Within the workshop of a Regendorf tailor, Walburga Seidel caught sight of a remnant from her sister’s petticoat. The tailor was cutting it down to fashion a waistcoat ordered by Andrew Bichel. Catherine had vanished nearly three months earlier; as yet, no one had approached the courts. That fragment of cloth transformed what the family had clung to as a passing absence into a public inquiry: by what means had the clothing of a missing girl found its way into the hands of a man who claimed scarcely to know her?
Catherine Seidel resided with her sisters in Regendorf. One morning in February 1808, she went out to consult Bichel, who professed the art of reading the future in a mirror. She returned briefly to fetch her finest attire, then hastened back to his house with a bundle. She never returned home. The sisters inquired of Bichel as to her whereabouts; he replied that she had departed in company with a strange gentleman, at the latter’s request. To others, he professed total ignorance of her fate. An earlier rumor had long circulated that a cousin of Bichel had likewise repaired to his dwelling for a similar consultation, and had in turn never been seen again.
This cousin was Barbara Reisinger, daughter to a day-laborer of Loisenrieth. Feuerbach places her departure first in the summer of 1807, when she left her father’s roof in search of a place in domestic service. Later, however, he records that Bichel, in his confession, assigned Barbara’s visit to a date shortly after Michaelmas 1806. The chronicler does not reconcile this discrepancy. Yet both accounts agree upon the essential fact: Bichel had persuaded the young woman that he could reveal her future to her, and had subsequently possessed himself of her wardrobe.
Neither disappearance had been reported to the magistrates. Barbara’s parents lived in the hope that she had simply taken service elsewhere; Catherine’s sisters had questioned Bichel and credited his protestations. Then Walburga came upon the fabric in the tailor’s shop. On May 19, 1808, she appeared before the court to relate how her sister had been enticed to Bichel’s dwelling upon the promise of beholding her destiny, and had subsequently departed with multiple suits of apparel. Theresa, the elder sister, detailed the exact garments Catherine had carried with her, fixing the date of her disappearance on February 15.
On the very next day, the authorities proceeded to Bichel’s house. He had fled into the forest; two officers were dispatched in pursuit, whilst his wife was placed under surveillance and Theresa was examined. Upon his apprehension, the officers discovered upon his person a cotton neckerchief, which he had attempted first to conceal, then to cast away. Theresa identified it as Catherine’s. Bichel denied all knowledge of the sisters, maintaining he had bought the kerchief at the rag-market in Ratisbon. He concocted a tale of a foreign youth who had sent for Catherine, and asserted he had heard she was residing in Landshut, attired in the French fashion. Questioned regarding the magic mirror, he reddened and denied possessing any such glass, offering instead a story of a goitrous fellow who had formerly exhibited future husbands to young girls by means of an optical apparatus.
A search of the premises yielded further incriminating articles. A chest contained various articles of female attire; others were discovered in the loft. Catherine’s two sisters identified several as the garments she had borne away with her. Other garments were recognized as belonging to Barbara. Witnesses attested that Bichel’s wife had sold certain of these articles and worn others. She contended that her husband had given her the contents of the chest, alleging they came from Barbara’s father, while disclaiming any knowledge of the clothes hidden in the loft. Neighbors likewise confirmed that Bichel had endeavored to entice other young women to his house under the pretext of foretelling their fortunes. One woman had observed Catherine near his dwelling, bundle in hand, on the day of her disappearance.
The magistrates were now in possession of garments, a neckerchief, depositions, and two unexplained absences, but no body had yet been found. No visible token demonstrated that a murder had been committed. The revelation came through a dog belonging to one of the officers. Upon each visit to the premises, the animal ran toward the woodshed, intently sniffing the earth. On May 22, the officer returned with assistants and ordered the ground beneath the shed to be opened. Underneath a layer of faggots and loose earth, they brought to light human remains. The officer conceived the first body to be that of Barbara. Farther in lay a second corpse, which the witnesses identified as Catherine by her features and her gilt earrings.
The district physician and two surgeons inspected the scene and examined the remains, committing their findings to writing for the benefit of the judges. The garments recognized by the sisters now indissolubly linked both disappearances to Bichel’s dwelling.
Subjected to renewed interrogation, Bichel initially laid the blame upon unknown persons who, he alleged, had slain Catherine under his roof. He withdrew this fiction, then confessed to having struck her down himself following an altercation, before once more shifting his narrative. When pressed concerning the second body, he turned pale and denied all acquaintance with the deceased. The interrogators put to him ninety-one distinct questions; he alternated between admissions and denials, yielding one detail only to suppress another. He ultimately confessed to having lured Catherine to his house for the sake of her clothes, having murdered her, and having concealed her remains.
A Bavarian ordinance of 1806, which abolished the use of torture, provided an extraordinary procedure for obstinate prisoners: that of confronting them with the scene of the crime and, where practicable, examining them in the presence of the mortal remains. Bichel was conducted back to Regendorf. At the town hall, he came near to swooning and begged for water; yet he persisted in denying all knowledge of the first corpse. Within his house, the remains had been laid out upon boards. He acknowledged Catherine, yet still refused to admit that Barbara had fallen by his hand. Two days later, he requested a fresh audience and confessed to Barbara’s murder as well. He maintained that his wife had neither participated in nor possessed knowledge of either crime.
His confession supplied the particulars of the encounters. In Barbara’s case, Bichel had turned the conversation to sorcery and constructed a counterfeit mirror: a board enveloped in white linen, accompanied by a small glass. He persuaded her to allow her eyes to be bandaged and her hands bound behind her back under color of beholding the vision. Having slain her, he possessed himself of her clothes and duped her father into believing his daughter had married into the household of an ambassador and wished her remaining effects forwarded to her. The father had himself carried the bundle partway on Bichel’s behalf. With Catherine, Bichel repeated the stratagem of the mirror, directing her to bring multiple changes of raiment. His avowed motive was the desire to obtain the wardrobes of both victims.
Other young women had narrowly escaped the selfsame snare. Bichel had proposed to one girl that she consult his mirror to learn whether her betrothed was still living, demanding that she bring her finest gowns; Juliana Daweck and Margaret Heimberger had received similar solicitations. They declined to go, whether out of mistrust or mere chance. These abortive attempts did not alter the fate of the slain, yet they proved to the magistrates that the promise of divination was no sudden invention devised after his arrest.
The Court of Appeal at Neuburg pronounced judgment on February 4, 1809. Bichel was condemned to be broken upon the wheel, a sentence confirmed by the central court. It was subsequently commuted to decapitation. Feuerbach records that this clemency was extended out of regard for the dignity of the State, that the law might not vie with the barbarity of the crimes. The record supplies no date for the execution.