George Remus
Remus Kills His Wife Imogene On Way to Get Divorce
Article taken from The Morning News Review, October 7, 1927
CINCINNATI; Oct. 6 --(AP)-- George Remus, one time "king of bootleggers," today shot his wife Imogene to death as she leaped from a taxi cab after seeing Remus' car swing out from a parking into traffic behind hers.
Mrs. Remus was on her way the time to attend a hearing on a divorce suit she filed against her husband before he was released from the Atlanta penitentiary in 1935.
Remus was being held in jail tonight without bond on a first degree murder charge. The shooting occurred as Mrs Remus drove through Eden Park here. She died after being removed to a hospital.
The divorce suit was to have received a definite hearing today after it had been delayed by repeated continuances.
To foretail an insanity plea, county Prosecutor Cahlres P. Taft late today ordered Dr. W. C. Kendig, Hamilton county court tilenist, to interview Remus and form his own conclusions regarding whether Remus was insane at the time of the killing.
An automobile with Remus in it swung out from the side of Victory Parkway early this morning to follow a taxi in which Mrs. Remus and her adopted daughter, Ruth, 19, were riding to court.
"I'm afraid. I'm afraid," Mrs. Remus told her daughter. There was a chase through heavy early morning traffic.
Through the center of traffic sped the closed car, turned in front of the taxi forcing the driver to stop. Mrs. Remus jumped from the taxi and started to run. Remus leaped from the car, seized her by the wrist, drew her close to him and fired a bullet into her abdomen. He then returned to his car.
A motorist answered Mrs. Remus' call for help and took the dying woman and her daughter to a hospital. Physicians operated immediately but she died two hours later.
Remus went to police station and surrendered.
He was bitter. He spoke of alleged relationship between Mrs. Remus and Franklin L. Dodge, Jr., Cleveland, Ohio, a former Federal prohibition agent, who was instrumental in his conviction and whom he named as co-respondent in a cross bill filed to his wife's divorce suit.
She had charged Remus with cruelty.
"It's the penalty on pays for being contrary to the debt one owes to
society," he said
Remus went to
Eden Park with detectives and re-enacted the shooting. The revolver,
which was not found, he said, he threw into the drive.
George Klug surrendered and said he was the driver of the car. He said he had no previous knowledge of Remus' intentions.
Mrs. Remus was formerly Mrs. Imogene Holmes, an Evanston ill-divorcee. Her name became linked with Remus when he was practicing law in Chicago. The newspapers gave publicity to a clash between Mrs. Holmes and a plumber in her apartment. Rem us was there at the time and became involved in the story. a divorce followed and Rem us married Mrs. Homes, July 21, 1920, less than a year later.
They came to Cincinnati the next year and with the purchase by Rem us of distilleries and warehouses in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio for his million dollar bootlegging business, began a series of colorful adventures for him that were climaxed dramatically in the shooting of his wife.
In 1924 he lost a two-year court battle and began serving a two-year sentence in the Atlanta prison. On good behavior he was out in 1925 and then served a year in jail.
The divorce case was re-opened which he was released from the Scioto county jail at Portsmouth, Ohio, this spring, but a series of continuances have prevented a hearing.
Remus rode to the Atlanta penitentiary in a private car. While there, he figured prominently in the 1924 - 25 Investigation of conditions in the Federal prison which resulted in the conviction of Warden Albert E. Sartain of conspiracy to accept a bribe from prisoners.
It was charged that Remus was treated as a favorite and allowed privileges in the penitentiary.
Remus also was a bribery witness before the United States Senate committee which made the Daugherty investigation, was a defendant in a $80,000 tax suit brought by the government for taxes on liquor sold by Remus, faced deportation proceedings against him and was the star witness in the famous Jack Daniels whisky conspiracy trial held at Indianapolis. Several prominent men were sentenced to Leavenworth prison as a result of the looting of the Daniels Distillery in the St. Louis, Mo., of whisky.
This sudden tragic and unexpected termination by Remus of action in the Divorce suit was accompanied by another unexpected move by the former alleged bootleg king tonight when he announced he would act as his own attorney when he will be brought to trial on the first degree murder charged "Remus made the announcement at police headquarters tonight where he received newspaper reporters following an examination as "unreadable". He formerly practiced law in Chicago.
"The once-time acknowledged ruler of bootleggers preferred to stand trial acting as his own council rather that accept services of nationally known criminal lawyers. Remus said he received a number of telegrams today from such lawyer volunteering their services.
"He will be taken to the police court tomorrow to answer the murder charge."
Urbane throughout the interview, he readily replied to every question put to him. Although Remus stated that he had only $36 when he left the Atlanta prison after serving the term imposed upon him in federal court for violating the prohibition law, and that his wife and left him penniless, this apparently did not inflame him so much as his wife's alleged association with "an officer of the government, sworn to uphold the law, who associated with him seeking by every means to get me."
Asked if he has attempted to effect a reconciliation with is wife, Remus replied: "How could I? No sane man would."