"Gift of God"

In St. Louis last week a Solomon delivered his verdict. He was Lawyer Rush H. Limbaugh, acting as special commissioner for the Missouri Court of Appeals in a habeas corpus proceeding which St. Louis newspapers had made front-page news day after day, week after week. The "corpus"which one woman sought from the other was that of a 15-week-old baby whom both claimed to have borne. It had taken three weeks for Commissioner Limbaugh to hear their tales. Plaintiff Anna Ware, broadfaced Pennsylvania servant girl, said she had been working for a couple in Newtown, Pa. when the man of the house got her into trouble. His wife sent her to St. Louis where the wife's mother was a midwife. In her house Anna said she bore her baby Aug. 17. Next night the baby was taken away to be "adopted." Weeks later, said Anna, she had learned through an entirely different case the identity of the woman who had her child. She now wanted him back. In his recommendation to the Court of Appeals, tantamount to final decision, Commissioner Limbaugh tenderly took note: "The indescribable but eloquent expression of motherly instinct and affection revealed by Anna Ware when she first saw the baby in court was significant."

As to the behavior of Mrs. Nellie Tipton Muench, who also claimed to be the mother of the baby, Commissioner Limbaugh found much to suspect. The red-headed modiste, with two arrests for larceny against her, had been implicated in the kidnapping of Dr. Isaac Dee Kelley in 1931. Two of the men with whom Mrs. Muench was alleged to have engineered this snatch were sent to prison for long terms. The trial of Mrs. Muench, sister of a Missouri Supreme Court Justice, was frequently delayed to let public sentiment against her cool.

Last August Mrs. Muench and her husband, Dr. Ludwig Muench, announced that she had given birth to a baby, "a gift from God in her time of distress." The enterprising Post-Dispatch produced evidence to show that an infant previously planted in the Muench home in July had subsequently died. The rival Star-Times turned up clues indicating that the "gift of God'' belonged to Anna Ware, not to Mrs. Muench, whose marriage had been childless for 23 years. After a change of venue, Mrs. Muench was acquitted of the kidnapping charge by a jury of farmers and small shopkeepers at Mexico, Mo. (TIME, Oct. 21). Under terrific pressure from Press and public, the habeas corpus hearing began in St. Louis only ten days later. Some strange testimony was adduced:

Dr. Marsh Pitzman, an old friend of Mrs. Muench, had certified that she had given birth. On the stand, however, he told a different story. The first time he had seen the child, he said, was when it was lying on a bed in the Muench home. He recalled that red-headed Mrs. Muench had been at pains to point out to him that the baby had red hair. Dr. Pitzman took the child to a window, found its hair was not red. Suspicion finally dawned, Dr. Pitzman said, when no one, not even Dr. Muench, stepped forward to say that he had actually witnessed the delivery.

The Muenches had called in another physician who originally testified that he had examined Mrs. Muench early in the summer, found her pregnant. On the witness stand, he, too, changed his tune. "What kind of an examination did you make?" he was asked. "Very cursory, Dr. Muench said she was not feeling well. Just a casual examination."

Mrs. Muench had claimed to have a pre-natal x-ray photograph which she said would be "valuable evidence to verify the birth of her child." This picture mysteriously disappeared when it was revealed that Anna Ware had been x-rayed before delivery and the roentgenologist was prepared to identify the film.

Final phenomenon of the proceedings was the spectacle of a paper hanger and six Negroes filing up on the stand to testify for Mrs. Muench. They all swore that before the "gift of God" advent she looked pregnant to them and had told them she was. For their part, Dr. & Mrs. Muench consistently refused to testify on the grounds that what they might say might "incriminate'' them. Acidly concluded Commissioner Limbaugh last week: "The attempts on the part of the respondents Muench to conceal the event of the birth of a child to them in secrecy, surrounded by circumstances which are most mysterious, do not comport with human experience. . . . Their actions . . . lead to the conclusion that their claim that a child was born to Mrs. Muench ... is utterly false, and that their efforts to support that claim represent deliberate and consummate deception. . . . The order and judgment of the Court should therefore be that the child be delivered into the custody of petitioner as prayed; and the Special Commissioner so recommends."

"This is as happy a day as I'll ever have, I guess," said Anna Ware. When she finally gets the baby from the Court, she said, she is going to name it Harry, presumably after the Star-Times's ace Reporter Harry Brundidge. who dug up much of the evidence.

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