New Britain herald., 1915-07-08
BELIEVED MUENTER
 ERELY ECCENTRIC
l4FYard Friends Thought He Was Gentleman and Diligent Student


 to his associates when he was an ln- structor at Harvard university Tn 2 first evidence of diseased mind was | contained in pamphlet which he IS supposed to have written and mailed from New Orleans to President Eliot and certain members of the faculty after he had fled from Cambridge in the face of the charges that he had murdered his wife with poison.
 Considered Eccentric.
 Considered by is intimates as ec- centric, Muenter nevertheless was re- gafdSd as a diligent student and courteous gentleman, who was not ticilar attention.
 The issuance of the booklet creat- ed astonishment as it was bitter tirade against society, threatening revenge upon the community" which he declared had unjustly accused him. . The writer gave convincing proof of san unbalanced mind.
 Instructor In German.
 Muenter came to Harvard in 1904, with degree of the University of Chicago and record of service as an instructor in the University of Kansas. Entered at Harvard as candidate for the advanced degree of doctor of philosophy he received an appointment as instructor in the ele- ! 4mentary German courses. He was accompanied here by his wife, for merly Leone Krembs. of Chicago, and their one year old daughter On April 6, 1906, a second child was born Mrs. Muenter. believing in mental healing, did not call in ], physician until just before the birth of the infant and the physician with drew from the case when he learned that his directions were not being followed.
 Withheld Death Certificate.
 A mental healer and nurse at- tended Mrs. Muenter At midnight on April Is. Muenter told the nurse to get some rest and said that he would stay with the patient. At 6 ! o'clock the following morning he in formed the nurse that Mrs. Muenter had died. The physician whose ad- vice had been disregarded refused to issue death certificate and the med ioal examiner believing that the cir cumstances Justified an autopsy, sent the woman's stomach to the Harvard medical school for analysis.
 In the meantime Muenter urged that he be allowed to take the body to Chicago for burial and the med- ical examiner permitted him to do so and issued a certificate ascribing death to stomach trouble following childbirth. Muenter did not return. tog Cambridge. !, Found Traces of Poison.
 within ten days the chemist. re- ported the presence of poison in the digestive organs and the futile search for Muenter began
 Soon afterwards grand jury re- turned an indictment acusing the missing instructor of having poisoed his wife. Two months after Muen- ter's disappearance his colleagues here received copies of pamphlet entitled Protest which was a strange parody on the writer's troub- les. It contained a discussion of the charges against him, followed by a rambling analysis of existing social conditions and the treatm ent of those acused of crime without proof
 On the latter subject, the writer said In part.
 Reference to Crime.
 Take my case. Even without the process of law, the spirit of revenge and persecution of the law which our newspapers so brightly and painfully reflect has branded me as a criminal Tn the eyes of all who read the atro- cious accounts in the daily papers, am a brutal murderer. thing to be despised and to be shuddered at ar outcast of society, an enemy of the community, wild beast that mus, be hunted down and be either killed