Ludwig Tessnow
| Ludwig Tessnow | |
|---|---|
| Born |
February 15, 1872 Prussia |
| Died |
1904 Greifswald, Germany |
| Cause of death | Guillotined |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
| Conviction(s) | Murder |
| Details | |
| Victims | 4 |
Span of crimes | 1898–1901 |
| Country | Germany |
Date apprehended | July 2, 1901 |
Ludwig Tessnow (born February 15, 1872 - probably 1904 - in Greifswald court prison) was a German serial killer, who killed at least 4 children. His case went through the first scientific examination on blood types in crime history.
The Murders
On the morning of September 8, 1898, two 7-year-old girls left their homes near Lechtingen north of Osnabrück (now a district of the Wallenhorst community) to go to school. Their undressed, dismembered and gutted bodies were found at noon in a forest near their intended route to school. The police arrested the a local man, Joiner Tessnow, and concluded that a button found at the scene matched the others on his suit. He stubbornly denied the act, declaring that the stains on his clothing were pickling stains, not blood. The prevailing view at the time was that only a "mentally disturbed" person could commit such a cruel act. Since Tessnow showed no signs of mental illness, he was eventually released from custody due to lack of sufficient evidence.
On the evening of July 1, 1901, the two sons of a teamster named Graweert disappeared in the Baltic resort of Göhren. After a night-long search, their bodies were found on the morning of July 2. They had been mutilated with the same cruelty as the two children in Lechtingen had been subjected to a few years before. The younger son's skull had been smashed, the neck severed to the spine, with his middle opened by a gouge through the entire abdomen, intestinal loops hanging out and the heart missing. The elder brother had also suffered blunt force injuries to the skull, with the body severed in the middle. The pelvic sections with the legs were found later at a different (unspecified) location.
Since a fruit merchant had observed how Tessnow, living in the neighbouring Baabe, approached the two boys on the day of the murder, suspicion quickly fell on him and he was arrested on the evening of July 2. His clothes had numerous stains, which he again explained with pickling. During his pre-trial detention, the murder case from Lechtingen was brought up and suspicion hardened. During this investigation, another incident came to light: two weeks earlier in a pasture, several sheep were killed, dismembered and strewn about the area. A farmer, who saw the offender run away, recognized Tessnow in a police line up.
The examining magistrate commissioned Paul Uhlenhuth, an assistant at the Hygiene Institute of the University of Greifswald since 1899 and a former colleague of Robert Koch, to investigate the clothing. Shortly before, Uhlenhuth had developed a method that allowed the detection of human and animal blood: the precipitin test. Using numerous blood stains on Tessnow's clothing, he was able to differentiate between the stains from human blood and those from sheep's blood. Likewise, the discoloration on a stone, which was found to be a possible weapon at the scene, also proved to be human blood.
In the spring of 1902 in Greifswald, Tessnow's trial took place following the opinion of Uhlenhuth. The verdict was capital punishment. On the execution date, Tessnow suffered a possibly simulated epileptic seizure, which led to a psychiatric examination. Despite the opinion of six psychiatrists that he was insane, Tessnow was convicted; on March 14, 1904, the appeal hearing at Reichsgericht in Leipzig also confirmed the judgment.
In the same year Tessnow was allegedly decapitated in the courtyard of the Greifswald prison. A defense lawyer claimed the sentence had been secretly converted to life imprisonment by the House of correction. Proof of the execution or the sentencing was not found on file.
After initial scientific investigation, the Uhlenhuth precipitin reaction method was officially introduced on September 8, 1903 as a court-proven evidence in Prussia. Later, the test was extended to other bodily fluids such as saliva and semen.
Literature
External links
- Berliner Morgenpost: The blood of the victims
- Dieter Naumann and Rainer Leonhardt: The Tessnow Case in Das Blättchen, 21. Jg., No. 2 of January 15, 2018