Karoline Roos

Karoline Roos b. Alwens

Karoline Roos (born February 12, 1822 in Speyer , † February 14, 1896 in Munich ) was the daughter of the former Palatinate District President Franz Alwens and was the victim of a robbery .

Family and life

Family relationships

Karoline was born as the daughter of the later district president Franz Alwens and his wife Caroline. Falciola was born in Lauterecken .

Her brother Karl von Alwens (1820-1889) became a member of the Bavarian state parliament and, as Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies, was raised to the nobility in 1887.

The also murdered daughter Julie Roos

The sisters Julie Alwens (1823–1849) and Susanne Alwens (1828–1899) successively married the appellate judge Goswin Hörmann von Hörbach (1810–1873), son of Joseph Hörmann von Hörbach , the district president of Upper Bavaria. After the death of her husband in 1873, Susanne devoted herself to religiously motivated poor relief in Munich, became a Benedictine on the advice of her confessor, Speyer Bishop Daniel Bonifaz von Haneberg , and died in 1899 as sister Lioba and prioress of the Frauenchiemsee monastery . From this family line, the doctor Otto Hörmann von Hörbach was a nephew of the dead.

Life

Karoline Alwens married the later ennobled Ministerialrat in the Bavarian Ministry of Finance , Karl August von Roos (1813–1873) , who came from Zweibrücken . He died of cholera .

They had the sons August Roos (1841-1920), senior councilor , and Karl Roos (1855-1880), Jesuit , and the unmarried daughter Julie Roos (1843-1896).

Most recently the mother Karoline Roos and the daughter Julie Roos lived very secluded in Munich in the apartment building at Karlstrasse 33; both were sickly.

The robbery

Finding situation in the toilet, Karoline Roos lying on the dead cook

The alleged murderer Johann Berchtold

Grave in the old northern cemetery in Munich

On the morning of February 15, 1896, after reporting by the cook Pauline Pfefferl, who lived in the same house, the corpses of Karoline and Julie Roos and their cook Maria Gradl were found in their locked apartment at 33 Karlstrasse. He had the apartment opened by a locksmith.

Karoline Roos and Maria Gradl were lying on top of each other in the toilet, Julie Roos on her mother's bed. The main door was undamaged, and the corpses showed only slight outward signs of violence. House residents had suspected that they had not been seen since the previous day, they gave no signs of life and did not respond to knocks. In addition, a business card had been on the door since the day before and in the morning the baker had - as usual - hung the bread on the outside of the door that had not been brought in.

An autopsy showed that the three women had been strangled or strangled, and Karoline Roos was also hit on the forehead. Apparently the cook Maria Gradl had let the perpetrator into the apartment unsuspectingly and was strangled by him in the corridor. Karoline Roos, who became aware of the noise, also came there, received a blow to the head and was then strangled. Then the perpetrator came across Julie Roos in the bedroom, whom he also strangled. He had dragged the bodies of the women killed in the corridor into the toilet. There was a shortage of 350 marks in cash and several Pfandbriefe from the Bavarian Mortgage and Exchange Bank worth about 3500 marks.

Since the Roos ladies led a very withdrawn life, seldom left the house and strangers were generally not allowed in, the investigation initially concentrated on relatives and acquaintances. All persons in question here could be excluded as perpetrators.

Information from the population brought new investigative approaches. The carpenter Erasmus Ringler stated that he suspected the bricklayer Johann Berchtold (1862–1925) from Schwabing . Rumor has it that he has had a hand in two previous robberies, but has not been convicted. The current suspicion was based on the fact that Berchtold had carried out masonry work in the house's closets last summer (also with Ms. Roos), therefore knew the victims at least briefly and also had local knowledge.

Berchtold was arrested on February 21, 1896. Although he had several previous convictions, he emphatically denied the act. From October 1, 1896, the trial against him took place before the jury court at the Munich District Court I. Various circumstances were cited as circumstantial evidence, in particular that his family, who had been living in very poor conditions up to the time of the murder, suddenly had considerable means at their disposal. There were also witnesses who claimed to have seen Berchtold in and in front of the murder house.

Sentenced to death on October 14, 1896 and pardoned to life imprisonment on March 28, 1897 , Johann Berchtold always protested his innocence. His lawyer Walter von Pannwitz tried in vain to have the proceedings reopened because a new witness wanted to have seen the convict in Schwabing at the time of the crime. There were also repeated doubts about the credibility of some witnesses. Nevertheless, the process was never reopened. Johann Berchtold served his sentence first in the Anger prison in Munich and from April 1, 1897 in the Kaisheim penitentiary , where he died on August 18, 1925.

The two Roos ladies were buried in the family grave in the Old Munich North Cemetery. The grave still exists today (2018).

literature

• Norbert Borrmann: Das große Lexikon des Verbrechens , 2005, p. 83 u. 84
• E. Ruwe: Johann Berchtold, the threefold robbery from Karlstrasse in Munich , Munich, 1896; (Complete digital scan)
• Palatinate-Rhenish Family Studies , Volume 2, 1957, p. 5, Working Group for Palatinate Family Studies and Heraldry; (Clipping scan 1) ; (Detail scan 2)

Web links

• Website about the murder case in the portal: House of Bavarian History
• Private homicide website; Case No. 6
• Article on the Old Northern Cemetery mentioning the murder

Individual evidence

1. ^ Studies and communications on the history of the Benedictine order and its branches , Volume 85, Page 580, Pustet Verlag, Regensburg, 1974; Detail scan
2. ^ Yearbook for West German State History , Volume 4, p. 278, self-published by the Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, 1978; (Clipping scan 1) ; (Detail scan 2)
3. ↑ Landshuter Zeitung , year 27, 1875, p. 431 of the year; (Digital scan)