BARTZ, Augusta died 1896

BARTZ, BOEK

Posted By: Bruce F Kuennen (email)
Date: 2/10/2014 at 10:28:02

Elgin Echo, Thursday, 23 April 1896.

April 13 Herman Boek shot Augusta Bartz and seriously wounded her father, Michal Bartz, And her brother at New Hampton. He is in jail. He went in and gave himself up, as he was aware that he would be safer from mob violence at the hands of the infuriated neighbors.

When he came in he stated that he supposed that he was shooting is divorced wife, who was a sister of the girl he shot. He said that he was sorry he had not killed his wife instead of the girl. He had shot at his wife last fall and missed her, and was under bonds for his appearance at court. He said he did it to show them that he could shoot straight. He was very talkative at first, but since his attorney visited him he will not say a word in regard to the crime. He is a drunken sot of the anarchist type and is almost always full of whiskey and deviltry. He was in town that day playing cards and drinking, and started home with a quart of whiskey with which to brace himself up for the crime which he had in his heart.

He went to his stepfather's home, near where his divorced wife lived, and stayed all night, and in the morning loaded a shotgun and went over near the house where his wife lived with her father and watched for them. M. Bartz, his son, Mike, and daughter, Augusta aged 19 got into a buggy and went to town to church. Augusta wore her sisters bonnet and cape and Mrs. Boek stayed at home. Boek supposed that his wife had gone to church, or he would have gone to the house and killed her, as she was alone. He laid around in the brush until the party returned from church in the afternoon. When they got nearly home he stepped out into the road, and as the team was just opposite him be fired one barrel of the gun into the throat and breast of Augusta. When the frightened team made a jump and passed him he discharged the other barrel into the back of the girl. The father and brother were seriously wounded but they will recover. Dr. Babcock and Gardner were hastily summoned, and they found the girl and an almost dying condition. There were 40 shot which had passed into her throat and lungs, carrying with them pieces of clothing, which could not be extracted. There were also 80 shot in her back. Tuesday morning April 14, the girl died. She had her senses to the last. She ejected from her throat a number of pieces of clothing and some shot before she died which had lodged in her lungs.

The last thing she said was that she wanted Boek hung as he intended to kill all the family. An inquest has just been held and a verdict rendered that she was killed deliberately by Boek.

There is intense excitement in the neighborhood, and it is feared that Boek will be tried and executed by "Judge Lynch". Boek is a stone mason, 34 years old, and has a quarrelsome disposition, and had been in the habit of beating his wife and her two children while he lived with her. Chickasaw County has just disposed of one wife murderer by sending him to the penitentiary for life at a cost of $7000 or $8000 thus far. There will no doubt be made a plea for the brute that he is insane.

Elgin Echo, Thursday, 15 October 1896.

New Hampton, Iowa, October 9. – Herman Boek was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and was sentenced to hard labor for life at Anamosa, Iowa. He killed Augusta Bartz, his wife's sister, on April 13, 1896. He thought he was shooting his wife. He had got drunk and abused his wife, and she was compelled to obtain a divorce. This angered him and he laid in wait one Sunday when Mrs. Bartz and her son and daughter were on their way from church, when he shot Mrs. Bartz.

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Note: There seems to be some confusion as to the exact relationships of those shot between these articles. A little research at the New Hampton newspaper office, library or Chickasaw County courthouse should straighten things out.

Submitter is not related.

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Source: Decorah Republican Apr. 16, 1896 P 4 C 1

Another Murder in Chickasaw Co.
What may prove a double murder and the serious wounding of a third person occurred near New Hampton Sunday. From a special edition of the Gazette issued Monday we learn that Herman Boek, a stone cutter of that city, who was recently put under bonds for threatening to kill his divorced wife, lay in waiting at the roadside three miles west of town and fired two shots at his father-in-law, Mike Bartz, who was in the wagon with his son Mike and daughter Augusta, whom Boek mistook for his former wife, as she was wearing a cloak belonging to her. The girl cannot live, and it is not thought the son can, as both were shot in the breast, the scattering shot only striking the old gentleman. Boek, after the shooting, came to town and gave him­self up to the sheriff. He is about 30 years old and much given to drink, which may account for his crime.
P. S.—The girl died.

Transcriber’s Note: Find a Grave shows she was born Jan. 13, 1880 and died April 14, 1896. She is buried in the New Hampton Cemetery.