Police today know well the misery some women endure in the face
of certain men’s obsessive behaviour. But it seems that, even two
centuries ago, the dangerously infatuated inflicted unspeakable harm
upon women.
Marie Seiboth lay, shot and bleeding, on a Tanunda roadway just 22 hours
after she appealed for protection from her would-be murderer, in 1865.
In a report on the brutal act, an Adelaide newspaper suggested that:
If this had been an ordinary case; if the cowardly attacker had
never previously been arraigned for threatening to kill someone, it
would still seem an extraordinary set of circumstances that would
see him free to attempt to make good his boast, just twenty two hours
after the authorities had been informed of the threats being made.
The perpetrator Carl Pohland was, according to other newspaper reports:
A man of mysterious antecedents, unknown and unrecognized by his
own countrymen. He was suspected, according to rumour, of having been
concerned in some foul crime in another country before migrating to
Australia where he took up residence in the predominantly German Township
of Tanunda. He was a man of very bad repute, and of ungovernable passions.
Two years before the attack on Marie Seiboth, Pohland threatened
to shoot another young woman, who had refused his attentions. In that
case, he escaped the wrath of the law – owing to a minor legal technicality.
When Seiboth first met Pohland, she was inclined to encourage his
attention. Better acquainted with him later, however, she considered
him not to be the person she had first thought he was. But, try as
she did, he would not be discouraged from his efforts to court her.
He constantly harassed her by trying to force his attention on her.
In desperation, and in an attempt to avoid him, Seiboth left her
mother’s house.
It seemed at this point as if Pohland finally realized how cruel
and annoying he had been in persisting with his unwelcome advances
toward Seiboth. He apologized and solemnly promised never to pester
her again. But, practically at the same time she returned to her mother’s
house, Pohland resumed his harassment of her.
Seiboth again rejected him, but Pohland produced a pistol from his
pocket and threatened to shoot her. She bravely struggled with her
would-be suitor and somehow wrested the gun from him.
Pohland then shed many tears of remorse, and begged the girl not
to report the incident to the authorities. He claimed, before witnesses,
that he would leave her entirely alone if she, in return, she did
not refer it to the police. Seiboth, anxious to bring the whole matter
to an end, agreed to let the assault go unreported but, wisely, refused
to return the pistol.
Over the next few weeks, with her fears once more put to rest, Seiboth
again set about enjoying the pleasures of life. As an attractive girl,
she soon drew, and accepted, the attentions of a far worthier suitor.
But Pohland could not stand to see her romanced by another. “I will
kill her,” he said in the presence of witnesses when he heard of Seiboth’s
new beau.
“If I cannot have her, no one shall.” He declared that he would go
to the neighbouring township of Gawler by train and, there, purchase
another pistol with which to shoot her.
Seiboth immediately learned of Pohland’s outburst, and that he had
already left by train for Gawler.
At 9am on Friday, April 7, 1865, Seiboth entered the police station
and demanded protection. She took with her the pistol she had taken
from Pohland a few weeks earlier.
But the police needed more than his gun, a record of his earlier
arraignment for threatening to shoot a woman who had rejected his
advances, and knowledge of his reputation. They were powerless to
act, and explained to the terrified Seiboth that they could only intervene
if she personally obtained a warrant.
Just as the police had directed, Seiboth left the station and headed
immediately to the court to secure a warrant from the Clerk of the
Court. He sent her to a magistrate four miles away. All the paperwork
and other formalities took until after 6pm to complete. But it was
now too late in the evening to take any action, Seiboth was told.
So, for action on the warrant, she would have to wait until the following
morning.
Likely frustrated and feeling helpless, Seiboth had spent the entire
day trying to convince people of authority of her desperate and urgent
need for protection.
She and her mother, Louise Seiboth, rose early the next morning.
They planned to call into the police station at the very start of
the day, to ensure that appropriate action would be taken to protect
them from Pohland.
At about 7am, Pohland entered the Seiboth house unannounced. Louise
asked him to leave, but he refused. He instead asked it was true that
Seiboth had taken out a warrant against him. Seiboth’s mother said
that a warrant had indeed been issued, and added that he had left
them no other option. She again told him to leave her house.
Again, Pohland made no move to leave. Both women noticed he had
a weighty object in his coat pocket, which they each thought might
be a pistol.
Louise, thinking only to get her daughter out of the house and away
from Pohland, took her by the hand and, as she held Pohland back with
the other hand, led her to the door. She told her to go and fetch
someone to evict their unwanted guest.
As Seiboth ran from the house in terror, Pohland forced his way past
the older woman and ran after her (Seiboth).
Witnesses were later unclear as to whether Seiboth, in her panic,
tripped and fell, or whether Pohland pushed her to the ground. They
all agreed, however, that Pohland then pinned her to the ground with
his left hand while, with his right hand, he extracted a revolver
from his coat pocket. He placed the muzzle of the weapon to Seiboth’s
left breast and fired a shot into her.
Pohland quietly and determinedly strode back into the Seiboth house
with the gun hanging limply from his right hand, while Seiboth painfully
lifted herself off the roadway. She bled profusely from her chest
wound and staggered toward a neighbour’s house, crying out for help.
Louise, who witnessed the horrific event, went running to the aid
of her injured daughter, screaming for help as she went. As she ran,
she saw Seiboth stumble and fall to the ground once more, and had
some consciousness of another shot from somewhere behind her.
With the help of several neighbours, Seiboth was carried into the
nearest house, owned by Mr Sussbier. Messengers were urgently dispatched
to fetch Dr Pabst and the police.
While the doctor treated Seiboth to the best of his ability, Louise
went back to her own house with another neighbour, William Leopold.
She found Pohland sitting on the left corner of her sofa. He had a
large wound to his forehead, his skull was broken open and part of
his brains had splattered about the room. The revolver, later found
to have had two shots fired from it, lay on the floor at his feet.
At the subsequent Coroner’s inquest into the matter, Dr Pabst said
he had examined Pohland after he had finished attending to Seiboth.
He said he found Pohland on the sofa just as Louise and William Leopold
had described finding him. Though he was alive, he was completely
senseless. The doctor realized instantly that nothing could be done
to save the man. However, he remained with Pohland for about an hour,
after which, he died, without having regained consciousness.
The coroner’s jury heard all the evidence, retired for a short while,
and returned with a verdict.
The deceased, Carl Pohland, tried to murder Marie Seiboth; after
which he destroyed his own life by shooting himself with a revolver,
being a clear case of fel de se (suicide).
After the inquest, Dr Pabst said Seiboth’s condition was still quite
precarious, but expressed some hope for her recovery.
Dr Pabst’s hopes were well founded: later that same year, Marie Seiboth
married her new suitor, Heinrich Hinze, and, over the next 17 years,
bore him six children.
