Christa Lehmann

Christa Lehmann
Born	Christa Ambros 1923 Worms, Germany
Conviction(s)	Murder
Criminal penalty	Life imprisonment; released after 23 years
Details
Victims	3
Span of crimes	1952–1954
Country	West Germany

Christa Lehmann (née Ambros; born 1922) was a German serial killer.

Early life

Lehmann was born Christa Ambros in Worms in 1923. Her mother suffered from mental illness and was institutionalized for life in the Alzey psychiatric hospital during Lehmann's adolescence. The hospital participated in Aktion T4, the Nazi-era mass murder of psychiatric patients, but the fate of Lehmann's mother is unknown. Her father was an alcoholic and neglected her as a child.

Murders

She married Karl Franz Lehmann in 1944, who died unexpectedly on 27 September 1952 within a half hour of violent convulsions. The doctor determined the cause of death as peptic ulcer disease. On 14 October 1953, her father-in-law, Valentin Lehmann, fell clinically dead from his bicycle during a trip to the city. The doctor summoned by passers-by diagnosed the death as heart failure.

Lehmann became friends with Annie Hamann, a war widow who lived with her mother Eva Ruh, her brother Walter, and her 9-year-old daughter. On 14 February 1954, Lehmann came to visit, bringing five chocolate mushrooms with liquor filling. She shared four of the chocolates with Hamann, her brother, and a neighbour who happened to be around, the fifth being offered to Ruh who politely declined it and put it aside.

The next day Annie came home, found the praline in the kitchen cupboard, bit into it, swallowed part, and spat the other half out disgusted on the floor. The family dog ate the rest of the praline. Shortly later, Annie paled, stumbled, and said she could no longer see anything. She staggered into the bedroom, accompanied by her mother, and lay plagued on the bed. She lost consciousness and Ruh sought help. When the doctor called by the neighbours arrived, Annie was already dead, as was the dog in the kitchen. After describing the events, the doctor informed the police.

Conviction

Annie's body was brought to the forensic institute in Mainz. After long investigations (inter alia on strychnine), Professor Kurt Wagner tested Annie's stomach contents on the plant protection product E605, a poison that had been invented in Germany but was at that time primarily used in the United States. The poisoning effect was very similar to that of hydrogen cyanide. By that time, however, there had been no proven case of murder or suicide using E605 - the 168 cases of poisoning documented in the United States until 1953 were due to gross negligence and were rather mild, with the exception of nine cases. Therefore, there was no standard method to prove E605 forensically.

Lehmann was arrested and interrogated. On 23 February she confessed; that the poison had not been intended for Annie but for her mother. On 19 March, the bodies of Karl Franz and Valentin were exhumed. Both showed signs of E605. On 20 September 1954, Lehmann's trial began. She was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1971, she was transferred to the women's prison in Frankfurt. After 23 years of prison, she was released and lived freely under a new identity.

See also

• List of German serial killers

Literature

• Jürgen Thorwald: The century of detectives. Path and adventure of criminalistics. Volume 3: Handbook for poisoners. Droemer Knaur, Munich u. a. 1968, (Several Editions).
• Stephan Harbort: The serial killer principle. What forces people to evil? Droste publishing house, Düsseldorf 2006, ISBN 3-7700-1221-6.
• Ernst Klee: Christa Lehmann. The confession of the poisoner. Krüger, Frankfurt am Main 1977, ISBN 3-8105-1002-5.

External links

• [Deutschlandradio – ein Interview zum Thema Giftmord Deutschlandradio - an interview on poisoning]
• Literature by and about Christa Lehmann in the German National Library catalogue
• Article by Ernst Klee on Christa Lehmann: The story of the poison killer in the weekly Die Zeit