True Crime Campfire - Bat Man: The Murder of Fred Oesterreich

Episode Date: May 17, 2024

There’s an old saying: A gilded cage is still a cage. Meaning, you can be in what looks like an enviable situation—all your needs met, plenty of pretty toys to entertain you—and still feel like you’re in prison. The human soul doesn’t take well to being kept in a box, no matter how nice the box may be. There’s a pull toward freedom, even if you have to risk everything to answer it. This is the story of one of the strangest murder cases in American history—a 1920s true Hollywood story about what can happen when a pretty pet gets restless and starts looking for a way to stretch its wings. Download the game "June's Journey" on Apple iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/junes-journey-hidden-objects/id1200391796"June's Journey" on Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.wooga.junes_journey_hidden_object_mystery_game&hl=en&gl=US&pli=1Sources:"The Man in the Attic" by Denise Noe, CrimeLibrary.comLAist: "The Murderous Lover Who Lived In A Silver Lake Attic. A True Story" by John Rabe Investigation Discovery's "A Crime to Remember," episode "Guess Who"Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. There's an old saying, a gilded cage is still a cage. Meaning you can be in what looks like an enviable situation. All your needs miss. plenty of pretty toys to entertain you and still feel like you're in prison. The human soul doesn't take well to being kept in a box, no matter how nice the box may be. There's a pull toward freedom,

even if you have to risk everything to answer it. This is the story of one of the strangest murder cases in American history, a story about what can happen when a pretty pet gets restless and starts looking for a way to stretch its wings. This is Batman, the murder of Fred Aestrike. So, campers, for this one, we're in a she-she neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, August 22, 1922. A worried neighbor called the police about some gunshots coming from the home of wealthy couple Fred and Dolly A-Strike. They rushed to the A-Strike's big, beautiful home, to find the body of Fred lying in a puddle of blood on the living room floor. He'd been shot three times.

As the officers stood looking at the body, they suddenly heard a sharp yell from upstairs, a woman's voice calling Fred, Fred! One officer stayed with the body while the other raced upstairs. The voice was coming from a locked closet at the top of the stairs. The woman was trapped inside, banging on the door and calling for Fred. glancing around, the officer saw a key lying on the hall table, and he tried it in the door. It swung open, and, gratefully, while Berga Dolly Aestrike came stumbling out of the closet.

Once they got her calm down a little, Dolly said she and Fred had come home from an evening out about two hours before. She went straight upstairs to hang up her coat, and suddenly she felt a pair of hands push her into the closet. Before she could even turn around, they'd locked the closet door behind her. At first, she assumed it was Fred playing a joke on her, but then she heard the commotion downstairs, a scuffle, and then gunshots. One, two, three. Ever since then, she'd been in the closet, yelling herself hoarse for Fred, but he hadn't answered back. Now she knew why. Her worst fear had been realized. Her husband of 20 years lay dead on the floor downstairs. Murdered. The investigators could see there had been a struggle.

Furniture knocked over, stuff all over the place. Fred had two shots in the chest and one in the face. Brutal. There was a bullet lodged in the ceiling, too. They found shell casings from a 25-caliber handgun, but a careful search of the scene didn't turn up any such gun. And this was interesting. Although they didn't find anything else stolen from the A-Strike's house,

they did notice that one thing had been taken. Fred had clearly been wearing a pocket watch. You could see the little thing that had attached it to his vest, but the watch itself was gone. When they asked Dolly about it, she said, oh yes, I gave him that watch as a gift, and he was wearing it earlier tonight. It was a beautiful thing, octagonal, gold, studded with diamonds. She'd given it to him years ago, back when they lived in Wisconsin, and as far as she knew, it was one of a kind. The killer must have stolen it, but it was the only thing they'd taken. Maybe Fred and Dolly had interrupted a burglar before he had a chance to take anything.

Guy panicked, shot Fred, grabbed the watch, and got the hell out of dodge. It seemed like the most likely scenario, especially when Dolly said they'd had two break-ins before. Fred had heard noises in the night, and later they'd found some food missing and some petty cash they'd had lying around. One of the neighbors backed this up. Oh yeah, there have been a few break-ins around here lately. And the same neighbor, the one who'd heard the gunshots and called it in, had seen a shadow through the A-Strike's window, walking toward the back of the house. And it was strange. About 15 minutes later, all the lights went out. Why the hell would a burglar stay in the house for 15 minutes after killing the homeowner?

God, the cops must have just missed them. Weird. Sounded like the killer or killers, one or two, the detectives figured, had balls of steel. Fred and Dolly had been in L.A. for about four years at the time of the murder. They'd moved there from Milwaukee to start up a new textile factory. They made aprons, mostly. It was a fresh start for them, after a family tragedy, the death of their teenage son, Raymond, which had obviously devastated both of them. There were a few suspects.

Dolly was the most obvious one, what with the gigantic mountain of cash she just inherited. Fred was worth about $7 million in today's money. That's a powerful motive for murder. even after 20 years of marriage. Or maybe especially after 20 years of marriage. But no matter how hard they tried, the detectives couldn't figure out a way Dali could have shot her husband

and then locked herself in the closet. It just wasn't possible. Or at least they couldn't figure out a way to do it. They tried. Plus, Dali insisted that she and Fred had a great marriage. They never even argued. Never, ever. Lee Detective Klein raised an eyebrow at that, but Dali insisted it was a perfect relationship.

And it wasn't like there weren't other people who might have wanted Fred dead. He was rich and he was a very successful businessman. Those two things can put a target on anybody's back. And Fred could be a difficult boss. He had a reputation for yelling at his employees when he felt like they were slacking. Dolly, on the other hand, was like the factory mama bear. She treated the workers like her kids and they adored her. She'd bring everybody tea and soothe their hurt feelings after Fred went off on them.

But most of the employees didn't really hold. Fred's gruffness against him. They knew their bosses had lost a child, and they figured that was probably part of the reason why Fred could be tough to handle sometimes. In fact, one of the things people admired about Fred was that he had a good heart underneath all the grouchiness. Aw, kind of like you, Katie. Shut up. There's no good heart under here, just bitterness all the way down. He liked to hire ex-cons when nobody else would, give them a shot at getting their lives back on track, and it usually worked out fine. But there was one guy who hadn't. His name was Edward Flood. In addition to creeping out all the women at the factory, Ed had become

a thorn and Fred's side after Fred and Dolly hired him and invited him to stay with them while he got back on his feet. But Ed couldn't keep his nose clean. He ended up back in prison, and for some reason, he started sending Fred threatening letters from there. I'm not sure why. Maybe he wanted Fred to send money or something, it's not clear. But he'd been released from prison again prior to Fred's murder. And he seemed like a likely suspect, so the investigators set out to try and find him. But this was the 20s, and back then it was hard to track people's movements. No computer databases, no nothing. It was going to take a while to find Ed, but they were working on it. And then, the case threw them a curveball. While they were still in the process of trying to find the mysterious

Ed Flood, Detective Klein, heard through the courthouse grapevine that one of the local attorneys, Herman and Shapiro had been walking around with a brand new pocket watch, a watch that sounded awful familiar. So he went to see Mr. Shapiro, and lo and behold, yep, he was sporting in an octagonal diamond-studded watch exactly like the one Dolly had reported stolen the night of her husband's murder. The plot thickened, especially when Shapiro admitted that, yes, Dolly had hired him to help her handle her late hubs as a state, and yes, things had evolved a bit from professional to, you know, unprofessional. They were involved.

And Dolly had given him the watch as a birthday present. So that's a bit suspicious. The Weeping Widow moved on pretty damn fast, suspiciously fast. To the investigators, it looked an awful lot like these two might have been an item before Fred's death. And maybe they cooked up this murder together as a little get-rich-quick scheme. So time to crawl right up the ass of Mr. Herman Shapiro. attorney at law. Investigatively speaking, obviously. But it didn't take long to figure out that at least as far as anybody could tell, Shapiro hadn't even met Dolly until after Fred's death. They weren't having

an affair before the murder. They didn't even know each other yet. So it was time to haul Dolly in to explain herself about the pocket watch. She came in looking glam and unbothered and acted like the whole thing was no big deal. Oh, well, she said, I thought it was stolen, you know, but then I found it in the sofa cushions, and I figured it would be a shame to let it sit in a box. You didn't think to tell us it wasn't stolen during your husband's murder, the detectives asked. Oh, no, it didn't occur to me, Dolly said. Girl what? They knew Dolly couldn't have shot Fred herself.

She was locked in a closet, so the only way she could have been involved is if she had help. And it looked like Mr. Shapiro wasn't it. But the detectives obviously had to look at her anyway. Detective Klein had been side-eyeing Dolly for minute one for two very 1920s reasons. One, he didn't like her because she wore too much makeup for a woman her age, in his opinion. And two, the murder weapon was a 25, which was a woman's gun. Okay, bro. I love that.

What does that even mean, detective? like what and I just want to know exactly how much makeup she was wearing like was she just cake in it on like a small amount I suspect any at all probably she was wearing mascara and lip balm like what is it why are you gendering murder weapons what is going on what are I guess and it was like a small you know small gun I don't know it's it cracked me up so much so they talked to the employees at the apron factory, and they all said Dolly was great. Nobody had ever seen her canoodling with another man or anything like that, and they got the same answer from the A-Strike's neighbors and friends. No way, Dolly wasn't cheating on Fred. And Fred wasn't cheating on Dolly either.

He didn't have time. He worked a lot, barely had time to spend with his own wife, much less another woman on the side. But Detective Klein just couldn't let go of his suspicions about Dolly. And eventually, his digging turned up something interesting. Dolly had been seeing yet another boyfriend, a movie producer and actor named Ray Kloom. And when they brought in Mr. Kloom for a chat, he had a major bomb to drop.

Kloom was a friend of Fred and Dolly's from way back. They loaned him money when he first came out to Hollywood, helped him get his career started, and after Fred died, he said, he and Dolly became more than friends. And one morning, Kloom told the detectives,

she came to him with a little package wrapped up in brown paper. I need you to get rid of this for me, Dolly said. Please. It was a gun, Kloom admitted. I could tell by the feel of the package. And dutiful boy toy that he apparently was, Klum said, yes ma'am, Miss Dolly, ma'am, and tossed the package into the La Brea tar pits.

The tar pits, like gigantic bubbling pools of hot tar. Honestly, like, I think the tar pits probably, are like a gold mine of like weird celebrity and famous rich people information like so many embarrassing photos and murder weapons and probably bodies

just hanging out with the dinosaurs yep so that was great for Detective Klein he's like we're never going to find this thing he said you didn't ask her why she needed you to dispose of a gun for her Nah, Kloom said. I have to say, y'all, I'm not condoning Miss Dolly's actions here, okay, far from it.

But I got to tell you, I'm impressed at this woman's game. Like, I've seen pictures, okay? And we're not talking about Mae West here. She was a regular-looking woman. And by the time all this happened, she was getting on up there in age. And yet, she obviously had some kind of hypnotic superpower over men. Because not only was she slamming ass all over Hollywood with, like, successful men. but also she talked this otherwise intelligent man into disposing of murder evidence for her.

I'm just saying the woman's game must have been flawless. Damn, the mind boggles, right? Anyway, so sources vary about whether they actually found the gun. Some say no, and some say, yep, Ray didn't throw it far enough, and they found it right at the edge of the pits, you know, so we don't really know for sure. But either way, Ray's story was enough to put the habeas grabbets on Dolly. a little under a year after the murder of her husband. Dolly swore up and down she was innocent.

She only asked Ray Kloom to get rid of that gun because, well, she found it in the house after the murder and she knew she was a suspect in the crime and she was scared that if the police found it, she'd look guilty. Oh, okay. Well, good job. Now you look great. Good call, Dolly. Detective Herman Klein later told the press that Dolly wouldn't crack,

matter what he threw at her. She was the toughest day I ever saw, he said. I just imagine him like not being able to talk to a woman. That's what I imagine. She was the toughest day me ever saw, meaning she just like said, I didn't do it. Yeah. She was just said, no officer. Because he can't beat her like he beats his other suspects, you know. She's a lady. He couldn't use the phone books on her. He was screwed. He didn't have any other tricks in the toolpost. The DA didn't buy it, and Dolly sat in jail as the investigation continued. He was a little squirrelly about the whole thing.

I mean, he acknowledged it looked bad for her, but there was still that whole locked-in-the-closet thing. They needed more evidence, and they didn't have it, plain and simple. Dolly's boyfriends had been cleared. Shapiro hadn't met her yet, and Clem had an alibi. And no matter how hard they tried, the investigators couldn't prove that Dolly could have locked herself in that closet. It couldn't be done. Plus, according to an LA Times article, they couldn't prove that the bullets that killed Fred had come from the gun in the tar pits. So eventually, the DA had to drop the case and let Dolly go.

She moved on with her life, relocated to a different neighborhood, where all the neighbors didn't think she was a black widow. And that's how it went for five years. And then remember Herman Shapiro, the lawyer? Dolly hired to help her with Fred's estate and then ended up dating or banging. Shapiro showed up one afternoon at the DA's office. He had some important information about the A-Strike murder case, he said. He seemed nervous. You might have some trouble believing this at first, he said, but stay with me. By this time, Shapiro wasn't in a relationship with Dolly anymore, but they'd been together for a while after Fred's murder. They were together when Dolly got arrested,

and he used to visit her in jail and run errands for her on the outside. During one visit, she'd asked him for a strange favor. Could he go buy some groceries and drop them off at her house? Sure, Shapiro said, but why? There's nobody at your house right now, is there? Well, actually there is, Dali said. My half-brother, he's a little strange, a little bit of a hermit, and he's just so worried about me. He's come up to stay for a while to be near me. Oh, okay, Shapiro said. Well, is there anything I should tell him for you or anything else I can do? No, that's all right, Dali said, and she had a weird request. She asked Shapiro to let himself into the house, carry the groceries up the stairs, find the little hatch to the attic, put the grocery

bags down, and scratch three times on the door. Then just leave, she said. He'll come down and get the stuff. Very normal girlfriend, Aaron. Not creepy at all. Also, can we talk about how it sounds like she's asking him to go feed her goldfish or something, not like a grown man who can go to the store? Or like, check the kitchen. Like, what do you mean? When Shapiro got to Dolly's house, though, his curiosity got the best of him. He scratched at the attic door, but he didn't go anywhere. He plopped down in a chair and waited.

And a few moments later, he heard footsteps. The door opened and a head popped out, looked startled and said hello. He was a younger man, probably in his early 30s, strikingly pale with dark hair and blue eyes. His name, he said, was Otto Sanhuber. Your dolly's half-brother, Shapiro said, but Otto shook his. his head. No, I'm not. I'm her lover. Her lover in the attic. I'm not sure how old Otto was when he met Dolly because Otto wasn't sure himself, but probably about 17. Otto wasn't sure about his age because he was in the language of the time, a foundling, an orphan. He didn't know much,

if anything, about his birth parents. He was adopted eventually by a couple called the Sanhuber's. From the pictures I've seen and everything I've learned about Otto, he had big Rick Moranis energy, or if you're a young in and you don't know who the hell that is, we'll call it Matthew Gray Goobler energy, but like a little less hot, like halfway between Matthew Gray Gubler and that hydra scientist from the Marvel movies. He was a sensitive guy, loved writing and reading and daydreaming. Evidently, there are a couple different stories of how Otto and Dolly's affair started. In some sources, Otto was friends with Dolly's son Raymond, and when Raymond died, they gradually

fell into an affair. In others, she met him after Raymond's death. This is the version I've seen more often. Dolly's sewing machine broke, and the singer company sent a repairman over to the house to fix it. This, of course, was Otto Sanhuber. Dolly must have taken an instant liking to the guy because she showed him to the sewing machine, left the room for a few minutes, then came back in, wearing nothing but a silk robe and a smile. Dolly laid down on the couch, flicked her robe aside to show off a juicy thigh or two, wiggled her eyebrows, and the rest was history. By which I mean, they banged, in case you didn't catch that. Thank you so much for clarifying. I was worried the campers might miss it. You were

so subtle. I know. After that day, Dolly's sewing machine started breaking down left and right. Damn thing. Otto became a frequent visitor, coming by and, you know, fixing her treadle. knobbing her bobbin thread and her needle now that one doesn't really work it works a little bit he was basting her stitch and it seems

creepy to us now and I guess it still is even though 17 was considered a full grown man at the time Dolly was in her 30s and here's this 17 year old lover there are a lot of theories about what they both got out of it

dolly had lost her son so maybe she needed somebody to nurture, plus Fred had become sort of an absentee husband by this point. A lot of work, a lot of drinking, not a lot of attention for Dolly. And Otto had been abandoned by his birth mom, so he probably had some major mommy issues going on. But there's no denying they had a strong attraction for each other. But you know, you can't keep inviting your young lover over for marathon sex capades and not expect the neighbors to notice. Remember, this was before we had Wi-Fi.

People were all up in each other's biz notch and gossip ran rampant in these little wealthy communities. God, I was so born after my time. Imagine being a society lady in the 1920s. You've got beautiful clothes, beautiful jewelry. You've got a big gorgeous house. Your husband's always out working, so he's not home to bother you, you know. And you can spend all day having tea and talking vicious shit about your neighbors with all the other catty bitches on the block. Oh, my God.

Yes, ma'am. It's so good. Good times, right? Yeah. The music was pretty damn good, too. Pretty good. So Dolly had this to contend with if she wanted to keep Otto around. Now, this might have kept a lesser villain down, but our Dolly is an enterprising gal, a boss babe, if you will.

She came up with a plant. Just move into the attic, she told him. Easy peasy. And he did. He went for it. I mean, he got to live rent-free. He got free food. And he got to be close to the love of his life, which is how he thought of Dolly.

at the time, and he'd have plenty of time to chase his real dream of becoming a famous writer. So that was it. Otto quit his job fixing sewing machines and moved in. Dolly set him up with a desk, a nice mattress, books, and pencils and paper. He sat up there and read adventure stories about voyages in the South Seas, and he wrote his own stories, which Dolly would send out to magazines for him. He started making some money from his writing, which Dolly held on to for him and doled out as needed. when Fred and Dolly were out to dinner at a party or if Fred was gone for the day, Otto would sometimes sneak out and go for walks around the neighborhood. Then he'd sneak back in.

During the day, while Fred and Dolly were at the apron factory, Otto kept the house nice and clean for Dolly and did meal prep stuff like peeling potatoes and whatnot. Fred was too cheap to spring for a living housekeeper, so this was a major bonus for Dolly. Plus, it was prohibition and Dolly and Otto liked a little drinky drank. So one of their hobbies was to make bathtub gin together. Good times. This is so like early 1900s, I can't even stand it. Bathtub gin.

Bathtub gym. The only drawbacks, aside from the fact that he was living in an attic, was that Dolly had to padlock him in to keep Fred from wandering up there and discovering her dirty little secret. She kept the key on her and told Fred she was keeping her valuables up there.

Huh. Not exactly a lie, I guess. When Fred was on his way out, she'd unlock the attic door so Otto could come down and eat and do whatever he wanted around the house. And as often as she could, Dolly stayed home sick from work. So she and Otto could have at it. And have at it, they did. This woman had a sex drive like you would not believe. Yeah, I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

I'm not going to lie. She and Otto would do it like nine, ten times a day. That's just successive. Okay. It reminds me of that old Rita, Rudner stand-up act where she was talking about her friend being in labor for 36 hours and she's like, I don't even want to do something that feels good for 36 hours. Like, at some point it's enough already. Jeez, let's go get some dinner. Yes, gents, Mr. Whitney is a lucky man.

Jokes aside, I wonder if this is how she dealt with her grief over her son. Some people self-medicate with drugs or booze. Fred escaped into alcohol and work and some people used sex and I wouldn't be surprised if that was Dolly. Of course, she might have just been real Randy. We don't know for sure. The wild thing about this is that this relationship went on for years, like 10 years and involved several moves to different houses and finally to a different state, each house with its own attic for auto. An attic for auto sounds like like a weird romance novel, like a spin-off of flowers in the attic. As you can imagine, you can't live in the attic of somebody's house for 10 years and never attract attention. Otto's grotto was right above Fred and Dolly's

boudoir. So in addition to Otto, occasionally having to put his hands over his ears and rock back and forth to avoid listening to Fred and Dolly's sex noises, there were plenty of times when Fred heard Otto walking around up there. Add that to the fact that food went missing all the time. And we're not talking a cookie here and there. We're talking steaks and rack of lamb and whole loaves of bread. And Fred was getting paranoid as hell about burglars. Dolly had to think fast about how to handle and she decided on good old gaslighting. Otto would cough or step on a creaky floorboard in the attic, and Fred would jump up like, Did you hear that?

And Dolly would play it cool as a fridge full of cucumbers. Darling, what are you talking about? After a while, she convinced him he was hearing things, and she was worried about him. She talked him into seeing a doctor who told him he must be working too hard. Yeah, which Fred apparently bought, bless his heart. That's just, God, it's horrible. But eventually, like seven years into this insanity, Fred came home unexpectedly one afternoon and found Otto in the kitchen, helping himself to a leg a lamb. Fred flipped out. I knew there

was somebody breaking in here and threw Otto out on his ass. Dolly, of course, couldn't say, oh, no, that's my boyfriend, let him back in. So she snuck out to meet Otto in a park, gave him some money, and told him here. You can move to L.A. like you've been dreaming about. Write your stories. so reluctantly but with no other options at the moment otto went got an apartment and a job and hated every minute of it he missed dolly and he developed a little bit of agoraphobia from living in an attic for years he was forlorn out there by himself so dolly immediately started working on fred to move to l a we can start a new factory it'll be a great adventure you'll like it better out there fred it's nice and sunny and warm and fred bless his heart bought it Just this poor guy. This poor guy. Once they got out there, Dolly insisted on buying a house with a nice, spacious attic,

a place to store her furs. Milf Manor 2.0. This woman, I swear to God. It is creepy. I mean, it is. You can't deny it's creepy. Not just because of the age difference, but I mean, like, if you gender reverse that age difference,

like, it's creepy. It's for sure creepy. If a man was keeping like a 25, year old woman in his attic? Are you fucking kidding me? Not great. It's not great. Not good. You know, again, like, because of the time, like, you're 17, you're a full grown ass man at that time. Like, that's how society viewed it and everything. So it's a little different, but it's creepy. And it's not like, here's the thing is, I don't think, like, I don't think 17 year olds matured differently in the 20s. Of course not. Right. No, it was just societal. It's just societal. So, like, he's still a 17 year old boy and, like, living in a

started. By the time at the end, he was 30. But he was trapped in the attic that whole time. Like, not trapped. He was living in the attic. Oh, he wanted to be in the attic. Yeah, but I mean, she groomed him to want to be in there. That's the thing. Like, he didn't have any, he got so used to it that he got weird about being out in public. It's just wild man. And like all the, can you imagine, like, he didn't talk to anybody. Like, oh, no. He talked to her. She was his entire universe. Oh, oh. So creepy. Yeah, it's really messed up.

Like, we're laughing because it's such a crazy story, but it's pretty messed up. It's horrific. So, once they were settled in, Otto gratefully moved into his new attic and started writing his stories again. By this point, he'd actually become fairly successful as a writer, and he was making money at it, which is, you know, something he never would have probably done as a, you know, sewing machine repair, man. So I guess that's part of what he was getting out of it. He wasn't making a ton of money, but enough for food and clothes and stuff. Fun fact, by the way, the act of living secretly in somebody else's house is called Frogging with a pH, and it happens way more often than you'd think, which is terrifying,

obviously. Lifetime, like the Lifetime Network, has a whole true crime show called Frogger in my house, and it'll pucker your butthole, okay? It had me jumping at noises for a week. Although, I'm not sure it counts as frogging if the lady of the house just tucked you away up there on purpose so she can get her a little something whenever she wants. So fast forward, Dolly's sitting in jail, and Herman Shapiro is at her house to deliver groceries, listening to all this with his eyes falling out of his flipping head, and once he got started talking, it was hard to shut Otto up. His story was that on the night of the murder, he was up in his attic, like always, when he heard Dolly and Fred come home from their night out. They were arguing,

loudly. Their voices got louder and louder, and Otto started to worry that Fred might be angry enough to hurt Dolly. Then he heard a thud. Goddy's hit her, Otto thought. Desperate to rescue the love of his life, he grabbed his two 25 pistols and ran downstairs. Fred saw him. There was a struggle over the guns, and yeah, he shot him three times. Then he shoved Dolly into the closet and locked her in, told her to stay there and just say burglars had broken in. Then he skulked back up to his attic. He thought he was defending Dolly from her violent husband. He didn't realize until later that what he'd actually heard was a table scooting on the floor as Fred accidentally bumped into it. On the show, a crime to remember, they speculate about whether Fred recognized Otto in those last moments,

as the guy he'd caught in his kitchen, back in Milwaukee all those years ago, as the shy sewing machine repairman who'd come to fix Dolly's old singer machine. We have no way of knowing whether Fred figured out what had been going on right under his nose right before he took his last breath. Poor guy. The police brought Otto in, and he admitted everything. But there was a problem. Back then, the state of California had a statute of limitations on manslaughter, which is what they deemed Fred's murder to be.

So they still had a trial, and Otto was found guilty, but he couldn't serve any prison time. He pled not guilty by reason of insanity, which probably wouldn't have worked, but because it had been so many years since the murder, he walked. He did testify, and he had some interesting details to add to what the public already knew about his story. The media were calling the Batman because he'd lived in an attic,

which is funny because the Batman comics were still several years away. Otto referred to himself as Dolly's sex slave, though he acknowledged that he'd been very much in love with her for years, and it seemed like the sex slave narrative was probably coming from his attorney, who was working really hard to paint him as like a hapless pawn in Dolly's hands. Otto talked about how he'd taken pride and taking care of, of Dolly and Fred's house and clothes, doing both their laundry, sweeping their floors. He talked admiringly about Fred's beautiful clothes, which Otto made sure to keep clean and

pressed while Fred was at work. The man he'd murdered, who hadn't known he existed. Absolutely wild. He said he was always proud of the fact that people talked about what a great housekeeper Dolly was. She wasn't. He was. And he told the jury he had a little secret weapon he'd bring out Anytime Dolly was getting on his nerves or trying to get him to do something he didn't want to do, he'd just quit eating and sulk in the attic, refusing to come down until she gave in. It's so friggin' mother and childy and edible and awful. 17-year-old behavior, because he hasn't been outside. Too mature, yeah.

I just, ugh, zh. Yeah, he froze at 17 in that attic. Oh, it's so awful. Poor guy. I know we killed somebody, but I feel for Otto. I really do. Yeah, yeah, we do. So Otto had his guilty verdict, but it was nothing more than a symbolic victory for the state.

Now, it was Dolly's turn. The DA didn't buy that Otto and Dolly didn't plan Fred's murder. He charged Dolly with conspiracy to commit murder, and she went on trial in 1936. Amazingly, Dolly's trial ended in a hung jury. I mean, what more do you need? But again, it was the 30s. People had a hard time believing that a woman, a woman, could be capable of something so evil as murder. So, Dolly walked.

Ended up finding love again. She was with the same man for 30 years before finally marrying him when she was 80, and then dying a few weeks later. Wow. On the show, A Crime to Remember, Forensic psychologist Joni Johnston points out that, look, you know, Dolly was no innocent. She had no right to do what she did to Fred, but she was also living at a time when women didn't have a lot of rights or options.

They couldn't own property on their own. They'd only been allowed to vote for, like, five minutes. And that was only the white women. So just to get a divorce wasn't always a viable solution for women in bad marriages. If you could get one at all, you'd be looked down on by your peers and you'd be financially shit out of luck. So she may have felt backed into a corner and not known how else to get out of her situation. Or she may have just been an evil bitch. Or maybe a little of both.

You know, it could have been little column A, little column B. Yeah. People are complex. Long after Dolly's death, somebody made a little bit. a TV movie based on the case called The Man in the Attic. I haven't seen it, but I want to. I do. As for Otto, we're not exactly sure what became of him.

We know he moved away. We know he got married, but that's about it. I don't know if he kept up his career as a writer. I wish we knew what pen name he used so we could look up some of his stories. Oh, yeah. So did he and Dolly plan Fred's murder, or did it happen in the heat of the moment, like Otto said? It's hard to say for sure. I could see it happening either way.

Yeah, on the one hand, I don't know why they need to kill Fred. I mean, they'd been happy with things the way they were for like 10 plus years by the time of the murder. So why rock the boat and, you know, risk everything? Otto was definitely protective and obsessive about Dolly. And I could see him go an apeshit if he thought Fred was trying to hurt her, running down there, getting into a struggle over the guns and bang, bang. Yeah, and I could also see them planning it. Like Otto saying, I'm so sick of living this lie.

I want to be able to come down from this damn attic and live a real life. Or Dolly's saying, I can't take this guy's drunk, grumpy ass anymore. Please get rid of him for me. Right. So at the end of the day, you know, we don't know. I mean, I'm not sure. Part of me can't really see Dolly wanting to rock the boat. Like, she was Otto's whole life, but he wasn't her whole life.

She still had friends and work and social events while Otto was the one stuck in the attic all the time. Maybe he wanted to come down and really live by her side. or maybe he was happier in his little hidey hole, dreaming of the South Seas. What do you all think? Let us know. Because the story is really different depending on which side you come down on. Dolly and Otto are really different, much more calculating and evil in the second version than the first. But whatever the truth is, this has got to be one of the most stranger-than-fiction cases I've ever come across, and I wouldn't have seen that twist coming in a million years.

So that was definitely a wild one, right, campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And we'd like to thank our listener, Diana, for suggesting this case. We had a lot of fun researching this one, so thanks so much. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely patrons. Thank you so much to Nata, Eleanor, Aaron, Pam, Angela, Lana, and Joanna. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you are missing out. Patrons of our show get every

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