The Hammer in the Kitchen

The murder was discovered in a small frame house whose front room was 16 by 16 feet. The front door opened onto a porch; stairs on the north side led to the two small upstairs rooms occupied by Kiendl and Schindel. Vines and weeds grew in front of the house, and fir trees and undergrowth crowded the other sides. Mr. Peters's residence stood to the south, and another building sat lower down the hill to the right.

It is thought the murder was the work of one person, and that if he had accomplices they were stationed outside. Miller and Schindel left home for the Western Central hall at 6:50 o'clock, and Kiendl followed about 7:15. Shortly afterward the murderer, carrying a hammer whose handle had been sawed down two inches and which was tied in a paper bag and wrapped in a piece of fish paper, entered the kitchen door. No outcry was heard. The only noise neighbors noticed was the barking of a dog chained to a kennel a little south of the kitchen. The attack must have been sudden and a complete surprise.

The woman rallied after the first blow in the face, grappled with the murderer and fought him with all her strength. Circling around the room, they knocked pieces from a bunch of everlastings hanging on the north wall. Forced to the center of the kitchen, she at last went down under the hammer blows, and as she lay on the floor the murderer continued to beat her face and head until the features were hacked into an unrecognizable mass. In trying to protect her face Mrs. Miller raised her left hand, and a blow crushed the second finger and flattened her ring. A beer mug was stained with blood and in the scuffle was kicked under the clothes wringer at the end of the sink. From the size of the pool of blood on the floor it was evident that the body lay for several minutes where it fell. When she was found a half hour later she held in her hand a blood-stained copy of a radical labor-union paper published at St. Louis by the United Brewery Workmen. She had probably picked it up unconsciously in her struggle with the murderer.

Fritz, the baby, who had been sleeping in his cot, was probably awakened by the noise and began to cry. Two blows, one on the left lower jaw and one near the left ear, which scattered blood upon the temple, silenced the child, and the work of death was complete.

Leaving the body, the murderer proceeded to loot the house. Placing the blood-stained hammer on the window sill, he first went to the northeast corner of the room and took from it a small valise that Miller thinks contained gold. Stepping into the front room, he smashed open the trunk, probably with a shingle, and in his haste scattered letters and clothing about the floor. Then he went to Schindel's room upstairs, except that Kiendl's room was not broken open, but Kiendl's effects were not disturbed.

Returning to the scene of the murder, the murderer sought to destroy traces by setting the fire. After a quick search of the rooms, he saturated the middle room, from which the flames would most readily be discovered and from which, once started, they would spread quickly to the entire house. He piled papers on the door at the south side of the room, dragged clothing from the adjoining bed to the parlor doorway close by, set a couple of chairs over the pile, poured kerosene from a lamp on it, threw the lamp down on the foot of the bed and started the blaze, which he hoped would destroy all traces of the crime.

On leaving the house the murderer carried with him the valise containing the gold, and in the kitchen stopped long enough to pick up a .38-calibre Smith & Wesson revolver lying on the window sill above the sink. No other articles were missed. He is supposed to have started over the hill through the brush, a trail traversed eight hours later by the detectives. The bodies were brought to the undertaking parlors of Bonsey & Stewart. The inquest will be held today.