On the 2nd of January 1822, a washerwoman and her son discovered human remains within the garret of a house in Augsburg. For nine months, Maria Anna Holzmann had been missing, her two subtenants asserting that she had departed one morning without warning. The identity of the victim was established by her raiment and a deformity of her foot. Then, as the physician examined the remains, a brass ring slipped from a fold of the arm. This ornament, trifling in appearance, bound the crime to George Rauschmaier, one of the tenants, and converted an untraced disappearance into a trial for murder.
Holzmann, aged fifty-five years, earned her bread by domestic day-labour and rented a room from the shoemaker Sticht. She sublet a portion of her lodging to Rauschmaier and Joseph Steiner. On Good Friday 1821, she vanished. A few days thereafter, the two men quitted the house without reporting her absence to the landlord. They subsequently declared that she had gone out in the early morning, leaving her keys behind, and had never returned.
Sticht did not give notice to the police until the 17th of May. When he repaired thither with the magistrate and Holzmann’s kin to draw up an inventory of her goods, they found that her wearing apparel and objects of value had vanished. A more disquieting annoyance hung about the rooms the two men had occupied: a heavy stench persisted, which those present initially ascribed to the foul condition of the premises. The searches of the constabulary yielded nothing. The brother of the missing woman conjectured that she might have fled after losing certain moneys she had put out at interest.
Examined upon oath on the 25th of June, Rauschmaier deposed that Holzmann had left the house toward eight of the clock, accompanied by another woman. He professed not to know whither she had gone. The proceedings were thereupon suspended for want of any further clue. The magistrates possessed a disappearance, missing effects, and the narrative of a man who had shared the habitation, but neither corpse nor witness to her departure.
On the 2nd of January following, a washerwoman named Therese Beltler reported to the police that she and her son had come upon human remains beneath rubbish in the garret. The judicial commission repaired straightway to the house. It recovered further portions of the remains near the hearth, within Rauschmaier’s lodging, and wrapped in blood-stained garments identified as belonging to Holzmann. A part was yet wanting. A factory inspector recalled having found a skull in a canal at the preceding Whitsuntide, which he had cast back into the water. His description—diminutive stature, with but a few teeth remaining—accorded with what was sought, but the skull could no longer be produced for comparison.
The remains recovered were examined and compared with the description furnished by Holzmann’s kin: she was of short stature, her right foot was thicker than the left, and she had lost a toe several years prior. Her brother recognised the missing woman. The physician observed that the joints had been severed with method. Whilst he was examining an arm, a brass ring slipped from the crook of the elbow. The discovery suggested that it might have been lost while the remains were being conveyed thither.
The police now held grounds to suspect Rauschmaier and Steiner. The remains had been concealed in their former chamber and in the garret of the house; Holzmann’s effects had been sold or pawned shortly after her disappearance. Rauschmaier had, moreover, sworn upon oath to a narrative contradicted by these discoveries. Apprehended on the 2nd of January, he maintained his composure at first. When shown the remains in the churchyard, he feigned not to recognise the victim and reiterated that she had gone away.
On the 23rd of January, following his initial confession of the theft, the inquisitors laid before him certain effects of Holzmann’s, which he admitted having stolen. They then set before him ear-rings, golden rings, and the brass ring. He recognised the latter as his own, which he had been wont to wear upon his left little finger before replacing it with golden rings. The ring passed easily over his finger. He had just acknowledged as his property the object recovered during the examination of the corpse. The magistrate now held an article acknowledged by Rauschmaier, drawn from the remains discovered in his former room.
Throughout his preliminary examinations, Rauschmaier confessed solely to the theft. At the special interrogations commenced in March, upon his third appearance, he wept, craved pardon, and confessed to having slain Holzmann on the morning of Good Friday, whilst they were alone in the house. He stated that he sought to possess himself of her clothing and of the money he believed she had laid by. He found no more than eight kreutzers. He then recounted how he had concealed the remains and cast the head into the river; the skull was never recovered.
Rauschmaier explained that he was chronically straitened for money and desired to purchase apparel without abating his expenditure on meat and drink. He was acquainted with the contents of Holzmann’s press and knew her to be reputed frugal. He stated that he had harboured the thought of murder for several days, wavered, and then seized the occasion when the other inmates were at church. Following the crime, he had repaired to the Church of Saint Maurice, but claimed he was unable to pray. Feuerbach’s narrative relates that he subsequently manifested contrition and wept during his depositions.
Steiner, for his part, delivered a series of contradictory accounts. The magistrates had observed from the outset that he comprehended with difficulty the interrogatories and the sanctity of an oath. His successive versions—sounds overheard, blood perceived, threats endured—were thus scrutinised with care against the dates and circumstances he assigned. He commenced by denying all knowledge of what had transpired. He then asserted that he had heard noises, seen blood, and been threatened by Rauschmaier. When the judge laid bare these inconsistencies, he admitted having invented the scenes. He explained that he had presumed his comrade guilty and wished to avert suspicion from himself, though he had borne no part in the crime. Rauschmaier denied ever having spoken of the murder to Steiner and declared him innocent. The court ultimately acquitted the fellow-lodger.
Elizabeth Ditscher, Rauschmaier’s mistress, had received and disposed of certain of Holzmann’s goods. She was sentenced to eight days’ imprisonment for receiving stolen property.
On the 9th of May 1822, the court pronounced Rauschmaier guilty and condemned him to death by the sword. The sentence was confirmed on the 18th of June. The royal rescript of the 28th of June remitted the exposure in the pillory that was to have preceded the execution.