Editing Carl Weiss

{{Short description|Assassin of Huey Long (1906–1935)}}
{{for-multi|the World War II Navy Cross recipient, USMC|Carl W. Weiss|the Danish field hockey player|Carl Günther Weiss}}
{{Infobox murderer
| name              = Carl Weiss
| image             = Dr. Carl Wiess.jpg
| image_size        = 
| caption           = 
| birth_name        = Carl Austin Weiss
| birth_date        = {{birth date |1906|12|6}}
| birth_place       = [[Baton Rouge, Louisiana]], U.S.
| death_date        = {{death date and age|1935|9|8|1906|12|6}}
| death_place       = Baton Rouge, Louisiana, U.S.
| death_cause       = [[Gunshot wounds]]
| resting_place     = Exhumed from Roselawn Cemetery in Baton Rouge; remains never returned
| spouse            = {{marriage|Yvonne Louise Pavy Weiss|1933}}
| known_for         = [[Assassination of Huey Long]]
| relatives         = Benjamin Pavy (father-in-law)<br />Felix Octave Pavy (wife's uncle)
| children          = Carl Austin Weiss Jr.
| parents           = Carl Adam and Viola Maine Weiss
| occupation        = [[Physician]]
| alma_mater        = [[Louisiana State University]]
| footnotes         = 
| weapon            = [[FN Model 1910]]
| victims           = [[Huey Long]]
| date              = September 8, 1935
| locations         = Baton Rouge, Louisiana
}}

'''Carl Austin Weiss Sr.''' (December 6, 1906 &ndash; September 8, 1935) was an [[Americans|American]] physician who [[Assassination of Huey Long|assassinated]] U.S. Senator [[Huey Long]] at the [[Louisiana State Capitol]] on September 8, 1935.

==Career==
Weiss was born in [[Baton Rouge]] to physician Carl Adam Weiss and the former Viola Maine. Weiss's father was a prominent [[ophthalmologist]] who had once treated Senator Long.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://ajlambert.com/history/hst_hc30.pdf |access-date=29 February 2024 |title=WAY BACK WHEN: LOOKING BACK IN HISTORY: Happenings in the Cookeville area as recorded in the pages of the Herald Citizen Newspaper, Cookeville, TN |first=Bob |last=McMillian}}</ref> His paternal grandfather was an [[organist]] and [[choirmaster]] in [[Bavaria]] before he emigrated to [[Louisiana]] in 1870.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=93F3AAAAMAAJ&q=%22married+Viola+Maine+,+a+quiet+-+spoken+,+conservative+,+Baton+Rouge%22|title = The Day Huey Long was Shot, September 8, 1935|isbn = 978-0-87805-628-6|last1 = Zinman|first1 = David H.|year = 1993| publisher=University Press of Mississippi }}</ref> His mother had French and Irish ancestry.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MQkWBAAAQBAJ&dq=%22ASSASSIN+The+man+who+shot+Governor+Long,+Carl+Weiss+Jr.,+was+a+member%22&pg=PA49|title = Killing Congress: Assassinations, Attempted Assassinations and Other Violence against Members of Congress|isbn = 978-0-7391-8360-1|last1 = Marion|first1 = Nancy E.|last2 = Oliver|first2 = Willard|date = 22 July 2014| publisher=Lexington Books }}</ref> Both of Weiss' parents were Roman Catholic, although he may have had some [[Jewish]] ancestry through his paternal grandfather. However, despite the [[conspiracy theories]] promoted by the [[antisemitic]] [[preacher]] and [[Huey Long]] ally, [[Gerald L. K. Smith]], after Long's death, there is no evidence that his family remained religiously Jewish.<ref>{{cite book|first= William Ivy|last= Hair|date=1991|title=The Kingfish and His Realm: The Life and Times of Huey P. Long|publisher= Louisiana State University Press|page=274|isbn=0-8071-1700-5}}</ref> Weiss was educated in local schools and graduated from [[Catholic High School (Baton Rouge)|St. Vincent's Academy]], a Catholic school.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MQkWBAAAQBAJ&q=catholic+high+school&pg=PA50|title = Killing Congress: Assassinations, Attempted Assassinations and Other Violence against Members of Congress|isbn = 978-0-7391-8360-1|last1 = Marion|first1 = Nancy E.|last2 = Oliver|first2 = Willard|date = 22 July 2014| publisher=Lexington Books}}</ref> 

Growing up, Weiss had an interest in electricity and mechanics. He once tampered with the lock at the pew of his downtown church, locking his mother and two aunts inside.<ref>{{cite book |last=Zinman |first=David |date=1963 |title=The Day Huey Long was Shot, September 8 1935 |publisher=Ivan Obelenshy|page=55}}</ref> Initially, he studied engineering at University, his father having discouraged a career as a doctor due to its time commitments; he often went to the early 5:15&nbsp;a.m. mass in case of a later medical emergency.<ref>{{cite book |last=Zinman |first=David |date=1963 |title=The Day Huey Long was Shot, September 8 1935 |publisher=Ivan Obelenshy|page=59}}</ref> However, after two years, Weiss switched to studying medicine, obtaining his bachelor's degree in 1925 from [[Louisiana State University]] in Baton Rouge. He did postgraduate work in [[Vienna, Austria|Vienna]], [[Austria]], and briefly practiced at the [[American Hospital of Paris]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Dr. Carl Weiss Jr., 84, Dies; His Father, He Said, Didn't Kill Huey Long |work=The New York Times |date=13 August 2019 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/obituaries/dr-carl-weiss-jr-dead.html |access-date=25 February 2023 |last1=Roberts |first1=Sam }}</ref>

Weiss thereafter was awarded internships in Vienna and at [[Bellevue Hospital Center|Bellevue Hospital]] in [[New York City]]. It was while in Europe that Weiss bought a [[FN Model 1910]] pistol for $25 (equivalent to approximately ${{formatnum:{{Inflation|US|8|1930|r=0}}}} in {{Inflation-year|US}}{{inflation-fn|US}}) that he allegedly used in the Long assassination.<ref>{{cite web |last1=White |first1=Lamar Jr. |title=Holes in the Story: Huey P. Long, Carl Weiss, and the American Spectacle of Conspiracy |url=https://www.bayoubrief.com/2021/09/26/holes-in-the-story-huey-p-long-carl-weiss-and-the-american-spectacle-of-conspiracy/4/ |website=BayouBrief |date=27 September 2021 |access-date=25 February 2023}}</ref>

In 1932, he returned to Baton Rouge to enter private practice with his father. He was president of the Louisiana Medical Society in 1933 and a member of the [[Kiwanis International]].<ref>{{harvnb|Conrad|1988|p=2:831}}</ref>{{clarify|date=March 2023}}

==Murder of Huey Long==
{{Main|Assassination of Huey Long}}
On September 8, 1935, Carl Weiss confronted and shot [[Huey Long]] in the Capitol building in Baton Rouge.<ref name="Hickey2003">{{cite book|last=Hickey|first=Eric W.|title=Encyclopedia of Murder and Violent Crime|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dDOW75aJMR8C&pg=PA35|year=2003|publisher=SAGE|isbn=978-0-7619-2437-1|page=35}}</ref> At 9:20&nbsp;p.m., just after passage of a bill reconfiguring the district of Weiss's father-in-law, Judge Benjamin Henry Pavy, to deny him reelection, Weiss approached Long.

According to the generally accepted version of events, Weiss fired a single shot with a handgun from four feet (1.2 m) away. Long was struck in the torso. Long's bodyguards, nicknamed the "[[Cossacks]]" or "skullcrushers",<ref name="clues"/> responded by firing at Weiss with their own pistols, killing him; an autopsy found that Weiss had been shot more than 60 times by Long's bodyguards.<ref name="clues">{{cite news|last=Rensberger|first=Boyce|date=June 29, 1992|title=Clues From the Grave Add Mystery to the Death of Huey Long|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/06/29/clues-from-the-grave-add-mystery-to-the-death-of-huey-long/cbdd5297-27a1-4534-96bb-68175daf3573/|access-date=June 11, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200516143655/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1992/06/29/clues-from-the-grave-add-mystery-to-the-death-of-huey-long/cbdd5297-27a1-4534-96bb-68175daf3573/|archive-date=May 16, 2020|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=assassination>{{cite web|url=http://www.hueylong.com/life-times/assassination.php|title=Assassination|access-date=November 25, 2017|work=The Official Huey Long Website|publisher=Long Legacy Project}}</ref>

==Alternative theories and denials of the assassination==
{{Further|Assassination of Huey Long#Countertheory}}
As both Long and Weiss died before a trial could be held, the claim that Weiss was Long's assassin was never proven in court. Additionally, no autopsy was ever performed on Long. In the years since the event, theories have arisen that Weiss did not actually murder Senator Long; with some speculating that Long was, in fact, killed by a stray bullet fired from the gun of one of his bodyguards.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_1f01fd4b-424d-55d6-95cc-b3782e81da79.html/ | title=Controversy, mystery still surround the death of Huey P. Long. | date=Jun 25, 2019 | access-date=Sep 11, 2022}}</ref>

===Family denials===
At the time, Weiss's wife and their families did not accept his guilt. Indeed, Weiss's parents indicated that he had seemed quite happy earlier on the day that Long was killed.<ref>{{harvnb|Williams|1969|p=868}}</ref> Many people close to the family, as well as politicians of the time, doubted the official version of the shooting.

Weiss's son, Carl Jr., an infant at the time of his father's death, had since vigorously disputed the assertion that his father killed Long. In a 1993 interview on the NBC program ''[[Unsolved Mysteries]]'',<ref>https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0737614/plotsummary www.imdb.com {{User-generated source|certain=yes|date= March 2022}}</ref> he asserted that Long was accidentally shot by one of his own bodyguards. Donald Pavy, a medical doctor and first cousin of Weiss's wife Yvonne Pavy, conducted a scientific study of the case and concluded in his book ''Accident and Deception: The Huey Long Shooting'' that Weiss did not shoot the governor-turned-senator.

However, this view is not accepted by [[Louisiana State University]] Professor [[T. Harry Williams]], who writes in his 1969 [[Pulitzer Prize]]-winning biography of Long:
{{blockquote|The suggestion that Huey might have been hit by a wild shot or a ricochet from the guns of the guards had been advanced previously by various individuals, but no one had taken it very seriously, for unless all the witnesses to the event were lying or mistaken, only four shots had been fired while Huey was still in the corridor, the two from Weiss's pistol that struck Huey and Roden's wristwatch, respectively, and the two from the revolvers of Roden and Coleman that dropped Weiss. By the time the other guards had got their guns out and started to fire Huey had run from the scene. But when the suggestion had been made publicly, various people wanted to believe it — members of Weiss' family and anti-politicians, naturally; and persons of the type who sense mystery in any murder case, the kind of people who have created doubts about some of the other great American assassinations.<ref>{{harvnb|Williams|1969|p=870}}</ref>}}

Williams then goes on to say that: 
{{blockquote|...the Myth (Meaning the theory that Weiss was not the killer)... is wrong — unless it is assumed that the various witnesses to the event who had testified at the time collaborated in creating a gigantic lie and then with remarkable fidelity repeated the lie in detail to later investigators.<ref>{{harvnb|Williams|1969|p=871}}</ref>}}

==Exhumation==
With the approval of the family, the remains of Weiss were exhumed in 1991 and examined by James Starrs, a forensic scientist at [[George Washington University]]. Starrs was also the publisher of the ''Scientific Sleuthing Review''.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Harrist|first=Ron|date=October 20, 1991|title=Body of Huey Long's Alleged Assassin Exhumed|url=https://apnews.com/article/45e78a9dcc092bbb20267bf363f72ebb|access-date=September 9, 2021|website=AP News}}</ref>

==Portrayal in literature==
The character of Adam Stanton in [[Robert Penn Warren]]'s fictitious ''[[All the King's Men]]'' is partially based on Weiss.{{citation needed|date=February 2019}}

In her 1993 memoir, [[Marguerite Young (journalist)|Marguerite Young]] mentions the murder of Huey Long and how she used to dance with Weiss as a college girl at Louisiana State University.<ref name=memoir>
{{cite book
| first = Marguerite
| last = Young
| title = Nothing but the Truth
| publisher = Carlton
| pages = 168 (Huey Long, Carl Weiss)
| date = 1993
| lccn = 93219200
}}</ref>

==Dubious connection to Ernest Hemingway==
[[Nobel Prize for Literature|Nobel laureate]] [[Ernest Hemingway]] suffered a severe gash to his forehead when a skylight fell on him in March 1928 in his Paris apartment.<ref>{{cite news |title=Hemingway Cut by Skylight |work=The New York Times |date=6 March 2003 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/06/opinion/IHT-1928hemingway-cut-by-skylight-in-our-pages100-75-and-50-years-ago.html |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref> He was treated at the [[American Hospital of Paris]], and it took  nine stitches to suture his head wound.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Leff |first1=Leonard J. |title=Hemingway and His Conspirators: Hollywood,Scribners, and the Making of American Celebrity Culture |date=1997 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers |location=Lanham, Maryland |isbn=978-0-8476-8544-8 |page=80 |edition=1st}}</ref> He was left with a permanent, prominent scar on his forehead.

Later in life, Hemingway claimed that the physician who treated him was Carl Weiss. However, Hemingway was almost certainly mistaken, as Weiss did not start practicing at the hospital until July 1929, sixteen months after Hemingway was treated for his head wound.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Chamberlain |first1=Brewster |title=Revisions, Corrections and Additions to The Hemingway Log: A Chronology of His Life and Times |url=https://www.hemingwaysociety.org/sites/default/files/CHAMBERLIN%20Brewster%20HEMINGWAY%20LOG%20CORRECTED%20FINAL2019.pdf |website=Hemingway Society |publisher=The Ernest Hemingway Foundation |access-date=26 February 2023}}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

==Works cited==
*{{cite book |last=Conrad |first=Glenn R. |date=1988 |title=A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography |location=Lafayett |publisher=[[Louisiana Historical Association]]}}
*{{cite book |author=Richard D. White Jr. |title=Kingfish |location=New York |publisher=Random House |pages=258–259}}
*{{cite book |first=Douglas H. |last=Ubelaker |date=1997 |chapter=Taphonomic Applications in Forensic Anthropology |editor-last1=Haglund |editor-first1=W.D. |editor-last2=Sorg |editor-first2=M.H. |title=Forensic Taphonomy: The Postmortem Fate of Human Remains |publisher=CRC Press |pages=77–90 |location=Boca Raton}}
*{{cite book |last=Williams |first=T. Harry |date=1969 |title=Huey Long |location=New York |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf Inc}}
*{{cite web |last=Gremillion |first=E.A. |date=2011 |title=Did Carl Weiss shoot Huey Long? |url=https://www.keepandshare.com/doc27/111468/weiss-pdf-118k?da=y}}

==External links==
* [http://www.c-span.org/video/?297015-4/death-huey-long C-SPAN program Death of Huey Long]

{{Portal bar|Biography|United States|Medicine}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Carl}}
[[Category:1906 births]]
[[Category:1935 deaths]]
[[Category:American assassins]]
[[Category:Physicians from Louisiana]]
[[Category:People from Baton Rouge, Louisiana]]
[[Category:Tulane University alumni]]
[[Category:Louisiana State University alumni]]
[[Category:Deaths by firearm in Louisiana]]
[[Category:Huey Long]]
[[Category:American people of Irish descent]]
[[Category:American people of French descent]]
[[Category:20th-century American murderers]]