Warning: Not for the faint of heart or vegetarians
Adolph “Louis” Luetgert was born in 1845 in Westphalia (now Germany). He came to the U.S. in 1865, eventually settling in Chicago. Like many immigrants, Adolph — or Louis as some called him — came to America with very little money. One of his first jobs in the U.S. was similar to what he had done in Germany, working as a tanner. He soon tired of manual labor, and after the Chicago fire, started his own liquor business. He married a woman named Caroline with whom he had two sons. Sadly, one of his sons and Caroline died. Two months after his wife died, Luetgert married Louisa who was nine years his junior. They had four children, two of whom died in childhood.
After marrying Louisa, Luetgert opened a bar on the corner of Clybourn and Webster in Chicago. There were whispers that Luetgert had been involved in a murder which occurred on the property, but nothing was ever proven and the death remained a mystery.
Luetgert then bought a meat route and butcher shop. He started making his own sausage. He claimed that he had invented a way to make sausages that did not need refrigeration during the summer, even though Europeans had been making “summer sausage” for generations. His sausages were in such high demand that Luetgert built his own plant.
Emboldened by success, Luetgert expanded, buying five acres at Hermitage and Diversey for a new, five-story factory. Luetgert was a large, portly man. He often strolled through the neighborhood with two large dogs on leashes. He attracted a lot of attention, especially female attention. Rumors swirled linking him and the woman who ran a saloon across the street from the factory. Eyebrows were also raised when Luetgert starting sleeping in the factory, attended by Mary Siemering, his wife’s cousin.
Business continued to boom with millions of pounds of sausage leaving the factory. In fact, many of the folks who visited the famous Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 ate frankfurters made by Luetgert. He became known as the “Sausage King” of Chicago.
Louisa had never wanted to move into such a large plant. She thought it unwise to put all their money at risk. Sadly, she was right — after the success of the Exposition, the Economic Panic of 1893 and subsequent depression hit Chicago. Sausage sales fell precipitously and the Luetgerts were suddenly losing large sums of money. Adolph also fell victim to a financial scam which lost them even more money.
By 1897, Luetgert had to close the factory, keeping on only two workers out of the 50 he had previously employed. He still had hopes that he could save the business, believing he was going to find investors and get back on his feet, but Louisa was miserable. Neighbors heard loud arguments going on into the night.
In the spring of that year, Luetgert uncharacteristically ordered arsenic and a large barrel of potash (lye). He told his workers to mix the potash with water in a vat in the basement stating he was making soap to clean the factory even though he had a large supply of soap on hand. Luetgert told anyone who asked that the arsenic was purchased to kill rats.
On the evening of May 1, neighbors say they saw Louisa enter the factory with Adolph after dinner. They also reported seeing smoke rising out of the chimney of the shuttered plant later that same night. No one saw Louisa leave.
The next day, Luetgert told his two employees to clean out the vat. He promised to give them life-long jobs if they would do this job for him. The workers went into the basement and found reddish water overflowing the vat. Nearby, they saw a door leaning against the wall, a door that would have fit over the top of the vat. The back of the wooden door was scratched, as if something had tried to claw its way out. After the workers drained the water from the vat, they found something they called “schlemig” – a sludge of flesh, bones, and slime.
Louisa’s brother, alarmed that Louisa was missing and that Luetgert hadn’t done anything to find her, contacted the police. Officers searched the factory. They sifted ashes from the furnace and drained what remained in the vat. They found corset stays, a tooth, bones and two rings – one engraved with the initials “L. L.” – Louisa Luetgert.
Luetgert denied killing Luisa. At first he told people that she was staying with her sister, then that she was visiting sick relatives. Later he said that she had run off (even though she left her beloved children behind.) Luetgert explained that the bones found in the vat were from the pigs used for sausage and that Louisa put the rings in there to frame him. Regardless, he was arrested and accused of murder.
It was a sensational trial, covered in all the newspapers. Notably, this was the first time a forensic specialist – a professional anthropologist – gave testimony in a court case. George Dorsey, PhD, identified the bones found as human. The first jury deliberated for days. Reporters were so desperate to get a scoop, they lowered a man on a chair down a courthouse air vent to eavesdrop on the jury. Readers across the country eagerly followed the details of the trial in the press. Sausage sales dropped nationwide.
Luetgert’s first trial ended in a hung jury, but he was eventually found guilty during the second trial. Luetgert died in prison in 1899 waiting for an appeal. He lies in an unmarked grave in Forest Home Cemetery.
The factory building still stands. It was converted into condos in 2003. Naturally, the building has a reputation of being haunted and people say that on lonely, dark nights, they see Louisa roaming the halls and basement where she disappeared.
References: Alchemy of Bones: Chicago’s Luetgert Murder Case of 1897; MurderbyGaslight.com; The Yale Review: The “Sausage Vat Murder,” 1897, Chicago Tribune