Ludwig Tessnow

Beth Doerr and Lauren Kaufman

Background

In July of 1901, two brothers Herman and Peter Stubbe (six and eight years old) went out to play in the woods and they never came back. A search party was conducted and they found dismembered body parts scattered through a wide woodland area. Members of the search party tracked a bloody trail and they found disemboweled remains of the Stubbe brothers.

Key Players

Herman and Peter Stubbe-

(victims)Brothers found murdered and disemboweled Ludwig Tessnow- (suspect) talking to the boys on the day they were murdered. Claimed that the red stains on his clothes were wood dyes A carpenter from the neighboring village, he was seen

Ernst Hubschmann-

Local prosecutor

Johann Schmidt-

Examining magistrate Paul Uhlenhuth- discovered how to test for blood and discern human blood versus animal blood

When and Where

Murder of the Stubbe Brothers:

Rugen Island, Germany 1901

First Murder Tessnow Committed

Osnabruck, Germany 1898

Evidence

• •

Boots and Clothes:

Found at Tessnow’s home Had dark stains and were recently washed - claimed to be wood dye • • Apart from the staining on the clothing that was found, no other physical evidence was found that could connect the carpenter with the crime Several days before the murder of the Stubbe boys, a farmer saw a man resembling Tessnow running across his fields covered in blood All of the farmers sheeps were found to be disemboweled and dismembered • • •

Previous case:

A murder that occurred several years earlier (1898) was extremely similar Two young girls (ages seven and eight) were found murdered in the woods near their homes Ludwig Tessnow was seen in the woods where they were killed - he was detained due to his clothing being heavily stained, but he was released because he claimed that the stains were only wood stains from a previous job

Techniques Used

• Precipitate Test: Assays for the detection of immunoglobulin levels from the serum of a subject. This test is performed in semi-solid media (agar) where antibodies and antigens can diffuse toward one another and form a visible line of precipitation Rabbit-based serums were created which precipitated and showed the proteins of any animal, including humans

Outcome

• Tessnow’s overalls, shirt, and suit were found to contain wood dye as well as seventeen traces as human blood • His jacket was found to have sheeps blood on it, connecting him to another crime • After Tessnow was tried and confined for a long period of time, he was executed at Greifswald Prison in 1904

Work Cited

http://crimesceneinvestigatio.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-ludwig-tessnow-case.html

http://murderpedia.org/male.T/t/tessnow-ludwig.htm