Reason First: The Killer Sausage Maker

To claim one’s innocence after specific and indisputable evidence had surfaced took gall. For convicted murderer Adolph Louis Luetgert, he died in jail maintaining his guiltlessness. The “Mr. Lover,” who charmed concubines while still married and without his second wife’s approval, worked as the head of a sausage making factory.

Luetgert claimed to his children Louis and Elmer Paul ages eleven and five, respectively, that he had enlisted the help of a private detective to find their mother. Family members sensed that something smelled as bad as rotting meat about the sausage maker’s story.

Police investigated the matter further and found grim results. In one of the vats used for manufacturing meat, teeth, bone and two engraved rings surfaced.

Even one of Luetgert’s mistresses attested to the thought that the man had wanted to dispatch his wife by crushing her. Law enforcement officials figured that Louisa Luetgert received stab wounds and that Luetgert flopped her into a vat filled with potash.

Now, with this case, the idea should not be placed on the fact that he had so many women in his life that he treated romantically but the fact that he was a bloody murderer. If he had been upfront about his infidelities, he would have been able to visit and please as many women as he wanted with Louisa’s consent. This is a story about honesty, essentially.

Luetgert was a monster for his butchering his wife but it all started with his lies. And not just the ones he told Louisa or the string of lies that he told his mistresses. It started with him lying to himself. Everything that he did started with an evasion from reality.

Instead of recognizing the facts and truth, Luetgert brought out the venomous side within himself. A single lie was like a piece of tainted meat. The longer that it lingered, it became even more contaminated. Then more lies piled up until the man surrounded himself in dishonesty.

A vat to dispatch his wife seemed like the only solution to all of his moral failures. He felt. He emoted. Luetgert wanted to rid himself of what he saw as the blockage between him cavorting with various women. His business almost stood in near shambles because of Luetgert’s refusal to follow Louisa’s guidance to diversify his investments.

The weak man could not handle the idea of a woman and his wife at that influencing his enterprises. A man of no ego or ability to further his purpose as a businessman led to his ruin.

For all the sausage that he produced he couldn’t escape the clutches of the law. Luetgert could’ve been a respected entrepreneur rather than a murderous beast. Second wife Louisa tried her best to guide her husband down a more profitable route. He wasn’t having it. Because of his insecurities as a male, Luetgert couldn’t handle being truthful. He concocted in his head a way to rid himself of his wife. With potash, the “sausage-king” found a way to murder and do away with Louisa. He claimed that the bones and teeth found at the bottom of the vat that he put Louisa’s body in remained the remains of animals. But what about the rings with “LL” engraved on one of them? How many animals traverse the earth with fine jewelry on their hooves?

And to maintain his innocence is the real issue. Once again, the lying to himself may have played a role in his relatively early death due to degenerative heart disease. He lasted in prison only a little over a year. The psychological toll might’ve caused the physical demise of Luetgert. Such conjecture doesn’t hide the facts.

If he had been honest with himself, the lothario and sausage maker may have had a better life.