Postby dognose » Wed Oct 15, 2014 3:50 am
HELMUTH SCHMIDT (a.k.a. ULLRICH)
Berlin - New York - Newark - Detroit
MURDERER COMMITS SUICIDE
Helmulh Schmidt, Formerly a Jeweler in Germany, Takes His Own Life After Confessing to Murder of Augusta Steinbach
Detroit, Mich., April 26.–Helmuth Schmidt, alias Ullrich and several other names, who was formerly the proprietor of a high grade jewelry store in Berlin, Germany, and who fled from that country in 1913 on the secret information that a world war was coming, which would necessitate his serving as a reservist in the German army, killed himself in a cell at the Highland Park, Mich, police station on Tuesday, April 23, after confessing that he murdered Miss Augusta Steinbach, a New York milliner, whom he lured to Detroit, with gifts of costly jewelry and a promise of marriage.
From investigations made by the Wayne and Oakland county officials Schmidt, was a modern Bluebeard, who lured at least three women to their death with false promises of marriage, and who is believed to have been guilty of a list of other crimes. He used the jewelry taken from his victims to lure other young women to their death.
After coming to New York in the late fall of 1913, Schmidt followed his usual vocation of jeweler, finding employment in factories in New York and Newark. He took the pains, however, to change his name to Ullrich, that he might not be nabbed by the German consuls, and pressed into the service of the Kaiser as a German reservist.
Schmidt was not only an expert gem dealer, but he also was proficient as a jewelry worker. He came of the rich class of Germany but hated the ruling classes of the Fatherland. His first year in America was spent in the jewelry factories of Newark and New York. In order to cover up his identity, however, he abandoned his work as jeweler, and came to Detroit, where he worked in an automobile factory.
When his home was searched by the sheriff's office, many fine and delicate tools of the jewelry worker's art, were found concealed in secret places about his elegant bungalow, at Royal Oak, Mich., a suburb of Detroit.
It was under the porch of his Royal Oak bungalow that Schmidt secreted the body of Miss Steinbach. He dug up the body after four months and burned the pieces in his furnace, later burning the bones in his yard. Parts of these have been recovered. All these sordid features were included in his hasty confession.
A few hours later–while he was supposed to be eating his evening meal in his cell–he crouched beneath the hinged bed in his cell and brought down its steel end on his skull, crashing out his brains.
Schmidt was employed as an expert toolmaker in the plant of the Ford Motor Co., at Highland Park, at the time of his arrest. His arrest was hastened by the suspicion of neighbors that Schmidt was a German spy. When Federal agents searched the cellar of Schmidt's home they found the three trunks belonging to the murdered Miss Steinbach.
Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 1st May 1918
A TANGLED ESTATE
Litigation Over Property of Bankrupt Pontiac, Wis., Jeweler, Now Dead, Who Was a Modern Bluebeard
Detroit. Mich., August 3.—Considerable interest has been manifested by local jewelers in the hearing this week before Judge Ross Stockwell in the Oakland County Probate Court, at Pontiac, Mich., into the estate of the late Hellmuth Schmidt, the bankrupt jeweler of Berlin, Germany, who committed suicide in the Highland Park, Mich., jail, after murdering several women whom he had lured to his home by matrimonial advertisements in a New York German newspaper.
Before his suicide Schmidt confessed to the killing of Miss Augusta Steinbach of New York and to burying her body under the porch of his bungalow in Royal Oak, Mich., after burning parts of the body. After his death the Detroit police unearthed the body of Miss Irma Pallatinus under the concrete floor of Schmidt's first home at 418 Glendale Ave., Highland Park. Schmidt was also supposed to have murdered his first wife before he left Germany.
Under the decision of Judge Stockwell it is declared that Mrs. Adele Ulrich-Braum, a bookkeeper, also of New York, is the legal widow of Schmidt, and entitled to the widow's allowance. A legal battle was precipitated some time ago over the disposition of the Schmidt estate with the entry of Mrs. Anna Hocke Switt of New York, who claimed that Hellmuth Shmidt was the man who was married to her Dec. 16, 1914, two weeks before he married Mrs. Braun under the name of Emil Braun.
Declaring it his belief that the handwriting of John Switt on the marriage license issued to Switt to marry Anna Hocke Switt was not that of Hellmuth Schmidt, the modern Bluebeard, Judge Stockwell decided Mrs. Braun was the legal widow of Schmidt. The handwriting of both Schmidt and Switt were shown in court.
In connection with the pictures of Schmidt that were introduced with testimony at the hearing Mrs. Braun said that Schmidt was always very careful about the care of his pictures, and had given her positive injunctions that none of them were to ever go out of the house. For days she carried pictures of Schmidt in her hat to show to relatives, as at that time she was growing suspicious of Schmidt. Had she not been of a more skeptic mind she fears that Schmidt would have murdered her also, she says. Instead, finding she was too alert, he deserted her, taking with him $3,500 of her money.
Among the pictures introduced was a negative of a photograph of the Schmidt jewelry store on a prominent street of Berlin. It was this negative which had much, to do, with tracing the antecedents of Schmidt and revealing his crooked business career in the German capital before he fled to America to escape service in the Kaiser's army—and also to escape his creditors.
Mrs. Braun lays claim to much of the jewelry which Schmidt had in his possession at the time of his arrest. Among this jewelry is a large number of loose diamonds, rings, mounted diamond jewelry, and costly necklaces, most of which he is thought to have brought from his bankrupt stock in Berlin.
Many articles of jewelry, it appears, were passed from Schmidt to each of his vistims in turn. Among these are several pieces of jewelry that are claimed by Gertrude Schmidt, daughter of the Bluebeard, but which Mrs. Braun claims were given to her and should be rightly considered as her property.
An agreement as to full distribution of the personal effects of Schmidt, over which there has been considerable contention between Mrs. Ullrich-Braun, the legal widow; Mrs. Helen Tietz Schmidt, living with Schmidt as his wife at the time of his suicide, and Miss Gertrude Schmidt, daughter of the murderer, was finally reached this week between all the parties. Final disposition of the matter is being held up until word is received from New York concerning what action Mrs. Anna Hocke Switt may take. Whether the latter will decide to appeal the case through her attorney, Ralph Keeling, is not known.
It is understood that Mrs. Helen Schmidt will be allowed to retain possession of the Royal Oak property and the $2,000 insurance money left by Schmidt. In fact this insurance money had already been paid to her before Judge Stockwell declared Mrs. Ullrich-Braun, the legal widow. Gertrude Schmidt is to receive $400 in cash from Mrs. Schmidt, as well as certain pieces of furniture and a set of silver that was in the Schmidt family long before the murderer knew any of his victims in this country.
While everything in the case appears settled, pending the result of Mrs. Switt's action, another angle to the case may be opened, it is said, in reference to the insurance money. The policy for $2,000 was made payable to the wife of Schmidt. The court has officially designated Mrs. Ullrich-Braun as the legal widow, thus forcing Mrs. Helen Schmidt from any consideration as far as having anything to do with a widow's allowance or an estate inheritance is concerned.
Attorney Harry Keidan, of Detroit, representing Mrs. Braun, is said to have notified the insurance companies not to make any payments on the Schmidt policies until the matter has been properly settled. Payment has been made, however, to Mrs. Schmidt of the $2,000 policy. Just what may develop in the way of a battle between Mrs. Braun and Mrs. Schmidt for the other insurance moneys, now that Mrs. Braun has been declared the legal widow, is an interesting question.
The property at 418 Glendale Ave., Highland Park, is also proving a puzzle to the attorneys. The Schmidt equity in it is valued at about $1,000. Considerable repair work will be necessary to make it a renting or sale possibility. At present it is vacant and liable to be for some time because of its being generally known that it was in the basement of this house that Schmidt buried the body of Irma Pallatinus, the body remaining under the cement floor in the cellar over two years.
Source: The Jewelers' Circular - 7th August 1918
Trev.