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Terror grew in the tragedy which shadowed over the residence of Anton Fischer in Newport, Kentucky during July 1919. Ghouls exhumed the body of his pretty fifteen-year-old daughter Clara, who had died from appendicitis. They snatched the body from its grave in St. Stephen’s Cemetery near the Alexandria Pike at Fort Thomas, Kentucky on the night of her burial. They later replaced her body back into the opened grave site.
This all led to talk about a mysterious “woman in black” who stalked through the gloomy chapters like a spirit from an evil world, and her accomplices who were believed to have violated the resting place of the dead. The detective bureau began investigating the crime. They noted a gray automobile was seen near the cemetery by several men just about the same time the mysterious woman in black frightened away the sexton.
A pin was taken from the shroud—or the cloth used to hold the body in place known among undertakers as a ‘body napkin’—and had been removed. There were stains and mud on the clothing, mostly the stockings and slippers. The body had been mistreated much to the fears of the Fischer family. It was placed back into the coffin, lid closed, with the grave still open.
The girl’s left arm was broken, presumably when the body was exhumed by the ghouls in the silence of the night and dragged to the shelter of a tree several yards away from the grave. A match found in the grave was yet another clue.
Detectives were also confronted with the problem of trying to explain the disappearance of a white lily that was place at the burial in the hands of Clara Fischer. It was believed the mysterious woman possessed either an insane desire, or religious fanaticism to enter the cemetery in the still hours of the night to disturb the rest of the dead in its grave.
They made plans to exhume the body a second time to determine the extent of its mistreatment at the hands of the ghouls according to the theory of the detectives. Fred Blye, the sexton, told how he was frightened from the cemetery at 9:00 PM one evening by the sudden appearance of the “woman in black” at his side while he was digging another grave several hundred yards from the grave of Clara Fischer.
Wearing a black robe of mourning and a curious hat, which reminded him of “the devil’s cap and bells” she told him her late visit to be for mourning a dead relative. Blye dropped his tools, quickly left the cemetery, and returned the following morning. He found the shovel, its handle broken, the spade and the pick—all tools of the professional gravediggers, lying beside the open grave of Clara Fischer.
Witnesses had various descriptions of the mysterious woman. Her peculiar hat, it was said, was of black straw. Persons living near the cemetery said they recognized the description of the woman and saw a likeness of her proceeding toward the cemetery. They claimed she was dressed all in white instead of wearing the three-cornered black hat and dress of mourning.
This was the most unusual crime in the annuals of Kentucky since the murder of Pearl Bryan, whose body was found within a mile of the scene of the ghoul’s operations. The topic was on everyone’s tongue in the neighborhood and surrounding countryside. Hundreds of curious sightseers visited St. Stephens Cemetery and haunted the outskirts of the part of the graveyard containing Clara Fischer’s grave which had been refilled. Souvenir hunters carried away twigs of trees, and clods of earth from the cemetery property.
The detectives questioned many suspects in the case. One of them was a man—a deformed hunchback named Henry Saalwachter—the former grave digger at the cemetery. The man stood just over five feet tall and had never married. Saalwachter was arrested but later acquitted.
Possibility that there might be accomplices in the desecration of the grave other than the “woman in black” and a man who may have been hired by her to open Clara Fischer’s grave added to the theories which many people entertained regarding the motives of the ghastly crime. A Newport woman who suffered from deformities had been told by a fortune teller that a deformity of the kind could be cured if rubbed with a cloth or rag taken from the attire of a dead person.
Detectives continued to question several men who were seen near the cemetery and remained on the lookout for the gray automobile to unravel the crime. Witnesses also noted they saw two men wearing clay-stained khaki trousers on the Three Mile Creek road about 100 yards where the grave was opened. They were about 25 years old, wore white shirts and straw hats. They avoided his gaze as slowed down his horse when he drove past them. Were they the grave robbers? The case remains unsolved.
St Stephen’s Catholic Church Cemetery
1523 Alexandria Pike
Ft Thomas KY 41075
Debe Branning has been the director of the MVD Ghostchasers–a Mesa/Bisbee, AZ based paranormal team since 1994. The team conducts investigations of haunted, historical locations throughout Arizona and has offered paranormal workshop/investigations since 2002. Debe has been a guest lecturer at Ottawa University, Central Arizona College, Arizona State University, Scottsdale Community College, and South Mountain Community College. She has been a speaker at science fiction conventions such as Phoenix ComiCon, CopperCon, FiestaCon, HauntedCon and AZParacon. Debe has been the guest speaker at many historical societies and libraries talking about historic/haunted Arizona.
She has appeared in an episode of “Streets of Fear” for FearNet.com which aired October 2009 and on an episode of TRAVEL CHANNEL’S “Ghost Stories” about haunted Jerome, Arizona in July 2010. She recently appeared as an extra in the 2017 horror movie “The Covenant”. She enjoys assisting in the research field for various Travel Channel TV shows such as ‘Ghost Stories’, ‘Haunted Highway’, and ‘Deadly Possessions’ and MTV’s ‘Fear’. She has traveled, toured and investigated at haunted locations across the United States, England, Scotland, Ireland and Mexico.
Debe is the author of “Sleeping With Ghosts-A Ghost Hunter’s Guide to AZ’s Haunted Hotels and Inns” (2004), “Grand Canyon Ghost Stories” (2012), “The Graveyard Shift–Arizona’s Historic and Haunted Cemeteries” (2012), “Dining With the Dead–Arizona’s Historic and Haunted Restaurants and Cafes” (2017) and a series of three children’s books, “The Adventures of Chickolet Pigolet: 1. “The Bribe of Frankenbeans” —-2. “Murmur on the Oink Express” —-3. “You Ought to be in Pig-tures”. For 7 years Debe penned 3 columns for Examiner.com titled: “Phoenix Travel Adventures,” “Arizona Haunted Sites” and “Haunted Places” so travelers could know where they might find a ghost or two when they visited Arizona and the United States. She was the Managing Editor of “Paranormal Investigator Magazine.” As a paranormal travel writer, Debe traveled to Europe to cover haunted castles, jails, ships, inns, cemeteries and ghost walking tours. She has been the guest of several US tourism departments such as Carlsbad, Historic Hotels of the Rockies, Salem, and Biloxi.
Debe is a preservation activist with a special interest in preserving historic cemeteries. She is on the board of directors of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association and the Arizona Genealogical Advisory Board. She is also one of the co-hosts of the Association of Gravestones Studies in Arizona.
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