The Case of the Crispy Countess

"Pittsburgh Post-Gazette," July 31, 1941, via Newspapers.com

There have been many disastrous marriages in recorded history, and God knows it sometimes seems like I’ve blogged about each and every one of them.  Fortunately, not too many of them wind up with one of the Dearly Beloveds suddenly and mysteriously turning into a pile of smoking ashes.

This week, let us contemplate the time when a marriage ended in precisely that fashion.

Count Goerlitz was a man of high position in the German court, acting as Chamberlain to the Grand-Duke of Hesse and Privy Councilor.  However, despite his fine title, his family had very little money.  The obvious solution was to find a rich woman longing to become a Countess.  Accordingly, in 1820 he married the heiress of a very well-to-do merchant named Plitt.  Such unions of poor nobleman and wealthy commoner are generally successful--after all, both sides are getting what they wanted out of the marriage--but, sadly, the Count and Countess were an exception to this rule.  The Countess was not shy about reminding her husband that she was, so to speak, the breadwinner in the household.  She had the disconcerting habit of chatting about “beggar nobility” needing rich wives in order to have a lifestyle worthy of their titles.  She held the pursestrings, and was very reluctant to open them.  The Count--apparently a hot-tempered and intensely proud man--handled such mockery in exactly the way you’d expect.  Before long, the couple--who remained childless--became hopelessly estranged.  While they technically shared a large, palatial home in Darmstadt, they lived apart; the Countess occupied the first floor, with the Count residing in the ground floor.  While the couple was able to present a polite front in public, whenever they happened to be alone together, their servants inevitably heard the sounds of bitter quarreling.  The pair had only four servants: the Count’s valet, the Countess’ manservant, a coachman, and a cook.

On June 13, 1847, the Count dined with the Grand-Duke.  He returned home at about 6:30.  He asked his wife’s servant, John Stauff, if the Countess was at home.  He explained that he had brought her some macaroons and bonbons from the Grand-Duke’s table.  Stauff having given an affirmative response, the Count went upstairs to his wife’s quarters, to find that the door leading to her anteroom was locked.  Assuming his spouse was asleep or simply desiring her privacy, he went to his own bedroom.  About an hour later, he went for a walk.  When he returned shortly before nine, he put on his dressing gown and asked to have supper brought up to him.  As the sweets were still sitting in his pocket, he sent Stauff to ask the Countess to join him in the meal.

A few moments later, the servant told him that the Countess must have gone out.  “Nonsense!” the Count replied.  “Of course she is at home.  She may, however, be asleep.  I will go myself and find her.”

The glass door to the Countess’ anteroom was still locked.  The Count looked in, but saw no sign of his wife.  He knocked on the door.  No answer.  He knocked on her bedroom door.  No answer.  The Count got the key to her dressing-room.  When he opened it, he found the room was empty.  He was unable to explore her other rooms, as he did not have their keys.  He went upstairs to the laundry.  It was as deserted as the rest of the house.  Thinking she may have dined with friends, he sent inquiries to her closest companions.  None of them had seen her.

It dawned on the Count that something odd might be going on.  He sent Stauff to fetch a locksmith.  The servant soon returned alone, explaining that the locksmith was ill.  The exasperated Count then ordered the coachman to bring back the locksmith’s apprentice, a youth named Seitz, to open the locked doors.

When this task was done, the apprentice did not see the Countess, but he noticed a strange burning smell.  As he was unable to open her ante-room, he went home to get another key.  When the Count and his valet looked through the glass door to the ante-room, they noticed smoke in the room.  When the valet smashed the plate glass, clouds of smoke drifted towards them.

The Count reacted to this alarming development with a curious nonchalance.  He instructed Stauff to find a chimney-sweep, and his valet to summon the Count’s physician, a Dr. Stegmeyer.  Then he just lounged around, idly pondering the mysteries of Life, or perhaps brooding about his now-stale bonbons.  

When Seitz returned, he found that none of his keys could open the door.  Finally--without any sort of urging from the Count--the young man took the direct approach and beat the door down with a hammer.  A black, dreadful-smelling smoke enveloped them.  The room itself was completely dark.  When the smoke finally dissipated enough for them to enter, it was found that her parlor door was also locked.  When that too was forced open, they saw that the Countess’ writing desk was on fire.  The heat inside the room was too intense for anyone to enter.  Pails of water were thrown into the room, finally quenching the flames.  The smoke gradually cleared enough for them to observe the quite dead body of the Countess, lying on the floor beside her burning desk.  She made a very gruesome sight.  The upper part of her body was completely charred, while the lower was not burned at all.  The floor beneath the desk was burned, but the floor under the incinerated body was not.   She wore only one slipper; the other one was found in her bedroom.

It was all, to say the least, weird.  There had been fires in only three distinct places:  on the writing desk and the floor immediately beneath it, and on the sofa and corner seat in the Countess’ bedroom.  The fact that she lost her slipper in the bedroom indicated she had been in both rooms.  She had also apparently rung for help so violently that she had torn down the bell-rope.  Another sinister feature was the locked doors.  The keys were not found anywhere in her rooms, indicating she had not locked herself in.  So, who did lock those doors, and why?

The first theory was that while writing at her desk, the Countess, in some mysterious fashion, set herself on fire.  Then, she ran to her bedroom to ring for help, broke the bell-rope, ran back towards the desk, fell, and died.  Three doctors did a cursory examination of the corpse, and concluded, “We dunno.”  Inexplicably, no autopsy was done.  The family doctor put “accidental” on the Countess’ death certificate, the half-barbecued body was buried two days later, and that, it seemed, would be that.  It was clear that the Count’s close friendship with the royal family ensured that those in high places wished everyone to forget the whole unpleasant business as soon as possible.

Unfortunately for the Count, when the German press learned of his wife’s grisly and mysterious death, they managed to turn it into a scandal which outraged the entire country.  Newspapers made no bones about stating that the Count, in some peculiar but certainly effective fashion, had killed his wife, and his powerful friends were letting him get away with it.  His household servants were also beginning to ask themselves uncomfortable questions.  His unaccountable lack of urgency to get into the locked and burning rooms had been noted.  His marital unhappiness was no secret.  And, of course, there was the fact that he inherited the Countess’ considerable fortune.  

The Count began to notice that his friends were beginning to behave in a decidedly chilly manner towards him.  People were avoiding him, and it was made clear to him that his presence at social gatherings was not welcome.  He decided he had to do something to restore his reputation.  Four months after his wife’s death, the Count petitioned the Grand-Ducal Criminal Court of Darmstadt to reopen the investigation into the mysterious fatality, so he would have the chance to clear himself of suspicion.  After a bit of foot-dragging, the Court agreed.

On November 2, 1847--the day before the Count’s servants were to be interviewed by investigators--his cook, Margaret Eyrich, saw something very strange.  While she was preparing the Count’s dinner, John Stauff came into the kitchen.  He said that their master wanted a fire lit in one of the upper rooms.  She refused, pointing out that she was busy at the stove.  He noted that a dish wasn’t quite clean, and asked her to rewash it.  She agreed, asking him to stir the sauce she was cooking so it wouldn’t burn.  While engaged at the sink, Eyrich happened to turn her head.  She was surprised to see Stauff pouring the contents of a little phial into the sauce.  When she asked what he was doing, he denied having done anything.  After Stauff left, Eyrich saw that the sauce was discolored, and tasted bad.  She told the other servants about this, and they all agreed this was something that needed to be looked into.  They brought the sauce to the Count’s doctor for analysis.  He found that verdigris had been mixed into it, in quantities large enough to cause death to anyone unfortunate enough to eat it.  John Stauff was arrested the following day.  At that time, he was only charged with the attempted poisoning of the Count.  The theory was that Stauff wanted everyone to think that the Count had poisoned himself out of remorse at having murdered his wife.

For whatever reason, it was not until August 1848 that the body of the Countess was finally exhumed and autopsied.  The examination showed that her skull had been fractured, and she had been strangled.  (However, it is doubtful how accurate a post-mortem can be on a long-decomposed, half-burned body.)  It was concluded that someone had entered her room, bashed her on the head, and when that failed to kill her, resorted to strangulation.  Then, it was argued, the killer set the body on fire, (probably by placing it inside a small stove in the room,) and before it was completely consumed, placed it by the desk.  Finally, the murderer set the desk itself on fire, in order to give the impression that his victim had accidentally set fire to herself while seated at the desk.    A motive for this heinous deed was found when it was learned that a large amount of her jewelry was missing.  This suggested that her husband was not the guilty party.  A timeline of the household’s comings and goings on the fatal day showed that (presuming everyone's memories were correct) the last time the Countess had been seen alive was at 3 p.m.  Between 3:30 and 5 p.m., the only people in the mansion were the lady of the house and John Stauff.  Stauff was also alone in the house with the living-or-dead Countess between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m.  (A passerby had noticed thick black smoke coming out of her chimney at around 8:00 p.m.)  All these revelations led to Stauff also being charged with the murder of the Countess.

When Stauff was examined, his alibi was weak.  He said that he had spent most of the afternoon of June 13, 1847, in his room.  He claimed that the last time he saw the Countess alive was at 5 p.m., when she gave him some orders for the butcher and baker.  At 8 o’clock, he went to a restaurant, where he stayed until 9:30.  None of this, of course, could be corroborated.

In October 1847, there was more bad news for Stauff.  His father, Henry Stauff, was arrested for trying to sell a silversmith a lump of molten gold, without having any plausible explanation of how he had obtained it.  The silversmith, finding something fishy about the man, summoned police.  After his arrest, it was found that Henry had other items of jewelry in his possession.  When the Count was shown the jewels, he identified them as belonging to his wife.

John Stauff claimed that in June 1847, Count Goerlitz had given him the jewelry.  When Stauff remonstrated that he had no idea what to do with such valuables, he was told to send them to his father.  He said he believed the Count had done this because he knew that Stauff suspected him of the murder, and the Count wanted to make him, Stauff, look like the guilty party.

On March 4, 1850, John Stauff finally stood trial for murder, robbery, arson, and attempted murder.  (It is not at all clear why it took so long to get to this point.)  The defense was a simple and novel one: namely, that the Countess had been a victim of Spontaneous Human Combustion.   Unfortunately for the defendant (not to mention legal history,) this argument failed to convince the jury.  Stauff was found guilty on every count.

In June of 1850, Stauff was sent to prison to serve a life sentence.  A month later, he wrote to the Grand-Duke asserting his innocence, and asking for a pardon.  This request was rejected.  Stauff wrote again, this time saying he wished to make a full confession, to show how much he repented his crime.  He claimed that the murder was completely unpremeditated: he happened to find himself alone in the room where the Countess kept her jewels, and “I was unable to resist the temptation to enrich myself by these precious articles.”  The Countess caught him in the act, and in his effort to stop her from calling for help, he accidentally strangled her.  It was a detailed account, which, however, did not completely match the known evidence.  For example, there are those who believe that his description of how he burned the Countess would not account for the weirdly charred condition of the corpse.

However questionable Stauff’s confession may have been, it succeeded in winning the Grand-Duke’s sympathy vote.  In 1872, Stauff was given a free pardon, on the condition that he leave the country and settle in America.

Although the circumstantial evidence against Stauff seems strong, some who have studied this case still have their doubts.  Considering the Count’s array of motives and peculiar behavior on the fatal night, (not to mention his curious initial eagerness to have his wife's strange death be quickly forgotten,) it has been speculated that he either did the deed himself or hired someone (Stauff?) to murder his wife.  And of course, those of a Fortean bent wonder if maybe, just maybe, the defense argument put forward at Stauff’s trial was true after all...