Carl Wanderer

Carl Otto Wanderer (1887-1921) was a murderer famous for what became known as "The Case of the Ragged Stranger", wherein he murdered his wife Ruth, and a drifter named Al Watson, in a bizarre plot to kill his wife so he could be with his homosexual lover, known only as "James". The case was cracked in large part by famed Chicago-based reporter and future screenwriter Ben Hecht, of the "Chicago Daily News" and reporter and future playwright Charles MacArthur of the "Chicago Examiner".

Biographical Information

Wanderer was born the son of German immigrants in Chicago in 1887. Though he dropped out of school before he reached high school, Wanderer was a hard-worker and began saving up money. By his twenties he and his father were running a successful butcher's shop.

Wanderer enlisted in the Illinois Cavalry and served under John Pershing in the latter's Punitive Expedition against Villa in 1916. He served with distinction and became a lieutenant in the regular Army, seeing heavy action on the Western Front in World War I. He was heavily decorated and was considered one of America's most prestigious war heroes when he returned home to Illinois.

In late 1919, he married twenty-year old Ruth Johnson, and the two moved in with Ruth's parents. Ruth became pregnant; reportedly, Wanderer became despondent upon hearing the news and became distant towards his family.

The Shooting

On June 21, 1920, Wanderer and his wife were returning home from a movie when shots rang out in the hallway of the Johnson apartment. Ruth's mother heard the shots and rushed to the scene, finding Wanderer pummelling the body of a man in ragged clothing with his gun. Ruth lay dying with several shots in her chest, and reportedly said "My baby is dead" before dying. According to Wanderer's account, the man had been lying in wait in their apartment, presumably to rob them, and Wanderer drew his military service pistol -- a Colt M1911 -- and exchanged fire with the intruder. Wanderer killed the assailant, but his wife was killed by the shooter, who was not immediately identified.

The case became a cause celebre, with extensive press coverage. The public expressed outrage that Wanderer -- a war hero who was expecting a child -- would be set upon and have his pregnant wife killed. Wanderer was praised for his bravery in defending his wife.

Investigation

Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, initially working independently, both began to unravel Wanderer's story within weeks. Hecht's first clue was a police photograph of the two weapons used in the shooting. Both were virtually identitical Colt M1911's. Hecht thought it odd that a man who appeared to be a penniless vagrant -- he had less than $5 on his person when found -- would carry such an expensive weapon which was not widely available to the public at the time, instead of selling it. MacArthur came to a similar conclusion and came to find that the stranger's weapon had been sold to Wanderer's cousin Fred several years earlier.

Hecht had interviewed Wanderer several times before, and had become friendly with him. He went to talk to Wanderer, presumably to clear up the confusion about the guns, but was struck by Wanderer's happy and seemingly impassive manner just days after his wife's murder. While visiting Wanderer's restroom, Hecht found articles of women's clothing in a bathrobe and stumbled across several love letters which had been written by Wanderer to a man called "James". Along with MacArthur, Hecht took his suspicions to the police, and Wanderer was called in for questioning.

Wanderer initially denied the charge, saying that the stranger's gun was not his, but one that had been part of a mass arms shipment by the Army to a training camp he'd been in during the war. However, Hecht learned during the police interrogation that Ruth Wanderer had withdrawn $1500 from her bank account the morning of the killing - and later, at Wanderer's house, found the money in question.

Confession and Conviction

Wanderer continued to deny the charge until Hecht told him that "James" was coming down to the station to meet him. Wanderer then confessed that he had committed the crime. He told the police that he was indeed a closeted homosexual and had married his wife only for money. After he found out Ruth was pregnant, Wanderer hired a vagrant named Al Watson as part of a bizarre scheme. He told Watson that his relationship with his wife was deteriorating, and he wanted stage a fight with Watson to prove himself a hero to Ruth. When Watson showed up at the apartment, however, Wanderer shot both him and his wife with the two Colts and staged it so that Ruth's mother would think Watson had killed Ruth.

Wanderer was convicted after two trials, and was executed on September 30, 1921. He sang "Dear Old Pal O' Mine" before being hanged, causing MacArthur to remark, "That son-of-a-bitch should have been a song plugger."

Sources

Books

Nash, Jay Robert. "Bloodletters and Badmen: A Narrative Encyclopedia of American Criminals From the Pilgrims to the Present". 1973.

Online
* [http://members.aol.com/KSchessler/wizzr.html Unusual Guide to Chicago] - includes info on various famous Chicago criminals, including Wanderer.

An Alternative Version?

In chapter 1 (entitled "CARL WANDERER") of his 2007 book "Murder City", Michael Lesy gives a VERY different account of the Ragged Stranger Case than the one Jay Robert Nash told. In his version: a)there was some question both about Wanderer's sanity and about the voluntariness and validity of his confession; b)the love interest that alledgedly provided Wanderer his motive was not a man named James, but a sixteen or seventeen year old girl named Julia Schmitt who lived across the street from Wanderer's father's butcher shop to whom Wanderer wrote love letters and took to Riverview Park. Schmitt is said to have testified in the second trial (the one where Wanderer was sentenced to be hanged) and the prosecutor was said to have stormed "Kisses for Julia; bullets for Ruth" in his summation;and c)the Ragged stranger himself was never positively identified - the most credible possibilities apparently being John Barrett, a former Canadian Soldier who disappeared from Chicago's skid row that same day or being Eddie Ryan, whose mother was a homeless washerwoman named Nellie Ryan who had given him years earlier to a farmer to raise and then identified his body.

Lesy, Michael, "Muder City: the Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties" W.W.Norton & Company, Inc. 2007.