In December last the limbs of a body, supposed to be that of a rich widow named Bayer, who had disappeared from her habitation, were found in the streets of Nuremburg. The police made the greatest efforts to discover the circumstances which had brought the unfortunate deceased to her frightful end. They could only succeed, however, in discovering the most vague information; and the public had begun to think that the crime must remain unpunished, tor two other persons had been assassinated in a mysterious manner without the criminals ever having been detected.
The police still kept a close watch upon a young woman who had been in the habit of working for one of the murdered persons, and at length they succeeded in procuring some very important testimony, and they proceeded to arrest a woman named Romstatt who, however, denied all knowledge of the matter, and indeed nothing was found at her residence of a suspicious nature. But a search at the house of her daughter, who lived not far from Pegnitz, was attended with different results, for in a drain they found the intestines of a human being, and shortly afterwards the confession of the mother led to the discovery of the head of Madame Bayer in the drain of the Hotel de Ville. All the part that the woman Romstatt acknowledged to have in the transaction was that of taking the portions of the body to different parts of the city; but she pointed out certain persons as the assassins, who were immediately apprehended and imprisoned; and proofs were soon established of the existence of a band of murderers, who had doubtless committed the murders we have alluded to, and probably many others which have never come to light.
As soon as these circumstances became known, the irritable character of the citizens of Nuremburg became greatly incensed against the authors of these diabolical outrages; and it became necessary that the police should take extraordinary measures to prevent the populace from inflicting summary justice upon the criminals on their way to prison.
It appears from the later details of this horrible affair, that the woman Romstatt has stated that Madame Bayer was murdered on St. Thomas’s Day, a winter fête which annually brings thousands of strangers to Nuremburg. She says that the assassins having contrived to entice her into & secluded house, seven of them immediately fell upon her with razors and poniards, and that having killed her they proceeded to cut up the body, Romstatt being employed to get rid of the remains by disposing of them in the drains or sewers in the different and distant part of the city. With regard to the fate of one of the murdered persons, a book-keeper, for whom she had worked as a daily servant or laundress, she pretends utter ignorance. She was, however, heard to say that a woman named Bezold, who was found in bed with her throat cut, had been murdered by a barber, who formed one of the gang, and who has been apprehended.
Nuremburg being situated on the great European route, and being consequently the constant rendezvous of foreigners, it is supposed that the band of demons had imagined that their devilish practices would be less likely to be detected from the fast that foreigners would not be readily missed.
The Illustrated London News, London England, Week Ending May 14, 1842