On Monday, September 26, 1859, patrons at the Zurich autumn fair parted to make way for a young man who had just been placed under arrest. He had been strolling with his betrothed, clad in a new suit of clothes. The watch he had sold on the previous day had left silver jingling in his pocket. Since daybreak, rumors had circulated that the authorities were seeking the murderer of Master Schmid and his wife, slain in their homestead at Volketswil. The prisoner went by the name of Hans Jakob Kündig. Before nightfall, he would confess to the double murder.
On Sunday morning, fifteen-year-old Johann Dietschi had received a simple instruction from his mistress: to turn the cattle out only if the master and mistress were still abed. Upon his return, towards eight o'clock, he found the doors bolted fast and a window standing open toward the churchyard. He shouted, hammered at the wood, and heard nothing. He went to fetch Emerentia Wintsch, Jakob Schmid’s sister. She returned with the boy and bade him climb through the window to unlatch the house from within.
They passed through the main room and mounted the stove-side stairs leading to the bedchamber. Hans Jakob Schmid and Anna, his wife, lay side by side. Their faces were unrecognizable, their skulls shattered, the bedding soaked in crimson. Gripped by terror, the lad bolted down the stairs; his aunt fled out after him. Within moments, the horrifying news drew the villagers of Volketswil. The district lieutenant of Uster initiated the formal inquest.
The kitchen door bore the marks of a jemmy. A pane of glass had been broken from the outside, yet traces of blood upon the casement indicated that the intruder had also wounded himself while clambering out. The victims' apparel had been pulled from Jakob’s wardrobe; Anna’s appeared undisturbed. A secret recess, hidden above the stove, stood open. It still held a small blue pouch containing gold and silver coin. The title deeds lay untouched upon the masonry of the stove; the official record notes that the hoard of specie had eluded the thief.
A peaceable household, a bed of slaughter, a rifled armoire, and an opened cache: the clues pointed to a burglary that had turned to butchery. Yet neither discernible footprints nor abandoned implements pointed to a culprit. The first lead came from the victim’s brother. A month prior, a former servant had slept beneath Jakob Schmid’s roof and fled with a coat. The nocturnal visitor had disturbed the hidden papers and left a window ajar. His name was Hans Jakob Kündig.
Suspicion hardened when a peasant discovered an axe steeped in blood beside the roadway. Kündig’s master, Communal Councilor Egli, recognized the implement: he had kept it in his shed. Kündig had quit the farm on Sunday evening and had not returned. His betrothed, Margarethe Bruppacher, admitted they had set out together for Zurich. The constabulary came upon him at the fair, amidst the throng. Hounded by the jeers of the crowd, the officers conveyed him to the watch-house.
At the magistrate's opening question—where had he been the preceding Saturday?—Kündig answered that he had gone to Volketswil and slain the Schmids, in whose employ he had once served. The motive? “I wished to steal clothes, for I had none.” The ownership of the axe was beyond dispute. The watch he had pawned, the garments he had distributed or worn, the window, the cut upon his arm, and the plundered hiding place corroborated a confession that the prisoner delivered without the slightest coercion.
The man who spoke had been born in 1838, the offspring of an impoverished, itinerant family from the Canton of Zurich. His father died when he was four. His mother sent him out to beg, kept him routinely from his schooling, and supplied him with falsehoods to excuse his truancy. The boy filched orchard fruit and went hungry. Following his mother's death, a charitable society apprenticed him to a weaver. He stole a needle, then obtained bread, sausages, and a waistcoat on credit in his master's name. A theft of five francs brought him six weeks of hard labor.
Within his cell, he shared quarters with an older thief, who instructed him in the art of breaking into houses and assured him that theft was no sin in the eyes of God. In after years, Kündig confessed that he had never forgotten those lessons. Subsequently, a pastor and several farmers took him under their wing. He toiled without distinction, kept his counsel, and drank no spirits. At the Rütihof, under Egli’s roof, he filled out and earned his master's trust.
In 1856, however, he had worked for the Schmids, while Jakob was still a bachelor. Jakob had treated him harshly, scolding him and striking him when he broke a tool. Kündig had shared a bed with him and had observed him stowing deeds and specie in the concealed nook above the stove. In August 1859, penniless, he returned to spend the night with them. Amidst a violent thunderstorm, he forced the hiding place, failed to lay hands on the coin, seized a linen coat, and slipped out through the casement. Schmid recovered his documents and his three hundred francs. He declined to lodge a complaint, believing the lad would not dare return.
Yet Kündig did return. In February, he had plighted his troth to Margarethe, a farmer’s daughter. She did not chide him for his poverty, and proposed that they postpone the nuptials until they had laid by some savings. He demurred: the wedding must take place at Candlemas. He purchased a watch for fifty-eight francs, spent lavishly on fine garments, gave lengths of cloth to his betrothed, and dreamed of the winter mantle she longed for. By the close of September, he possessed no means to fulfill his promises. A week before the murder, he devoutly received the Holy Communion. On Saturday the 24th, his fellow laborers heard him whistling as he worked the fields.
That evening, having fed the livestock, he departed armed with an axe and a length of wire taken from a mousetrap—the very device described to him by his former cellmate. He walked all the way to Volketswil. Around one in the morning, he attempted to pick the kitchen lock with the wire, then dealt four heavy blows to the timber with his axe. At last, he shattered the window-pane, gashed his arm in the breach, and ascended the familiar stairs.
The bedchamber was pitch-black. He felt for the sleepers with his hands to locate their heads. He struck Jakob first. Anna woke with a start, crying out to know what was amiss. Kündig offered no answer: he brought down his axe a second time, then turned upon her. She cried “Jesus!” before another blow silenced her forever. He later admitted having struck each of the spouses several times more. They lay lifeless upon the bed.
He went downstairs to fetch a match, rekindled the lamp, and ransacked the wardrobes. The hoard of money did not elude him a second time—it was nowhere to be found. He gathered up coats, trousers, a cloak, shirts, a hat, an umbrella, a silver watch, and a hymn book. He bundled the clothing together with cord, then made his escape through the very window he had entered. On the road back, he fancied he heard footsteps pursuing him; every time he glanced over his shoulder, his heart pounded violently against his ribs. Near Zimikon, the axe slipped from his grasp into the undergrowth. He reached home around five in the morning, concealed the stolen apparel in a cupboard, and went to feed the cattle.
On Sunday, he disposed of the watch and attempted to sell a pair of trousers. That evening, he presented the hymn book to Margarethe. The following day, wearing Schmid's coat and hat, he appeared at the very fair where the hue and cry had been raised for him. Questioned as to his fine attire, he gave evasive replies. To his betrothed, who remarked upon his haggard and distant mien, he murmured at last that he wished he were dead.
Before the tribunal, the proceedings turned upon the question of intent. At first, Kündig stated that he had carried the axe with murder in his heart. Later, he asserted that his sole purpose had been theft, and that the resolution to kill had seized him only upon the road. The court, however, retained the charge of willful premeditation: the weapon had been prepared, the victims chosen, the hiding place known, and the savage assault carried out upon two slumbering souls. On October 18, he pleaded guilty to the double murder and was condemned to die on the scaffold.
The public prosecutor did not urge mercy, yet neither did he paint the prisoner as an irredeemable monster. He spoke of the full confession, the offender's contrition, his youth, his utter lack of upbringing, and the abandonment of his early years. Counsel for the defense underscored the neglect of society and the prison where an impressionable youth had been penned with a hardened thief. The Grand Council of Zurich was convened to decide whether the death sentence should be carried out. On October 25, the deputies cast their votes by secret ballot: a black ball for death, a white ball for mercy. Out of 201 ballots cast, 102 were black and 99 were white: the absolute majority stood at 101.
The following morning, Kündig walked toward the scaffold without seeing the assembled multitudes, his eyes fixed upon the minister who recited prayers at his side. The chronicler notes that he received the headsman's axe after murmuring, “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” In Zurich, the three votes that separated the scaffold from clemency left behind an enduring question: had justice punished a brutal murderer, or also the forsaken child whom society had left to grow wild without a helping hand? The weapon recovered beside the highway, at least, left no room for doubt as to the horror of that night.