Researching Robert

 

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Improper Relations

by Jim Potter

Anna Borchart (also spelled Borchert) married her deceased husband’s brother, Robert Borchert, in Haven, Kansas, on December 3, 1901.

Nine months later, on September 11, 1902, Robert was arrested on a charge of improper relations with his fifteen-year-old daughter, Edith Borchert.¹

The criminal case grew out of an application for a guardian for the children of his first wife, Martha. The guardianship was demanded because there were allegations he had been cruel to his children. When Edith was questioned, she “recited cruelties she had suffered, but appeared to keep something back.”

When Edith was asked if there was more to tell, she explained that there was, but she couldn’t answer out loud.  When asked to write out what her father had done to her, she did so. Robert Borchert’s arrest warrant was based on her written statement.²

On September 20, Justice Morris bound Borchert over to the district court on the charge of incest and rape. “The girl told a very straight story and the father’s attorneys were unable to destroy the evidence.”³ 

A week later, the preliminary hearing of Borchert was held in the court of Justice Morris. Edith testified on the stand that her father had sexual intercourse with her repeatedly within the prior two years. Her twelve-year-old brother, Willie, “was not a witness to any of the alleged criminal relations, but he knew of the father’s alleged mistreatment of the daughter.”

Robert Borchert denied the charges, and Anna, his wife, said she wasn’t aware of any improper contact between her husband and her stepdaughter.⁴

Borchert was bound over for trial in district court. The bond was set at $1,000 which resulted in Borchert remaining in the Reno County jail.

The trial of Borchert, charging him with incest of his daughter, began on January 8, 1903, with a full courtroom of spectators. Edith was called to the stand, and the defense attorneys were unable to shake her testimony.⁵

One newspaper article, at the time of the appeal to the supreme court, summarized both Edith’s and Robert’s view of the criminal charges:

The daughter testified that after her mother’s death her father was repeatedly guilty of the charge against him. At one time he threatened (her) with a revolver to kill her, the other smaller children, and himself. When she threatened to tell, he scared her into submission by threats.

“We won’t go to heaven,” the girl is quoted as saying to her father.

“Oh, you’ll go there all right,” he replied, “and as for me, I’ll look out for myself. I don’t care whether I go there or not, anyway.”

Borchert testified that no improper relations had ever existed between himself and his daughter, and that her effort to convict him of crime was due to her dislike for him, and her desire to ‘get even’ for fancied wrongs.⁶

After sixteen hours, the jury found Borchert guilty, “but recommended mercy.”⁷

Borchert’s criminal sentence for rape could have ranged from five to twenty years in the state penitentiary at hard labor. Judge Simpson sentenced him to ten years.⁸

While Borchert was serving his sentence in the state penitentiary at Lansing, the appeal by the defense council to the state supreme court was finally decided in January 1904. It affirmed the decision of the district court.

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Until next time, happy researching and writing,

^{1. The newspaper articles refer to Edith Borchert’s age as fifteen. A month prior to the trial, she turned fifteen, but the alleged offense almost certainly occurred when she was fourteen. During the coverage of the trial, the newspapers didn’t mention the exact date of a single alleged offense. At the trial, Edith stated that her father’s criminal relations occurred over the preceding two years, after her mother’s death. Martha died July 11, 1900, when Edith was twelve, a month before her thirteenth birthday.}

^{2. The Inman Review (Inman, KS), Sept. 26, 1902, 4.}

^{3. Hutchinson News (Hutchinson, KS), Sept. 20, 1902, 1.}

^{4. The Inman Review (Inman, KS), Sept. 26, 1902, 4. & Hutchinson News, Hutchinson, KS, Jan. 9, 1903, 12.} 

^{5. The Daily Independent (Hutchinson, KS), Jan. 8, 1903, 1.}

^{6. The Topeka State Journal (Topeka, KS), July 27, 1903, 4.}

^{7. The Daily Independent (Hutchinson, KS), Jan. 13, 1.}

^{8. The Hutchinson News (Hutchinson, KS), March 3, 1903, 5.}