Johann Heinrich Furrer poisoned his parents with arsenic. Illustration by Marco Heer

A Sausage, Arsenic, and the Death Penalty: The Case of Furrer

The case of murderer Johann Heinrich Furrer triggered heated debate about the abolition of the death penalty in the 1860s.

Patrik Süess

Patrik Süess

Patrik Süess is a freelance historian.

Johann Heinrich Furrer, a young master butcher almost 20 years old with his own business in Dürnten near Zurich, was preparing for his wedding. In May 1864, he had exchanged rings with Barbara Hotz on the Bachtel mountain before going shopping for household goods. The couple planned to go public with their engagement on 18 July. Four days earlier, Furrer had visited his parents, who were affluent farmers, and his eleven-year-old sister Luise in Pfäffikon in the canton of Zurich. He had brought them a fresh sausage, which his parents and sister chopped up raw and added to a garden salad. After half-an-hour he bade them farewell, and his mother accompanied him part of the way before saying goodbye to her son in tears: “She always cried when we left each other,” Furrer was to say later, “because she loved me and I loved her”. Furrer was also agitated on that particular day. He walked the whole way home rather than take the train since “he would cry the whole the time”.
Detail of a panorama of Landsberg by Pfäffikon, canton of Zurich, 1897.
Detail of a panorama of Landsberg by Pfäffikon, canton of Zurich, 1897 e-rara
He had good reason to be troubled as he had just launched a murder bid on his family. During the following night his mother was the first to die followed by his father after hours of extreme suffering. Furrer had laced the sausage with enough arsenic to kill ten people. Only his sister survived as she had eaten only a morsel of the sausage before going to bed. Although, following his arrest, Furrer maintained that he had already “felt remorse” for his deed as he returned to Dürnten, he had been cool and calculating in preparing the crime: “I took the poisoned meat and kneaded it by hand with the usual sausage meat so the entire sausage was poisoned and set it aside. Then I went out into the sun for a drink.”
The case of Johann Heinrich Furrer, who murdered his parents, was published in 1867 in the Neue Pitaval – a compilation of “interesting criminal stories”.
The case of Johann Heinrich Furrer, who murdered his parents, was published in 1867 in the u003cemu003eNeue Pitavalu003c/emu003e – a compilation of “interesting criminal stories”. Bayerische Staatsbibliothek

The motive

When asked why he did it, Furrer said that his parents would have opposed his marriage to Barbara Hotz. He claimed they would have wanted him to marry someone with more money and that his father had said, “that if I were to marry Barbara, he wouldn’t give me any more money, would no longer act as guarantor for me and I would no longer be able to come home”.

 

I slept in the same room as my parents. They were always good to me and I loved them. However, they never gave me money for anything, not even on holidays. We didn’t even celebrate Christmas. I had enough to eat.

A description by Furrer of his childhood as recorded in the ‘Neue Pitaval’ (a collection of crime stories).
Furrer went further still: he accused his fiancée of being complicit in the crime. Barbara had, he alleged, planted the idea in his head of how good it would be if his parents were to die and asked him whether the arsenic he had used to combat the infestation of rats in his butcher’s shop would also work on people. He said they had therefore planned the murder together: “My relationship with Barbara was my undoing,” he said. Barbara Hotz, who was also arrested, vehemently opposed this version of events: “As God is my witness,” she cried out, “I knew nothing about the poisoned sausage.” Although an element of suspicion continued to hang over her, she was never tried due to a lack of evidence.

The public prosecutor’s office focused instead on financial motives as the reason for Furrer having decided to murder his affluent, but at the same time extremely thrifty (some thought miserly) parents: “He became negligent in Dürnten, he didn’t manage his business well, he wasn’t suited to running everything by himself.” He couldn’t even meet the first rental payment on his premises, which had been due in May 1864.

A clear case for the death penalty?

The jury court that convened in Pfäffikon at the end of September 1864 had no option but to condemn Furrer to death. The Zurich criminal code of 1836 stipulated the death penalty for murder and the most egregious cases of robbery or arson. Executions were still held in public and had taken the form of beheadings by guillotine since the 1840s.
The Lucerne Guillotine.
The Lucerne Guillotine. © MUSEUM LUZERN / photo: Theres Bütler
Nonetheless, the Zurich Cantonal Parliament was authorised to grant reprieves. And the committee responsible for reviewing Furrer’s plea for clemency did recommend commuting his sentence to a life term. In mitigation it cited the convict’s age: Furrer was 19 when he committed his crime and would have been ineligible for the death penalty if he had been just 48 weeks younger.

The cantonal parliamentary committee also made reference to Furrer’s character, which it saw as a “psychological puzzle”. It identified “a lack of emotion”, he had been “cold and calm” when confessing his crime. Even when faced with the death penalty, there was no “outward sign of emotion from the condemned”. The fact that he could be punished for his misdeed had “unfortunately not occurred [to me]. The thought of punishment”, said Furrer, “would have dissuaded me from the crime”. He felt sorry for himself and the situation he was in: “That’s my credit gone and everything else, and on top of that I’ve lost my parents!”

Either he is slow-witted like an animal or, if not, he is frightfully confused and of limited mental capacity, and his dark train of thought was looking for a solution in his hour of need, leading to a brutal and unnatural murder. Such a twisted mind deserves punishment but not death; punishment that he can learn from. What he needs most of all is life.

Extract from the ‘Neue Pitaval’ published in 1867.

A landmark trial

Furrer’s trial occurred as debate raged on the future of the death penalty. The liberally minded considered capital punishment as outdated and incompatible with a civilised society. Whereas the purpose of punishment had once been to deter, they called for a more constructive approach based on making the criminal a better person. It was also argued that public executions did not encourage people to behave better, but instead served to brutalise people. “Several cantons,” said the cantonal parliamentary committee “have abolished the death penalty, others are preparing to abolish it. Even in the canton of Zurich, there is growing opposition to the death penalty, especially in the Cantonal Parliament. Zurich is in a transitional phase, as are other cantons.” The duty of the Cantonal Parliament is to “shorten this transitional phase so the guillotine can be decommissioned in the not too distant future.”
Opinion was divided in the Cantonal Parliament on the abolition of the death penalty. A report by the Intelligenzblatt für die Stadt Bern newspaper of 14 January 1864.
Opinion was divided in the Cantonal Parliament on the abolition of the death penalty. A report by the u003cemu003eIntelligenzblattu003c/emu003e für die Stadt Bern newspaper of 14 January 1864.rnrnu0026nbsp; e-newspaperarchives
Other progressive thinkers shared this position. Salomon Bleuler-Hausheer, editor of the Winterthurer Landbote newspaper, expressed the hope in a pamphlet published under his own name, that the Furrer case would bring a permanent end to the death penalty for the canton of Zurich. The sheer horror of this double parricide would make it “the foundation stone that would hopefully cause the scaffold to collapse.” And the newspaper Der Bund opined: “Anyone who can grant mercy in this case must oppose the death penalty on principle, and it appears that this particular case really is destined to bring about the end of capital punishment.”
The pamphlet by Salomon Bleuler-Hausheer on capital punishment and the case of Johann Heinrich Furrer, 1864.
The pamphlet by Salomon Bleuler-Hausheer on capital punishment and the case of Johann Heinrich Furrer, 1864. Google Books

The verdict: reprieve or execution?

The vote on whether to grant Furrer a reprieve was held on 10 October 1864. The members of the Cantonal Parliament had to deposit either a white (for mercy) or a black ball (against the motion) in an urn. The outcome was 161 white against 55 black balls. Being opposed to the death penalty on principle was very likely the key factor behind most of the votes in favour of a reprieve.

By contrast, the committee's assertion that not only the Cantonal Parliament but also the general public had turned against capital punishment proved premature. Many people displayed zero understanding of why Furrer should be spared execution, and the papers were flooded with letters of protest from people arguing that the death penalty must be retained for as long as such vile acts as parricide were committed. A drunken citizen was even placed briefly in custody for shouting out in public: “You should have put a guillotine in front of the townhall to behead anyone who placed a white ball!”
The Cantonal Parliament made its decision based on 161 white against 55 black balls.
The Cantonal Parliament made its decision based on 161 white against 55 black balls. Staatsarchiv Zürich
At the same time, Furrer’s reprieve did not lead to a complete ban on executions. A mere seven months later, in May 1865, child killer Heinrich Götti was beheaded in Zurich. However, that was to be the last execution to take place in the canton of Zurich. Capital punishment was subsequently definitively banned by the new Cantonal Constitution of 1869.

However, that did not apply throughout Switzerland. Although the completely revised Federal Constitution of 1874 no longer stipulated the death penalty, the cantons regained the power to practise capital punishment just five years later following a popular vote – and it was reinstated in eleven cantons. A nationwide ban did not return until 1942, when the criminal code banned capital punishment in civil criminal law. The Confederation was one of the first nations in Europe to introduce the measure: for example, the United Kingdom didn’t abolish the death penalty until the 1970s, or France until the 1980s. Swiss military criminal law, on the other hand, retained the death penalty during times of war until 1992.

He escaped the guillotine, but at what price?

The standard practice of releasing prisoners serving a life term after 20 years was not applied in Furrer’s case. In 1885, it was disclosed that he was still in prison, where he spent his time cutting firewood. In 1892, he was transferred from the cantonal penal institution to the psychiatric unit at Rheinau. The media reported that he was “physically and mentally completely broken”. Johann Heinrich Furrer died in the spring of 1893 in Rheinau at the age of 48. His estate to the value of CHF 40,000 went to his sister Luise.

Published on: 16.07.2024

Modified on: 07.10.2025

URL: https://blog.nationalmuseum.ch/en/2024/07/a-sausage-arsenic-and-the-death-penalty-the-case-of-furrer/

More of: Modern AgePoliticsCrimeArticle

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