Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “Arsenic Anna” - Anna Marie Hahn

Episode Date: August 12, 2019

In 1932, at the age of 26, Anna Marie Hahn came up with a morbid get rich quick scheme...murder. The German native would offer her services as a live-in caretaker for elderly men in Cincinnati, and used her expertise in poisons to get rid of her clients while claiming their life insurance. Sponsors! Embrace Pet Insurance - Get your FREE quote at EmbracePetInsurance.com/KILLERS RIGHT NOW! Ring Neighbors -  If you want to see what’s going on in your neighborhood, go to Ring.com/SERIAL to download from the Apple or Android app stores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This episode includes discussions of murder, elder abuse, and assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. May 13, 1937. An unexpected knock came at the door of 1805 Race Street in Cincinnati, Ohio. Inside the apartment, Elizabeth Colby and her adult daughter were just sitting down to dinner. Reluctantly, Elizabeth opened the door. She expected a traveling salesman, timing his visit to catch her during dinner. Instead, a beautiful blonde woman of about 30 stood on a stoop, dressed in her Sunday best.

The stranger thanked Elizabeth for coming to the door. Then, speaking in a German accent, asked a question Elizabeth would remember forever. Do any old men live here? Confused by the inquiry, Elizabeth pointed just a few doors down at the apartment of her neighbor 78-year-old Jacob Wagner. The stranger asked Elizabeth to repeat the name. Then the visitor explained that she was Mr. Wagner's niece. She had come to inform him of an inheritance from relatives in Germany.

Moments later, as she watched the blonde woman walk away, Elizabeth realized how strange it was that the visitor hadn't asked for her own uncle by name. Elizabeth had no idea she had just pointed one of America's first female series. killers to her next victim. Hi, I'm Greg Polson. This is serial killers, a podcast original. Every Monday, we dive into the minds and madness of serial killers. Today we're starting our journey into the life and murders of Anna Marie Hahn.

She used arsenic to kill for personal gain and became the first woman to die in Ohio's electric chair. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Hi, everyone. This week, we'll dig into what turned to. a mischievous, romantic teenager into one of Ohio's first female serial killers. From 1933 to 1937, Anna Marie Hahn financed her gambling habit by poisoning men and stealing their wealth. Her work as a live-in caregiver to the elderly both provided her with victims and made her appear above reproach. Next week, we'll follow Anna Marie as she kills and kills again,

murdering the elderly to steal their savings. The German-born Han prayed primarily on fellow German-American living in a Cincinnati neighborhood known as Over the Rhine. Anna Marie Hahn's victims trusted her, in part because of their common national origin. They ate meals she cooked for them without question, blaming everything but Anna Marie's cooking when they began to become seriously ill. At Parcast, we're grateful for you, our listeners. You allow us to do what we love.

Let us know how we're doing. Reach out on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast. And Twitter at Parcast Network. And if you enjoy today's episode, the best way to help us is to leave a five-star review wherever you're listening. It really does help. We also now have merchandise. Head to Parcast.com slash merch for more information. Anna Marie Hahn was born Anna Marie Filser on June 7, 1906 in Fuesen, Bavaria, near the historic

Neusch von Stein Castle. At the time of Anna Marie's birth, Bavaria was still a monarchy, controlled by Prince Regent Luitpold. Despite joining the German Federation in 1871, Anna Marie's contemporaries still mostly considered themselves Bavarian first, German second.

Bavaria covers nearly 20% of the total landmass of Germany and has a unique regional culture, prioritizing traditional trades and crafts, religious life, and the great outdoors. Growing up in the idyllic Bavarian foothills, Anna Marie learned to run and play in the shadow of the towering Alps. She splashed in the crisp, clear Leck River. Like most Bavarians, Anna Marie was raised Catholic and attended Mass regularly with her large family.

Anna Marie was the youngest of 12 children, born to Georg and Katerina Filser. Sadly, early childhood illnesses took three of Anna Marie's 11 siblings. Before Anna Marie came into the world. This left her with seven brothers and one sister. Out of the nine, Anna Marie was her mother's favorite. Maybe it was because she was the youngest, or because she represented a new beginning after the loss of three children. But Anna Marie could do no wrong in Katerina Filser's eyes.

Anna Marie's father, Geyorg, worked as a carpenter. Sales of his furniture and cabinets fetched plenty of money to support the large Filser family. Katarina stayed home, shepherding the children to Catholic school and back each day. Anna, a mischievous girl from the start, did her best to stay out of the way of the stern nuns at school. She managed to scrape by in home economics subjects like cooking and sewing, but had little interest in more academic subjects. Instead, she found an interest in tragedy. In 1914, when Anna Marie was eight years old, World War I broke out. five of Anna Marie's brothers immediately enlisted in the German army.

The Filsers were a patriotic family and saw it as their duty to send their sons to war. Anna Marie and her sister, Kadi, wanted to help the German war effort, too. Of course, eight-year-old girls weren't much in demand on the front lines, so the Filser daughters contributed by knitting caps, scarves, and mittens for their five brothers. Unfortunately, one of these brave young men would never return home. He was killed in action, leaving Contarina and Geyorg with eight children. Around the same time, Anna Marie spent five long months in the hospital with blood poisoning. Throughout this illness, Anna Marie often felt so sick she was sure she was going to die.

Because no records were preserved of either the precise date of her illness or of her brother's death on the front lines, we don't know which came first. However, these were likely Anna Marie's two earliest experiences, with human mortality. Vanessa is going to take over on the psychology here and throughout the episode. Please note, Vanessa is not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she has done a lot of research for this show. Thanks, Greg.

According to a 2007 study published in the journal, Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, discussing death and dying in empirical, biological terms may be the best way to alleviate fear of death in children. A more mature understanding of death is associated with lower levels of death anxiety in kids. On the other hand, children with an immature or distorted view of death may become extremely frightened of dying. Based on her family background and her religious schooling, Anna Marie's understanding of death was likely rooted mostly in Catholic doctrine. Death was not a biological reality, but a spiritual one to her young mind.

It had taken four of her siblings, three before she was born, and now it seemed to want Anna Marie. She lay in her hospital bed, terrified, wondering whether she would go to heaven. Ultimately, of course, Anna Marie survived her bout with blood poisoning, but she later recalled being forever shaken by that childhood whiff of death. After her long stay in the hospital, Anna Marie was thrilled to get back to playing outside. She loved skiing, ice skating, and riding her bicycle. She was a bit of a daredevil and had several accidents that each caused her to temporarily lose consciousness. Today we know that whenever someone loses consciousness after a head injury, they have sustained a concussion, which is a type of mild traumatic brain injury. A 2014 Latitudinal study by Audrey McKinley, published in Australian psychologist, suggests that childhood mild traumatic brain injuries

may predispose children to later criminal behavior, including both property offenses and violent crime. Of course, not all children who briefly lose consciousness after a sports accident are destined to become violent criminals. Childhood concussions are quite common, particularly for outdoorsy kids like Anna Marie. A 2017 study by Kate Carolina, Christopher R. Geyer, and Zachary M. Weil found that mice that experience a traumatic brain injury, during their early development are more prone to become addicted to amphetamines. The study suggests that rather than directly causing criminal behavior, childhood brain injuries in humans may contribute to addiction. This might then lead some sufferers to commit crimes in order to support their addictions.

This theory helps to explain why only a small percentage of children who experience multiple concussions later commit violent crimes. It's also a distinct possibility that that they're also a distinct possibility that they're experiencing that they're experiencing the linked possibility that the same mechanism increases childhood concussion suffers susceptibility to other forms of addiction, such as alcoholism or compulsive gambling. As Anna Marie grew into adolescence, a new side to her personality started to emerge. She began sneaking out to attend parties. Normal teenage behavior, but unlike most of her peers, she hardly even tried to hide it. Perhaps Anna Marie knew her doting mother would go easy on her, or

Perhaps she just didn't care what anybody thought. According to the study by Carolina Geyer and Wyle, childhood brain injuries are known to cause a long-term deficiency in dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and rewards. This syndrome called hypodominergia makes it harder to enjoy ordinary life activities like work and friendships. Some may engage in high-risk activities, such as drug use or gambling, in order to experience the pleasurable feelings associated with dopamine. Although Anna Marie's childhood was mostly quite ordinary,

in her teens, she found herself in open rebellion against the strict social norms of her conservative Catholic community. Most notably, Anna Marie claimed to have fallen in love in 1923, at the age of 17, with a much older Viennese doctor. Whatever his name might really have been, Anna Marie would always look back on this, man as her first love. She spent the happiest days of her life with him. By day they explored all that the Adilic Bavarian countryside had to offer. By night, they explored each other, throwing

caution to the wind. Meanwhile, one of Anna Marie's older sisters, Cotty, stuck to the straight and narrow path laid out for her by her parents and the non-sets school. She married young, without any hint of scandal. After the wedding, Cotty moved to Holland to be near her husband's family. She soon became pregnant. Cotty was well on her way to living a pious, family-focused life, exactly like her mother's. Anna Marie adored Cotty. She thought Cotty's life was her future, too. Anna Marie assumed that her lover would marry her, eventually, and was it so wrong, even within the Catholic faith, for a woman to have sex with her future husband? Anna Marie thought she was living out a Shakespearean romance, but her love affair turned out more like a Puritan morality play.

Anna Marie became pregnant in 1924, at the tender age of 18. She told her lover she expected a proposal and a wedding, ideally soon enough to conceal the date of conception. The man made a confession. He could not marry Anna Marie because he was already married. The Catholic Church did not recognize divorce at that time, so even if he had a confession, so even if he was, he left his wife, the church would never marry them. Anna Marie's romantic teenage fantasy came crashing down around her. She felt like an enormous weight was crushing the air out of her lungs. Girls in Anna Marie's village were expected to remain chaste until marriage. Even a whiff

of premarital sex could cause a scandal that would make it difficult for an entire family to show their faces in public, and now Anna Marie was pregnant. Notably, the name Anna Marie gave for her lover, Dr. Max Machecchi, did not match up with any in Vienese records, which journalists investigated after Anna Marie's trial. Either Anna Marie's story about her first lover was false, perhaps concocted to protect the real man involved, or she told the truth, but her lover was living under a false name. Twisting the knife further, Anna Marie's lover urged her to terminate the pregnancy. Not only was this not what she wanted, abortion was not available from doctors in her area. She would have had to travel out of the overwhelmingly Catholic region of Bavaria,

perhaps to Austria, to find a willing doctor. Many women seeking abortion in the 1920s were forced to turn to providers without formal medical training. Amateur abortions were performed with instruments such as knitting needles, which could easily puncture a woman's uterus. Marie didn't want an abortion. Nobody was going to go digging around inside her with knitting needles. She summoned up every ounce of strength in her teenage body and told her lover that she would not end the pregnancy. Of course, that meant confessing to her family that she had an affair with a married man and was now pregnant. Anna Marie's parents were horrified. Anna Marie's pregnancy made the Filsers the subject of vicious gossip. Women pointed and whispered.

whenever she walked by. They warned their daughters, don't you ever risk ending up like that poor Philzer girl? According to the goodbye door, a book by Diana Britt Franklin, Georg Filser wanted to cut his youngest child off entirely. Anna Marie's mother, Katarina, convinced Georg to send Anna Marie to Holland

to live with her sister Kati until the baby was born. The gossip abated for a while. After Anna Marie delivered a son, Oscar, on May 31st, 1925, she returned home, hoping for a warmer reception from her community. She couldn't imagine anyone remaining angry after meeting her darling baby boy. But wherever the new mother went with her son, people stared. Even after Anna Marie's mother, Cotterina agreed to raise Oscar as her own, the gossip continued. Everyone in town knew the story of Anna Marie's illegitimate child. Not only was it impossible for Anna Marie to make friends or find a partner,

it was becoming more and more difficult for Katarina to raise Oscar. By 1928, when Anna Marie was 22 and Oscar was turning three, the boy was asking questions about how poorly his mother and grandmother were treated in town. Katarina decided that her favorite daughter needed a fresh start. She told Anna Marie to write to Katarina's stepbrother in the United States, Max Dochel. Anna Marie did as she was told. She explained that she intended to seek work as a cleaner in America, but would need a place to stay until she got on her feet. Anna Marie didn't tell Max Dochel about her son.

The plan was for Oscar to stay behind in Bavaria with Katarina, who was already caring for him. Anna Marie might be able to find a husband in America if she didn't tell anyone about her fair and illegitimate child. Erasing her own son from her life was a devastating thought. But Cotarina told Anna Marie she had no choice, not if she ever wanted to have a normal life. Even though Uncle Max had never even met Anna Marie, the 74-year-old retired carpenter was delighted to hear from his step-niece. He quickly agreed to house her. And to cover her traveling expenses, he gave Anna Marie a generous loan of $236, worth about $3,500 today. So Anna Marie applied for a visa to work in the United States.

Upon receiving the necessary papers, she used Uncle Max's loan to purchase a second-class ticket on the SS Munchin, a relatively small transatlantic ocean liner. Anna Marie promised to repay the loan as soon as she found work. In February of 1929, it was time to start her new life. In a moment, generous Uncle Max unknowingly harbors a murderer. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong.

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What's the most unhinged thing of season three? Stephen, because he's so evil. I do think he is misunderstood. You see everyone face consequences. It's intoxicating. The writers just know how to trick you. There's always a twist in this show. It's nothing you would expect.

Tell Me Lies, the official podcast, now streaming. and stream the new season of Tell Me Lies on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus. Now back to the story. On February 11, 1929, 23-year-old Anna Marie Filser arrived in New York City to start the next leg of her journey. She left behind her young son and the stigma that surrounded his out-of-wedlock birth. Anna Marie boarded the Cincinnati Limited, a train running overnight from the Big Apple to Cincinnati. 74-year-old Max Dochel wasn't up to making the trip to the train station to greet his step-niece. In his place, he sent his daughter, Ida Pfeffer, and her brother-in-law, Richard G. Feffer.

The Pfeffers owned the home where Max lived and where Anna Marie would be staying for the time being. Richard worked for the federal government, serving as Secretary of the Federal Employees Union for the War Department's purchase, storage, and traffic division. He was a sharp fellow, accustomed to dealing with people of all sorts. Later, he went on to become a U.S. Secret Service agent, assigned to protect Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But perceptive as he was, Richard detected nothing out of the ordinary about Anna Marie that first morning. In fact, he and Ida both quite enjoyed Anna Marie's cheerful pitter-patter as they drove her from the train station to Max Doehl's house on Evanston Avenue. In her initial letters to Max, Anna Marie made herself out to be a good, pious girl, eager to repay his generosity just as soon as she found a job as a housekeeper.

She also talked up her willingness to help her 74-year-old step-uncle around the house. Soon after Anna Marie arrived in Cincinnati, though, it became clear that she hadn't been entirely honest about her intentions. Shortly after her arrival, Anna Marie contracted scarlet fever, a complication of strep throat. She laid sick in bed for a full three weeks before she could even begin looking for work. Max and the Pfeffers understood the severity of Anna Marie's illness, but they thought it odd that she never once brought up the $236 loan, nor did she make assurances about helping around the house when she recovered. Most people would have felt guilty for moving in with a distant relative. at his expense, and then immediately needing three weeks of care in a sick bed.

But Anna Marie really was quite sick, so the Pfeffers and Max Docial overlooked her unusual attitude. When Anna Marie finally recovered, things began looking up for everyone involved. She quickly found a few housework jobs. She still didn't bring up the loan. But perhaps she was just waiting to have enough savings to start making significant payments toward the balance. At least she was working. But the more Anna Marie worked, the more she spent on everything except repaying Uncle Max. She was cleaning houses, not exactly a lucrative pursuit, and yet she somehow kept acquiring expensive possessions.

As new item after fancy new item popped up in Anna Marie's room, Max and the Fevers became suspicious. There were very few ways for a woman without even a high school education to earn a lot of money, quickly in 1929. The family assumed Anna must either be stealing, running some sort of confidence game, or engaging in sex work. We don't know exactly how Anna Marie was buying her expensive belongings in those early days, but we do know that sometime in 1929 she discovered what would become her greatest passion, gambling, in particular betting on thoroughbred racehorses. Shortly after landing in Cincinnati, Anna Marie made friends with a local gambler who introduced her to the racetrack in neighboring Latonia, Kentucky. He convinced Anna Marie to make a $2 bet on a long-shot horse.

Anna Marie's horse won. In a matter of minutes, she'd transformed $2 into $2,000, or nearly $4,000 in modern currency. She was hooked. From then on, gambling occupied Anna Marie's mind day in. and day out. She preferred to bet on racehorses, but when she couldn't make the trip to a thoroughbred track, she visited casinos. And according to the book, The Goodbye Door, she even visited illegal mob-owned gambling dens in Cincinnati suburb, Elmwood Place. Whether she was financing her purchases through gambling or not, it was obvious that Anna Marie's spending was way beyond a housekeeper's

means. She was so shameless about it that nobody even wanted to bring the issue up with her. Soon, Max Doshal began going out of his way to avoid his own step-niece. When they crossed paths at home, he was pointedly cool. Anna Marie must have known that she was rubbing her costly new possessions in the face of the man to whom she owed her new American life. But instead of bringing up repayment, she moved out with no notice or warning. Later in 1929, Anna Marie packed her things and went to live in a rented room near an even more distant relation. Seventy-one-year-old Charles Carl Oswald, a retired baker. He'd been married to

Max Doshal's sister until Mrs. Oswald died on April 3rd, 1929. Oswald was no biological relative of Anna Marie's, but she always called him Uncle Charlie. The death of Uncle Charlie's wife was convenient for Anna Marie. She was looking for a reason to get out of Max's house before someone brought up the loan, and Oswald was a lonely widower in need of care. Anna Marie would look like a saint for watching over the old man, rather than a scoundrel avoiding a debt. It's been suggested that Anna Marie might have had something to do with the death of Mrs. Oswald, coming as it did, less than two months after the young woman's arrival in Cincinnati, and considering her gain from it. But no evidence was ever presented to support this claim.

Mrs. Oswald was elderly when she died. With Anna Marie out of his house, Max soon resigned himself to the fact that he would never see his $236 again. He had no idea how lucky he was to escape with his life and most of his savings. Perhaps letting Max live was Anna Marie's idea of a proper thank you. Shortly after moving into her filthy, tiny new rented room, Anna Marie found herself, once again, unhappy with her living situation. She couldn't enjoy the lifestyle she felt she deserved in a one-room apartment. There wasn't even enough room for the things she already had, much less room to buy more.

Thankfully, Uncle Charlie had an extra top-floor room in his tenement apartment above a confectionery. Anna Marie wanted it. After persuading Max Docial to finance her transatlantic passage with just one letter, Anna Marie knew she had a knack for getting old men to give her whatever she wanted. She told Oswald she'd completed nursing school back home in Germany and that she could take care of him as he aged. In reality, she was a high school dropout with poor grades who never sought post-secondary education of any kind.

Oswald had no reason to doubt the charming 23-year-old blonde, and frankly, he was flattered by her attention. He never thought that at 71, he was. would be so fascinating to a pretty young woman. And here was one who not only loved spending time with him, but wanted to move into his apartment. It seemed to Oswald like Anna Marie was an angel sent to look after him now that his wife was gone. And with that, Anna Marie soon secured the furnished room. She secured more than that. Uncle Charlie was falling head over heels for her, and Anna Marie took full advantage. Charles Oswald,

thought he'd found a companion to look after him for his remaining years. In reality, he'd just sealed his own dark fate. In a moment, Anna Marie makes Uncle Charlie a promise she'll never keep and uses his life savings to fund the lifestyle she thinks she deserves. Now back to the story. In the summer of 1929, 23-year-old Anna Marie Filser moved in with her distant relatives' brother-in-law. a 71-year-old retired baker named Charles Carl Oswald. He quickly fell in love with her, and she quickly began moving his assets into her pockets to fund her gambling habit.

Shortly after obtaining a free room by falsely representing herself as a trained nurse, Anna Marie tearfully confessed to Oswald that she still owed her uncle, Max Doschel, $236 for her passage from Germany. Oswald couldn't stand to see Anna Marie feeling burdened by debt. She still held her job as a chambermate at the 500-room Hotel Alms. But at those wages, it would be years before she could pay off the loan. Charlie immediately gave Anna Marie the money. And she immediately spent it on herself.

Presumably, she gambled it, either at the racetrack or one of her favored casinos. And soon, Anna Marie asked Uncle Charlie for even more money. Anna Marie was by now a compulsive gambler. She sometimes lost as much as $50 in a day. That's about $735 today. She wasn't an especially talented gambler, but occasional big wins kept Anna Marie hooked. When she lost, rather than quit and keep whatever cash she had left,

she looked for a way to get more money and double down. Certain she was due for a big win after so many losses. This is characteristic of the gambler's fallacy, the tendency of human beings to underestimate the likelihood of streaks occurring by a random chance. In reality, the probability of any given outcome when gambling is not affected by past outcomes. But people captivated by the gambler's fallacy believe that the longer they've been losing, the more likely it is they'll win next time. We're all prone to this kind of thinking.

Who hasn't said something like, After the week I've had, I must be due for some good luck soon. Studies suggest that the gambler's fallacy affects many human decision makers, even experts in their fields. One such study, published in 2016 by Daniel L. Chen, Tobias J. Moskowitz and Kelly Shu, examined negative auto-correlation, or the tendency of decision makers to avoid streaks of the same decision. For instance, the study found that asylum judges are up to 3.3% more likely to reject an asylum seeker's petition if they approved the previous one. Based on the author's calculations, this means that about 2% of asylum decisions are reversed, based solely on the order of the judge's prior decisions, all other things being equal. Understanding the surprising power of the gambler's fallacy makes it easier to understand why Anna Marie's.

so quickly became addicted to gambling. In her mind, the more money she wagered, the more money she'd eventually win. Powerless against her growing gambling addiction, Anna Marie would soon have gone broke if it weren't for Uncle Charlie's generosity. Whenever she wanted something, all she had to do was ask the old man. She spent the summer of 1929 shopping for luxuries, dating several young men, visiting Coney Island to ride the boats, and gambling as often as she could. all on Oswald's dime, supplemented by her housekeeper's salary.

According to Ferris Jaber, writing in Scientific American, gambling addiction actually rewires the human brain in the same way as drug addiction. Using an addictive drug causes the brain to release such huge amounts of dopamine at once that the addict builds up a tolerance and eventually can only experience satisfaction from bigger and bigger doses of their drug of choice. In the case of gambling, that means bigger and bigger bets. Before 1929 was over, Anna Marie's face and name were known to bookkeepers at every casino in the Cincinnati area. Even the mafiosos who ran her favorite illegal gambling den on Vine Avenue in Elmwood Place, greeted her by name.

Anna Marie gambled constantly to feed her growing addiction. Again, according to Scientific American, some studies suggest some people are more prone to complying. pulse of gambling because of a dysfunctional reward system in their brains. In other words, they suffer from something like chronic hypodominergia, which we discussed earlier as a possible complication of Anna Marie's multiple childhood concussions. Because their brains don't produce enough dopamine, these individuals may need to take big risks, like taking dangerous drugs or gambling larger and larger sums, to feel pleasure. And when gambling in casinos was no longer enough, She turned to the stock market.

Lucky for Anna Marie, Charles Oswald had invested in union electric stocks while working as a baker. In November of 1929, she made him a deal. If Charlie transferred 27 shares of Union Gas and Electric to Anna Marie, she would marry him and care for him for the rest of his life. Remember, even though Anna Marie called Oswald Uncle Charlie, They weren't biologically related at all. It would have been perfectly legal for them to marry. But Anna Marie had no intention of doing so.

Instead, after the transfer was complete, Anna Marie kept putting off the wedding date. She figured if she delayed long enough, the old man would die. And if he didn't, she could always hasten that along. Given the volatile state of the U.S. stock market in November of 1929, it's hard to say how much those shares were worth when Anna Marie received them. The exact date of the transfer has been lost to history, but they would have made her at least several thousand dollars richer. To give you an idea of what that meant for Anna Marie's long-term financial security,

$10,000 in 1929 would be worth almost $150,000 today. Despite what she told Oswald, Anna Marie had been dating actively throughout 1929, and she saw no reason for her supposed engagement to affect her love life. Oswald didn't need to know about her boyfriends. In February of 1930, Anna Marie attended a German dance at her workplace, the Hotel Alms. The hotel opened its luxurious Marie-Antoinette Ballroom to the large German immigrant community in the area, so they could meet one another while dancing the night away to tunes from the old country.

Just as she had as a teenager, Anna Marie loved a good party. She was eager to put on a gown and her dancing shoes for the event. Soon, Anna Marie found herself dancing song after song with the same man. He was a short, scrawny fellow, no match for the tall and handsome types she'd been dating. She only danced with him in the first place because she recognized him from one of her days out at Coney Island. She'd met him briefly while out on a date with another man. Tonight, though, something about him felt different. She found out his name, Philip Hahn.

Philip made Anna Marie feel safe. He was a kind man, the sort of person who never missed an opportunity to do the right thing. He worked the night shift as a telegrapher for Western Union. Not the kind of job you got rich doing, but a good, steady one. In Philip, Anna Marie saw a window to the stable, married life she dreamed of having. like her sister Cotty. Anna Marie wasn't psychologically capable of maintaining such a stable lifestyle, but of course she didn't know that yet.

All she knew was Philip was more than met the eye. She could easily overlook his height and physique if he kept being so good and kind to her. Philip and Anna Marie dated for only about three months before marrying on May 5, 1930 in Buffalo, New York. The groom was 27 at the time, and the bride, was 24. Anna Marie Filser became Anna Marie Han. Uncle Charlie, who still thought of Anna Marie as his fiancé, wasn't invited. Anna Marie told Philip nothing about her promise to marry Charlie Oswald, but she did tell him something else she'd never told an American man. She told him about her son, Oscar. This was a huge leap of faith for Anna Marie. When she left Bavaria, her mother warned her never to let

anyone in the USA know about her child. If she did, Katerina cautioned her daughter. She would only experience the same shame, harassment, and rejection she had in Germany. But Philip was hardly bothered at all. He looked on Anna Marie's single motherhood as a youthful mistake, something that could happen to anybody. Better still, Philip agreed to take Oscar into their marital home. Anna Marie could hardly believe her luck. Not only had she landed a husband who didn't mind her passed, she would soon be reunited with her son, too. Instead of honeymooning with her new husband, Anna Marie made plans to sail alone to Germany and collect Oscar. It would be a big, expensive trip.

Although Anna Marie had no intention of telling Uncle Charlie about her marriage, she did tell Max Dochele and the Feffers. She even paid them a visit to introduce them to Philip. During the conversation, Anna Marie mentioned her plans to visit Germany in July. This was the final straw for Max. His step-niece had funds to buy herself another berth on a ship, but none to repay his original loan? According to the goodbye door, Max went to the only person besides Anna Marie who might be able to help him recover the loan. Charles Oswald. Oswald was shocked to learn that Max was still owed money.

Remember, he had given Anna Marie money to repay her step-uncle the year before. Max didn't mention to Charlie that Anna Marie had married another man, so still thinking of Anna Marie as his future wife, Charlie repaid Max's loan in full. Max was finally made whole without Anna Marie having to spend a penny of her own wages on the loan. Most people would be embarrassed to have the same man repay the same loan on their behalf twice, but not Anna Marie. To her, this was just more proof

of what an easy mark Oswald really was. So in early July of 1930, she withdrew the entire balance of Charles Oswald's account at the Eagle Savings and Loan Association, about $700. That's over $10,000 today. She also somehow got another 27 shares

of Union Electric from him on July 7, 1930. She said they were a gift. but Oswald later denied knowing about the transfer. Perhaps she forged his signature. However, stocks were not a stable investment at the time. The stock market had crashed in October of 1929, then rebounded briefly in early 1930,

in a pattern economists now call a dead cat bounce or a recovery that precedes an even greater loss. Then, in June of 1930, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley Act. This law intended to bolster the U.S. economy dramatically increased tariffs on imported goods. According to finance expert Will Kenton, writing for Investopedia, this resulted in a tariff war and caused international trade to grind almost to a halt. From 1929 to 1934, international trade declined 66%. Today, most experts agree this tariff war worsened the Great Depression. One of the countries most damaged by the Smoot-Hawley Act was Anna Marie's native Germany,

which had already been struggling to keep up with war reparations after World War I. So by July, when Anna Marie returned to Bavaria, her assets were in question, and her motherland was weathering a financial crisis just as terrible as the Great Depression she left behind in the USA. Despite their country's impoverished state, Anna Marie's family did their best to show her a good time during a visit. Better than all the beer in the world, though, was Anna Marie's tearful reunion with Oscar. He hadn't seen his mother in more than 17 months. Oscar was now five years old, ready to start kindergarten. Anna Marie couldn't believe how much her son had grown.

Anna Marie made a vow never to leave her son behind again. For all her gambling and stealing, she truly loved the boy, even though his birth had ruined her old life. When it came time to return to America, Anna Marie shared her cabin on the ship with her son. It was the same voyage she'd taken less than a year earlier, but this time she'd be returning to a husband with a steady job who loved her and welcomed Oscar into his home.

It would have been the perfect time to turn her life around. If Anna Marie made different choices on her return to America, perhaps she could have lived a long and productive life, never stealing again and never turning to murder. But Anna Marie's gambling addiction was more powerful even than her love for her own son. Shortly after returning to the U.S., she was back to bedding big, this time with her little boy in tow. 27-year-old Philip Hahn still worked nights as a telegrapher, a job he had started at the age of 14, so he wasn't home to watch his wife and her son sneaking out the door,

dressed in the Sunday best to visit seedy bedding halls. Mr. Hahn must have suspected something wasn't quite normal about his wife, though. She cleaned hotel rooms for a living, and yet she insisted on having a small house built for their family in Cincinnati's wealthy College Hill neighborhood. They certainly couldn't finance that on a telegrapher's salary or on Anna Marie's housekeeping wages. Nobody knows exactly what Anna Marie said to her new husband to explain how she had so much to contribute to the family's coffers. Perhaps she simply claimed to have wealthy, generous relatives. Either way, in late summer of 1930, the family of three moved into their newly built home at 6332 Savannah Avenue in College Hill.

It was everything Anna Marie hoped for, marriage, a home, and a stable place to raise Oscar. Finally, Anna Marie had Conti's perfect life. Well, almost. Anna Marie had initially been attracted to Philip's work ethic and stability, but now she had bigger dreams for him. Fourteen years of working for Western Union was enough, Anna Marie thought. She wanted her husband to have his own business like her father had. Philip lacked ambition, so it fell to Anna Marie to make this happen. Between January 26th and March 31, 1931, Anna Marie sold all of the stocks she got from Uncle Charlie.

and converting stocks into cash wasn't her only big, new financial move. On February 3, 1931, she convinced Charlie Oswald to make out a new will, which left almost everything to Anna Marie. Anna Marie allowed Uncle Charlie to leave $5 each to his two stepchildren. The remainder would be hers. Despite the obvious signs that his relationship with Anna Marie wasn't moving towards a wedding, Oswald was still hopelessly in love with the woman. he believed to be his fiancé.

Even after she moved out, he was convinced she'd eventually return and become his wife. With her current and future cash flow thus improved, Anna Marie said about purchasing a small store that functioned as a bakery, grocery, and deli. Her plan was for Philip to run the legitimate business, while Anna Marie took illegal bets. Philip quit his job at Western Union

to manage the grocery and bakery. Anna Marie stopped cleaning. hotel rooms and started serving behind the deli counter. If things worked according to plan, they'd soon be raking in the dough from Anna Marie's activities as an illegal bookie. Meanwhile, their legitimate business would provide a perfect cover to launder the money. Anna Marie had by now been gambling in illegal venues and befriending mafia bookies for nearly two years. She knew exactly how to make this scheme work. And thanks to Uncle Charlie, she had enough capital to get it off the ground.

But she'd worked her mark over too fast and with too little caution. A few months later, in the spring of 1931, Charles Oswald finally found out that his so-called fiancé was already married to another man. Oswald burned with anger. Here he was, leaving his whole estate to a woman he thought was to be his wife. His bank accounts were nearly drained, thanks to Anna Marie. And now, he found out.

but she was living with another man and had an illegitimate son. Uncle Charlie wasn't going to be this woman's fool any longer. He took his time gathering documentation of everything Anna Marie had done to him and took it to his attorneys. On July 30, 1931, Charles Oswald filed suit against Anna Marie Han. He charged her with breach of promise for promising to marry him while knowing full well she never would. His lawsuit, according to the goodbye door,

demanded the return of all his stocks and cash with 6% interest. Anna Marie had already spent the money on her house and business. She had no way to pay it back, save for selling off the assets she worked so hard to acquire. To make matters worse, the Great Depression wasn't proving to be the ideal time to launch a new business. Even after factoring in the illegal gambling venture, they were losing money. Most of the gamblers who still had money to bet already had a favorite bookie and weren't looking to expand.

Anna Marie was staring down the barrel of financial ruin. After two years of draining Uncle Charlie's assets to fund her lifestyle, she couldn't imagine having to start living within her means or stop gambling. A dark thought crawled into the back of her head. If Oswald died right then, she'd receive everything. For all his fury, he hadn't gotten around. to changing his will. As Anna Marie stared at the angry letter from Uncle Charlie's attorneys, she couldn't help thinking about how easy it would be to kill an elderly widower.

Another thought crossed Anna Marie's mind, too. If she'd gotten Uncle Charlie on the hook this easily, surely there were other rich old men in the world who were equally easy targets. Maybe she didn't have to curtail her spending and gambling at all. Maybe she just needed to expand. Next week, Anna Marie's dark plan gets set into motion. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. We'll be back Monday with

a new episode. You can find more episodes of serial killers as well as all of Parcass other shows on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Several of you have asked how to help the show. And if you enjoy the show, the best way to help is to leave a five-star review. And don't forget to follow us

on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. We'll see you next time. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler, is a production of Cutler media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound designed by Paul Liebeskind, with production assistance by Ron Shapiro and Maggie Admeyer.

This episode of serial killers was written by Yelina War and stars Greg Poulson and Vanessa Richardson. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping day, and there was a full of blood. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 is out now with new episodes every Thursday.

Listen on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or W. wherever you get your podcasts. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.