The sentence passed upon him was perpetual imprisonment in chains and it was endured in the fortress of Lichtenau in Hesse-Cassel. His behaviour in gaol was in keeping with his dogged, unemotional character. He bore his heavy punishment in impenetrable silence for years. His unbending obstinacy of demeanour was partly due to his callous, apathetic temperament, his unyielding power of physical endurance and his exalted personal pride. He liked to think that by stolid endurance he was proving his heroism. He boasted of his unbroken steadfastness of purpose, “Believe me,” he told a fellow prisoner, “I shall never confess; I shall resist all persuasion to do so until my last dying breath. I never gave way all my life in anything I undertook. I hug my chains.” He did so, literally, treating them as a badge of honour, a tribute to his constancy, and set himself in his leisure hours to polish them till they shone like silver. He delighted in the manifest admiration of his fellows, and at one time conversed with them freely, giving picturesque descriptions of his adventurous career and enlarging with evident pleasure on the details of his principal crime. He was often sullen and insubordinate and would do no work; no punishment would compel him or break his spirit; when they flogged him, he offered his back to the lash with the utmost indifference, taking the strokes without moving a muscle or uttering a sound, calmly protesting that they might do what they liked with his body, his spirit was unconquerable.
Forster’s countenance was vulgar and heavy, his face was long, with an unusual development of chin in contrast with a narrow forehead; this gave a harsh revolting animal expression to his fixed and unvarying features, in which the large prominent eyes alone showed signs of baleful activity.
In one of the remote quarters of the town of Augsberg, a charwoman of the name of Anna Holzmann lived in a shoemaker’s house. She was rather more than fifty years of age and, on account of her poverty, was in the habit of receiving relief from charitable institutions. It was thought by some, however, that she was not really in poor circumstances. She had good clothes and other possessions, for which she was envied. She evidently had more beds and furniture than she required for her own use, for she was able to take in two men as lodgers, who paid her rent and occupied a room next to her own. It was generally rumoured, moreover, that Mother Holzmann, although receiving alms, had put by quite a considerable sum and had a pot full of money saved.
On Good Friday, 1821, which fell on April 20th, Mother Holzmann was seen for the last time. From that day she disappeared and left no trace. Her two lodgers, after awaiting her return for several days in vain, vacated their quarters. One, called George Rauschmaier, was the first to go. His companion, who bore the name of Josef Steiner, waited rather longer, and then he, too, took his departure. Believing the absent woman Holzmann would presently return, they had notified the fact of her disappearance only to the proprietor of her house who lived in the next street. This man took over all the keys which his tenant had left behind, but, seeing nothing particularly remarkable in the circumstance of the woman’s disappearance, he forbore to report it to the police until May 17th. The police immediately notified a magistrate, who caused Anna Holzmann’s nearest relatives, her brother and sister-in-law, to be questioned. The brother shared the prevailing impression that she had probably committed suicide. It was the general belief that she was a usurer who lent out money at high interest, and it was thought she had probably been defrauded of a large sum, and that when she found she could not pay her rent, she had no doubt drowned herself.
The seals which had been placed upon her property were now broken and an inventory made of her possessions. The brother and sister-in-law testified that the best articles were missing, and the pot of money which she was supposed to keep by her was not unearthed, nor any other hidden treasures. In all this there was nothing to arouse any suspicion of foul play, except a dreadful odour pervading the room, which greatly incommoded the persons engaged in drawing up the inventory. It was argued that a closer examination of the premises ought to be made, but for lack of any suspicious evidence pointing to a crime having been committed, the further search was postponed. Nothing occurred until early in the new year, when it so happened that one day in January a laundress and her son wanted to dry linen in the attic of the house which Holzmann had occupied. In this attic, as was indeed the case throughout the wretched tenement, brooms and dustpans had never played a great part, and dust, old straw and other rubbish covered the floor and all the corners. Having kicked away some of the refuse with their feet, the two workers came upon something solid, which on closer inspection they discovered to be the thigh, leg and foot of a human body. Mother and son at once became convinced that these were the remains of the missing woman, and they hastened to acquaint the legal authorities with the facts of their ghastly discovery. A deputation from the courts of justice immediately proceeded to the spot and found, among the straw and refuse in the corner of the garret, a naked left thigh with the leg and part of a foot attached. About six paces further on, inserted between the chimney and the roof, was a human trunk without head, arms or legs. On closer search, an old petticoat with a bodice and a red neckerchief were disclosed, the whole thickly coated with blood. These garments were immediately identified by the persons living in the tenement as having been worn by the woman Holzmann.
The search was now pressed forward still more energetically, and under the floor, concealed by one of the boards and in close proximity to the chimney, a right arm was found. The rotten boards in the small room Holzmann’s lodgers had occupied were now further loosened and broken up, and a large bundle was uncovered. When the blood-drenched petticoat, which formed its outer covering, was unwrapped, there came to light a compressed right thigh with the leg and part of the foot, and separately enclosed in an old linen shirt, a left arm bent together at the elbow joint. All these limbs, as well as the trunk, were shrivelled like smoked meat and much distorted from long pressure. The process of decomposition had not set in, owing to the draught of air or from some other unknown causes. Now, with the idea of restoring them to their natural shape, the limbs were soaked in water for some days, then enveloped in cloths damped with spirits and stretched out as much as possible to prepare them for the autopsy, at which it was easily proved that all these members must have belonged to the same woman’s body. The deceased, moreover, must have had small bones and have been well shaped. The arms and thighs had been adroitly extracted from their sockets, and neither on the trunk nor the limbs was there a trace of any injury capable of having caused death. If therefore a wound had been inflicted, fatal to life, it must have struck that portion of the body which was missing, and in spite of all research could not be brought to light, namely, the head of the victim. But even without the head, the dismembered limbs were identified as having belonged to the vanished Anna Holzmann. This there was abundant evidence to show.
A sure clue was presently found with regard to the head. Near the house inhabited by the deceased, a canal passed, receiving its water from the Lech; there were several of these water courses and they flowed through Augsberg with strong currents. The overseer of a factory, situated on the bank of this canal, had found, as far back as the Whitsuntide of the previous year, a human skull in the water, which might have come from a charnel house. He had examined it, had showed it to his brother, and then had thrown it back into the water to avoid any troublesome investigations. The skull was small, entirely stripped of flesh and only two or three teeth remained in the jaw. This head corresponded with that of Anna Holzmann as described by her relations. Obviously, if she had been murdered and dismembered, the easiest way of disposing of the head was to fling it into the canal at night time. As the water from the canal flowed back into the Lech, it would be swiftly carried away.
Another possibly important clue had been obtained when the corpse was laid out for the postmortem. The doctor, in trying to straighten out the left arm, had seen a brass finger ring drop to the floor from the inner bend of the elbow. This ring had not belonged to Mother Holzmann. No doubt it was the property of the murderer and, in the excitement of carrying on the dismembering process, it must have slipped off his finger unknown to him. The arm of the dead woman had caught and detained it. Here was conclusive evidence at first hand. But to whom did the ring belong? No one could say. Suspicion at once fell on the former lodgers of Anna Holzmann. They were the last persons who admitted having seen her and they had remained in the house without giving notice of her disappearance. Besides, who but they could have accomplished the dismemberment of the corpse, for which time and freedom from interruption were essential? Again, it was in the room occupied by them that a portion of the body had been disinterred. Rauschmaier had plainly prevaricated; he had stated on oath before the court of justice that his landlady had gone away on Good Friday with another woman, leaving him the keys of the lodging; yet this statement was, according to the clear evidence adduced, a distinct lie. It also developed that on the Saturday after Good Friday, Rauschmaier had, with the help of his sweetheart, carried off a part of Holzmann’s property and sold or pawned the articles. This was deemed sufficient ground for his arrest.
Rauschmaier had not left Augsberg and his lodging was well known. When apprehended, he behaved with a mixture of calm indifference and seemingly absolute ingenuousness. He denied all knowledge of any crime committed on the woman Holzmann and again declared that she had gone away on Good Friday with another woman whom he did not know, leaving her keys in his charge. When taken to the cemetery and shown the corpse with its dismembered limbs pieced together, he exhibited no emotion and declared that he did not recognise the body. After being detained till the end of January, he begged to be brought before a magistrate and requested to be set at liberty. On the following day, however, he admitted that he had allowed himself to be tempted to take possession of some of his landlady’s belongings during her absence. Yes, he was the thief. He also confessed that his sweetheart had removed the stolen goods with his knowledge and consent. With this frank avowal, all hope of further elucidation seemed at an end. There was nothing against him but that he had been the last to see the murdered woman; that he had omitted to report her disappearance; that he had excellent opportunities for murdering and dismembering her and that he was clearly a thief. But there were no witnesses to prove him worse.
The judge felt convinced of Rauschmaier’s guilt. Another circumstance told against him. Among his effects there was a paper of a kind well known to the police. It was printed at Cologne, was ornamented at the top with pictures of saints and purported to be a charter of absolution from all sins and crimes however heinous, and it was claimed that it had been written by “Jesus Christ and sent down to earth by the angel Michael.” These worthless documents were often palmed off on the superstitious in those days.