Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
Everyone knows the saying: “You have to eat the soup you’ve made for yourself.” This idiom, used when someone is to blame for something, originates from an old dining custom. In the past, people often ate their soup with bread. As the soup was being served, everyone would tear off pieces of bread and put them into their own bowl. Therefore, everyone had to eat what they had, so to speak, brought upon themselves. The 24-year-old Johann Georg Dietrich had also brought this upon himself. Some time ago, he had taken over his parents’ farm not far from Öhringen. Upon taking over the farm, he had agreed to give half of the harvest to his parents for the rest of their lives. Now, every day, Johann Georg toiled on the farm without any help from his stubborn but robust father. He worked incredibly hard to provide for himself, his wife and children, and his parents. Instead of gratitude, however, he reaped only the scorn of his hot-tempered father. Arguments with his father broke out time and again. This was also the case on Thanksgiving Day 1817, when his wife and children had gone to Öhringen for the harvest festival. Once again, he had to stay home to toil in the fields. His anger toward his father grew steadily, and so Johann Georg decided to poison his father with arsenic to finally be rid of him. He had originally bought the poison to control rats, but this odorless and tasteless white powder was ideal for the perfect murder. While his mother was heating soup for his father on the stove and had to step out of the kitchen briefly to fetch bread from the pantry, Johann Georg seized the opportunity and mixed arsenic into the soup. He then went out to work in the yard. Suddenly, he heard his mother’s cries of pain. He rushed into the kitchen. She was complaining of severe stomach cramps that had come on after she tasted the soup. Johann Georg was now told to try it as well. If he, too, got cramps, then the soup was spoiled. Johann Georg tasted a small spoonful of the soup. But he experienced neither cramps nor pain. His mother went to bed because she felt unwell, so Johann Georg served the soup to his father, who ate it with relish. But after a short time, his father also complained of cramps and vomited incessantly. Six hours after eating the soup, he was dead. Johann Georg’s mother also did not survive the soup; she too died. Since Johann Georg was afraid of being exposed as a poisoner, he had not called a doctor. When the neighbors learned of his parents’ sudden death, they alerted the police. This was because Johann Georg’s mother had mentioned before her death that she had felt so ill after tasting the soup. It was no secret that Johann Georg often quarreled with his father. That is why the neighbors immediately believed that he was responsible for his parents’ deaths. The autopsy clearly established that Anna and Michael Dietrich had been poisoned with arsenic. Their only son, Johann Georg, quickly came under the investigators’ scrutiny, and they took him to the prison in Öhringen on strong suspicion of the crime. Even on the way there, Johann Georg confessed to the poisoning of his parents. He repeated this confession before Criminal Inspector Mergentheim, who forwarded the files to the judges in Ellwangen. Johann Georg Dietrich was sentenced to death by the judges for the poisoning of his father Michael and the manslaughter of his mother Anna by poisoning. Johann Georg Dietrich was then taken to the place of execution. There, he was broken on the wheel; his head was impaled on a spike, and his crushed body was then bound to a wheel. The costs for this had to be paid from the family’s estate. Johann Georg Dietrich had to face the consequences of his own actions, paying for them with his life.
