Bio: Schuette, Richard A. – Murdered Baby (Nov 1912)

Transcriber: stan@wiclarkcountyhistory.org 

Surnames: Schuette Pollock, Bingham, Lawrence, Cupler, Wasem

---------Source: Fargo Daily Republican, Fargo, N.D. (3 Dec 1912)

Richard A. Schuette, aged 22 years, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime of strangling his 3 week old baby in the Great Northern Hotel on the evening of November 4, 1912.

Mrs. Schuette did not appear in court this morning, and according to the sweeping confession her husband made on the stand after pleading guilty to the crime, she had no actual party in the strangling of the infant.

The young fellow, who is a fair haired German lad, unaccustomed to some of the most common terms of the English language, told a most harrowing story of the tragedy. He said he had known his wife for a number of years and had been attentive to her for many months prior to their marriage last summer. An intimacy developed between the two young people before their marriage.

They came to North Dakota from their home in Owen, Wisconsin, last summer, in search of work and were married on July 31. Their child was born at Pillsbury on October 14, 1912. About three weeks later Schuette received an offer to return to Wisconsin. Neither wanted to return home on account of the child, and face the disgrace among their friends and relatives.

Schuette said when they arrived in Fargo his wife wanted to rest, so they took a room at the Great Northern Hotel between trains. There, in the hotel, the fellow said the idea of trying to get rid of the child by violence came to him. While in Pillsbury he said he had made a number of unsuccessful efforts to give the little one away, and that once a kindly disposed woman was on the point of taking it, but later changed her mind.

His wife left the room while he strangled thee baby. First he tried to smother it by holding his hands tightly across its mouth and nostrils. When that method failed he tied his handkerchief around the infant’s throat, drawing it tighter and tighter until it was quite dead.

The young wife returned to the room and said she did not want to gaze upon the little body, so it was thrust behind the dresser.

Schuette said she wept considerable. Then they ate some lunch and donned their wraps, for it ws time to take the train.

Deputy Sheriff Bingham was called to the stand and said her learned that Schuette was working on a farm about six miles out of Owen, Wisconsin. When he arrived at the place, in company with Mr. Wasem, they met Schuette himself at the gate. They asked him the direction to a certain farm, and while the boy was giving the directions to the Fargo undertaker, Mr. Bingham asked another man accompanying the murderer if he were Richard Schuette.

Mr. Bingham and Mr. Wasem accompanied him to his house, where he arrested both the young fellow and his wife. Schuette told his wife in German to refrain from saying anything. Then he broke eown in Eau Claire before Mr. Wasem and confessed the whole story.

The court appointed Aubrey Lawrence as counsel for the young man. At the conclusion of the hearing, Mr. Lawrence pleaded for the mercy of the court. Perhaps there has been no more touching and logical appeal for leniency than the effort of the distinguished Fargo lawyer in the district court this morning in his endeavor to save the young man from a death penalty.

The case of Mrs. Schuette will probably be brought up in the next day or two. A. W. Cupler has been appointed as her counsel.