Charged With Heinous Crime

Joseph Janer is apprehended and arrested for the kidnapping and assaulting of an 11 year-old child.

Joseph M. Janer, aged about thirty-four years, of Brooklyn, N.Y., a married man with children, was, after a hearing before Police Magistrate Grannan in Baltimore, held without bail for the action of the grand jury on a charge which, stripped of its legal technicalities, means felonious assault upon Catherine Loerch, of Brooklyn, who, she told the magistrate, will be 12 years old on the 22cnd of this months. The arrests were made at the instance of the police of New York, though it is known they suspected Janer of anything more grave than kidnapping a child. The crime which Janer is charged is a most serious one in this state, conviction carrying with it imprisonment for from eighteen months to the life of the criminal, or the sentence may be death by hanging. The latter punishment has frequently been inflicted in this state.

“Charged With Heinous Crime,” Black Virginia: The Richmond Planet, 1894-1909, accessed April 24, 2025, https://blackvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1865.