They Caught Him With His Pants Falling Down

Whynak Johann

Every murder story starts with a question. This one has three: Where does love end? Where does insanity begin? And why do they always live in a rented room above someone named Bessie?

 In 1910, Whynak Johann married Marie in Vienna, Austria. He was built like a bull—five-nine, 190 pounds, all muscle. She was tiny, ninety-five pounds soaking wet, with a face that said, I could survive anything except this marriage.

 

Two weeks in, he marched off with the Austrian Army. Marie got sick and went home to her parents. When Whynak returned, she was living with her ex-boyfriend, Franzl Hervieu. Most people would take the hint. Whynak didn’t.

 

In 1913, moved to Davenport, Iowa, and got a job at Kohl’s Packing Company, making $2.50 a day turning animals into dinner. He sent for Marie. To his shock—she came.

 

They rented a two-room apartment at 1226½ Harrison Street for a dollar a month from Bessie Estess. Marie took in boarders; Whynack brought home paychecks. Love in the immigrant slums—cheap beer, sausage smells, and dreams of not freezing to death.

 

Then Franzl showed up. Again.

 “He got a room just a few doors down,” Whynak said, like he couldn’t believe the universe hated him that much. “I suspected him from the start.”

 

Neighbors said they heard fighting almost every night. Not the “marriage is work” kind of fighting. The “someone’s throwing furniture” kind. Marie didn’t complain about the beatings. She complained about being hungry. “All I have had to eat today is a little fish and one cup of coffee,” she told the police. So they arrested Whynak for disturbing the peace.

 

The next day, The Davenport Democrat and Leader ran the headline: COUPLE KISS AND MAKE UP. Which is newspaper code for “someone’s going to die soon.”

 

Whynak Johann and his wife, Marie

Two weeks later, Whynak filed for divorce. He accused her of cheating with—you guessed it—Franzl. Saturday night was supposed to be their last under the same roof.

He got home from work around nine, sweaty and tired. She wasn’t there. He bought a nickel’s worth of beer and went back upstairs. Marie came in and asked for a glass. He gave her one. Then she asked him to carry the mattress downstairs. To her lover’s room.

 

He stared at her. “Where am I going to sleep?”

 

She pointed at the floor. When he hesitated, she threatened to call the police.

 

That was it.

 

“I pushed her over on the bed,” he said. “I struck her many times. I was crazy mad. I didn’t hardly know what I was doing.”

 

The neighbors heard the screams.

 

Agnes Bentley ran to the back stairs. “I saw her tottering down, her head hanging on one side,” she said. “She bumped against a tree, fell over the railing, then crawled toward her door and fell dead against it.”

 

Mrs. Nelson fainted. A fireman down the street heard the screams, saw a man running, pants half-off, and gave chase. “He couldn’t go fast,” the man said. “He was holding up his trousers with one hand.”

 

The police caught Whynak in the alley. The knife was gone. The woman was dead. Her throat had been cut so deeply the undertaker said her head “hung by a shred of flesh.”

 

The newspapers had a field day. PACKINGHOUSE MAN PACKS OFF WIFE. HEAD ALMOST SEVERED IN JEALOUS RAGE.

 

Whynak told The Daily Times, “Had Franzl left my woman alone, we would be all right.” Which is not the glowing endorsement of mental stability his lawyer might’ve wanted.

 

At first, he refused an attorney. “I don’t need one. I expect only to tell the truth.” Then he realized the truth wasn’t doing him any favors and asked for M.V. Gannon, a defense lawyer with a soft spot for hopeless causes.

 

“I didn’t know I killed her until they told me,” Whynak said. “I must have been crazy.”

 

Gannon went with “temporary insanity”—the legal version of I blacked out and forgot I murdered someone.

 

The defense called witnesses who swore Marie was terrible. “She treated him like a dog,” said Andreas Haber. “Made him cook his own meals while she was out with other men.” Another neighbor said she threatened to poison him. Everyone remembered seeing her with Franzl. Or someone else. Or anyone else. It was Davenport—everyone had opinions.

 

The prosecutor, County Attorney Fred Vollmer, wasn’t having it. “If you kill a hog and drag it ten feet,” he told the jury, “that’s grand larceny and five years in prison. Manslaughter gets you eight. Are you putting the killing of a human being on the same level as hogs?”

 

Davenport wasn’t sure what shocked them more—the murder or the hog comparison.

 

Whynak took the stand. He didn’t understand his confession. The police “put the questions into my head.” Probably the same head that had just detached someone else’s.

 

The defense went philosophical. “It has been said marriages are made in heaven,” attorney C.H. Kaufmann said. “But when this man was married in Vienna, heaven could not have had a part in it.” The audience laughed. It wasn’t funny, but you know how people get when they’re uncomfortable.

 

The prosecutor closed with this: “If you don’t find him guilty of murder, you’re telling every man he doesn’t need a divorce—just a knife.”

 

The jury didn’t even finish their cigarettes before coming back: guilty. The law said ten years to life. The judge made it seventeen. Whynak didn’t appeal.

 

He walked out of the courtroom pale and quiet. The same man who once crossed an ocean for love had now crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. Bessie Estess rented out that upstairs room again. The neighborhood bar sold another pail of beer.

 

And if you’re wondering what happened to Franzl Hervieu, don’t. He moved. Which, frankly, he should’ve done years earlier.