On this date in 1901, Miss Anna Heinrich was spending the weekend with her aunt and uncle on their farm south of Wahpeton. She had come from Germany two years earlier when she was 15 years old. She got work in the home of Sheriff "Doc" Moody's family in Wahpeton. She was described as a remarkably well-behaved, clever and, handsome girl who made friends with everyone she met, and sang in the Lutheran choir.
Claus Fischer, age 32, having learned that Anna was coming to Dakota, became obsessed with the idea she would become his wife. He worked on the farm of Deedrick Deede, half a mile from the Heinrich's place. Mrs. Deede was a sister of Anna's aunt. He was considered a good worker, but continually bothered Anna with his attentions and talk of marriage.
It was reported that "He was annoying and obnoxious to the girl and out of sheer weariness and the hope to get rid of the persistent idiot, told him one day that, yes, she would marry him, hoping that she would get a rest and finally find some way to get rid of him."
Fischer had come to the Sheriff's residence in Wahpeton one evening to see Anna, who shrank at the sight of him and told Mrs. Moody she wanted nothing to do with him. Sheriff Moody was called, went out and found Fischer, and told him of Anna's feelings and asked him to stay away from her. Fischer promised to do so, but Anna said when she left the Moody home for the weekend that she expected him to bother her again.
She had promised her aunt and uncle she would help with the harvest that weekend and planned to return to the Moody household on Sunday. Fischer apparently sneaked out during the night Friday and skulked about awaiting an opportunity to see Anna. Saturday morning, Mr. Deede, finding Fischer absent, went over to the Heinrich place but didn't find him.
As soon as everyone but Anna left the Heinrich house, a shot was heard. The Heinrichs hurried back to find that Anna had been shot in the back of her head. Fischer sat on the granary steps with his hand on the lower part of his face which seemed to be wounded. He turned the shotgun on himself and blew his own head off.
The newspaper reviled Fischer at length, repeatedly referring to him as "the semblance of a man," a "tiresome idiot," and so forth, "with a mind so perverted" that a naturally kind and sensitive young woman would only feel sorry for him.
The crime reminded people of a similar murder, when another hired girl was killed by an obsessed man at a previous Sheriff's residence and lynched by an angry mob. Sheriff Moody himself was killed by an insane man some years later. The pursuing posse shot him dead.
Dakota Datebook by Lise Erdrich
Sources:
- The Wahpeton Times, August 22, 1901, Page 1
- Sheriff Geo. E. Moody Shot and Killed. The Wahpeton Times, Volume XXXV Number 40, Thursday, December 14, 1911
- LOCAL NEWS. A FIENDISH MURDER. The Wahpeton Times, Vol. 10. Wahpeton, Richland Co., Dakota, Thursday, July 26, 1888
