The Hontvets moved to the United States in 1866, originally settling in Boston, Massachusetts before moving further north to the Isles of Shoals off Maine. There, they began a fishing company that would become fairly successful (“The Smuttynose Murders”). On Smuttynose Island, where they had settled, they met their neighbor Louis Wagner, who was apparently struggling to live on the small island. They offered him a room at their home. For two years, the Hontvets, originally from Norway, had lived closely with Louis Wagner, originally from Prussia. They have been described as being close like siblings, living on Smuttynose Island, the second largest of the Isles of Shoals at a half mile wide. John Hontvet hired Wagner in June 1872 to work for his fishing company, as his business had grown. Wagner moved into their home and they seemed to grow even closer, until Hontvet’s brother, Matthew, and brother-in-law, Ivan Christensen, and sister-in-law, Anethe, arrived in October. That November, after remaining with the Hontvets for a few more weeks, Wagner left on another fishing vessel, the Addison Gilbert, and left the island (Bastoni).
At the time that Wagner left, his friends and previous employers felt that good knowing he was on his feet when he left. By March of 1873, Wagner was no longer doing as well as he had been. The vessel he left on had wrecked and by March he was behind three weeks on his rent. The winter had been awful and spring should have brought hope to the Isles of Shoals. On March 5, 1873, Wagner helped the vessel Hontvet was on dock and asked if they would be returning to Smuttynose Island that night. Though the question was unexpected, neither Hontvet or the other men with him found it to be particularly suspicious. Had they, the story would have ended differently (Bastoni).
Due to the bait Hontvet was waiting for not arriving on time, Hontvet and his men would stay at the wharf they had docked at, and Wagner made a plan. He was planning on robbing the Hontvets while John Hontvet was away from the home (Bastoni). Wagner stole a rowboat from Pickering Wharf and began the trip to Smuttynose Island, a difficult trip in winter. It took him approximately five hours to get to the island, where he docked on the other side and walked through the snow to the house (“The Smuttynose Murders”). The women at the Hontvet home went to bed around 10 PM, choosing not to wait up later for the men to come home. Maren Hontvet, John’s wife, slept in one bedroom with her sister-in-law, Anethe, while her sister Karen, who was visiting from a hotel she had been working at in Appledore, slept in the kitchen. As they slept, Wagner watched the house for some time until he was sure they would be sleeping and made his way inside, finding that the door had not been bolted. Perhaps, had the door been bolted shut, he wouldn’t have been able to get inside (Bastoni).
Wagner had intended to get the robbery done without being found, using a piece of wood to keep the door to the bedroom closed. Unfortunately, Wagner apparently was not aware of Karen’s presence in the kitchen and she woke when the family dog barked at him. Upon waking, Karen thought he was John and questioned his presence, waking Anethe and Maren who called out to her. When she answered that Wagner, whom she still believed to be John, had scared her, he grabbed a chair and began to beat her in the darkness of the room. Maren and Anethe could hear the assault from in the bedroom and called out to her to no answer. Karen managed to get to the bedroom door and open it, getting dragged into the room by Maren who ordered Anethe, watching from the corner in fear, to run and hide. Anethe managed to get out the window of the room, into the snow outside, where Wagner followed. Maren had to watch from the bedroom as the man she had lived with for two years took their long-handled ax and brought it down on Anethe’s head, the woman falling dead to the ground and Wagner continuing to assault her with the ax (Bastoni).
Maren tried to get Karen to move, to run from the attack while Wagner was busy attacking Anethe, but the woman was too tired after the attack she suffered earlier. Maren, deciding that there was no way they could survive if they stayed together, bundled herself up and climbed through the same window Anethe had. Maren ran from the house, the family dog held close, hoping to find the boat Wagner had used. Her initial heading proved fruitless and she began to make her way to the opposite side of the island. She could hear Karen crying out in agony as she passed around the house, keeping a wide berth, and found her way back to the water’s edge. While Maren was running, Wagner was attacking Karen, strangling her with a handkerchief (Bastoni).
Still clutching the dog to her chest, she managed to find a hiding place among some large rocks, the dog her only source of warmth in the winter night (“The Smuttynose Murders”). Maren stayed in hiding until eight in the morning, at which time she began to search for help. Soon, people were searching for the men that lived in the house, but the vessel they traveled on soon arrived. They found Maren waiting for them, but she could not bring herself to tell them where the other two women were beyond at the house. They found the truth soon enough and soon the investigators at Portsmouth, New Hampshire became aware of the horrific murders that had occurred and the search for Wagner began (Bastoni).
The morning after the murders, Wagner was seen at his boarding house by witnesses. They described him as more haggard in appearance than usual, as if he had hardly slept the night before. He left that morning, taking a nine AM train to Boston. While there, he bought himself new clothes and boots, and had his beard shaved and hair cut, possibly as an attempt to disguise himself. Unfortunately for Wagner, he chose to head to the North End neighborhood he had once lived in and was easily recognized. He was arrested by seven PM that night and procedural issues needed to be dealt with. The islands belonged to both New Hampshire and Maine, thought Smuttynose belonged to Maine, meaning Wagner needed to be extradited from Boston to New Hampshire, and then to Maine (“The Smuttynose Murders”).
It didn’t take long to find Wagner in Boston and he was soon transferred to the Boston depot to head to Portsmouth (Bastoni). From Portsmouth, Wagner was taken to South Berwick, Maine and reportedly then moved again to a prison in Alfred, Maine (“The Smuttynose Murders”). Though Wagner was met with mobs set on killing him, his trial began on June 9, 1873 (Bastoni). At trial, there was a fair amount of circumstantial evidence against Wagner. He had left a bloody shirt at the boarding house in Portsmouth before leaving, hidden in the restroom, and the new clothing and shoes he’d bought cost the same as the money found missing from the Hontvet house. Not only had his purchases equaled the amount stolen, but a button belonging to Maren Hontvet was found among the change he had in his pocket at the time of his arrest. Maren Hontvet took the stand, telling her story and the final words of Anethe, “Louis, Louis, Louis.” Witnesses who knew Wagner claimed he had said previously he would be willing to kill for money at low times and he would have known that the Hontvets would have money in their house, as they were saving for a new boat. Wagner’s own testimony, described as rambling, did not help his case either. He claimed he had been working that night setting up bait for another fisher, but couldn’t name the fisher, the boar, or where it was (“The Smuttynose Murders”). Wagner was found guilty after nine days of testimony, but broke out of jail within a week. He was quickly recaptured in New Hampshire and on June 25, 1875, Wagner was hanged in Thomaston, Maine, for his crimes (Bastoni). He was hanged on March 26, 1875, alongside John True Gordon, convicted of murdering his sister-in-law and her child. Wagner was silent through the proceedings (“The Smuttynose Murders”).
Other theories have been proposed by some. Some believe John Hontvet was the killer, as Karen thought it was John beating her with a chair during the attack, and some believe Maren may have been covering for him. Another theory is that Maren Hontvet was the one who killed her sister and sister-in-law. She was the only eyewitness to the murders, her testimony playing a major part in Wagner’s conviction, and was home the entire time that Wagner was rowing to the island. Unsubstantiated rumors circulated that Maren had confessed to the murders on her death bed, but there is no way to confirm these rumors (“The Smuttynose Murders”).
Bastoni, Mark. “Isles Of Shoals Murders | Horror On Smuttynose Island”. New England Today, 2020, https://newengland.com/today/travel/new-hampshire/portsmouth/smuttynose-murders/.
“The Smuttynose Murders”. Murderbygaslight.Com, 2009, http://www.murderbygaslight.com/2009/12/smuttynose-murders.html.
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