Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-09-15
GIRLS SLAYER A
PSEUDO PRIEST,
CLERGY DECLARE
Hans Schmidt, Confessed MUIR
derer of Anna Aumuller, Used
Forged Papers.
BEGIN INVESTIGATION
OF HIS CREDENTIALS
Police Now Seek to Connect
Him With Death of Girl in
Louisville, KY.

NEW YORK. Sept. 15.--In the hope
of branding as an impostor aro
pseudo priest Rev. Hans Schmidt, the
alleged self f-confessed slayer of Anna
Aumuller. victim of New Yorks river
murder mystery, church authorities
began today d sweeping investigation
of Schmidt's record and his preten-
sions to ordination.
I'VE hope, of course, to be able to
prove that this unspeakable monster
was an impostor, and that he had
been using forged papers, declared
Monsignor Lavelle, vicar-general oil
the archdiocese of New York. That
is something which we are trying to
clear up now He came to this diocese
with credentials which were appar-
entity in every way authentic and
genuine, but we know practically
nothing of him. His crime is too hor-
rible to conceive. We can only hope
that he may prove to have been
pseudo priest"
Dispatches from Germany today
say that Johannes Schmidt. belong
long under suspension by the bishop
He disappeared from Mainz and
later arrived In Munich, where he
was arrested on a charge of COM
mitting u number of frauds, accord
Ing to the newspaper.
After he had been acquitted by the
court on the ground of wead minded
ness he emigrated to New York. The
Mainz eplscopate was not aware that
he was exercising the functions or q
priest in New York.
In his cell In the Tombs, with his
coat as a pillow. Schmidt slept sound
ly through the night and arose this
morning to partake of a hearty
breakfast. He had little to add to
his alleged confession of last night.
in which he is said to have told the
police that he killed his victim as
she lay in bed, cut up her body in
the bathtub of the apartment where
he had established her, wrapped 1t In
five bundles and dropped the bundles
In the Hudson river. To Rev. l.. j.
Evers. the Tombs chaplain, Schmidt
was said to have made the following
declaration:
II was directed to kill her by st.
Elizabeth. who Is my patron, as
sacrifice. to be contaminated as was
the sacrifice of Abraham. in blood"
To the police Schmidt is alleged to
have said. IT killed her because ]
ioyad her. The police believe, how
! ever, that he killed her because she
1ieve that the girl accepted as genu-
ine the marriage ceremony through
which she went with her alleged
SLAYER last February, and in which
he was both priest and bridegroom.
Newark Gives Clue.
The crime, which parallels the
famous Guldensuppe mystery, was
solved through the tracing OF New
ark manufacturers price tag which
the murderer left on a fiowered pill
low, into which he packed one sec
tion of the torso he threw into the
river. The tag led directly to the
fiat in which Schmidt admitted he
and the woman had lived as man
and wife.
With the weight of his terrific crime
on his mind. the accused priest had
gone about his duties in the Harlem
church seemingly unaffected. He is
declared to have off ciated on the
same morning on which he killed
Miss Aumuller and to have gone from
the holy sacrifice to throw the dis
membered sections of her body from
a Fort Lee ferryboat.
shows No Emotion.
Except for the few dramatic mo-
ments when he first was accused of
the crime, the priest, whom the po-
lice and Assistant District-Attorney
Deacon Murphy declare they believe
Is sane, showed absolutely no emo
tion and seemed not to realize the
enormity of his crime.
The murder, according to his con-
fession. was committed at midnight
on September 2. Dismemberment of
the body followed Immediately with
a knife and saw purchased in Centre
street less than one block from Po-
lice Headquarters.
Although it has not been found,
the priest declared the head of the
murder victim was the first section
of the dismembered body he threw
into the river
The priest is held in the Tombs
without bail.
OF Schmidts antecedents little is
known here save his own claim that
he was born in Germany in 1881, was
educated there, ordained by Bishop
Kepstein in st. Augustine's Seminary
In Mainze and came to New York IN
1906. In 1909 he went to Trenton, and
in December, 1910, was appointed as
sistant rector of st. Boniface
Church in this city There he met the
Aumuller girl, who, he said, had come
TO this country from Germany lew
months before.
The skill with which the young
woman's body had been dismempered
caused the police to believe at first
that the work had been done by
surgeon. In the fiat occupied for flve
days by Schmidt and the girl de-
tectives found hundred printed
cards which indicated that Schmidt
had masqueraded as surgeon ana
was possessed of more than an or
binary laynlan's s knowledge of surgery.
These cards read as follows Or.
Emil Meliere, formerly assistant sur
geon of the Municipal Women's Hos
pital, Paris, France. Representative
of the Chemical Hygiene Manufactur-
ing Company"
With o view to clearing the mystery
surrounding the murder of S-year-old
Alma Kellner, whose mutilated body
was found in duicklime in the base
ment of St. Johns Catholic Church
in Louisville. KY. two and one-half
years ago. the police sought today to
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