FIVE-FOLD MURDERER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1928, Page 3 (Supplement)

FIVE-FOLD MURDERER.

CAUGHT BY LONE FARMER. GREAT GERMAN MAX HUNT. •Tohannes Hein, mail robber and fivefold murderer, was caught by a lone fanner who later was assisted by a policeman, alter a man hunt unequalled in Germany since the days when the bands of the robber chiefs, Hannickel and Schinderhannes and the Bavarian Iliesl, terrorised large parts of the country in the latter part of the eighteenth century. For three days more than 500 policemen and gendarmes. assisted by detachments of the Keichswehr, a large number of armed civilians, searchlights and fifty police dogs, had scoured the mountains of the Bavarian-Thuringian frontier. Not a trace of the fugitive could be found and it was believed that he had escaped the dragnet once more.

An armed peasant, however, noticed a tired-looking, half-starved individual whom he believed to be Hein near the small village of Weingarten, south of Coburg. Ordered to surrender, the desperado first tried to offer resistance, but quickly threw up his hands when a revolver was pointed at his chest.

Arrested by a policeman who had come to the farmer 8 aid, the criminal was taken to the tavern of W eingarten. shackled and transported to the town of Staff elstein near by. When he was searched, it was found that he had an army revolver, 35 cartridges and a bottle containing nitro-glycerine, but no money. At his hearing he begged for food and cigarettes, saying that he had not had a bite in many days. Starvation and cold had destroyed his nerve. Questioned by the investigating judge, the robber admitted his identity and his crimes. Together with an accomplice named Lahm, who was captured some time ago. Hein killed two officials in the Post Office of Ohligs, in the Rhineland, which was robbed by them. Although practically the entire police of the Reich was mobilised against him, the bandit always managed to make his escape. Within one week he shot and killed two police inspectors and a gendarme at Plauen. a Thuringian town. .Just before Hein's capture a lonelv traveller, mistaken for him. was shot and killed by a policeman near Weimar because he refused to surrender w hen halted.