Louisa Lindlof may not have been a particularly successful spiritualist and medium, but she certainly had a style all her own. She was also one of the most ruthless murderers in Chicago's history.
Claiming to have been blessed with the "gift" of prophecy since she was a young girl in Germany, she also told visitors to her home in a Chicago neighbourhood that her greatest visions of the future came courtesy of a priceless crystal ball she had reportedly purchased for $500 (a heft sum in those days). Though it appeared to be ordinary glass, Louisa insisted that it contained one of Cleopatra's tears and, as she would later insist, "That one tear enables me to read the future,” she avers. “When I gaze into the ball, I see the tear at its center expand in size, and within I see what will come to pass in future years.” Along with private readings and seances she provided to her willing customers, she also conducted "weekly circles" where she tore up a handkerchief and laid the pieces in front of each of the people present. She then "went into a trance" and gave each people in attendance a special prophecy or "inspired" answer to any question they might have had.
Still, for someone with the "gift," Louisa had the most bizarre run of bad luck considering all of the close family members who seemed to die around her. The first was her then-husband, Julius Graunke, who died in 1905 while still living in Milwaukee. Even though he was heavily insured, nobody seemed too curious about the circumstances of his death (though mystified by his symptoms, doctors eventually concluded that he died of sunstroke). Not long afterward, one of the boarders living at the rooming house owned by Lousia and Julius also died for unexplained reasons, though, again, Louisa was still able to collect the insurance.
Despite her tragic loss, life certainly went on for Louisa, considering she married her second husband, William Lindloff, barely more than a year later (she was thirty-five, he was twenty). The next person to die was William's brother, John Otto Lindloff, in 1908, just a few months after becoming her brother-in-law. Even though Louisa despised him for being an "unsuitable" boyfriend to her own daughter, Frieda, the fact that he died soon after she took out an insurance policy on him naming herself as a beneficiary also failed to raise serious questions. If anyone asked about these tragedies in her life, she would respond that she had received "visions" of their impending deaths.
But the string of mysterious deaths hardly stopped there. On January 11, 1908, just a few months after John Otto's death, Louisa's 22-year-old daughter Frieda also died. This time around, doctors attributed her death to typhoid fever, but, like all the other recent deaths, Frieda was heavily insured, and, yes, her mother was the beneficiary again. Not long afterward, Louisa, William, and her two surviving children moved to Chicago.
Despite establishing herself in Chicago and launching her mediumship business, tragedy still seemed to follow Louisa. Not that long after their move to Chicago, William Lindloff came down with a mysterious illness that puzzled his doctors. Though he was a raving lunatic when he finally died on August 3, 1910, the official cause of death was listed as "heart disease," and Louisa pocketed another hefty insurance payment. Even as neighbours were scandalized at how little emotion she showed at her husband's funeral, nobody took official notice - yet.
But Louisa's two surviving children would follow poor William soon enough. Alma Graunke Lindlof, aged seventeen, died on August 4, 1911, just over a year after William died. While the cause of death was listed as "heart disease," the doctor who had tended to Alma would later testify that Louisa had used her supposed psychic powers to predict the exact date her daughter died.
Finally, there was her last child, Arthur, who became seriously ill in June 1912. This time around, however, the doctor Louisa brought in to tend to her son became suspicious. Not only did Arthur's symptoms suggest that he had been poisoned, but the boy himself also mentioned the "weird-tasting" water that his mother had given him. Louisa emphatically denied that Arthur's symptoms could be due to poisoning, but her doctor overrode her and had him taken to a hospital (Louisa strongly objected). Though this failed to save Arthur from dying on June 13, the doctor was still suspicious enough to reject the initial verdict of pancreatic illness and arrange for an autopsy instead.
After discovering traces of arsenic in Arthur's system, the coroner then had Louisa arrested. She was indignant at being charged with killing her son (apparently with no warning from her crystal ball) and emphatically denied any wrongdoing despite extensive grilling by police. A thorough search of her house turned up a virtual pharmacopeia of lethal substances, including a box of rat poison, mercury, and several bottles with "poison" right on their labels. Police also found a wig and evidence that she had been planning to leave Chicago in a hurry, though she refused to explain why. They also determined that she had spent virtually every cent of the thousands of dollars she had previously received from insurance payouts (making Arthur's death even more convenient). Considering the sizeable insurance policy she had on her son, prosecutors considered this to be enough to convince any jury.
It also likely didn't help that Louisa had sent a trusted boarder, Henry Kuba, to the Prudential insurance office on the very day of Arthur's death to pick up the insurance cheque she assumed would be waiting for her. Henry was arrested as well but was released after only a few days. As word spread about Louisa's arrest, she continued to play the outraged mother being arrested for a crime she had never committed. She insisted that her psychic gifts had told her when her relatives would die and, though she profited from these deaths, they were all due to natural causes alone.
But the investigators were just getting started, and, sure enough, after the bodies of her suspected victims were exhumed, the coroner found elevated traces of arsenic in each of them. Friends and relatives of the deceased came forward with their own stories about Louisa and how her "psychic gifts" had allowed her to predict their death dates. Not only did this allow her to collect on their insurance policies, but her successful predictions also helped reinforce Louisa's reputation as a seeress.
Other people came forward describing their own near-fatal experiences with Louisa. This included one former housekeeper, Sadie Ray, who told police about how she was suddenly taken ill while dining with the Lindloffs just a week before Arthur Lindloff's passing. Most damningly of all, police found a notebook carefully hidden in Louisa's home, where she had listed all the deaths, complete with the insurance payments she had received for each of them. They also found the crystal ball, "Cleopatra's tear," and all, along with a horoscope prepared for her by a New York astrologer. Prosecutors otherwise ignored the horoscope though it did contain one fateful prophecy: it said, “You shall have a little trouble in 1912, and one of your immediate relatives to die. You will heir to some property and cash but will have trouble in collecting it. After you have secured your legacy, you will spend the rest of the year traveling.” Prophetic words, indeed.
Even many of the former customers who had attended the seances Louisa conducted came forward with their own stories about her eccentricities. Others who reported becoming ill after eating meals she had prepared also gave testimony. One woman even accused Louisa of poisoning her baby, though, again, much of this testimony had little in the way of actual physical evidence to back it up. Since Louisa had no financial motive for these deaths, investigators would later accuse her of committing them as practice for her more lucrative crimes.
During her trial, which was held in late October 1912, forensic specialists testified concerning the large quantities of arsenic found in the bodies that had already been exhumed. They also heard from the other witnesses while Louisa, defiant to the end, emphatically denied ever harming her family members. Louisa's famous "predictions" allowing her to announce the death dates of all her family members (and arranging for hefty insurance policies) also came under scrutiny. She also told the court that those same spirits guiding her prophecies also promised her she would be acquitted, though, oddly enough, the spirits were dead wrong about th.
On November 5, the jury only took five hours of deliberations before finding Louisa Lindloff guilty of murdering her son. The verdict came as a surprise to the entire courtroom, considering that women were so rarely convicted for murder. After reading the verdict, the judge presiding over the case commented that '“It has been so long since a white woman was convicted on a murder charge in Cook county that I cannot remember the last case that resulted in that way. It must have been something like twenty years ago.”
Louisa accepted the verdict stonily though she needed to be supported out of the courtroom. She would later be sentenced to twenty-five years in prison and immediately launched an appeal. Whether she would have won that appeal eventually proved moot since she died of cancer only two years later, never regaining her freedom. Presumably, the spirits failed to warn her not to bother.
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