On the cold evening of December 3, 1894, the body of a young white female, 29-year-old dressmaker Katherine "Kitty" Ging, was discovered on a desolate road near Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Initially, her death was believed to be the result of a tragic accident, with authorities surmising she had been thrown from her horse-drawn buggy and trampled. However, a subsequent autopsy revealed a more sinister cause of death: a bullet lodged behind her left eye.
This discovery transformed the case into a murder investigation that would captivate the nation.
Investigators soon focused their attention on Harry T. Hayward, a charismatic and well-known socialite from a wealthy Minneapolis family with whom Ging had been romantically involved. Both resided in the Ozark Flats, a building owned by Hayward's father. The investigation uncovered that Ging had recently taken out two life insurance policies, each for $5,000, naming Hayward as the sole beneficiary. While Hayward claimed this was collateral for a loan he had given her to expand her successful dressmaking business, the police discovered that she had actually been loaning him money to cover his gambling debts.
The case took a dramatic turn when Claus Blixt, the janitor at the Ozark Flats, confessed to the murder, implicating Hayward as the mastermind. Blixt, a Swedish immigrant, told police that Hayward had manipulated and blackmailed him into committing the crime, even threatening his wife's life. On the night of the murder, Blixt had picked Ging up in a carriage under the pretense of taking her to meet Hayward. Instead, following Hayward's instructions, he drove her to a remote location and shot her with a. 38-caliber revolver. After dumping her body, he released the horse and carriage.
Harry Hayward, his brother Adry, and Claus Blixt were arrested on December 6, 1894. Adry Hayward would later testify against his brother, revealing that Harry had first approached him to carry out the murder plot, an offer he had vehemently refused. The sensational trial began in January 1895 and lasted for 46 days, featuring testimony from 138 witnesses. Hayward maintained his innocence, claiming his brother and Blixt were lying, and even presented what he believed to be an airtight alibi for the time of the murder. Despite his claims, the jury returned a guilty verdict for first-degree murder on March 8, 1895.
Harry Hayward was sentenced to death by hanging. Before his execution, he confessed to being the architect of the murder plot, exonerating his brother. On December 11, 1895, Harry T. Hayward was executed for the murder of Katherine Ging. Claus Blixt, who pulled the trigger, was sentenced to life in prison and died in Stillwater Prison in 1925. The murder of Kitty Ging, orchestrated by the man known as the "Minneapolis Svengali," remains one of the most infamous crimes in Minnesota's history.
