Then he rushed forward to the cell door, pressed his face against the iron trellis work, lifted his hands and called out: “Before God I stand a guiltless man, and if I die I die guiltless. I was misled by the wicked woman; she led me astray. My God, Katrina! Katrina! Give me your hand!”
Here he thrust his hand through the cell gate, and his wife clasped it. She was too much overcome to speak for a while, and the child moaned and sobbed. Kenkouwski continued reiterating his innocence, when he called out again. “The wicked woman misled me; she led me astray.”
His wife exclaimed: “Have I not been a good wife? Have I not prayed to God for you?” Then she sobbed again. After a while she said to him: “I don’t believe you killed her! I don’t believe it!” After this she and the child were led away, and he called after them: “By God, Katrina, I am innocent. I am innocent.”
The woman said he had always been a good husband to her, nor did she seem to know anything of Mina Muller. She said nothing when asked what she had thought when her husband came back with three yellow trunks after an absence of ten days.
Shortly after the woman left, Kenkouwski was led before the Sergeant for examination. He looked wild and nervous, and gesticulated violently. “He must be watched well to-night,” said one of the policemen, “or he’ll hang himself.” As he approached the desk, he suddenly threw up his arms and exclaimed:
“Now, I will tell you the truth. If it is not the truth you may take a knife and cut my throat, like this,” (here he pulled his finger across his neck.) “Mina Schmidt told me the other day that she knew I was married, but she wanted me to marry her and go to Germany with her, where she had very good parents living. At that time I didn’t know she was married. We went to Guttenberg to get married, and when we got over there we went to the Schutzen Park. Two men there came up to me and told me that she did not love me, that she loved another. When she heard this she sprang up and ran away from me, and I have not seen her since.”
He was then led back to his cell. He was again brought from his cell at about 11 o’clock to be looked at by the reporters assembled in the Thirty-seventh street station. He had been lying down, and the light dust from the cell floor covered his back. He looked in a bewildered manner at the throng about him, spoke a few words in German, reasserting what he had previously said in regard to the murder, and was taken back again. His eyes were bloodshot, and he spoke in a nervous manner.
“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Kenkouwsky, “does any one speak French?
“I do!” replied another reporter, addressing him in French.
Kenkouwsky sprang from his seat and, with tears falling fast, seized the reporter by the hand and said: “Tell them that as our Saviour, who was crucified, was innocent, so am I!”