Did you know that Madison has a century old unsolved murder case of a 7 year old girl?
At different times, two men were convicted of the crime, one was her father. Today no one
knows for sure who did it. It is said that only the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby had more
nationwide press coverage than the Annie Lemberger case.
She disappeared sometime overnight on September 5-6, 1911 from her home in the
“Bush”. Three days later her body was found naked floating
in Lake Monona Bay by Brittingham park. "Bruised about the head", No water was in her lungs,
she did not drown.
James “Dogskin” Johnson confessed to the killing but
then recanted. He spent more than ten years in prison pleading his innocence before he got a
pardon hearing and was set free in 1921.
At that time suspicion switched to her father Martin Lemberger. He was convicted of
manslaughter but, because the stat chute of limitations had expired, spent no time in
jail. It still wasn’t over. It was later discovered that the key winess at the new trial
was paid to lie.
Decades later, Mark Lemberger, Annie's nephew, became intrigued with the case and spent
years trying to piece the evidence together. In a book
“Crime of Magnitude: The Murder
of Little Annie” Mark concludes that the neighbor, James Johnson, was the killer.
Annie is interred
at
Resurrection Cemetery
