The bag was recovered. It contained a note written in mirror writing, which could only be read by holding it to a mirror. The note said that the writer could be identified by Hauser’s description and gave the initials M. L. Ö. and the detail that the writer had come from “the Bavarian border, near a river.” It contained references to Hauser’s origins that treated the meeting as though it was providing him with information he had been seeking.
Hauser died three days later, on December 17, 1833. He was believed to be twenty-one years old.
The note, like everything else in the case, was disputed. Investigators noted that the note was folded in a triangular shape that Hauser was known to use. It contained spelling and grammatical errors characteristic of his known writing. Critics argued that Hauser had written the note himself — that the meeting in the garden was fabricated, the wound self-inflicted, and the entire sequence another attempt to generate attention and pressure Stanhope into fulfilling his promise to take Hauser to England. In this version, he had stabbed himself and cut too deep.
The court inquiry found the wound could have been self-inflicted. Forensic experts in later centuries examined the evidence and reached varying conclusions; a 2005 forensic analysis concluded that neither a self-inflicted wound nor an external attack could be definitively ruled out. The case for murder and the case for self-inflicted fatal injury both remained technically open.
An obelisk now stands near the supposed stabbing site in the Hofgarten. Its Latin inscription reads: *Hic occultus occulto occisus est* — “Here an unknown person was killed by an unknown person.”