Ed's Brush with Notoriety

In June 1920 the Chicago area was horrified by the "Case of the Raggedy Stranger": a Great War veteran and former Army lieutenant named Carl Wanderer took his pregnant wife, Ruth, out for an innocent evening at the movies; coming home, they were accosted by a raggedy stranger in the foyer of their apartment building; the stranger demanded money; both men drew handguns; shots rang out; and when it was all over, Ruth and the stranger were dead. Only Wanderer survived to tell what happened.

Within a few weeks, Wanderer confessed that he himself had set up the supposed mugging as cover for the murder of his wife, whom he wanted to be rid of. He had nothing against the stranger (who seems not to have been identified for certain) — that was just how it had to be done. And the Chicago area was even more horrified.

Among those horrified, and perplexed, was Ed Sauter, Jr., who had served with Lieutenant Wanderer in the Great War.


(Click on image to enlarge)
From the Hobart News of July 15, 1920.

I first read of this case a few years ago in Murder City: The Bloody History of Chicago in the Twenties by Michael Lesy (2007). (An interesting book; I recommend it.) Internet research turns up a somewhat different account (e.g., here and here) drawn from Bloodletters and Badmen: A Narrative Encyclopedia of American Criminals From the Pilgrims to the Present by Jay Robert Nash (1973). I have no idea which is more accurate. But every source agrees on two things: Carl Wanderer was convicted of killing his wife and got a 25-year prison sentence for it; and he was convicted of killing the stranger and hanged for it.


Carl W. Wanderer, from Murder City.