Murder at the Brewery: The 1915 Heist That Left South Bend Reeling

A double murder at the Muessel Brewery rocked the city, and the culprits almost got away with it

BY AARON HELMAN // POSTED FEBRUARY 12, 2025

The clock struck 5:30 on the evening of December 30, 1915, as the last echoes of clinking glasses faded in the Muessel Brewing Company's offices. It was the end of the workday, the end of the year, and for Henry Muessel, it was about to be the end of everything.

Henry, the brewery's general manager, had stayed behind to close up shop. His sons, William and Robert, lingered in the office, wrapping up final details before the holiday. A delivery driver, Frank Chrobot, was finishing his route. It was the quiet part of the day, when the bustling brewery fell into stillness before night took over. That silence was shattered when the front door burst open.

They weren't customers. They weren't workers. They were thieves. Armed men, cloaked in the evening's shadows, stormed in with guns drawn.

There was a commotion, an argument, maybe even a tussle; but by the time the dust settled and the echoes faded, Henry lay dead. Frank Chrobot's body was crumpled nearby, the life stolen from him in an instant. William was slumped against a desk, a bullet wound in his side. Blood stained the office floor, pooling beneath the wreckage of an ordinary workday turned into a waking nightmare.

Robert, the youngest of the Muessel men, had managed to hide, emerging unscathed but shaken to his core. As sirens wailed through the city, South Bend was about to wake up to a crime that would leave a permanent mark on its history.

The morning headlines screamed of bloodshed at the brewery. South Bend, a town preparing for the joy of New Year's Eve, instead found itself swallowed by grief. Galas were canceled, celebrations postponed. Fear took hold. The robbers had vanished into the night, and the police had little hope of catching them.

At first, detectives chased ghosts. Leads dried up. Suspects came and went. Two men were even arrested in 1916, but days later, they were fully exonerated. The case went cold, left to linger in the growing stack of unsolved crimes that haunted the city's conscience.

For years, it seemed that the killers had disappeared forever. But fate, cruel and fickle, had other plans.

March 1920. Chicago. The bitter winds carried whispers of betrayal, and August Schultz's wife had finally had enough.

Schultz was not a kind man, least of all to his wife. For years, she had endured his temper, his cruelty, his arrogance. But on that fateful March night, she decided she'd suffered for the last time. Revenge was on her mind, and she knew exactly how to get it.

She went to the police and told them everything.

August Schultz had been part of the Muessel Brewery robbery.

The confession sent shockwaves through law enforcement. Schultz was quickly arrested, his cocky smirk vanishing as the walls closed in. He admitted to being the getaway driver but swore up and down that he was no killer. Maybe he thought that would save him. Maybe he thought that by offering up the real gunmen, he could wriggle free of the noose tightening around his neck.

He gave up two names: Jack Wright and Charles Danruther.

The hunt was on.

 

 

Pinkerton detectives, the legendary agency that had taken down outlaws and gangsters alike, took up the case. Six months of tracking, of whispers in dark alleys and anonymous tips from the underworld, led them to Detroit. There, in September 1920, they found their man.

Jack Wright, the man Schultz named as the trigger man, was hauled in. But Danruther? He was a ghost. Vanished without a trace. Theories swirled—he had fled to South America, some said. Others claimed he was long dead, another casualty of the violent world he had lived in. Whatever the truth, one thing was certain: he would never face justice.

Schultz and Wright did not escape their fates. Both were found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. The Muessel family had some semblance of justice, but justice was cold comfort for the lives lost.

But the Muessel Brewing Company's misfortunes were far from over.

The year 1920 brought another blow — Prohibition. The nation had gone dry, and the beer that once flowed so freely in South Bend was now a relic of a bygone era. The brewery tried to pivot, producing “near beer,” but it was a hollow imitation of what had once been a thriving business. Sales plummeted. The factory doors, which had once opened to a chorus of industry and prosperity, were closed in 1922. The last one out turned off the lights.

Aaron Helman is an author, historian and adventurer from South Bend. You may have seen him around South Bend drinking coffee. Learn more about his work or check out his books at aaronhelman.com.