Riedel-Guala case

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The doctor Max Paul Theodor Riedel (1892–1955) and his lover , the musician Antonia Guala , were sentenced to twenty years in prison in 1926 in Burgdorf BE for the poisoning of Riedel's wife using arsenic . After five years in prison, both were acquitted in 1931 and compensated for the misjudgment. The case went international in the press, was considered a prime example of how easily a suicide can be mistaken for murder , and provided material for literary works.

Condemnation

After the separated spouses had been reconciled, the abandoned lover arrived at Riedel's in Langnau im Emmental, sick and asking for accommodation . Days turned into weeks, and Frau Riedel fell ill with an upset stomach after her husband returned home unexpectedly late from a visit to the sick. She had drunk 3.5 deciliters of Fowler's solution . The complaints decreased again before they led to the death of Ms. Riedel. Mr. Riedel suggested gastric lavage to his wife , which she refused. He called in his doctor colleague Fonio, who later became his accuser. During the dissection, Professor Howald found nephritis on the one hand, and Professor Schönbauer on the other hand found a lot of arsenic in the excrement . Thereafter, the doctor Max Riedel and his lover Antonia Guala were arrested without interrogation and sentenced on July 28, 1926 by a jury trial for murder to 20 years in prison .

doubt

Riedel was accused of letting his wife die without an antidote . The revision questioned whether the arsenic had been taken in a single or multiple doses ; multiple doses would rule out suicide. Contrary to Schönbauer, the physicians Emil Bürgi and François Naville advocated the thesis of the one-time dose, which “indicated suicide and explained the subsequent apparent recovery with subsequent fatal nephritis”. The ETHZ student Albert Coenca stated in a letter that, when Ms. Riedel lived with her in a pension in Zurich during their separation in 1925 , drugs containing arsenic such as the inorganic iron preparation Blaudsche pills and Fowler's solution as a tonic , for beauty care and for contraception had taken. The arsenic, which is only slowly excreted and stored in hair, nails, and bones, may have explained her persistent headache; The psychiatrists Édouard Claparède and Walter Morgenthaler “did not see the reinstatement of the patient's will to live after the first few days that would not exclude the possibility of suicide”.

During the first dissection, the contents of the stomach had been poured out without being examined, to which the defense pointed out that no doctor would have committed an arsenic murder at that time because the metal was still detectable decades later. In addition, it was forgotten to examine the bottle with the Fowler's solution for fingerprints .

Max Riedel's lawyer Fritz Roth published the book Ein Justizirrtum? In 1929 with Orell Füssli Verlag . The Riedel-Guala poisoning trial , which consisted of documents for its revision. Roth drew a general criticism of the jury trial and particularly objected to the secrecy of the preliminary investigation , which had the aim of getting the suspects involved in contradictions without being able to defend themselves. He showed the Bern examining magistrate Gerber many legally inadmissible leading questions . Furthermore, unusually, the jury was not required to give reasons for their decision; and the jury proceedings were not recorded, "so that the auditors were dependent on the daily press".

Revision

After five years in prison, the convicts managed to resume the trial in which Max Riedel was defended by Fritz Roth and Antonia Guala by Wladimir Rosenbaum . Among other things, defense attorney Roth made use of the criminal psychologist Walther Kröner , who believed that she could prove susceptibility to suicide based on Ms. Riedel's diary: she had "committed suicide unconsciously in order to 'trip up' her husband and his lover". In the presence of psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler, he organized a "telepathic session" with the parapsychologist Elsbeth Günther-Geffers , who was able to convince the jury of the suicide hypothesis.

In December 1931, the jury acquitted both of them from the murder charges. After leaving prison in the same year, Riedel and Guala married. He was compensated with CHF 51,000 and Guala with CHF 28,000 , and both were found innocent by the court.

reception

The writer Ernst Toller dealt with the case in 1932 in his five-act play The Blind Goddess , and Hans Mühlethaler in 1978 in his novel The Fowler's Solution .

Web links

Remarks

  1. ^ Obituary in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung 1955
  2. a b c d e f g Hans Martin Sutermeister : Summa Iniuria: A Pitaval of judicial errors . Elfenau, Basel 1976, p. 435-437 ( Commons [PDF]).
  3. ^ Emil Bürgi : Arsenic poisoning. The poisoning trial of Dr. Riedel-Guala . In: Collection of Poisoning Cases . tape 4 , December 1933, p. A69-A76 , doi : 10.1007 / BF02462648 (chargeable).
  4. ^ Fritz Roth, A miscarriage of justice? The Riedel – Guala poisoning trial. From the documents for his revision. Orell Füssli, Zurich 1929, p. 128ff.
  5. ^ Fritz Roth : A miscarriage of justice? The Riedel – Guala poisoning trial. From the documents for his revision . Orell Füssli , Zurich / Leipzig 1929, DNB  575904321 , OCLC 829746472 .
  6. Der Tag , No. 242, Chernivtsi, January 3, 1933.
  7. Ernst Toller : The blind goddess: play in five acts . Kiepenheuer, Berlin 1932, OCLC 57646425 (several new editions).
  8. Hans Mühlethaler : The Fowler solution . Novel. Zytglogge Verlag , Bern 1978, ISBN 3-7296-0079-6 .