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Maria Magdalena Kohler |
VICTIMS : 2+ |
It was as unlikely a scenario as even the most fertile mind of a crime-fiction writer could dream up. Imagine a quiet country road; this one leads alongside the woodland outside Singen, Germany, to the shores of Lake Constance on the border with Switzerland. On Saturday 12 July 1986, an early morning walker came across a small Volkswagen parked by the side of the lane. Nothing unusual in that - there are, after all, quite a lot of small Volkswagens in Germany. It was the plastic tube leading from the exhaust through the driver's window that caught Herr Egger's bright eye. Uncommon enough, as were the crosses painted on the door panels. But in opening the door, the unfortunate fellow staggered back, not only from the effects of the smell of decomposing flesh, but from the fact that the occupants were dressed in black robes with carved crosses hanging round their necks. Priests?! They were not priests, as the police summoned by Herr Egger discovered. They were twenty-one-year-old Jose Ferrero and seventeen-year-old Patrick Heilmann, members of a local offbeat sect calling themselves the International Association for the Preservation of World Peace; who just happened to affect the habits of priests. And when detectives visited the cult's headquarters (called Noah's Ark) in Erzbergstrasse, they found it inhabited by similarly robed individuals under the direct control of a woman the devotees knew as 'Holy Mother'. So far there was nothing to contradict the obvious explanation of a suicide pact, and the case was shelved. It was a piece of strange coincidence, supported by shrewd police work, that finally made the link between the deaths of Ferrero and Heilmann, late of the IAPWP, and the leader of that group, 'Holy Mother'. A certain Frau Anna Wermuthshauser, a sixty-six-year-old widow, disappeared from her expensive home in 1982. Although the house was locked and barred and the services had been disconnected at the owner's request, Frau Wermuthshauser continued to be fleetingly seen around the Erzbergstrasse for a few months. And she had taken to wearing black clothing - only black clothing; and wearing a cross. It was this connection that led the Singen police team back to Erzbergstrasse and the International Association for the Preservation of World Peace. And to the Holy Mother, now identified as Maria Magdalena Kohler. A check of police records showed that Frau Kohler had quite a history of religious' activity. She and a male partner named Josef Stocker had once been involved in running a very suspect group in Switzerland and had acquired quite a name for themselves as exorcists. At least once, in May 1966, the subject of the exorcism died. Despite trying to shift the blame on to God who, they claimed, instructed them, Kohler and Stocker were convicted by a court and sentenced to ten years apiece. On their release, Stocker founded another sect on his own, and so did Maria Magdalena. It began to make the Ferrero and Heilmann suicides look distinctly suspicious, and the 'disappearance' of Frau Wermuthshauser too. It was on 7 February 1988 that the mystery of Erzbergstrasse was eventually solved. Quite out of the blue one of the followers of IAPWP had telephoned police headquarters to announce that somebody had died there. When detectives arrived they found the Holy Mother and another crone, who turned out to be her sister, taking a leisurely breakfast, while several disciples prayed. One of them led officers down lo the basement chapel where they found the pitiful remains of Anna Wermuthshauser. The poor woman remained tied naked to the altar, her almost skeletal body unrecognisable from years of continual beatings. Once the story had been prised out of the inhabitants of Noah's Ark, it proved as ghastly a tale as any of those case-hardened detectives had ever heard. Frau Wermuthshauser had joined the sect in 1982 - which is why she disappeared from her house. It was indeed her who had been seen in black robes around Erzbergstrasse. However, the Holy Mother became convinced that her new convert was possessed by devils and sought, with regular beatings and privations, to banish them. Sadly for Frau Wermuthshauser the imps proved stubborn, and even following five years of increasingly violent treatment they had not been exercised. Eventually, of course, the victim died; indeed, it was a matter of great surprise that she had not succumbed earlier. Maria Magdalena never stood trial - she was considered far too mad, and was committed to an institution. As for the faithful of the struggle for World Peace, they too escaped justice as it was thought that they had become so brainwashed that they no longer were responsible for their actions. It remains unexplained why the two unfortunate disciples took their own lives, though with hindsight it may have had something to do with guilt - guilt at not exposing the terrible, torture being suffered by Anna Wermuthshauser. This tale comes from The Encyclopedia of Occult and Supernatural Murder by Brian Lane (Headline, London, 1995) |
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MY OPINION The fact that I don’t believe in God or Satan makes this a case that I strongly believe to be one of murder. That said, some nutters out there may actually believe this woman was providing a service, but it's a service I could personally do without. Actually I doubt that any of you could be stupid enough to believe that the Holy Mother was anything but a fucking psycho. I do actually believe that she was insane though. That’s what makes this whole thing so sad, she herself had been brainwashed to believe there was a God and Satan. Those fucking Christians, Jews and Muslims have a lot to answer for. But, apart for that moralising, I reckon this is one great murderous cult. It’s a shame that Jonestown and the Manson Family get all the credit. |
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