On June 29, 1891, soon after six o’clock, a servant maid, Dora Moll, found the body of a boy, Johann Hegemann, with his throat cut, in a barn where fruit was stored, belonging to a town councilman named Kupper. The boy was the son of the carpenter and coffin-maker of the place. At noon on the same day the child, a fine and healthy boy, had been seen playing near the barn. The wound was a clean one and there seemed to be no doubt that a murder had been committed, but there appeared to be no motive for it. Soon, however, suspicion fell upon Adolf Buschoff, a butcher and also the superintendent of the Jewish congregation. Several persons testified to the boy having been attracted by Buschoff’s wife and daughter to the butcher’s shop, situated close by the Kupper barn, on the eve of the crime. Other causes for suspicion were suggested, with the immediate result that Buschoff’s property was laid waste by his enraged fellow-citizens and “Murderer’s house” was written on his abode. Many shops belonging to Jews were also sacked; indignation was intensified by a report that the boy had been done to death by a knife such as is used by Jewish butchers, and that murder had been committed because the Jews require Christian blood for their Passover feast. The excitement of the Christian population grew to such a pitch that the Jewish community of Xanten begged, in their own defence, that a special detective might be employed to follow up the crime. The result of this inquiry was the arrest of Buschoff, with his wife and daughter, and their committal to the prison at Kleve, from which they were at last released on December 23rd. Anti-Semitism, however, constantly rankled and inflamed public opinion; the case was re-opened, and Buschoff, who had settled at Cologne, was again arrested on the plea that further suspicion had arisen. His wife and daughter escaped, although a warrant had been issued against them as being also privy to the crime. Hitherto Buschoff had been looked upon as a popular and harmless citizen, but now feeling ran high against him and it was generally believed that the charge of deliberate murder would be fully proved.