CHILD'S SIX MURDERS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume L, Issue 61, 4 December 1907, Page 4

CHILD'S SIX MURDERS.

NURSE GIRL'S CONFESSION. APPALLING CRIMES. Berlin, October 10. Six murders at the age of 13 is the remarkable record claimed by Ida Schnell, whose ease is at present being investigated at Munich. The girl had been in service with a numlicr of different families as nursemaid, and no suspicion seems to have arisen against her till after the sixth infant entrusted to her care had died a sudden and mysterious death. Even then it was only after the baby had been buried that it appears to Something sinister in the circumstance that her nursing had been associated with mortality of so remarkable a character.

It was finally decided to exhume the body of the last of her charges, the 14day old son of a peasant proprietor near Ampermoching, near Munich. The corpse was taken from the coffin yesterday afternoon, and examination showed that death had been caused by perforation of the yet soft infantile skull with some sharp instrument.

Schnell was at once arrested, and closely questioned. At first she strenuously denied having caused the child's death, and protested that -he had much too gentle a nature to harm the infant in any way. I'nder cross-examination, however, -he broke down, and admitted that she had killed not only the baby whose body had been exhumed, but four others for whom she had been engaged as nurse. She confessed further that she had taken the lives of these infants by plunging a hairpin into the lower part of the" back of their heads till they ceased to cry. Asked as to her motive, the girl said that the crying of the infants "aroused in her unconquerable revulsion, and excited her to such a degree that she lost all control over herself, and would do anything to make them quiet. The parents of one of her victims reside in .Munich, the others in small places in the vicinity. Schnell, who will be 14 next month, physically well developed for her but rather dull-witted. Her father *is dead, but she has a step-father, who is a day labourer at Schlcis.-heim. to the north of Munich. Her scries of murders was only rendered possible by the fact —which will be a revelation to manv—that in Bavaria death certificates are frequently, and in the country districts always, granted by laymen. It is said that a doctor would at once have noticed the wounds caused by the hairpin.