A Murderer’s Coolness.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 920, 23 February 1881, Page 2

A Murderer’s Coolness.

Deliberately Shooting his Bride because She Refused to Sing. Bethlehem (Pa.), Jan. 3. Scarcely have the murdered Geogles and their lynched murderer, Snyder, been laid in the grave than the community is shocked by a wife-murder which for coolness surpasses anything which has ever been enacted hereabouts. Anton Klofel, of New York, and wife, came to spend the holidays with Mrs. Klofel’s parents, Buchspiece by name, farmers who reside at Big Creek, about three miles from Weissport, on the Lehigh and Susquehanna Railroad, about twelve miles below’ Mauch Chunk, Carbon County. Last night the family were engaged singing hymns and songs, Kloefel and wife taking the principal part. Kloefel requested his wife to sing “ Pull for the Shore,” which she refused. Kloefel seized a shotgun which was standing in a corner, took deliberate aim and fired. The shot took effect in the left eye, penetrating the brain and causing intant death. After he had committed the deed, Kloefel went to the neighbors and told a queer story, in which there was some truth, but all intended to divert suspicion from himself. When the murderer was being taken from the house by Constable Levan, there were such cries as “ Serve him like the Northampton murderer,” &c. The murderer cooly said : “ All right; giveme arevolverandl will fix myself.” Taking a percussion cap out of his pocket, he said, “ This cap is for me. Only give me the gun, and a little time.” He offered no resistance to the officer, and was safely lodged by the Constable in the Mauch Chunk jail.

On the road to the jail, Kloefel told Constable Levan that he did shoot his wife ; that the devil took possession of him, and he pulled the trigger and shot and killed her. The constable says the murderer did not seem to realise the enormity of his crime, or at least assumed a self-possessed indifference. Mrs. Kloefel, the murdered woman, had she not been killed by the man who a few months ago wedded her, would have been 19 years old to-day. Anton Kloefel the murderer, is employed as a clerk in a bakery house on Broadway, in New York City. He is a young man about six feet high, and quite good-looking. The couple had been married about three months only. This forenoon the Coroner held an inquest, and the jury rendered a verdict of murder at the hands of Anton Kloefel. This murder, following so soon upon the Geogle murder and lynching, has caused great excitement in the Lehigh Valley.