Murder of Bertha Schippan

A photograph of the Schippan family, with Matthes (second from left) and Mary (to his right), Bertha is not in the photo.  

The Schippan family was a German immigrant family living in Towitta, South Australia, Australia. They were living in a small German farming community. Among the family was 13-year-old Johanne who went by Bertha and 24/25-year-old Mary.

Their parents Mattes and Johanne left on the day of  Jan. 1, 1902 to travel to Eden Valley that was 20 km away. They left the younger children to be watched by their oldest daughter Mary. By 8 p.m. that night both girls went to bed in the cottage while the boys slept in a galvanized iron room connected to a farm shed.

Around 10 p.m. Mary awoke to something heavy on her chest. She claimed that it was a bearded man that was on top of her. She was able to break free and run to the farm shed her brothers were sleeping in.

She told them of the man and she sent one of the boys to a neighbor for help. Bertha was still in the house with the man. The neighbor the boy ran to declined to help the family so he had to run 1 km to the house of Constable Lambert. When they returned they found Bertha laying in a puddle of her own blood. She didn't get to make it to her 14th birthday that was only 15 days away.

There was no bearded man in the home. There was also no evidence of anyone breaking in to harm the girls. So the police did not believe Mary's story of what had happened that night and two months later she was put on trial.

The evidence against Mary was circumstantial. She pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors brought up the fact that Mary and 21-year-old Gustave Nitschke had been in a secret relationship for the last year. They believed Bertha knew of the relationship and threatened to tell their father. Who was described as a nasty piece of work. They believed it was possible that Gustave could have also helped with the murder, but there was no evidence.

Some believed that their father was the perpetrator of the crime. He was a mean man. He once fired a shotgun at a Nitschke boy leaving the boy to pick pellets out of his leg. But it wasn't possible with the time to travel that far by horse and be where he was that day.

Mary eventually came back to town and was known as the grey lady. She would wear a grey dress and bonnet when walking around town. She would keep her head down and didn't talk to anyone. She would eventually die in 1919 from tuberculosis

It isn't for sure known who the murderer was. Maybe it was a member of the family, but maybe there was an unknown perpetrator. Maybe Mary was able to escape a terrible fate and was left to be called a liar. No one will ever really know what happened in the home that New Years Day.


SOURCES:
Wikipedia
ABC
Find a Grave