He had been an idler from his childhood and, after serving in the Franco-Russian war, he deserted and was often an inmate of the house of correction at Augsberg. When free, he had supported himself in various ways in that city till he became a lodger in the house of the ill-fated woman Holzmann, whom he had resolved to kill on finding that she had so many valuable things and was supposed to possess much money. He was long undecided as to the method of doing the deed, but at last chose strangling as the easiest form of death and because it could be carried out without noise or leaving traces of blood; and he had heard doctors say that a strangled and suffocated corpse yielded little blood when dismembered. His opportunity came on the morning of Good Friday, when all the people in the house were at church and the lodger, Steiner, had gone out. Silence reigned in the tenement; he was alone in the upper story with the woman Holzmann. He stepped into her room and, without a word of warning, seized his victim around the throat with both hands and pressed his thumbs against her wind-pipe for the space of four or five minutes until he had murdered her outright. Then, when certain of the fact, he threw the corpse down and hastened to ransack her chest, which he found practically empty. Instead of a great treasure, he came upon only eight kreutzers and two pennies, and nothing more was brought to light after further minute search. He had strangled her for a few coppers. Concealment was now imperative. After a quarter of an hour the corpse was cold, and he dragged it out through the door into the garret adjoining. He then proceeded to the ghastly work of dismemberment, and acquitted himself of the horrible task with the greatest adroitness, thanks to the knowledge he had acquired when campaigning, from watching the Russian surgeons at the same work. His labours occupied only a quarter of an hour. His plan for disposing of the limbs has already been described. Rauschmaier was condemned to be beheaded, but the additional sentence that he should previously stand in the pillory was remitted.