Ramsey County History – Spring 2008: “A Whirlwind of Crimes: The Crimes and Times of Wonnigkeit and Ermisch”

A Whirlwind of Crimes: The Crimes and Times of Wonnigkeit and Ermisch
Author: Janice R. Quick

The story of two friends who ran around together and ran afoul of the law together. Both were of German ancestry. They were first arrested for burglary in 1892 and were sentenced to the St. Cloud Reformatory. When they got out, they jumped parole, went on a crime spree, and then killed a bartender in a downtown saloon. Wonnigkeit’s attorney defended him saying he was destroyed by alcohol, but the jury convicted them. A petition to commute their death sentences was signed by many prominent people who are mentioned. Aged nineteen and twenty years old, they were hanged together on a single scaffold in the Ramsey County jail on October 19, 1894, and were buried next to each other in Forest Lawn Cemetery.
PDF of Quick article