Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
A criminal case that made headlines across Germany took place in Mönchengladbach in 1952. It was 27 January when the utterly distraught 31-year-old sexton, Hans Helpenstein, reported his wife missing at the Mönchengladbach police station at around 11.35 pm. He had last seen his 30-year-old wife, Elisabeth, alive after the Sunday children’s service at around 12.30 pm. Afterwards, she had wanted to go for a walk, so she had set off towards the Alter Markt. He had then returned to the sexton’s flat at the Roman Catholic parish church of St Mary’s in the Rheydt district to check on the Sunday roast and look after their 26-month-old son, Gregor. When his wife still hadn’t returned from her walk after an hour, he began to worry. Perhaps she had gone to visit her mother, who lived in the suburb of Neuwerk, so he enquired there. But she, too, had not heard from her daughter, so Hans and his mother-in-law set out to look for Elisabeth. They phoned all their friends and acquaintances and even enquired at Mariahilf Hospital, as Elisabeth might have been the victim of an accident. But there was no sign of her. Elisabeth had vanished into thin air. Whilst his mother-in-law took charge of looking after her grandson, Hans attended the church service. Afterwards, at around 6.35 pm, he drove to Düsseldorf-Bilk. Hans had been doing this frequently of late. His wife had told her mother-in-law that Hans gave singing and piano lessons there to supplement his modest sexton’s salary of 190 DM. Following the missing person report, the police launched a major nationwide search for Elisabeth Helpenstein, which was also extended to the Soviet zone. However, the search proved fruitless. In the meantime, letters surfaced claiming that Elisabeth had allegedly been taken away from Mönchengladbach in a car. At first, no one suspected the sexton, who carried out his duties with the utmost conscientiousness. After returning from British prisoner-of-war captivity in Egypt in 1948, he had passed his sexton’s examination in Trier in church doctrine and church service with distinction. He had married Elisabeth in 1949. The marriage was regarded as a model one, its happiness crowned by the birth of their son. No one suspected that Hans had been leading a double life for some time. As early as November 1995, he had placed a coded personal ad in the Rheinische Post. In it, he stated that he was 30 years old and looking for a Catholic girl with a view to possible marriage. He failed to mention that he was already married and the father of a child. Through the advert, he met 25-year-old kitchen assistant Anni Gerholdt from Düsseldorf, to whom he introduced himself as Hans Neuhofer, an assembly supervisor. The two became a couple. That is why Hans made the trips to Düsseldorf-Bilk to meet Anni there. Until 27 January, she had not the faintest idea that Hans Neuhofer was in fact the sexton Hans Helpenstein, who had a wife and child. On that day, she had accompanied Hans in a taxi from Düsseldorf to his flat in Mönchengladbach, where she read his name and job title on the doorplate. Hans confessed everything to Anni, telling her that his wife had been missing since midday. Anni then advised him to go to the police, which Hans did half an hour before midnight. It was not until 23 April 1952 that the decomposed body of Elisabeth Helpenstein was discovered by a cleaner at around 3 pm behind the choir stalls of the Altar of St Mary in the left-hand side chapel. The parish church of St Mary was then searched meticulously. In the upper sacristy, the criminal investigation department found bloodstains and a hatchet with traces of blood, which came from the Helpensteins’ household. The police then questioned Hans Helpenstein, who finally confessed on 24 April – one day after his wife’s body was found – that on 27 January he had lured her into the small room on the upper floor, where he had then bludgeoned her to death with a hatchet. He had subsequently placed her in a steel cupboard, to which only he had a key, and in which valuable church artefacts were kept. The steel cupboard was completely odour-proof, so no smell of decomposition escaped. After the murder, Hans had forbidden the cleaning ladies from cleaning the small room. However, after Provost Ferdinand Koenen passed away on 15 April and his successor, Chaplain Retz, wished to inspect the rooms, he had retrieved the body from its hiding place in order to conceal it elsewhere. But he was interrupted, so he deposited it behind the choir stalls. Hans Helpenstein, who until then had been regarded as a model husband, was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of his wife, a sentence he served in Münster prison. Rumours circulated time and again that, shortly before Provost Koenen’s death, Hans Helpenstein had confessed the murder of his wife to him, and that Koenen had advised him to place the body where it was eventually found. The axe used to murder Elisabeth Helpenstein was returned to the parish church, where it was displayed during guided tours for many years and even used during building work, until it mysteriously vanished without a trace during the conversion of the church into the town church.
