State v. Ossweiler

The opinion of the court was delivered by

Burch, J.:

The defendant, whose education had been for the priesthood, and who, from religious zeal, had taken the novitiate for the most austere monastic order, the Passionists, shot and killed Caroline Cunningham, ihe only girl he ever cared for, on the steps of St. Mary’s Cathedral in Wichita, immediately after he had attended early mass on Sunday morning, August 1, 1920. He was convicted of murder in the second degree, and appeals.

As a child, the defendant lacked the play instinct, indispensable to normal development of the human mind. As a youth,…