Carl MENARIK

AKA "Frederick Mors"

Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Poisoner - Confessed to the murders of eight "superannuated octogenarians," killed in order to "make room for more inmates" at the home
Number of victims: 8 +
Date of murders: 1914 - 1915
Date of arrest: February 2, 1915 (surrenders)
Date of birth: October 2, 1889
Victims profile: Elderly patients at rest home
Method of murder: Poisoning (arsenic and chloroform)
Location: New York City, New York, USA
Status: Confined to asylum, 1915. Escaped 1916. He was never recaptured

A native of Vienna, born October 2, 1889, Menarik immigrated to New York in 1914, obtaining a job at the German Odd Fellows Home, in Yonkers, during July of that year. Using the name "Frederick Mors," Menarik worked for six months at the home, arousing no suspicions as he went about his duties.

Patients came and went throughout his tenure, several leaving in a hearse, but they were old and no one gave a second thought to their demise before the early days of February 1915.

On the afternoon of February 2, "Mors" presented himself at the district attorney's office, dressed in a corduroy hunting outfit, complete with knee-pants and a feathered alpine cap. Approaching the desk sergeant, Menarik confessed to the murders of eight "superannuated octogenarians," killed in order to "make room for more inmates" at the home. A phone call confirmed the eight deaths - all listed as natural - and Menarik was taken into custody. In jail, Menarik's story underwent a sudden shift.

The homicides had not been his idea, he now proclaimed, but rather had been ordered by officials at the home, who described the elderly victims as "a lot of trouble and no good anyhow."

On February 5, the home's superintendent and three more employees were clapped into jail as material witnesses, with the Odd Fellows lodge refusing to muster their bail.

Although authorities refused to order exhumation of remains, investigation seemed to bear out Carl Menarik's tale of inmates killed with chloroform and arsenic.

Menarik had warned patient Elizabeth Houser of her impending death a day in advance, and a mortician recalled red markings - similar to chloroform burns on the face of alleged victim Henry Horn.

A teenage inmate of the home informed police about an errand she had run on January 4, delivering a bottle of chloroform from employee Max Ring - jailed as a material witness - to "Mors," in the room occupied by patient Ferdinand Scholz. Scholz had died the same day, and other inmates suspected "Mors" of sabotaging the painter's scaffold that dropped Jacob Groh to his death on December 14.

The list went on, but prosecution was deferred in favor of a psychiatric test. Described as "not well mentally," Menarik was committed to Poughkeepsie's Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane. His employer and co-workers were released, the case dismissed with a host of questions still unanswered.

On May 10, 1916 - a week before his scheduled deportation to Austria - Menarik escaped from the hospital in Poughkeepsie and disappeared. He was never recaptured, but authorities took the loss in stride, announcing that the fugitive was "not considered dangerous."

Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers - Hunting Humans

Frederick Mors was an Austrian serial killer who, while employed in a nursing home in New York City, killed seventeen elderly patients by poisoning. When questioned by police he was very cooperative, readily admitting to the murders. After being arrested, Mors was diagnosed as a megalomaniac and committed to an insane asylum from which he later escaped.

Immigration

Mors immigrated to New York City from his native Austria-Hungary in June 1914. Being from German-speaking Vienna, he was soon able to gain employment at the German Odd Fellows Home, a kind of nursing home, located in the Bronx.

Soon after he began work there, he exhibited signs of megalomania. He would wear white lab coats with a stethoscope around his neck. He also adopted an arrogant attitude and would insist that the elderly patients, whom he terrified, address him as "Herr Doktor." Inexplicably, though he terrified the older patients, younger patients and visitors seemed to like him and enjoy his company.

Murders

In a four month period from September 1914 to January of the following year, an unusually high number of patients died at the Home. In all seventeen died. Mors had been purchasing pharmacy items from a local druggist, including arsenic and chloroform, which he had been using to murder at least eight of the elderly residents, though he later claimed he was "putting them out of their misery".

He commissioned his first murder using arsenic. Encountering difficulties with this method he later switched to the use of chloroform. Fearing foul play, the administration called the police in to investigate.

Investigation

Early in the investigation, police learned of the fear the elderly patients had for Mors. On these grounds he soon became the primary suspect of the investigation. When questioned, Mors readily and calmly admitted to killing eight of the seventeen patients that had recently died.

He claimed that these were mercy killings and that they had been nuisances. In detail, he described his method as:

"First I would pour a drop or two of chloroform on a piece of absorbent cotton and hold it to the nostrils of the old person. Soon my man would swoon. Then I would close the orifices of the body with cotton, stuffing it in the ears, nostrils and so on. Next I would pour a little chloroform down the throat and prevent the fumes escaping the same way."

Mors was found to be criminally insane and was committed to the Matteawan Institution for the Insane. He later escaped the institution in the late 1920s. He was never caught and disappeared into obscurity, never being heard from again.

Wikipedia.org

Carl Menarik

Born Carl Menarik in 1889, Frederick Mors emmigrated to the United States from his native Austria in 1914 and soon found work at the German Old Fellows Home in the Bronx. Mors bordered on delusional, falsely claiming to be a legendary hunter and at the same time ruling the home with a heavy hand and forcing patients to refer to him as "doctor", though he was not and in fact wasn't even an important man there, holding down a fairly routine position.

Mors may have began killing very soon after he began working at the home, but nothing was suspected until January 1915. The clearly disturbed Mors was immediately suspected in the deaths of the elderly patient's deaths and under direct questioning admitted his guilt without hesitation. He had perfected a method of chloroform poisoning after having troubles with his first victim, who he had killed with arsenic.

Mors claimed he was only putting the old people out of their misery and making room in the crowded home. He was found criminally insane and placed in a mental hospital though he had murdered as many as seventeen people. Mors was to be deported back to Austria at one point but escaped the hospital first and was never heard from again.