The Helmuth Buxbaum Case

Helmuth Buxbaum a wealthy nursing homes chain operator had it all, money, a big house, a loving wife and four beautiful children, but that wasn t enough for him. Somewhere down the road he started to use hard drugs like cocaine and also developed a hunger for sex, which could only be satisfied by prostitutes and other younger women. This new lifestyle that Buxbaum wanted to live was opposed by his wife, but divorcing his wife would mean he would have to give up more than half of his assets which he felt that he couldn t afford to do now since he was already accustomed to his new scandalous lifestyle. So he had his wife Hanna Buxbaum murdered to maintain control over the nursing home chain and to keep indulging himself in cocaine and prostitutes.

Helmuth Buxbaum was the owner of a successful chain of nursing homes, but how did he actually establish such a successful chain all by himself. In actuality he didn t establish this chain by himself at all. It was his older brother who had in fact helped him build the first nursing home. After the success of the first nursing home Buxbaum was, ablaze with ambition that he forced his brother out of the business by buying him out .(Bird p.18) this shows that Buxbaum had already turned on one of his own family members just for more wealth and power. What was stopping him from turning on another family member to gain even more control over this growing enterprize. The fact that it was his wife that held the other 50 percent and that he would not be able to buy her out and divorce was completely out of the question because she would still be able to keep her half of the business and maybe even more if the divorce settlement went in her favour. So for Buxbaum the only logical thing that he thought was appropriate for him to do was have his wife murdered in cold blood and make it look like it was an attempted robbery

gone wrong to throw the police off and to also conceal the double life that he was trying to live.

Buxbaum had extremely confusing sexual tendencies, which had begun long before he suffered from a stroke in 1982. His first encounter was with his older brother Otto, this was when they were both partners in the operation of the nursing home chain, Otto and his brother Helmut had both gone down town and had picked up a prostitute. Helmut had slept with the prostitute and had also mistreated the lady by slapping her around after he had sex with her. Not able to maintain the guilt that he so called felt he had told his wife that Otto had taken him to go see the prostitute. He also told his wife that it was a one time thing and that it would never happen again and his wife being the sincere christian that she was forgave her husband. But that wasn t what Otto had told police when they came and questioned him, Otto told police that it was Helmut s idea to go see the prostitute and that he had to apologize for his brothers behaviour after he had mistreated her .(Bird p.28)

Buxbaum s sexual rampage didn t exactly end their. When Buxbaum was thirty-nine years old he had caught a glimpse of a seventeen year old girl that at the time was working in one of his nursing homes. Buxbaum had some how managed to seduce the seventeen year old and had sex with her in the backseat of his car. To make matters worst the young girl had gotten pregneant and refused to get an abortion, but she was ashamed of what had happened and she fled town. Nine months later though the young women had informed a social worker what had happen. The end result was that Buxbaum had to make monthly payments to this women so she would be able to support herself and her newborn child. Buxbaum had to confess this affair to his wife because there was no way that he would be able to hide such a sin. Buxbaum had claimed that he confessed all his infidelities to his wife and that she always forgave him and that she would always blame the other women claiming that they had forced themselves on to her husband, but that was still to be determined.

After suffering from a stroke at the age of forty-three in the year 1982 Buxbaum had stopped having sex with his wife because he claimed that he had become impotent and he felt that, life was over and I then began going to prostitutes and patronizing strip clubs .(Stroke Toronto Star) Now that he had an excuse Buxbam had gone on an even more bizzare sexual frenzy. He began using prostitutes at least three times a week and would sometimes even use up to three women in one day, It was just an insatiable appetite to watch people having sex. I thought it would help my impotence, and maybe it did . (Stroke Toronto Star)

Buxbaum was soon realizing that he couldn t keep this chaired of being impotent up for very long. He wanted to come out of the closet, he didn t want to run around at night sleeping with these women. If he wanted to sleep with other women he was going to do it and he wasn t going to let anything stop him a specially his wife, which he claimed couldn t satisfy or fulfill the sexual desires that he had But his wife wasn t going exactly sit there and let her husband parade around town and sleep with every prostitute that he saw would be able to fulfill his needs. So that had brought Buxbaum back to his original game plan of having his wife killed. He already knew someone who would be capable of doing such a deed for a low price. Robert Barrett a man who had once done landscaping for Buxbaum was already involved in other illegal activities with Buxbaum as well. Such as procuring women for him six or seven times (Slain, Bird) For which he received $200.