Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 May 1894 — LIFE TERM FOR MEYER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

LIFE TERM FOR MEYER

NEW YORK POISONER CONVICTED OF MURDER. Career that Throws the Records of Newgate in the Shade—How His Murders Were Plan' and Executed—Fiend In Human Form. Story of Font Crimea Told. Dr. Henry C. F. Meyer was convicted in New York of murder in the second degree, punishable by imprisonment at hard labor for life. His crime was a long series of murders for the insurance on the lives of the men marked for victims. Tne testimony at the trial revealed only a portion of what is alleged to be a career of crime unmatched in the records of the Newgate calendar and unrivalled even by the most gruesome imaginings of Edgar Allan Poe. The number of people said to have been sacrificed by Meyer is not known, hut the indications are that a score of imen and women have been his victims. Meyer is supposed to have poisoned his first wife, his own child, an alleged wife in Toledo; Henry Gildeman, of Chicago: and Ludwig Brandt He is also under suspicion of having administered poison to his second wife (Gildeman’s widowl, in Chicago; an old woman in Chicago, and Mary Neiss, now the wife of Carl Muller, alias August Wimmers. The Wimmers and Mullers were the most important direct witnesses against him. Meyer was born in Minden. Prussia, about forty years ago. He began to

practice medicine in Chicago in 1878. He got into trouble there over the suspicious death of his first wife's son after he had married the widow of Gildeman. He was arrested, but was discharged for lack of evidence. About 1888 be married his present wife, the daughter of a man named Gressen. Soon after this Meyer was arrested on the. charge of forging his father-in-law’s name to a heavy life insurance policy. He was tried and acquitted. During his detention in jail, Meyer made the acquaintance of Ludwig Brandt, who, like himself, was locked up on a charge of forgery. Brandt was the son of a General in the Norwegian army. When beth had been released, Meyer resumed his practice in Chicago and employed Brandt as his collector. In P9l Brandt was insured under the name of Gustav Maria Joseph Baum for large amounts. Brandt agreed to help Meyer in making a little mon y out of the insurance companies. Brandt was to feign sickness, a corpse was to be secured by tho doctor and passed off as that of Brandt. Btandt s death was to bo reported and certified, and when the insurances were collected the spoils were to be divided.

Meyer persuaded Brandt that it was necessary to the success of the plot that Brandt should pose at the husband of Mrs. Meyer. A marriage ceremony was actually performed on Feb. 11, lb!)2, and Brandt called at tho in-

surance offices and had his policies made payable to his “wife.” 1-our or five days later Brandt and the Meyers went to New York <with a man who then used the name of August Wimmers, who had served two years in Joliet for using the mails in the distribution of fraudulent matrimonial advertisements. L'aum. or Brandt, began rapidly to fail in health. It is charared that he had been dosed by minute but continuous doses of antimony. On March, 1892, Brandt died. Dr. Minden gave a death certificate, statim? chronic d-sen-tery as the cause. Ihe widow applied for her insurance money with such indecent haste that the suspicions of the companies were aroused. Wimmers and the Meyerccuple scented danger and left town in a hurry. The doctor and his wife were heard of after that at Chicago, Milwaukee, Toledo, Detroit and S uth Bend. Ind. Detective H. G. Julian, of the Mutual Life Insurance Company, was detailed to run down the criminal. It was a long and difficult chase. Meyer changed his name and his icsidence so often that he continually threw his pursuer of! the The chase lasted some twelve months, and finally ended in t:e capture in Detroit.

DR. HENRY C. F. MEYER. [One of the worst criminals of the age.]

MRS. MARY MEYER. [Wife of the convicted poisoner.]