By Robert A. Waters
Eighteen-year-old Elizabeth “Lizzie” Lausch worked as a knitter at the Hope Hosiery Mill in Adamston, Pennsylvania. On Friday, May 25, 1918, she got off work at 5:00 P.M., boarded a trolley car, and headed toward Swartzville. Getting off in front of the Post Office, about a mile from her home, Lizzie retrieved her mail, stepped out of the building and vanished.
America had recently entered World War I. Troops poured from cities, towns and villages across the country toward Europe and horror. The Germans were desperate to stop the flow of U. S. soldiers and, on the day Lizzie vanished, newspapers reported that a U-boat had appeared in American waters for the first time.
The day before, three convicts, Samuel Garner, Albert J. Langer, and Frank Hurst, had escaped from the Lancaster County Jail. According to local newspaper reports, the jail had long been a den of corruption. The Lancaster Examiner reported that the jail’s “management is a menace to public safety, and the conduct of some of its under officers have made a travesty out of justice and turned a supposed place of reformation into a brothel.” The implication was that these prisoners blackmailed guards into turning a blind eye as they escaped.
Lizzie’s walk home took her down a mile-long trail through dense woods. When she didn’t make it that night, her parents thought she had stayed with her brother in Adamston, as she often did. They didn’t raise the alarm until the following afternoon when she failed to arrive. Townspeople immediately began searching for her and, within an hour, found the teenager’s body. Lancaster police detectives as well as the Pennsylvania State Police rushed to the scene.
The Lebanon Daily News reported that “the girl’s body was a gruesome sight, with her head almost severed from the rest of her body and the dead form lying in a pool of blood. Her clothing was badly torn, giving evidence that the girl struggled with whoever attacked her.” Her shoes and stockings were found next to her body, and she had suffered a black eye, bruises and scratches all over her torso. Investigators determined that Lizzie had been violently raped. The attack had been prolonged and brutal. A bloody razor was recovered about ten feet from the corpse.
Lemon Lausch and his wife, Elizabeth, were stunned by the murder. As the coroner’s inquest began, Mrs. Lausch collapsed. After receiving a sedative, she was bedridden for several days. (Exactly two years to the day, the still-grieving mother would fall dead from a heart attack. She was only 59.) The coroner ruled that the girl’s death was caused by “having her throat cut.”
Soon after the convicts escaped from jail, residents began reporting break-ins. The items stolen from homes in the area were miniscule, including small amounts of pocket change, food, clothing, and, in one case, a razor. Investigators from the Pennsylvania State Police soon discovered that the razor found near Lizzie’s body had been taken from Levi Haldeman’s home the day before. He identified it as well as a pocket watch found on Sam Garner when he was captured. Haldeman’s nine-year-old granddaughter, Elsie, who had been in the home when the convict broke in, identified Garner as the intruder. She said he had struck her on the head with a club and chased her when she broke away. Her younger brother also recognized Garner as the intruder. Several of Haldeman’s neighbors identified Garner as having been in the vicinity.
The Muddy Creek Church community sat less than a mile from the Lausch home. Many nearby residents informed investigators that Garner had broken into their homes. When captured, the convict wore a pair of women’s stockings, identified by Mrs. Jacob Wolf as having been stolen from her bedroom. With evidence building against him, Garner admitted to detectives that he had raped Lizzie but stated he did not kill her. He claimed that Albert Langer cut the girl’s throat. Garner, already serving five years for rape, changed his story numerous times.
Garner’s trial was held four months later. On September 12, 1918, jurors convicted Garner of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death.
Before his execution in the electric chair on December 4, 1918, Garner confessed to Chaplain T. W. Young “that he and he alone killed the girl and that he now gave his life for the one he took.”
Area newspapers had a field day with the story, accusing the Lancaster County Jail and Pennsylvania Board of Prisons of corruption. According to the Lancaster Examiner, prison auditors and investigators “told of the almost incredible things occurring at the jail, of prison supplies sold to get money to buy whiskey so that convicts and guards could get drunk together…” Other accusations were that prison guards stole from prison provisions, guards were often drunk while on-duty, and that guards let prisoners out of their cells so they could spend the night with their wives. In other instances, guards were accused of shooting at the feet of prisoners they didn’t like, making them “dance.” Finally, guards were accused of hiring prostitutes for prisoners and themselves. Despite these accusations, changes were slow to come.
AFTERMATH
Immediately after escaping, Albert J. Langer fled the state. He was nowhere near Pennsylvania when Lizzie was murdered. Captured six months later, he was convicted of escape. After serving five years in Pennsylvania, Langer was transferred to a New York penitentiary for the attempted murder of a police officer in that state. There he served another 25 years.
Frank Hurst, who was serving 17 ½ years for arson when he escaped, was never caught.