On May 9, 1854, a peasant passing near the Schwartow Vorwerk caught sight of a woman’s body in the Persante, her face turned toward the riverbed, her hands drawn up before her. The current had carried Henriette Thom, known as Hanne, to a spot some two hundred paces from the confluence of the Gramenz brook. Nothing in this discovery as yet pointed to foul play. It was at first taken for an accident. It required an informer’s report, an exhumation, and six judicial reconstructions of the scene to compel that wooden bridge to surrender its secret.
Hanne was thirty years of age. She was seven months pregnant with a second child born out of wedlock, and she was well acquainted with the three women who would soon stand accused of her death: Kath, Ulrich, and Karoline Janke. They all dwelled in Bärwalde, moving in the same circle of mendicancy and petty theft. The compilation recording the affair depicts Hanne as less cunning than her associates, often put forward in their stead whenever the peril of capture arose. Her testimony in a theft committed at the Tempelburg market had, however, upended this arrangement: it directly implicated the other three women and was set to bring them before the Neustettin tribunal on May 12.
Hanne had been expelled from Bärwalde by the police, but she had returned and found shelter in a cow-shed. Her former companions knew she held the power to send them to prison. The inquest established that they spoke of putting an end to her life well before the day of the deed. They weighed several expedients: luring her into a peat bog, causing her to drink a noxious draught, or thrusting her into the Persante from a steep bank. Their designs shifted as they balanced the hazards. Shepherds might look on across the marshland; poisons were difficult to procure; an assault upon the riverbank might miscarry.
The scheme ultimately resolved upon was simpler and more ruthless. On the eve of the deed, Kath told another woman that on the morrow they would go and “pluck the chicken” she kept in the shed, denoting Hanne by this phrase. She spoke of the schnapps that would be needed to render her tractable, and of her own rest broken by the anticipation of the morrow. This confidence, later rehearsed under oath, afforded the prosecution a firm footing against Kath’s denials. As for the young Janke, she was at first assigned the task of casting Hanne from the bridge; when she balked, Kath replied that she would undertake it herself.
The three women purchased the spirits together, each contributing one silbergroschen, and Ulrich went in search of the schnapps and alcohol. It was agreed that Kath would fetch Hanne, whilst Ulrich and Janke walked ahead to meet them near Wusterhausen. Yet on the morning of May 9, Kath’s son allowed Hanne to leave the shed earlier than anticipated. The source notes that this appears to have occurred without the mother’s knowledge or desire. Apprised of her departure, Kath swiftly overtook her and prevailed upon her to accompany the group.
Hanne bore upon her head a beggar’s sack lent by Wietzke. She had drunk since early morning; along the road, her companions urged her to drink yet more. After a brief halt, the four women reached the bridge connecting the roads from Wusterhausen and Zülfenhagen to that of Schwartow. This narrow crossing of twenty paces had a railing on one side only. The Persante, shallow at this reach, ran beneath the planks between uneven banks, then narrowed further downstream amidst roots and brambles. The magistrate summoned the accused back to the spot to retrace every movement.
The accounts of Ulrich and Janke, distinct at first, ultimately delineated the very same sequence of events. Ulrich took the lead upon the bridge; Hanne followed, then Kath and Janke. When Ulrich had nearly reached the opposite bank, Kath called out to her to turn back: “You well know what we are about.” Hanne, suspecting no trap, turned about as well. In the middle of the bridge, Kath seized her with both hands and hurled her sideways over the timber.
Yet Hanne managed to cling to the bridge. The railing gave way; she struck the water, then gained a fleeting hold upon the bank. The three women came upon her and thrust her back. The current swept her against a tree stump; Ulrich dislodged her and cast her once more into the stream. Further down, Hanne caught hold of a bough entangled in the brush. The three accused dragged her from it. Kath took her by the braid coiled at the crown of her head, held her face beneath the surface, then let her drift away.
Janke, too, entered the water, initially assisting in preventing Hanne from regaining the bank. According to her deposition, Janke was then seized with pity; she ceased repelling Hanne and reached out her arm to help her climb the opposite bank. They sat down together in a rye field that bordered the water’s edge and began to wring out their garments. Janke offered to lend her own petticoat to the victim. The tragedy might have ended there; but Kath and Ulrich came upon them.
Ulrich thrust a stick toward Janke and commanded her to strike Hanne. Janke cast it into the stream and refused to proceed further. Hanne, recovering her senses for a moment, implored Ulrich’s pardon and asked for a kiss in token of peace. Ulrich hurled her once more into the water and held her beneath the surface. When Hanne emerged, she struggled yet again to reach dry land. Kath was awaiting her with a cudgel. She beat her back into the current, stepped into the water, and bore her down with the club and her own weight. She did not let her go until Ulrich called out to see if the victim were still breathing. Hanne stirred yet; Kath seized her by the hair and pressed her head into the sand of the riverbed until all sign of life had departed.
The three women returned to the bridge, took up their sacks and slippers, and drank the remainder of the spirits. Hanne’s sack was given over to Ulrich to be concealed. On the road to Zuchen, they dried their garments in a pine grove and went their way. The corpse drifted downstream to the spot where the countryman discovered it toward ten o’clock. A preliminary examination revealed no injuries deemed decisive. As Hanne was with child, the physician performed a post-mortem caesarean section and ascertained that the seven-month foetus was already lifeless. No signs of foul play being perceived at that hour, burial was permitted.
The declaration of Nathan Leseber, a neighbour, altered the course of the inquest. He deposed that he had seen Hanne set out that morning with the three accused toward Wusterhausen and Zuchen, and had later seen the other women return alone. He recalled, moreover, that Hanne was due to appear against them within days at the Tempelburg larceny trial. The magistrate ordered the grave reopened and the body examined anew. The medical examiners discovered the unmistakable signs of drowning, particles of earth in the respiratory and digestive tracts, as well as minor contusions and abrasions. In their opinion, Hanne had inhaled and swallowed muddy water; the wounds demonstrated that she had not cast herself voluntarily into the river.
The physicians likewise concluded that she had lived long enough in the water to struggle and gasp for breath. Taken singly, the lesions were slight; their number and distribution proved far more significant. Marks appeared upon the legs, the back of the right hand, the elbow, and the breast; internal extravasations were also noted beneath the scalp. The forensic conclusion was that of death by drowning following upon violent assault. Yet the autopsy could not apportion each blow to each woman. To determine their precise roles, the examining magistrate conducted six views of the scene and confronted the accused with one another before the site plans entered into the record.
Ulrich and Janke eventually acknowledged their participation, though rendering accounts that grew in stages and diverged upon several particulars. Kath admitted to having brought Hanne to the place of the crime, to having joined in the preparatory talks, and to having debated the manner of her killing; she steadfastly denied having taken any hand in the drowning itself. Yet a witness deposed to her words on the previous evening, and another woman declared that after the murder Kath told her Hanne would work them no further harm. In confinement, Kath lamented that she was losing her head “innocently,” adding that she would prefer twenty years’ imprisonment to the block.
At the Assizes, Kath pleaded her innocence; Ulrich and Janke pleaded guilty, yet their admissions were not deemed sufficiently comprehensive to dispense with the jury’s verdict. The jurors found Kath guilty of having slain Hanne with premeditation and with the assistance of others. Against Ulrich and Janke, they returned a verdict of essential complicity in the murder. In Janke’s case, the division stood at seven votes against five; the judges deliberated in their turn and likewise affirmed her guilt. All three women were condemned to death. Janke alone petitioned for royal clemency; the sentence was confirmed.
On October 5, 1855, at Neustettin, the three condemned women were conducted to an enclosure erected near the town. The chronicle records that Kath went first and Janke last; a single executioner performed the office, whilst a red flag raised toward the town announced the commencement of the execution. Ulrich and Janke received the sacrament and were permitted to see their children shortly before their end. Kath made no confession of her guilt, affirming to the last that God would look upon her innocence. At Schwartow, the wooden bridge remained above the Persante; but the question that had brought the three women thither had found its judicial answer: Hanne had not fallen alone.