Weekly News. — 1892-01-28 (Blandford, Dorset, England)

THE SCHNEIDER TRIAL IN VIENNA.  The trial of Frank Schneider and Rosalie, his ; wife, for a series of murders and outrages which are believed to have no parallel in Austrian criminal , records, is about to begin in Vienna, and is being looked forward to with impatient interest by the , whole Austrian public. The indictment contains nc fewer than eight definite charges of outrage and inurd: r. The victims were in every instance servant-girls in search of employment, and it was by promising to find them situations that the prisoners succeeded in luring them to their fate. The first crime is alleged to have taken place on May 26th, 1891, when a girl named Johanna Stoibei was outraged by the male prisoner, under the cover of night, in a wood known as the Haspel Walde, near Neu Lengbach. The date of the second crime is June Ist, 1891, less than a week after the first. The girl's name was Anna Djuris, and the outrage, which occurred in an inn near .Neu Lengbach, is stated to have been accompanied by violence of the most atrocious character. The third crime took place three days later in the same neighbourhood. The victim, Rosalie Kkinrath, was robbed and murdered, and the fourth charge is that the woman Schneider pawned this unfortunate girl's clothes and belongings a few days after the crime. The fiftt head of the indictment is that on July 2nd the male prisoner outraged, murdered, and robbed a girl name Martha Hothranger in another wood in the same neighbourhood. The sixth charge is that the female prisoner was cognisant of this murder, anc took part in the robbery. Five days later another horrible crime of the same description was committed in the Haspel Walde, the scene of the first, the victim, a girl named Vicentia Zuffer, being violated. Her clothes and money were aiso appropriated by her murderers; and the eighth charge in the indictment is that the woman Rosalie Schneider was not only cognisant of the crime, hut assisted in its perpetration. Frank Schneider is a man of 35 years. He was born at Amstetten near Vienna, his father being a shoemaker in that place. He received hardly any education, and seems to have got into bad company at a very early period of his career. When only 14 years of age lie was convicted of robbery. He subsequently served as a butcher's assistant for some time, and in 1882 he married the female prisoner Rosalie, who was a cook of not particularly good character, but who had a d wry of 700 guilders. After that money had been spent Schneider lived on the proceeds of his wife's misconduct, and such blackmail as he was able to levy upon one of her former lovers. Like her husband, the woman Schneider has not now made the acquaintance of a prison interior for the first time, having already served a period of 18 months imprisonment. The girls whom Schneider is alleged to have murdered were never seen after they went away with the prisoner and his wife until their naked and mutilated bodies were recovered in the woods. Since they have been in prison awaiting their trial both Schneider and hie wife have evinced great terror at the prospect of having to undergo capital punishment. It is stated that both have confessed, mutually accusing each other. According to these confessions Schneider strangled his victims, and his wife stripped them of their clothing, hiding their dresses in a ditch until she could otherwise dispose of them. After her arrest the woman attempted to commit suicide by jumping into the prison courtyard from a thirdstorey window. The injuries she sustained, however, were of a comparatively trifling nature. Neu Lengbach, where the crimes were committed, is a fashionable suburb, lying a short distance to the west ot Vienna.