Memorials › Maria Theresia "Mary" Schenk Dach

Maria Theresia "Mary" Schenk Dach

8 Jul 1890 – 23 Aug 1933

Birth8 Jul 1890
Death23 Aug 1933
CemeterySaint Mary's Catholic Church Cemetery
High Hill , Fayette County , Texas , USA
Added byVanessa Burzynski on 27 Aug 2020
FaGhttps://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18747756

Bio

Dallas Morning News August 25, 1933 Woman Starves Self to Death to Avoid Penalty for Murder Lagrange, Texas Aug. 24 (AP) Self-imposed starvation brought death to Mrs. Maria Dach, 36-year old German farm woman, Wednesday night as she sought through the courts to avoid paying the supreme penalty for the slaying of Henry Stoever, her 58-year old helper. For days she was unconscious on the cot in her jail cell. A physician watched her closely and then began to treat her for a stomach ailment. Frequently she broke her fast to nibble at the food the jailer brought her, but she lost weight and her 100 pounds Wednesday offered a sharp contrast to the 200 pounds of three months ago. She had eaten only three meals in thirty-seven days. "The food makes me sick, " she would say at mealtime. The first thirteen days after she was convicted last May 25 Mrs. Dach refused food altogether. Finally she was pursuaded to eat a few vegetables, but she quickly began fasting again. Mrs. Dach accepted her death sentence without show of emotion but clung to her claim that she shot Stoever in defense of herself and her children. She insisted that she lived in fear of him as helped about the farm after he attacked her last December. Stoever was shot and killed as he slept and his body was dug up from a seven-foot pit on the woman's farm several months later after officers began an investigation at the request of two of Stoever's brothers. Mrs. Dach's three children were present at the time of their mother's death. The body was sent to Schulenburg for burial.

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