He said He Was Going To Kill me And My Baby

Katherine and Paul Eberle

Paul Eberle was crazy. No one questioned that.

His chauffeur, Harry Schultz, heard Eberle tell his wife, “I don’t see why I don’t kill you, Katherine.”

Schultz watched Paul Eberle threaten the lives of his wife and child again and again. Once, he saw Eberle on the edge of killing himself. Another time, he said, “I’m going down in the basement to cut my arteries.”

Schultz and Katherine followed Eberle downstairs and watched him sit in a chair next to the furnace with a razor blade pressed to his wrist.

Eberle had many strange obsessions and addictions. He was a cigarette fiend, buying them in boxes by the tens of thousands. He drank coffee constantly and used drugs. His moods swung so fast, you never knew how he’d act.

Others noticed it too. John McDonnell said Eberle acted like a man with a permanent chip on his shoulder, ready to do battle at any time.

His maid, Goldie Ligon, said he was “just crazy. He flew into rages over little things and got red and blue like something wild.”

Katherine Eberle and her son, Paul

Eberle told Charles Bailey that if he ever caught his wife dancing, “he’d go right out on the floor and kill both her and the man.” The only way Bailey could describe Eberle’s personality was “a little queer.” At motels, he slept fully clothed, like he might need to move on a moment’s notice. His personality was explosive, and you never knew what to expect. One moment he was the perfect gentleman, and the next—he was full on crazy.

His behavior at the Hotel Fort Des Moines was no better. E. H. Wood, the supervisor of service, said Eberle was always drunk and abusive to guests and to the help. One time, Wood caught him holding his baby by the ankle. When questioned, Eberle said it was necessary to “show the women what you want.”

Neighbors described the marriage as strange, tense, and frightening. Paul Eberle frequently threatened his wife. His favorite pastime was taking her for rides late at night, stopping the car somewhere dark, and refusing to take her home.

Threats were commonplace. Everyone around them had a story about the time Paul Eberle threatened his wife or child, especially if he’d had a few drinks. Most people steered clear of him after he’d had a few.

By the end of December 1922, Katherine felt the threats closing in on her. On New Year’s Eve, Paul attacked Katherine inside their home and threatened to kill her. When she tried to call the police, he cut the wire.

On New Year’s Day, 1923, the couple left their Des Moines home, driving toward Oskaloosa. Katherine said they were going to get medical treatment for her husband.

The Eberle house at 4015 Woodland Avenue in Des Moines

That night, they stayed at the home of Charles Bailey. Mrs. Bailey said he threatened Katherine continuously. “All of us were afraid to have them go on and urged them to stay overnight.” Paul Eberle flew into a rage at the smallest thing. He drank three pots of coffee with supper and swallowed a handful of aspirins, saying he regularly took 25 to 30 a day.

Later, Mrs. Bailey told the police, Katherine said, “She was afraid to leave him, for he had threatened to kill her if she ever should.”

Along the way, they stopped in Ottumwa to eat, but Paul wouldn’t let her leave the car. “You don’t need anything to eat,” he said. “In an hour, you’ll both be dead.”

The threats continued as the miles passed. Just before they reached Oskaloosa, he turned to her and said, “You and the baby will never reach Oskaloosa.”

Six miles southeast of town, near Cedar, the ride ended.

Katherine Eberle fired four shots from a small automatic pistol. The bullets struck Paul Eberle in the neck and head. He ditched the car before passing out.

Katherine grabbed her baby and ran to a nearby farm owned by Clyde and Maude Perkins.

“I have shot my husband,” she said. “He was going to kill me. He was going to kill my baby. He let go of the wheel and reached for his gun, and I grabbed it.”

The Des Moines Tribune told the story of a woman beaten down by her husband’s frequent abuse.

“How far should a wife endure a husband’s cruelty?” they asked.

“’It had to be! It had to be!’

“Sobbing these four words over and over in a low moan, Mrs. Paul L. Eberele, who admits she killed her husband here yesterday afternoon, walks back and forth in the Abbott Hospital her today.

“’It had to be; he said he’d kill Junior, then me.’”

Juror Belle Wilson

They closed the article saying she was in a state of collapse.

That might have been what happened, but when Irv Garland and Will Head examined Eberle’s jacket at the funeral home, they found a gun in the left pocket of his overcoat. When the Sheriff arrested Katherine later that night, she said she kept the gun handy and carried it in her handbag. It was a small Spanish .25 caliber automatic for which she didn’t have a permit.

Katherine had Maude Perkins call Mrs. Dressel who drove her into the city. Clyde Perkins went to check on Paul Eberle and drove him to the hospital.

Leland Lyons found Eberle still alive in the car. “The blood was running out of his mouth,” he said, “and the wound on his neck and the back of his head, and he was kind of mumbling.” When Lyons asked who had shot him, Eberle said, “I won’t tell.” Asked again, he said, “No. I won’t do it.”

Paul Eberle died shortly after arriving at the hospital.

Katherine Eberle was charged with murder for the shooting of her husband, Paul, 45, a wealthy Des Moines stockbroker.

The jury—eleven farmers and one woman—deliberated for five and a half hours before finding her not guilty of murder. They believed she had acted in self-defense. When the verdict was read, Katherine Eberle fell to the floor in a dead faint.

Afterward, Belle Wilson, the only woman on the jury, explained the decision.

“I didn’t believe she was guilty of murder. I felt all through the trial that she had been grievously wronged by her husband and that she was not a criminal.”

The next year, Katherine Eberle sued the International Life Insurance Company for failing to pay her husband’s $29,000 policy. She settled for $5,000.