapping of this little Lemberger girl Is one of the strangest in the his- tory of such crimes. Her father by no possibility, could have had anything worth ransom. He keeps the shirt on his back clean. because the hard working mcther of his five children Is good at washing.
 Last Monday night little Annie went into trundle bed with her sister, who is 2 years old. In the same room were her two brothers, Louis, aged g, and Mar tin, aged 5 both lusty youngsters.
 The bed in which Annie and Mary slept was under the "skeeto" netted win dow of the lean to. and Annie slept next to the window.
 Father and Mother Lemberger and Georgie, 13 months old, slept in the main house, perhaps 20 feet away.
 The mother arose at o'clock as was her custom and went into the lean to through the tiny parlor. The window was open and Annie was gone.
 The mothers cry brought the father. and there was a hurried examination of the window. One of the small panes was broken in half, the catch was pulled out and lath which had been put between the upper and lower sash lay on the ground outside. The cent strip of net ting was torn into white shreds
 Thus did Annie disappear. After day or two, all Madison was aroused There were gypsies in the vicinity and fast automobiles of rich men ran down their camps. There was not a trace of her. The city council became interested and offered a reward of $500 for the recovery of the girl dead or alive.
 Friday night there was a conference of men of affairs in the Wisconsin capitol. A telegram was sent to Governor McGov- ern. who was on his way to the confer ence of governors in New Jersey.
 Wont you call out the militia to search for Annie Lemberger?" was the message it bore.
 The ditch digging father wondered in his worry and sorrow why these big men had never known him before would take an interest. One of them, a bank president, answered him thus:
 "I have "a 7-year-old girl of my own '4
 Friday night they brought a blood hound, lone bloodhound, from Richland Center. The dog took hot scent from the window ledge, and in spite of the fact that thousands of people have been tranping about the house. followed it di- rect to Lake Hononga, half mile away. Preparations were made to drag the lake today but the finding of the body by Younger obvated this necessity.
 The body was taken to the morgue of Theodore Hoeveler and Coroner Lynch was called Surgeons were called and an autopsy held A part of the findings were given out officially as follows:
 Annie Lemberger was dead before she was thrown into Lake Mononga. There was no water in her lungs. Behind the right ear there was an abrasion which might have been from a blow that caused her death.'
 There was another part of the findings or the autopsy surgeons, also. of winch the less is said the better The surgeons thought so themselves, and refused to commit themselves officially. It is enough to say that if the murderer of Annie Lem- hc, ic l,a