A BERLIN CRIME MYSTERY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1390, 16 March 1912, Page 14

A BERLIN CRIME MYSTERY.

COUPLE ACQUITTED OF MURDER. A MOST BEMARKABLE CASE. At Berlin, on January 26, Frau Helen© Behm find Gustnv Kolbe were acquitted of the murder of the former's husband. The case, is one of tlie most curious in (lie annals of criminal investigation, for tho body of Hm Bohm lias never been found. Tho whole story is ono of tho mysteries that may never be solved. Prnnz Behm was the eecretary of tho Imperial Statistical Office, and lived with his wife in a cottngo by the railway near Zosscn, about eighteen miles from Berlin. On October 7, 1909, Behm disappeared for ever. A month before a lodger had been admitted to tho cottage—a certain workman, Gustav Kolbe. Kolbe, according to report, is "just the sort o' chap a fellow wouldn't want to meet of a dark night": undersized, square-jawed, sunken-eyed— tho typo of criminal that any jury unaccustomed to murder trials would feel prejudiced against at once. His previous record shows sentences of five years' penal cervitndo for "coining," ■ another four years for passing false coin, and so on. A month after his arrival Behm disappeared. Local rumour promptly stamped Frau Behm as Kolbe's accomplice in a murder. There was absolutely no evidence at tho time, and tho Public Prosecutor refused to go on with tho trial of Frau Behm and Kolbe, who were accordingly released a few days after arrest. But tho State Department was not satisfied. Tho police dragged a little lake in the neighbourhood, searched the forest, and „ advertised freely, with no result. Frau Behm and Kolbe were arrested again, and again tho Public Prosecutor demanded that they should be released and tho case allowed to drop. There was not ono jot or tittle of evidence. Finally a well-known detective was employed by the State Department on their own account, and this is the rather less negative evidence he collected. Five times in tho course of fifteen years Frau Behni had left her husband for periods varying from a few weeks to eighteen months. In recent years thero had been repeated quarrels, and Frau Behm had applied for a divorco on the ground of cruelty and desortion. She subsequently withdrew the application, Onco Behm, who regularly slept with a revolver under his pillow, had shot at her, and once ho put a pistol to tho head of her son Walter, threatening to niake an end of him. She had once said in a rage to a friend that "she would not mind much if Behm got mixed up in a ra'ilway accident." Clearly there was enough evidence of this sort to warrant a fresh arrest of Frau Behm. This was done, and the Public Prosecutor again took up the case. October 7, 1909. Now for the night of October 7. Fran Bohm and her husband quarolled about a roast chicken. Behm came round the table, seized the chicken by a drumstick and threatened to hit his wife with it. The woman defended herself with vigour, and tho man reeled backwards against tho half-open door of tho room. "I'll pay you for that," ho shouted. A moment later Behm drew a revolver, and as his wife dashed headlong from the room ho fired after her. Sho fled into the forest belt, and after running some distance tripped over a tree stump and twisted her ankle. As she.fell someone whom she took to be her husband dashed past her. She lay some time- in pain, and finally dragged herself back to the house, which sho reached at ten o'clock. This account of her flight is verified in all essential details by sworn evidence. The lamps were still burning and the children were sleeping in the attic, but no one answered her ring at the doorboll, and sho was unable to obtain admission. So she remained outside to see what would hapnen. Towards midnight Kolbo arrived. He had no latch-key with him, so they put a ladder against the attic window' and climbed up to it. Tho children opened the window when they knocked, and so they climbed in. Frau Behm remained during tho rest of the niirht with tho children. So much for Frau Bohm's story. On the following day fiho missed a matter of thirty pounds which her husband had kept in the house, and also n suit of her husband's clothe-s. She concluded her husband had simply run away from her, as he had done once before. The Discoveries. Now for the detective's discoveries. On the day following the disappearance it was observed that a pane of glass was missing from a window of one of tho rooms on the ground-floor. On the same day Frau Behm instructed Kolbe to mend the window, as "she was afraid her husband might climb in by it." Kolbe said that lie was unable to mend it himself, so ho took it to a glazier in the village and waited a full hour whilst it was being repaired. At the same time he caused the glazier to remove an old piece of weather-boarding from the window and nail on a new piece. When the window was brought-back it "did not , fit," so it was transferred to another room and an old one put in its place. Now, in the weather-boarding of the mended window were found traces of small shot, such as Kolbe had often admittedly used 'in rook-shooting. To "amuse the children" he also shot fowls rs , required for meals! In tho room with the broken window were found email fragments of glass. Frau Behm declared they came from glass plates brought by her husband at various times from the office and subsequently broken. But the detective on further intmiry came across an old piece of carpet stained with Wood. The carpet was sent to a specialist for examination, but be declared that thero was only the blood of some animal thereon. The carpet was then sent to a second specialist, who found under the animal blood pronounced traces of human blood. On October the fifteenth Kolbe had deposited the sum of .£lO in two ,£5 notes in Frau Behm's name with a certain Zimmerman. The monpv, she said, reprerentcd her savings. The detective also discovered that Kolbo himself was in possession of .£lO shortly after the disappearance. "Ten and ten are twenty, observes the detective in his notes. "Twentv pounds is ten short of the thirty which Behm had in the house, and which were missing after his disappearance."The Lake, From a point at a little distance from an outhouso in the Behm's garden were found the tracks of a cart which le'd to the lake. The tracks exactly corresponded with those of a hand-cart, commonly called "pair o' wheels," belonging to the Bohms. But there were at least six other "pairs o' whceK' in tho village all mado on the same pattern, and oil fitting the tracks. Kolbe, according to local report, made eome very suspicions statements soon after the disappearance. "You either shot him or put, him in the lake, and that's a fact," said a Dabendorf man when Kolbo was released after the first arrest. "Oh, yes, of course I did!" replied Kolbe. A mile later a policeman came to him and said that he had much better toll where Behm was, a.s then they could share the reward .of X°s. "Let us first share the X 2, r >," replied Kolbe, "and I will then tell you where Behm is!" To another inquiry he replied, "Oh, dear, yes! I burned him and scattered his ashes to the four winds!" Shortly after his release he entered a village inn whore a masked ball was in progress. "Kolbe's hero a?ain," cried someono. "If tho men don't bohave themselves Kolbo will shoot them and throw them into tho lake," Kolbo laughed. Behm's mother asserts that her son would never havo run away from homo without saying good-bye to her. Sho has another son in America, and in reply In an injury this other son Milled that his brother ''was Sot in America." Further, if he had intended flight ho would have withdrawn money from his deposit at the Deiitscho Bank. It takes three-quarters of an hour to ranch the lake in the forest from tho Behm's house. At ono point local tradi. tion makes it bottomless, or at nnyrato, not less than 250 ft. deep. It is surrounded by bog and marsh. A body sunk in that slime would never reappear.

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