Wausau Pilot

February 2, 1922

“Secret Doors In Mystery House.”

“Chain Girl’s” Story Makes Modest Appearing Cottage a Mecca for Curious.

PRISONER IN ATTIC.

Through Days and Nights of Terror Fifteen-Year-Old Girl Languished in Chains, According to Statement to Police.

Sheboygan, Wis. - In a quiet residence street on the outskirts of Sheboygan stands the city’s “house of mystery.”

To the casual observer it is just a simple white frame cottage, but since the story of the “chain girl” shook the town to its foundations, the little house has been a mecca of the curious.

Here it was that fifteen-year-old MIldred Hemb, chained in the attic, languished through days and nights of terror, according to her signed statement to the police. From behind those white curtains came the screams at night of which neighbors tell. Here Peter Hemb lived for many years, a man apart, seeking no friends, exchanging no word with his neighbors until the police took him away to the county jail where he is awaiting trial.

House of Mystery

A fitting home for secrets is this cottage, with its strange passageways and unexpected trap doors. A trap door masked in the porch floor opens on a cellar passageway. A door here leads in turn to another hidden ladder, opening upon a trap door hidden under the rug in a bedroom above. A third ladder leads to the dim dusty attic, where Mildred Hemb is alleged to have been held in captivity.

A heap of rags, a dusty chest, a broken stove pipe, several battered bicycles, a bed spring in its frame - such was the “chain girl’s” alleged prison. Only a few feet high, it would hardly give space, even in the center, for a man to stand upright.

The “imagination” theory of investigators in the “chain girl” mystery who sought to discount the truth of the girl’s accusations, received a conclusive setback with the statement of District Attorney Charles Voigt.

“Horrible as this case is, the truth of it it, I believe, is established in proof,” declared the district attorney.

“We have the goods and evidence that would make possible prosecution on several charges.”

Girl Held Against Wish

“There is positive evidence that the girl was held in that house against her will, and that she was cruelly abused.

“I intended to prosecute this case to the limit. It would be an abuse to public morals to let it go without the most thorough and searching investigation.”

Hemb was remanded to the custody of the sheriff after a hearing on a writ of habeas corpus before Court Commissioner Francis Williams had resulted in defeat of his hopes of freedom.

“Historic Oddity Headlines” showcases actual articles written about truly odd occurrences that took place and were published within United States newspapers back in the 1800s-1900s. The articles posted here are written exactly as they appeared during their original publishing date.

-The Pine Barrens Institute

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