BERLIN MURDER

Southland Times, Issue 20411, 14 February 1928, Page 7

BERLIN MURDER

TRIAL OF SCHOOLBOY. FRIVOLOUS GIRL WITNESS. PUBLIC INTEREST EXCITED. (Rec. 9.25 p.m.) Berlin, February 13. Revelations in the Kranz case continue to appeal to the public. The frivolous indifference and brazen mendacity with which Hildegarde Scheller answered the questions of the Vice-Prefect of Police and regarded as most shocking when it is remembered that her brother and a boy lover were killed practically in her presence. The girl’s callousness is partly explained in the discovery made by a policeman who went to the Scheller home to inquire regarding Hildegarde's antecedents. She found the girl’s father bent over a table with hie head in his hands. He was not bowed down by grief, however, but was solving a crossword puzzle. Elinor Retti, a girl friend of Hildegarde, who visited the house on the night of the murders, was ruthlessly cross-examined when she attempted to exonerate Kranz at the expense of Scheller. —A. and N.Z.

The case of Kranz, a schoolboy, charged with murdering a boy friend, recalling the Leopold and Loeb case in Chicago, caused a sensation in Berlin. Kranz was visiting the house of a schoolboy friend, Scheller, on the night of the tragedy, the others present being a third schoolboy, Stephan and Scheller’s sister, Hildegarde, aged 16, the girl’s parents being absent. The boys eat up at night drinking liqueur and talking of love. The discussion finally turned to death and Scheller proposed that all four should die. With a smile Kranz stated that Scheller shot Stephan and committed suicide and he was about to commit suicide himself when the girl snatched the revolver.