Killer Remus

George Remus came to the U. S. from Germany at the age of four. He made himself a lawyer, specializing in divorce cases and defense of gangsters. Then he took up the bootlegging racket in Cincinnati, became the richest U. S. 'legger, built himself a $1,000,000 mansion with a Grecian swimming pool, murdered his wife, Imogene. He conducted his own defense, insulted Prosecutor Charles Phelps Taft II in court, was found not guilty of murder on grounds of insanity (TIME, Jan. 2).

Last week the District Court of Appeals at Lima, Ohio, decided that Killer Remus was sane, ordered him released from the asylum. The majority opinion handed down by Judges Phil M. Crow and Kent W. Hughes said: "We frankly say that if his [Remus's] mental condition was at the time he committed the homicide as it was shown to be at the time of the trial before us, the verdict was a most flagrant and reprehensible outrage of judicial administration which cannot be too strongly condemned."

Judge Charles L. Justice dissented from this opinion.

Said Killer Remus: "It's wonderful. I knew they would believe me."

Unless Prosecutor Taft succeeds in appealing the case, Killer Remus will go scot-free to dedicate the rest of his life, he says, "to stifling the insult to our statutes known as the National Prohibition Act."