At six o’clock in the evening, the table was laid and the family assembled, save for the two children born of the young wife’s first marriage. Henrik was eight years of age, Augusta four. The yeoman Karl Grauroth assured them that the pair were at play in the neighbourhood. The housemaid, however, remembered having seen them for the last time about three o’clock, within the house. The chronicle of the Neue Pitaval sets this scene on Saturday, the 15th of October 1859, in a village named Kirilä, near Jakobstad, upon the eastern shore of the Gulf of Bothnia.
Prior to this union, Grauroth had fathered four children by his first marriage. His present wife had formerly been married to his brother, who died in 1854; by him she had borne Henrik, aged eight, and Augusta, aged four. The new household had seen three children: the eldest was stillborn, the second yet lay in the cradle, and the mother was carrying the youngest. This blended family dwelt in a prosperous house, encompassed by lands and servants. The two missing children were those of the wife’s previous union with Grauroth’s brother. According to the account, their portions of the inheritance were to be protected by a guardian, and a judicial sale of half the estate was intended to secure their property until their majority. The death of the children would have altered the line of succession to their mother’s advantage and enlarged Grauroth’s dominion over the house and lands. Such was the motive imputed to the accused by the compiler; it does not constitute independent proof.
The mother had returned from town in the company of a servant-girl; the farmhand was coming back from the fields. Grauroth’s elder sons had gone to the Werfte, the shipyard, to gather wood-shavings. At the evening repast, the housemaid inquired where Henrik and Augusta might be. Grauroth answered that they were playing with the other children of the vicinity, and that it was needless to disturb the household for an absence of a few hours. The clamour from the road seemed to lend credence to this explanation. The adults cleared the table, and then retired to rest.
On the following morning, Grauroth’s mother observed that the beds of her grandchildren remained undisturbed. The folk of the house were questioned; none knew whither they had gone. A maidservant, who had laboured in the kitchen the day before, recalled that towards three o’clock Karl had bid her brew some coffee. He added that he was sawing boards in the yard. The elder sons stated that before departing for the Werfte, they had seen Henrik and Augusta about the house. Grauroth, they said, had proposed that the pair go gather berries in the woods. The young daughters of the house reported another conversation: their father had spoken to the two little ones of the water-lilies by the stream, but had forbidden them from following. He had sent the girls back to watch over the infant in the cradle. The mother remarked that at this late season, the water-lilies had already withered away.
Grauroth and his kin beat the outskirts of the village, walked the banks of the stream, and traversed the woods, calling their names. The search occupied the whole of Sunday. The mother wept; the stepfather, if the chronicler is to be believed, appeared at first as afflicted as the rest. As evening drew nigh, he invited those who had assisted to partake of a meal, observing how wearisome such a day’s toil had proved.
After the fruitless searches of Sunday, the bodies were discovered on Monday about midday, hard by the place where the stream issued from a marsh. A small skiff lay nearby; an oar rested across the children. Grauroth immediately advanced an explanation: they had sought to thrust the craft from the bank, and had drowned when it slipped from their grasp. Yet, according to the report, the water was shallow at that spot. Their faces and arms were plunged into the mire, their legs raised, but their garments and shoes remained clean. Beneath her chin, Augusta wore a kerchief tied uncommonly tight. A murmur then ran among the villagers: the children had not met their death by drowning; they had been struck down.
The narrative does not lend to the initial examination the weight of a modern medical proces-verbal; it reports what the inquiry and the post-mortem were said to have established. The physicians noted cervical lesions: the necks of both children had been broken. They ascribed these injuries to blows and judged that the children had been cast into the water dead or already expiring. In the boy’s case, certain indications might have suggested drowning, yet in the eyes of the practitioners cited, they were insufficient to account for his death. Augusta’s kerchief, the absence of any signs of struggle in the silt, and the condition of the garments likewise contradicted the accident devised by the stepfather.
In the course of the investigation, several particulars assumed a darker hue. Grauroth had reiterated on the preceding day that the children must have fallen into the water. When apprised that they had been murdered, he replied, according to the account, that henceforth they were only to be shown to such persons whose offices required it. He refused to remain beside the coffins when the neighbours came to view them. These demeanours were construed against him; taken alone, they could not have supplied the place of the examination of the bodies or the testimonies of witnesses.
Another circumstance engaged attention. The women of the household, engaged at the wash, perceived upon each sleeve of his shirt a brown, damp, and miry smear, about a quarter of an ell in breadth. They spoke of it among themselves, yet did not preserve the garment as an exhibit: it was thrown into the common wash. Later, before the tribunal, Grauroth denied that his clothes had been so stained. He claimed that any mark would have been blue rather than brown, owing to the smock he wore at his labours. This piece of evidence, whose material loss is underscored by the chronicle, could no longer be submitted to expert appraisal.
The magistrate interrogated Grauroth as early as Tuesday. He reproached him principally with having waited until Sunday morning to seek the children, whereas their absence had been remarked upon Saturday evening. The wife explained that she had returned late and gone to bed; her husband declared he had seen children playing outside and believed them to be among the band. Then arose the matter of the garret. Several witnesses had seen Grauroth quit the shed, cross the yard, and ascend into that chamber where old apparel and implements were kept. He maintained he had gone to fetch a drill, yet the workwomen affirmed the tool lay in the shed. An hour later, he had returned, arms folded, before drinking the coffee prepared by the maid and resuming his work.
The inquest returned to his account of that afternoon. Grauroth had first spoken of mending a gutter, and then of sawing timber. For his ascent to the loft, he pleaded the need of an auger; witnesses declared they had seen him take one from the shed. To his sons, he related that he had gone to Saddwisch’s to inquire after a watch he claimed to have lent him. The lads confirmed this tale, but maintained that he had not brought it back. Grauroth replied that he had forgotten it. The court observed that this errand appeared a mere pretext to draw away. He conceded that the children were not particularly dear to him, whilst averring that he harboured no malice against them and had wept unfeignedly at their demise.
Another voice arose to gainsay his continual presence at the house. A woman of the vicinity, who had gone to gather berries near the stream, declared she had heard a child’s voice calling upon its father and asking what he meant to do to them. She then believed she recognized Grauroth’s voice commanding silence. The chronicle also relates the testimony of Holländer, a former companion of his youth, whom the court summoned while the accused lay in custody. At first, the interview in the gaol was said to have produced naught but a denial. At a subsequent meeting, Holländer stated that Grauroth had confessed to having led the children into the wood, broken their necks, and borne their corpses to the brook. The prisoner disputed this deposition, alleging later that his former friend had compelled him to speak under duress.
The proceedings did not halt at these two recent deaths. In 1854, Grauroth’s first wife had perished after a violent malady; subsequently, his brother had suffered similar symptoms. The chapter presents these two passings as poisonings by arsenic. During his interview in prison with Grauroth, Holländer reminded him, according to his deposition, that arsenic had been discovered in the bodies; to which the accused was said to have replied: “What can I do if they made away with themselves?” This remark remains words reported by a witness, not a post-mortem that we may verify. The chronicle further records that Grauroth had met an itinerant vendor of nostrums who sold arsenic, and had subsequently begged some of a farrier in September 1859, though without obtaining it. It connects these deaths with his designs upon his sister-in-law and the inheritance, yet reports no conviction for these acts, which remained distinct from the verdict concerning Henrik and Augusta.
At the trial, Grauroth maintained that he had remained at the house and that his kin might have seen him at work there. The testimonies of the housemaid, the workwomen, and Holländer undermined this defence. The deposition of the woman who had heard the children’s cry was set before him; he answered that she lied, and that no berries grew in that wood. The court did not rely solely upon village rumour: it weighed the hours, the shifting explanations, the post-mortem, and the disclosures made in prison. The chronicle affirms that all three judicial instances found him guilty of the murder of the two children and condemned him to death.
The sentence was commuted to life banishment in Siberia. He ceased not to proclaim his innocence.