The Potato Masher Murder : Death at the Hands of a Jealous Husband.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sosniecki, Gary.

Series:

True Crime History

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Ludwig, Albin, 1869-1954.

Ludwig, Cecilia, 1876-1906.

Uxoricide--Indiana--Mishawaka--Case studies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (249 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Potato Masher Murder

Place of Publication:

Ashland : The Kent State University Press, 2020.

Summary:

Albin Ludwig was furious. He had caught his wife, Cecilia, with other men before; now, after secretly following Cecilia one evening in 1906, Albin was overcome with suspicion. Albin and Cecilia quarreled that night and again the next day. Prosecutors later claimed that the final quarrel ended when Albin knocked Cecilia unconscious with a wooden potato masher, doused her with a flammable liquid, lit her on fire, and left her to burn to death. Albin claimed self-defense, but he was convicted of second-degree murder. Newspaper coverage of the dramatic crime and trial was jarringly explicit and detailed, shocking readers in Indiana, where the crime occurred. Peter Young of the South Bend Times wrote that the murder's "horrors and its shocking features . . . have never before been witnessed in Mishawaka." The story was front-page news throughout northern Indiana for much of a year. For several generations, the families of both Cecilia and Albin would be silent about the crime--until Cecilia's great-grandson, award-winning journalist Gary Sosniecki, uncovered the family's dark secret. As he discovered, wife beating was commonplace in the early 20th century (before the gender-neutral term of "domestic violence" was adopted), and "wife murder" was so common that newspapers described virtually every case by that term. At long last, The Potato Masher Murder: Death at the Hands of a Jealous Husband unearths the full story of two immigrant families united by love and torn apart by domestic violence.

Contents:

Cover

Copyright

Contents

Map of the Ludwig Neighborhood, 1906

Preface

Dramatis Personae

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Last Night

Chapter 2: The Families

Chapter 3: Marriage and Mishawaka

Chapter 4: Murder

Chapter 5: A "Grewsome" Sight

Chapter 6: Horrors and Shocking Features

Chapter 7: Mishawaka Grows-and Gossips

Chapter 8: Charges Filed, Attorneys Hired

Chapter 9: Grand Jury Indicts

Chapter 10: Trial Begins

Chapter 11: "She Certainly Was Dead"

Chapter 12: The State Rests

Chapter 13: "Wife the Aggressor"

Chapter 14: Albin Testifies

Chapter 15: Cross-Examination

Chapter 16: Wrapping Up

Chapter 17: Prison

Chapter 18: Appeal

Chapter 19: Parole

Chapter 20: Life after Prison

Epilogue: The Modern Woman

Acknowledgments

Appendix A: Brothers in Prison

Appendix B: The Plight of Joseph Talbot

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781631014192

1631014196

OCLC:

1163934983