45 Colt service revolver-even though he died with little more than $3 in his pocket. Also, the Ragged Stranger had used an expensive handgun-a. Despite all the shots fired, Carl had emerged without a scratch. Both Ruth and the perpetrator, whom the press later dubbed the “ Ragged Stranger,” died.Īlthough Carl was a war hero, several investigators and reporters began to smell something fishy in his account of that night. Of the 10 rounds fired that night, most of the bullets hit Ruth, who was several months pregnant. Within seconds, the man fired his gun several times, and Carl shot back with his service revolver. That night, Carl and Ruth were returning home from the movies when an unidentified, shabbily dressed man jumped them. The newlyweds moved in with her family, which was not unusual at the time, and lived with them until June 21, 1920. Soon enough, he married Ruth Johnson, a girl he had met at Trinity Lutheran. When he returned home in 1919, Carl was greeted as a hero. By most accounts, he was an excellent officer and a good soldier. The former choirboy at Chicago’s Holy Trinity Lutheran Church had seen combat in France during World War I. ![]() Starting as a machine gunner, Carl was promoted all the way to second lieutenant. The son of German immigrants who had made their home in Chicago, Carl had dropped out of high school to join the army as an enlisted man. ![]() In 1920, Carl Wanderer was just another war veteran recently returned to his native land. These little-known crimes have been in the dark too long. ![]() It was also the era of gangsters, thieves, and murderers.Īlthough the tabloid press was filled with sensational stories of sex and crime, some murders from the Roaring Twenties managed to slip through the cracks. ![]() Outwardly, the 1920s was a time of carefree indulgence-the era of hot jazz music, smart twentysomethings with plenty of pocket money, and in America, illicit but easily attainable hooch.
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