The Tall, Cool Blonde

More than 14 hours before the verdict was to be announced, crowds began to gather outside Munich's Palace of Justice.

Wrapped in blankets to ward off the night chill, some of the throng dozed on field cots or in collapsible chairs. Bookmakers' odds on the outcome fluctuated. Early betting predicted a decision of guilty, but by the time the judges filed into the courtroom last week, the odds had inched to even money that Defendant Vera Bruehne would be acquitted in West Germany's most spectacular murder case since glamorous Rosemarie Nitribitt, the rich man's call girl, was strangled with one of her own stockings in 1957.

With her elfin daughter Sylvia, Vera Bruehne was a familiar and whispered-about figure in Munich. An elegant, well born, still icily attractive woman of 52, she loved expensive clothes, fashionable parties, the best nightspots. She also had some peculiar tastes; once she planned to hide in a Renaissance chest in her flat and watch Sylvia seduce a friend's 14-year-old son. Lurking in her background was a burly construction worker named Johann Ferbach, 49, a wartime deserter from the Wehrmacht who met Vera during an air raid in 1944 and remained with her through her two marriages and a succession of lovers.

Prospective Buyer. One of Vera's lovers was Dr. Otto Praun, a suave, carefully tailored physician of 65 with a flourishing practice, a sumptuous house outside Munich, a $250,000 estate on Spain's Costa Brava. and a notorious weakness for tall, cool blondes. Their affair lasted for three years, during which time Otto gave Vera the Costa Brava estate.

Two years ago, when Vera began to pall. Dr. Praun decided to take his gift back. This was true to form; he had always given the estate to his blonde of the moment, then taken it back when the affair was nearing its end. Vera agreed meekly, even proposed to hunt up a buyer for the estate, which Praun now wanted to sell. The purchaser she provided was a Dr. Schmitz. Six days after arranging a meeting with Schmitz, Dr. Praun was found dead in his home, a gun under his hand. In the basement was the body of his housekeeper and occasional mistress.

The police decided that Praun had killed her before shooting himself, and quickly closed the case.

Munich gossip persisted that there was far more to the affair. Vera's parties, it was said, included a clever "murder game" based on the crime. The rumors rose to such a pitch that Munich authorities finally exhumed Dr. Praun's body.

They found that he had been shot twice through the head -- making suicide extremely unlikely. Also turned up was a letter introducing Dr. Schmitz; it had been written on a typewriter found in Vera's apartment.

Vera was soon moved into the most comfortable cell in Munich's Ettstrasse police jail.

Different Stories. After her mother's arrest, giddy, publicity-eager Sylvia Bruehne spilled an eerie story to police and press. Vera, she said, had only pretended her willingness to relinquish the estate.

The "buyer" whom she provided was actually her longtime lover, Johann Ferbach.

Using the forged letter that introduced him as Dr. Schmitz, Ferbach talked his way past the housekeeper, then shot her; he then waited for Dr. Praun to return home, murdered him, rigged the suicide and left--forgetting only the letter. Ferbach's promised rewards from Vera Bruehne: a 1958 Volkswagen, a stolen mink cape for his 79-year-old mother, and blissful retirement with his mistress on the Costa Brava.

When the pair went on trial for murder --Vera. cool as ever, kept flirting with her guards--the defense had a different story. Sylvia retracted her previous statements as sheer invention, and a psychiatrist argued convincingly that she was completely irresponsible. The defense hinted at a number of illegal ways in which Dr. Praun might have amassed his considerable wealth, including abortion, drugs and gunrunning, implied he was more likely done in by a criminal mob than by Vera.

The court did not buy that theory. As television and movie cameras whirred, the presiding judge last week found Vera and Ferbach guilty, sentenced them both to life imprisonment. Fistfights broke out in the courtroom between Vera's supporters and a clutch of shrill women screaming "Murderess." "Please, I am not guilty," sobbed Vera. Red-eyed from crying, Vera was led off to jail--still tall, still blonde, but a lot less cool than when she first met Dr. Otto Praun.

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