Four trials and 25 years later, the murder case considered "one of the most bitterly contested in the annals of criminal history in Milwaukee County" caused a sensation all over again when Carolina Wiskow got another offer from Fred Borchert. This one came from beyond the grave, and unlike his first one it was too good to refuse.
Borchert had a house painting business at 314 Lake St. (now West Pittsburgh Avenue). The 47-year-old bachelor lived in a room above the shop, and rented out the other second-story quarters. By most accounts Borchert was a mousy fellow who occasionally sought relief in alcohol from the drudgery of his daily life. In fact, on September 28, 1904 he was sleeping one off upstairs when the daughter of his full-time employee Otto Wiskow came by the shop to get her father's overdue paycheck.
Ida Wiskow hung around for five hours before returning empty-handed to her family's home at 1019 W. Cherry St. Then Otto himself went to collect. He, too, had a fondness for the bottle, and when lit up the 33-year-old Wiskow became pugnacious and belligerent just like his idol, former heavyweight boxing champion John L. Sullivan.
In fact, Otto's friends called him "Sullivan," and according to Borchert and several witnesses Wiskow showed up that day in full fighting mode.
He and Borchert argued inside and then went out into the alley, where it ended when Borchert took a pistol out of his pocket and fired three bullets into Wiskow. A cop who happened to be nearby called an ambulance and pinched Borchert, who "appeared in a stupor."
Twelve hours later, "Sullivan" took the fatal count at the Milwaukee Emergency Hospital. Before he died, he told his mother, "Ma, he shot me like a dog!"
Borchert hadn't meant to kill "dear Otto," but said he had no choice since Wiskow was intent on doing him bodily harm. Now the little German described by a tenant as "one of the best men that ever lived" was charged with first-degree murder.
Borchert hired a hotshot legal team led by state Sen. Julius E. Roehr. It was doing fine in the first trial, held a year later, until right before Roehr's final summation when District Attorney (and later Governor) Francis E. McGovern dropped the bombshell about Borchert's odd and oddly-timed marriage proposal to the widow Wiskow, which showed, the prosecutor said, that it was not fear of Otto Wiskow at all that impelled Borchert to whack him.
"If this man (Borchert) offered marriage to the woman of the man he had slain, what, in all probability, was his mental attitude when he shot down her husband in the alley that day? Did not his feelings toward the woman enter his mind? If he did not love the woman, what were his reasons for offering her marriage?"
The defense responded that "the state has tried to make a mountain out of a molehill." Yes, Borchert had proposed marriage to Mrs. Wiskow, but only to provide security for her and the children (and also hoping to deflect a $6,000 civil lawsuit started by her against him).
Carolina Wiskow testified that Borchert had been to her home several times with her husband. Each time he departed, she said, Borchert told her, "Goodbye, Frau Wiskow. I hope you will remain well till we meet again," accompanying the sentiment with a hard squeeze of her hand.
"If that is the idea possessed by the state's attorney of love-making, I can relate several instances where District Attorney McGovern has been equally culpable" during his last election campaign, hooted defense Atty. A.C. Umbreit.
After 18 days of testimony, 36 hours of deliberation and almost 300 divided ballots, the jury was hopelessly split. A mistrial was declared.
A second trial in 1906 was derailed when Borchert was rushed to Emergency Hospital from the courtroom to have his ruptured appendix removed.
Trial No. 3 had barely started when the term of the jury expired and it was shut down.
On December 1, 1906, District Attorney McGovern presented the familiar crux of his case to a new jury: "Mr. Borchert had more interest in Mrs. Wiskow than a man has a right to have in the wife of another."
The wife in question again took the stand and denied that Wiskow had ever driven her and the children out of their home in a drunken, violent rage, and that she had intended to divorce him. And no, it wasn't true either that at the hospital before Otto died she told him he had it coming and asked about life insurance.
She recounted how Borchert had asked her to marry him, and how he always "took my hand and shook and squeezed it a little," which gave Atty. Umbreit the opportunity to repeat his zinger about all the "loving" McGovern did pressing the flesh in his last election campaign.
There was no denying the passion in the handshakes Borchert gave each jury member after he was acquitted on December 15.
"I have spent nearly $10,000 in my fight for innocence, practically every dollar I have got in the world," Borchert told reporters. "But I was forced to shoot Wiskow in self-defense and would have spent every penny I could secure rather than spend one day in jail for undeserved punishment."
Fred Borchert returned to his home on Lake Street and became a recluse. He was 72 when he died on March 6, 1929.
Apparently he hadn't spent every penny on his defense, for old Fritz left an estate worth $30,000 – almost $385,000 in today's dollars.
The money was headed to the county orphans' fund until somebody found a will Borchert made out when he was hospitalized for the emergency appendectomy in 1905. It left his money to a step-sister, Freida Rother.
But not all of it.
"I am innocent of the crime charged against me and I killed Otto Wiskow in self-defense," stated the will. "If Carolina Wiskow ... will speak the truth and cause to be published in two newspapers of the City of Milwaukee the true character of Otto Wiskow ... and also that she knew of his threats to kill me ... then she shall receive as bequest $1,000, otherwise nothing."
A grand was huge money in 1929. In today's dollars it would be equal to $12,817.
Still a widow, Carolina Wiskow lived with her son Ben, now 26 and a grocer at 121 Hopkins St. Speaking for the family, Ben said, "There are things said in that will which were untrue. We don't intend to see anyone or do anything about this matter."
Actually, Ben did go to the Emergency Hospital hoping to prove the Wiskows' long-held suspicion that Borchert had faked the appendicitis that halted his second trial in 1905 "to escape a guilty verdict."
But not only had there been an appendectomy, but the surgeon who performed it, H.A. Sifton, told reporters, "During the entire time I attended Borchert, I marveled to think that such a small, unassuming and timid man could have killed a man who was such a big fellow as Wiskow. I believed then, as I believe now, that Borchert was absolutely innocent and that he shot in self-defense."
Carolina Wiskow herself remained mum until June 7, 1929 – the deadline for her to comply with the terms of Borchert's will to score the money from his estate.
Then she quietly issued a statement to The Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel saying that while "when sober and not under the influence of liquor" her late husband "was the very best type of man" and "a gentle and loving husband and a kind father (but) unfortunately, he was addicted to the use of intoxicating liquors, and while under the influence of the same was a much changed man with a violent and threatening disposition."
And: "I knew of his threats to kill Fred Borchert, made under the influence of liquor."
On May 8, 1930, Frau Wiskow received her $1,000 bequest ("less $72 inheritance tax") from the little German widow-maker who in eternity finally lives happily ever after.
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