Several people noticed Alma Kellner, 8, as she walked to St. John’s Roman Catholic Church in Louisville, Ky., for her morning prayers on Dec. 8, 1909. A druggist remembered that Alma paused to look at a cat in the drug store window; a letter carrier recalled that she said “howdy” as she passed by.
Some worshipers said they spotted a little girl dressed in the distinctive outfit that Alma wore that day — a black and white checkered coat with a velvet collar and a red mushroom hat.
But after prayers, no one saw Alma ever again.
There was a search, and then the theories started to fly — that she was lost or had been kidnapped for ransom because her family owned a successful brewery. Her millionaire uncle, Frank Fehr, offered a reward, but no one stepped up to claim it.
Christmas came and went, then New Year’s, Valentine’s Day, and Easter, and there was no trace of her. Louisville’s newspaper — The Courier-Journal — wrote regular updates. Some were just a line or two, like the back-page story that ran on Jan. 21, 1910 under this headline:
“NOTHING HEARD FROM LITTLE ALMA KELLNER.”
Then in May, a flood in a hidden cellar in the parochial school next to the church solved the mystery.
“ARREST FOLLOWS DISCOVERY OF ALMA KELLNER’S MUTILATED BODY” was the May 31, 1910, front-page headline of The Courier-Journal.
Richard Sweet, a laborer, was hired by a plumbing company to pump out the water and clean up the muddy cellar floor. He had just started digging when he spotted a child’s shoe. More shoveling revealed a foot, and finally, a tiny skeleton wrapped in a carpet.
What little flesh remained sloughed off when the body was examined by the coroner. There seemed to have been an attempt to dismember and burn the child. Her head had been split open, the right arm was missing at the elbow, and the left shoulder blade and arm had been sliced off. Most of the bones had been broken and charred.
Dental records identified her as Alma Kellner.
Only someone familiar with the church property’s layout would have known how to get into the cellar. The single entry point was a hidden trap door. It also seemed likely that the killer had scooped out a small hole, suggesting that the crime had been planned in advance.
Suspicion fell immediately on the new janitor, Joseph Wendling, 27, a French immigrant who lived in America for about a decade.
Wendling grew up in the Cote d’Or region of France, where his parents owned a farm. After deserting from the French Army, he came to America and settled in Louisville. His wife, also a French immigrant, was 15 years his senior and worked as a housekeeper. Wendling made money through a series of odd jobs. He got his position as St. John’s janitor 20 days before Alma vanished.
Wendling’s reputation was of a man who liked alcohol, women, and on more than one occasion, fondling young girls.
He disappeared on Jan. 14, a month after Alma went missing. When her body was found in May, police grilled his wife and searched their home. She offered no information and insisted that she did not know where he had gone. No one believed her, and she was arrested as an accessory.
But the search uncovered some incriminating evidence, including bloodstained clothes, knives, and jewelry that the Kellner family identified as Alma’s.
The hunt for the wandering Frenchman went worldwide from Paris to Scotland Yard and into Germany. Captain John P. Carney, chief of detectives for the Louisville Police, logged almost 15,000 miles chasing leads throughout the United States, Mexico, and Central America.
In the end, a tip from a woman Wendling had romanced pointed Carney in the right direction and led to a boarding house in San Francisco. He was living there under an assumed name.
Local police found the fugitive cowering under a sink in the bathroom.
Carney hauled his prisoner back to Louisville, where he was quickly tried, found guilty, and sentenced to life. The charge against his wife was dropped.
Wendling maintained his innocence and filed constant appeals. Then he tried to break out twice, once dressed as a woman in a pink kimono, but was caught quickly each time.
After his final bid for freedom in 1921, Wendling devoted himself to being a model prisoner, learning to work as an electrician, machinist, and radio technician. The prison put his skills to good use.
Then, in 1934, Alma’s uncle — Frank Fehr — wrote to Kentucky governor Ruby Laffoon and, in a surprising move, recommended a pardon for the man who killed his niece. Fehr set two conditions. The exact nature of one of the conditions has never been fully revealed, but it had something to do with a letter, presumably a confession, that Wendling sent to Fehr.
The other was that he be deported to France immediately after his release. “Most men come out of prison with a new suit of clothes and a $5 bill,” the Daily News observed. “Joseph Wendling stepped out with a free trip to France.” Leaving his loyal but elderly wife back in Louisville, he departed New York on an ocean liner heading for his native country in February 1935.
In May 1936, the News caught up with Wendling, then 62, leading a pair of horses in harness on his farm in Alsace. The caption read, “Freedom tastes so good.”
JUSTICE STORY has been the Daily News’ exclusive take on true crime tales of murder, mystery and mayhem for nearly 100 years. Click here to read more.