EUTHANASIA.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 18, 22 September 1913, Page 5

EUTHANASIA.

SCHMiDT, THE MURDERER.

A REMARKABLE CRIMINAL.

[By Electric Telegiiaph—Copyright] [United Press Association.]

New York, September 20

The police state that Schmidt, who was arrested for the murder of the woman Aumullcr, is the most remarkable criminal product of the present age. Schmidt, in answer to police questioning, declared that he believed in euthanasia. The right to end the lives of suffering people painlessly was carrying out God's will. The lives of all crippled persons should always be mercifully ended. Amongst Schmidt's possessions were numbers of physicians' death certificates, which he admitted he intended to use to show that Aumuller's death was naturally caused. He afterwards decided to cut her throat, dismember the body, and throw it into tho river. Schmidt declared that he was ready to die. The District Attorney wanted to see him in the electric chair, so what was the use of delaying?

A tragedy with some horrible features were brought to light, when the lower half of a girl's body was washed up on the bank of the River Hudson (reports a cable received in Australia a fortnight ago). No trace has yet been discovered of the head, arms or legs. It is believed that the crime was perpetrated by some person, with a knowledge of surgery, and the fact that the victim was within a few months of becoming a mother suggests the circumstances in which she met her death. The girl was about 20 years of age. The police have not yet ascertained her name, but the pillow-slip in which the remains were found, and on which the letter "A" is embroidered in one of the corners, will probably provide a clue to the identity of both the murderer and the victim.

The police are investigating, also, an unsigned letter that was sent to the Hoboken Morgue. The writer of this epistle bewails the disappearance of someone who is referred to only by the name of Ella, and mentions a certain East Side physician who had something to do with the case. The detectives have discovered that the pillow-slip was bought at a secondhand store on the East Side, as also was a piece of fancy red and blue ticking found with the body. A woman who is described as middle-aged, stout, and poorly dressed, bought the articles last April, and the police, of course, are now hunting for this per-

Stories of girls who are missing from home have come by the dozens to the District Attorney's Office since the murder was reported in the newspapers . The detectives are specially interesting themselves in the case of Ella Steinemann, who has been missing for a year, and in that of Jeanette Norman, a vaudeville actress, who disappeared on August 31, which, oddly enough, is the date of the newspaper found wrapped about the portion of the body picked up in the Hudson.