His father was a cavalryman who served under Bento Gonçalves da Silva during the Ragamuffin War, whom deserted his battalion and took refuge in Santa Catarina.
Coming from a poor ethnic German family based in the Hungarian part of Transylvania, Palse grew up in small village with parents and two brothers.
She ended up getting involved with José Ramos in 1863, with both of them moving in together at Rua do Arvoredo, near the cemetery behind the Metropolitan Cathedral of Our Lady Mother of God.
The possible repercussions for the murders began to frighten Claussner, who planned to flee to Uruguay because he claimed to be unhappy living in Porto Alegre.
When they were summoned to the police station for testimony, Ramos claimed that the men had stayed overnight and left for São Sebastião do Caí the next morning.
Palse, who by then had been arrested for other crimes and had become a mucker, decided to confess that six men had been killed in the house, and that Carlos Claussner later turned the victims' bodies into sausages.
[2] The manufactured linguiças sold in Porto Alegre had "very good acceptance", and since this detail was disclosed to the public, rumors began circulating around the case.
According to historian Décio Freitas, author of the book The Greatest Crime on Earth, "there is a lack of information such as several sheets lost during the trial, the documents and manuscripts are all in ancient Portuguese.
[10] In Europe, the crime was covered so much that Charles Darwin wrote a short commentary in his notebook, asking: "Is there a jackal asleep in each man?".
In 1996, the historian Décio Freitas published the book The Greatest Crime on Earth - The Butcher on Rua do Arvoredo, after researching the case.
[6] Later in 2005, the case would also serve as an inspiration for a novel written by David Coimbra, titled Canibais: Paixão e Morte na Rua do Arvoredo, also published by L&PM Editores.
In Rio Grande do Sul, Grupo RBS - an affiliate of Rede Globo based in the state - produced a documentary about the case.
To reconstruct the crime, the Linha Direta team conducted extensive research work, looking into the public archives, examining everything from the receipts, Pilse and Claussner's passports and even the autopsy reports.