{"id":554,"date":"2014-12-25T00:41:58","date_gmt":"2014-12-25T00:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/?p=554"},"modified":"2014-12-28T17:16:00","modified_gmt":"2014-12-28T17:16:00","slug":"died-for-her-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/?p=554","title":{"rendered":"Died For Her Mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

December 19, 1887
\n<\/span><\/h3>\n

DIED FOR HER MOTHER.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A Fiend Kills One of His Daughters and
\nFatally Wounds Another.<\/h3>\n

\"diedformother018\"<\/a>ERIE, Pa., Dec.\u00a019.\u2014No crime of violence committed in this city during the last half century has created such a sensation as the shooting of Minnie and Annie Schau by their father, Christian Schau, at noon yesterday.\u00a0 The murderer is a tailor, perhaps fifty years old, and long ago earned the reputation of being a brutal husband and a dangerous member of the community.\u00a0 The two daughters, aged twenty-one and twenty-two, have lived at home, assisting Schau in his work, and despite their lack of advantages, have grown to be pretty, intelligent and virtuous women, holding the warm friendship of many and the esteem of all.<\/span><\/p>\n

Yesterday morning Schau, who has been drinking for a fortnight past, abused one of the daughters shamefully for reading a newspaper which had been given her.\u00a0 At the dinner table he renewed his abusive treatment, when his wife drove him wild by interceding for the unoffending girl.\u00a0 He seized Mrs. Schau by the throat and threatened to shoot her.\u00a0 The poor woman, desperate at his long continued brutality, bade him do his worst, saying she had nothing to fear, as death would be preferable to the life she had lived so long.\u00a0 Minnie, the eldest daughter, interfered, begging for mercy for the mother.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Spare her, father!\u00a0 Oh, spare her!” she cried, but the drunken brute felled his wife senseless with a blow, drew a pistol and sent a 32-calibre bullet through Minnie’s heart, killing her instantly.\u00a0 Spurning the dead body with his foot, he sprang to the door of an adjoining room, where the younger daughter, Annie, had taken refuge, and snarling an imprecation, discharged the pistol point blank at her breast.\u00a0 The bullet struck an inch and a half below the heart, shattered a rib, deflected and missed the vital organ, lodging near the spine.\u00a0 She fell, and he snapped the self-acting pistol at her again as she lay apparently dead.\u00a0 Then he fled from the house towards the high bluffs on the lake front.<\/span><\/p>\n

A telephone message brought an officer to the scene of the shooting, and he began the pursuit of Schau and brought him to bay at the top of a bluff.\u00a0 The murderer drew a pistol and ordered the officer to stand back, but the plucky patrolman advanced.\u00a0 Schau fired on him at a distance of six paces and missed.\u00a0 The next instant the men were engaged in a fierce struggle, the officer holding Schau’s pistol hand, and then, plying his club, knocked him senseless.\u00a0 Schau was handcuffed and taken to the station-house.<\/span><\/p>\n

Annie Schau is still living, but has no chance for recovery.\u00a0 Her ante-mortem statement was taken detailing the circumstances of the shooting substantially as given above.\u00a0 Schau was arraigned last evening and committed for a hearing next Wednesday.\u00a0 He pleads not guilty, and says the girls took the pistol from him and accidentally shot themselves.<\/span><\/p>\n

From the collection of The Comtesse DeSpair<\/i><\/p>\n

(The 1887 Morbid Scrapbook<\/i>)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 19, 1887 DIED FOR HER MOTHER. A Fiend Kills One of His Daughters and Fatally Wounds Another. ERIE, Pa., Dec.\u00a019.\u2014No crime of violence committed in this city during the last half century has created such a sensation as the shooting of Minnie and Annie Schau by their father, Christian Schau, at noon yesterday.\u00a0 The … Continue reading Died For Her Mother<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,2,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-familial-murder","category-death","category-homicidal-death"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=554"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":558,"href":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554\/revisions\/558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/decidedlygrim.net\/garretdom\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}