Hans B. Schmidt (1881[1] – February 18, 1916) was a German Catholic priest, rapist, convicted murderer, and suspected serial killer.

Even in childhood, Schmidt combined a deep religious devotion with bisexual promiscuity and a fascination with drinking blood and dismembering animals.

[2][3] During his later seminary studies, Schmidt was arrested by the Bavarian police in 1905 and charged with forging diplomas for failing students.

Although the public prosecutor of Mainz was determined to send Schmidt to prison, his father hired a lawyer who arranged for the charges to be dropped for reasons of mental defect.

[4] Although many who knew him had serious doubts about his moral and mental fitness to serve as a Catholic priest, Schmidt claimed that he was ordained by Bishop Kirstein of Mainz on December 23, 1904.

"[6] During parish assignments in the villages of Bürgel and Seelingstädt, Schmidt molested altar boys, had affairs with several women, and consorted with prostitutes.

Meanwhile, Schmidt's creative way of saying Mass and eccentric sermons led his parishioners and fellow priests to complain about him to the monsignor and the bishop.

In New York City in 1912, Schmidt met Anna Aumüller, the housekeeper at the Rectory of St. Boniface Church, who had emigrated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1910.

[9] Beginning in December 1912, Schmidt was also having a secret homosexual relationship with a New York City dentist named Ernest Muret, with whom he operated a counterfeiting ring.

During a sexual encounter with Anna on the high altar of St. Joseph's Church, Schmidt received what he claimed was a command from God to "sacrifice" her.

He slashed Anna's throat while she slept, drank her blood, raped her as she bled to death, dismembered her body, and threw the pieces from a ferry into the Hudson River.

[13][3][14] After pieces of Anna's torso washed ashore at Cliffside Park and Weehawken, New Jersey,[15] Hudson County police detectives found a price tag still attached to the pillowcase used to wrap part of the body.

Using the tag, the pillowcase was traced to a factory in Newark, New Jersey, which sold exclusively to Manhattan furniture dealer George Sachs.

[16] After arriving at George Sachs' furniture store at 2782 Eighth Avenue, Inspector Faurot found the dealer unable to recall how many of the pillowcases he had sold.

When a three-day stake out revealed no one arriving, Inspector Faurot ordered detective Frank Cassassa to break into the apartment.

Van Dyke sewn into the lining was found, as were letters in both German and English addressed to a Hans Schmidt.

Inspector Faurot and detectives Cassassa and O'Connell visited the address and learned that Anna had moved out after receiving a job as housekeeper at St. Boniface's Church.

], on the other hand, had concluded that Schmidt was completely sane, in spite of his claims of hearing voices telling him to "sacrifice" Anna Aumüller.

[26] Schmidt's defense team filed an appeal shortly after his sentence, which postponed his execution for at least a year while it worked its way through the courts.

In admitting so, however, he accused Ernest Muret, the dentist with whom he'd had a homosexual affair, of having accidentally killed Anna during a botched abortion.

Schmidt further claimed that he allowed authorities to pursue him and not Dr. Muret for the murder because he wanted to cover for his male lover.

[28] Due in large part to both Muret and Bertha Zech's insistence to the contrary, Schmidt's new allegations were unsuccessful in gaining him a new trial.

[30] A reporter for the Albany Times later wrote, "His last night on earth he spent proclaiming his innocence and declaring that he had made peace with God.

[33] Schmidt became an alternate suspect in the murder of Alma Kellner (age 9) whose body was found buried in the basement of St. John's Church in Louisville, Kentucky, where he had worked.

The janitor, Joseph Wendling, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder based on circumstantial evidence and bloody clothing found at his house.