TUESDAY October 29, 2024 VOLUME 114 ISSUE 12 www.UniversityStar.com
Halloweekend Safety Infographic Page 3
SPOOKY EDITION Where’s Nova? Page 10
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ILLUSTRATION BY DEVON CREW AND SARAH MANNING
The story of the San Marcos serial killer By Marisa Nuñez Editor in Chief Trigger warning: This story contains mentions of suicide and murder. On the second floor of the Old Hays County Jail, serial killer Anna Hauptreif was found hanging from the bars of her jail cell by a waistband of her underclothing, on Oct. 31, 1924; just five months before
going to trial for the murder of her first husband and four step kids and the attempted murder of her second husband. Oct. 31 will mark the 100th anniversary of her death. Her story When Anna was 27 she married Kurt Schroeder, a German immigrant, in June 1921. In September
Community members display spooky sides through oddity collections By Marisa Nuñez Editor in Chief At an oddities and curiosities event in Austin, Andrea Hernandez, owner of Triple Six Coffee Social, bought her first oddity, a baby pig with a real heart on it. Now for over a decade, Hernandez has collected about 20 oddities. “I collect a lot of mummified remains of animals, and it took me a while because, coming from a Hispanic background you grow up kind of being like, no stay away from it,” Hernandez said. “And then, about 15 years ago, I told myself, ‘I love this, stop holding back.’ So I just got extra creepy… I just embraced it.”
Oddities consist of things like strange antiques, bones, taxidermy or preserved animal remains and creative work. Hernandez’s favorite type of oddity to collect is mummified remains of animals. Hernandez started collecting oddities because she believes there is beauty in death. She was always fascinated with the history of old post-mortem photos and the way autopsies used to be conducted leading to her interest in collecting oddities. “This might sound morbid, but I think there’s a beauty to death,” Reyes said. “I went to school to be a nurse, and I started off as a patient tech… so after a patient died… I would go in there and wash them. That was like, what they still do in hospitals [is] what they used to do[for] post-mortem photos, but it’s just the whole beauty to death and respecting the body and realizing that that was a life at one point.” Sydney Reyes, founder of Para-chicks Paranormal, began collecting oddities three years ago after her friend, who is a paranormal investigator, acquired some haunted dolls while working on a case. “He gave me a call, and he was like, ‘Hey, do you want a doll?’ I was like, ‘Sure.’ He was like, ‘It’s a haunted doll’ and I was like, ‘Wait, what?’ So we met up… and I originally was only going to get Sarah… and right next to her was Esme, so I told him I [needed] both,” Reyes said.
1921, Schroeder died. At the time it was believed to be due to anesthetics during an appendectomy. At his funeral, Anna cried and wailed hysterically over his coffin. Several community members and friends of Anna attended the funeral, including the Hauptreif family.
SEE HISTORY PAGE 3
TXST program identifies deceased migrants By Ryan Claycamp Senior News Reporter As immigration across the United StatesMexico border has risen in recent years, there has been a rising issue in border communities: unidentified migrant deaths. According to the Texas Department of Health Services, border communities are more likely to be impoverished, leaving them lacking the proper resources to investigate and identify deceased migrants.. That’s where programs such as Operation Identification (OpID), a program run through the Texas State Anthropology Department, come in to help identify and repatriate unidentified bodies found along the border. “I believe the number of remains we receive increases each year,” Victoria Soto, an anthropology PhD student at Texas State that works with OpID, said.
PHOTO BY MARISA NUÑEZ
Victoria sits in the haunted museum, Monday, Oct. 28, 2024, at Triple Six Coffee Social.
SEE COMMUNITY PAGE 2
SEE BORDER PAGE 5