{"id":13504,"date":"2012-02-24T09:53:01","date_gmt":"2012-02-24T13:53:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/?p=13504"},"modified":"2012-02-24T13:24:21","modified_gmt":"2012-02-24T17:24:21","slug":"edythe-klumpp-and-the-case-of-the-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/2012\/02\/edythe-klumpp-and-the-case-of-the-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Edythe Klumpp and the "Case of the Century""},"content":{"rendered":"

By Janice Schulz<\/em><\/p>\n

Every city in every era seems to have its \u201cCrime of the Century\u201d and during the 1950s in Cincinnati, that was the 1958 murder of Louise Bergen, a Cincinnati housewife.\u00a0 The trial of her accused killer, Edythe Klumpp, was held during the summer of 1959. The case was sensational for many reasons \u2013 a \u201clove triangle\u201d between Edythe, Louise, and Louise\u2019s husband, Bill Bergen; Edythe\u2019s history of two divorces and other affairs; the participation of Foss Hopkins, Edythe\u2019s defense attorney; the specter of the death penalty for a woman; and the controversial role of Ohio Governor Michael DiSalle in Edythe\u2019s ultimate fate.<\/p>\n

\"Edythe<\/a>

Edythe Klumpp\u2019s booking photographs. From the collection of the UC Archives & Rare Books Library<\/p><\/div>\n

Louise Bergen\u2019s body was found burned near the public beach at Cowen Lake on the evening of November 1, 1958. The subsequent investigation zeroed in on Bill Bergen\u2019s live-in lover, Edythe Klumpp, who confessed after failing a lie detector test. Edythe claimed that the killing was accidental, that a gun went off during a struggle and hit Louise in the throat. But Hamilton County Prosecutor C. Watson Hover disagreed, charging her with first degree murder and seeking the death penalty.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After being convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair, Edythe changed her story. She now claimed that Bill Bergen was present at the time of Louise\u2019s death, and that it was he who pulled the trigger accidently, rather than Edythe. She said they cooked up the story that she told because Bill believed the court would be easier on a woman. She also said that Bill would harm her children if she didn\u2019t go along. She then put the scene of the crime at a different spot \u2013 Stratton Drive, a secluded side street in Anderson Township. \u00a0Evidence soon found at the police station – part of a necklace (the other part of which was found on Louise\u2019s body), Louise\u2019s eyeglasses, and a pair of children\u2019s shorts with blood on them – corroborated this new scene. Initially found at the time of the murder, the evidence was not linked to the crime since Edythe had given the scene in her confession as Caldwell Park, located on the other side of town.<\/p>\n

\"Group<\/a>

Cincinnati Police detectives take Edythe Klumpp out to Lake Cowen after she is charged with Louise Bergen\u2019s murder. From the collection of the UC Archives & Rare Books Library<\/p><\/div>\n

Foss Hopkins went through the usual appeal process, but no higher court would hear Edythe\u2019s case. Armed with the new confession, the newly discovered evidence, and Edythe\u2019s mother and children to plead her case, Hopkins met with Governor Michael DiSalle to talk about clemency. DiSalle, a strong opponent of capital punishment, agreed to review her case, launching his own investigation, carried out by the Ohio State Patrol. DiSalle\u2019s investigation led him to believe that Edythe\u2019s second story was much more plausible. It was suggested to him that he interview Edythe under the influence of sodium amytal \u2013 a so-called \u201ctruth serum.\u201d He agreed, and along with a doctor visited Edythe in her cell at the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville. This was a very controversial move by the governor, and when he announced that he believed Edythe\u2019s story and commuted her sentence, the public was in an uproar. Many believe that this act cost him re-election the following year.<\/p>\n

Edythe completed her sentence in Marysville, gaining parole in 1971. She remarried, moved to Kentucky, and lived the rest of her life in relative obscurity. She died naturally on Christmas Eve in 1999.<\/p>\n

The UC Archives holds a collection from the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas that includes the Prosecutor\u2019s case records for Edythe Klumpp. Also included in the collection are records from the trials of Anna Marie Hahn, a German immigrant executed for poisoning several elderly men, and Robert Lyons, a Cincinnati water meter reader acquitted in the murder of socialite Audrey Pugh. The collection gives an interesting look into the Klumpp case and includes the complete trial transcript, photographs, investigation reports, court and police documents, and prosecutor\u2019s notes.<\/p>\n

\"Janice<\/a>

University of Cincinnati Records Manager and Archives Specialist Janice Schulz prepares to be interviewed about the Klumpp case for the television program \u201cDeadly Women.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

I have been researching the Klumpp case for over five years, using the collection here in the Archives as the base for most of my work. Recently an Australian production company, Beyond Productions, contacted me about working with them as an expert on a segment of their television program \u201cDeadly Women\u201d that will feature the Edythe Klumpp case. After an initial phone interview, a film crew visited the UC campus on February 22 to do an on-camera interview that will be used in the program\u2019s final production.\u00a0 We did the interview in Langsam Library\u2019s Elliston Poetry Room, which offered a nice backdrop. It was definitely a unique experience for me and allowed me to share my research with others. The program will air on the Investigation Discovery channel during their next season, which begins in the fall of 2012 and runs through the following January. We\u2019ll blog again when an exact air date is known.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Janice Schulz Every city in every era seems to have its \u201cCrime of the Century\u201d and during the 1950s in Cincinnati, that was the 1958 murder of Louise Bergen, a Cincinnati housewife.\u00a0 The trial of her accused killer, Edythe … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,13],"tags":[53,54,35],"class_list":["post-13504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arb","category-uclibraries","tag-cincinnati-history","tag-featured-resource","tag-just-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/libapps.libraries.uc.edu\/liblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}