A Damnable Dastardly Deed.

(Illustrated Police News, Feb. 15. 1879)

Molly McGlew (aka Mary McGlew) and her friend Ada McLaughlin stood on South Street in Indianapolis on the night of September 19, 1878, when Louis Guetig approached them. Molly had recently broken up with Louis, and she was not happy to see him. She worked as a dining room girl at the Spencer House hotel where Louis Guetig was the night clerk.  He was the nephew and adopted son of Henry Guetig, the hotel’s proprietor. Louis became enamored of Molly and courted her for two years. They had been engaged to marry until Molly broke it off because Louis had recently taken to drinking heavily and running with lewd women. 

He was intoxicated when he met the girls on South Street. He asked Molly to accompany him to the Spencer House to see his mother. When she refused, Louis became angry and threatened her. He did not relent until Ada advised her to go with him, and the three of them went inside the hotel. 

They went through the hotel and into the yard behind it. He asked Molly again to accompany him to see his mother, and she again refused. After a brief argument, Louis drew a five-shot revolver and fired at her. The bullet missed Molly and grazed Ada’s cheek. Molly fell to her knees and, throwing her hands in front of her face, shouted, “For God’s sake, don’t kill me!”

He fired again; the bullet nearly severed two fingers of her left hand and entered her face under the left eye. She begged for mercy, and he fired again, shouting, “God damn you, ain’t you dead yet?” The fatal shot hit her neck and severed the jugular vein and large arteries. 

Katie Collins, a waitress at the Spencer House, was in the yard and had started toward Mollie when the first shot was fired. She fell to the ground and appeared to be wounded in the thigh. It was later reported that she had not been hit but fainted out of fear.  

Police Officers Clary, Schmidt, and Case were in front of the hotel when the shots were fired. They rushed to the yard where they met Louis coming out with the revolver in his hand. He gave the pistol to Officer Clary and consented to go with them to the station house.

A reporter for the Indianapolis Daily Sentinel interviewed Louis at the station house. He told the reporter:

Well, I shot the girl, and that is all there is of it. If it had not been for persons going and talking to her about me the thing would never have happened. I bought two revolvers last Friday and went to the house where she was stopping, intending to kill her, but she was not there, and I returned to the hotel and gave up the intention of taking her life.

Yesterday, I again resolved to kill her, and borrowed a revolver of a friend and went out last night to find her. I met her and Ada McLaughlin on South Street, just east of West, and asked her to come up to the hotel and see mother…After we got in the yard, at the bottom of the stairway leading to the second story, she refused to go up and see mother, and I just thought that I might as well kill her right there.

Indianapolis had recently experienced a rash of fiendish murders, but the killing of Molly McGlew was viewed as the most cold-blooded. The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel ran the story under the headline “A Damnable Dastardly Deed.” This excerpt from a Sentinel editorial expresses the public sentiment against Louis Guetig.

Familiar as are the people with the existing depravity throughout the country manifested by murders, the recital of which defies exaggeration, we doubt if anything as diabolical as the murder of Mary McGlew by Louis Guetig has come under the notice. Taking all the circumstances into account, and grouping all the facts, the case is without parallel for cold-blooded, cruel, devilish wickedness, in the annals of Indiana crime, and we doubt if a more hideous monster than Louis Guetig could be found if all the dens of crime on the continent were ransacked for a century. The story of the terrible transaction, told in the simplest words of truth, appears absolutely incredible. A romance of hell, written by a devil damned, could not paint a more repulsive monster than Louis Guetig.

It seemed to be an open-and-shut case. Three witnesses saw the murder, and the killer confessed to the police and the press, even expressing a desire to be hanged. But when the case went to trial that November, the plea was not guilty. The defense planned to establish that Guetig’s mind was unsettled, owing to epileptic fits, and therefore he was not responsible for the murder.

The courtroom was filled to capacity during the trial. The judge and bailiffs worked hard to maintain order amid a crowd determined to express its opinions. The jury had to be locked up at night to avoid outside influences. 

After prosecution witnesses presented the facts in the case, the rest of the trial centered on Guetig’s mental state at the time of the murder. Physicians on both sides debated the difference between epilepsy and hysteria, whether Guetig could be considered insane at the time of the killing, and the effect alcohol would have on his condition.

On November 27, after nine days of testimony, the jury was given the case. They deliberated for two hours. At 6:00, they broke for dinner and immediately afterward returned their verdict: “We the jury find the defendant guilty as charged in the indictment and that he suffer death therefor.” The universal opinion was that the jury could not have ruled otherwise. 

Guetig’s attorneys moved for a new trial citing a number of errors in his trial, including the fact that one member of the jury had been part of a mob intent on lynching him. While awaiting the hearing, Guetig began to exhibit strange behavior in jail. Wearing no clothing above the waist, he would froth, rant, and bellow like a bull. The other prisoners avoided him because it was rumored that during his spasms, his bite was worse than that of a mad dog. 

Then, on December 31, two days before the hearing, he washed, dressed, and declared he could no longer play the insanity dodge. He appeared entirely rational and said he had been so from the outset. He was tired of simulating madness. In spite of this, Jailor O’Brien sat near Guetig in the courtroom to suppress him if his insanity showed signs of reappearing.

Judge Elam denied the motion for a new trial. He pronounced the sentence of death to be executed on January 29, the same day as convicted murderers John Achey and William Merrick.

The attorneys continued to appeal the sentence, arguing before the state Supreme Court. On January 27, two days before the execution, the Supreme Court reversed Judge Eman’s decision and grated Guetig a new trial. They found that the instructions of the judge in the original trial assumed to determine the force of evidence regarding epilepsy and insanity. It was the jury’s job, they said, to settle the effect of the evidence. Achey and Merrick would hang without Guetig.

Guetig’s new trial was held in June 1879. The defense found more witnesses who had firsthand experience of Guetig’s insanity, but it was not enough to sway the jury. This time it took them just ten minutes to find Guetig guilty of first-degree murder.

On September 19, 1879, a large crowd witnessed the execution of Louis Guetig outside the city jail. When asked on the gallows if he had anything to say, he read a prepared statement. Then he dropped the paper and spoke from the heart, "If there be any whom in the past I have wronged in any manner, I crave forgiveness, and if possible, their friendship in that other life where sorrow never comes."

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Sources:

“Big Medicine,” Journal and Courier, January 4, 1879.
“A Crazy Coon Owns Up,” The Cincinnati Daily Star, January 1, 1879.
“A Damnable Dastartly Deed,” The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, September 20, 1878.
“Followed His Victim ,” Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, September 20, 1879.
“Guestig and Gates,” The Indianapolis News, December 27, 1878.
“The Guetig Case,” The Indianapolis News, January 28, 1879.
“The Guetig Case ,” Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, November 19, 1878.
“Guetig Must Hang,” The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, November 28, 1878.
“The Guetig Trial,” The Indianapolis News, November 20, 1878.
“Guetig's Case - The Motion for a New Trial,” The Indianapolis News, January 2, 1879.
“Guetig's Defense ,” Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, June 6, 1879.
“Guetig's Insanity,” The Indianapolis News, January 1, 1879.
“Guetig's Trial,” The Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, November 26, 1878.
“Indianapolis,” The Cincinnati Enquirer, November 19, 1878.
“The Indianapolis Hanging,” The Madison Courier, January 7, 1879.
“Miss Mollie McGlew, the Murdered Victim of Louis Guetig,” Illustrated Police News, February 15, 1879.
“Murder in Indianapolis,” Indianapolis Daily Sentinel, September 21, 1878.
“Sentenced,” Chicago Tribune, January 5, 1879.
“Sentenced to Die,” Journal, June 15, 1879.
“Will There be a Hanging on the 29th?,” The Indianapolis News, January 11, 1879.