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Been reading up on some early 20th-century crime cases; I’m tempted to say modern crimes can’t hold a candle to them for weirdness, but that wouldn’t be true. They are, however, pretty darn weird.
OK, so it’s 1922; there’s a couple in Los Angeles named Fred and Walburga “Dolly” Oesterreich; they’re both in their fifties, originally from Milwaukee, pretty well-off. Fred runs a garment factory and Dolly dresses flashy and is generally what we’d now describe as a cougar.
One night the neighbours hear yelling, then screams and gunshots. When they get into the house, Fred is dead on the floor and Dolly is locked in a closet. When the let her out and she calms down, she says they surprised a burglar, who locked her up and shot Fred.
There are a lot of things about the case that the homicide detectives don’t like. They don’t like Dolly’s description of her marriage as idyllically loving and peaceful with no arguments ever – it sound like she’s protesting too much. They don’t like that she’s the sole heir (they’d had a son, but he died suddenly in his teens) to a million or so dollars; they don’t like that the burglar took Fred’s diamond watch but left his wallet; and they really don’t like that he was shot with a .25 -- after all, what kind of burglar carries a lady’s gun?
However, they can’t get around the fact that there’s just no way Dolly could have locked herself in the closet, and then left the key on the other side of the room; and she and Fred lived alone - despite their wealth, they didn’t employ any servants.
While the detectives are tearing their hair, Dolly moves to a smaller house and starts having an affair with Herman Shapiro, the civil lawyer handling Fred’s estate. She also charms two other men and shows each of them one of a pair of .25 guns: “This isn’t the gun that shot Fred, of course, but I forgot to tell the police I own it, and I’m afraid they’ll get suspicious if they find it. Can you toss it in the tar pits/bury it in your back yard for me (bats eyelashes)?” They do. Then she does something stupid – she gives her lawyer boyfriend Fred’s supposedly-stolen diamond watch; and the cops notice him wearing it, and he tells them where he got it. Figuring they’ve got her now, Dolly’s brought in and held for questioning. She calls her lawyer and asks him for a big favour – can he take some groceries ‘round to her house and knock three times on the trapdoor that leads to the attic? He does, and a small, very pale man climbs down and introduces himself as Otto Sanhuber, Dolly’s long-time secret lover, who's been hiding in the attic. For nine years.
Turns out that back in Milwaukee, before WWI, Dolly had seduced an impressionable young sewing-machine repairman, made him her willing slave, and had been keeping him in the attic ever since. Each day while Fred was at work overseeing his factory, she’d let Otto out to make love to her, do the household chores (everyone was always impressed with what a tidy home they had) and make bathtub gin (it was the ‘twenties, after all). Presumably he also repaired the sewing machine when necessary. When Fred was at home, Otto would stay in the attic and write short stories to sell to the pulp magazines. This had gone on for nearly a decade, during which Fred and Dolly had moved several times, once across country – apparently she’d always managed to convince Fred to buy a place with an attic, saying she needed someplace to store her furs. It probably could have gone on forever – Otto seems to have been quite happy in his life as love-slave/house-elf/Boo Radley/pulp writer -- except that on the night of Fred’s death, he and Dolly had argued and then Dolly had tripped on a throw rug. Otto, hearing yelling followed by a shriek and a thud, thought she was in danger from Fred and came running downstairs to her rescue, grabbing her guns on the way. In his panic he’d shot Fred and killed him. All those pulp adventure stories must have inspired him, though because he was the one who’d had the idea of making it look like a burglary, taking the watch, locking Dolly in the closet and then disappearing back to his attic before the neighbours could see him.
Dolly is released for lack of evidence – the watch wasn’t enough – but now that Herman knows about Otto, he convinces her to dump him before anyone else found out. Poor Otto slinks away heartbroken. Seven years pass. Herman and Dolly have a bad breakup, and in revenge the lawyer goes to the cops and tells all. Otto is tracked down – he’s managed to make a new life for himself, changing his name to Walter and taking a night-shift job (he could no longer stand sunlight); he’s even got married.
The press, who’d had a field day seven years earlier over Fred’s mysterious death, now really go to town, dubbing Otto “the Bat Man” and “the Phantom of the Attic.” It doesn’t hurt that under questioning, the pale, twitchy little man describes the affair in as much lurid detail as the court will allow in 1929. Eventually he’s found guilty, but only of manslaughter – on which the statute of limitations has expired. He’s free to go. Dolly is tried as an accomplice, but freed by a hung jury. She takes up with yet another man, but seems to have finally settled down, staying with this one for thirty years; they even get married shortly before her death at the age of ninety-something.
No one knows what happened to Otto – once freed, he disappears from the record. Since it’s hard not to sympathize with him a little, I hope things worked out for him and that his wife appreciated weird but devoted men.
OK, so it’s 1922; there’s a couple in Los Angeles named Fred and Walburga “Dolly” Oesterreich; they’re both in their fifties, originally from Milwaukee, pretty well-off. Fred runs a garment factory and Dolly dresses flashy and is generally what we’d now describe as a cougar.
One night the neighbours hear yelling, then screams and gunshots. When they get into the house, Fred is dead on the floor and Dolly is locked in a closet. When the let her out and she calms down, she says they surprised a burglar, who locked her up and shot Fred.
There are a lot of things about the case that the homicide detectives don’t like. They don’t like Dolly’s description of her marriage as idyllically loving and peaceful with no arguments ever – it sound like she’s protesting too much. They don’t like that she’s the sole heir (they’d had a son, but he died suddenly in his teens) to a million or so dollars; they don’t like that the burglar took Fred’s diamond watch but left his wallet; and they really don’t like that he was shot with a .25 -- after all, what kind of burglar carries a lady’s gun?
However, they can’t get around the fact that there’s just no way Dolly could have locked herself in the closet, and then left the key on the other side of the room; and she and Fred lived alone - despite their wealth, they didn’t employ any servants.
While the detectives are tearing their hair, Dolly moves to a smaller house and starts having an affair with Herman Shapiro, the civil lawyer handling Fred’s estate. She also charms two other men and shows each of them one of a pair of .25 guns: “This isn’t the gun that shot Fred, of course, but I forgot to tell the police I own it, and I’m afraid they’ll get suspicious if they find it. Can you toss it in the tar pits/bury it in your back yard for me (bats eyelashes)?” They do. Then she does something stupid – she gives her lawyer boyfriend Fred’s supposedly-stolen diamond watch; and the cops notice him wearing it, and he tells them where he got it. Figuring they’ve got her now, Dolly’s brought in and held for questioning. She calls her lawyer and asks him for a big favour – can he take some groceries ‘round to her house and knock three times on the trapdoor that leads to the attic? He does, and a small, very pale man climbs down and introduces himself as Otto Sanhuber, Dolly’s long-time secret lover, who's been hiding in the attic. For nine years.
Turns out that back in Milwaukee, before WWI, Dolly had seduced an impressionable young sewing-machine repairman, made him her willing slave, and had been keeping him in the attic ever since. Each day while Fred was at work overseeing his factory, she’d let Otto out to make love to her, do the household chores (everyone was always impressed with what a tidy home they had) and make bathtub gin (it was the ‘twenties, after all). Presumably he also repaired the sewing machine when necessary. When Fred was at home, Otto would stay in the attic and write short stories to sell to the pulp magazines. This had gone on for nearly a decade, during which Fred and Dolly had moved several times, once across country – apparently she’d always managed to convince Fred to buy a place with an attic, saying she needed someplace to store her furs. It probably could have gone on forever – Otto seems to have been quite happy in his life as love-slave/house-elf/Boo Radley/pulp writer -- except that on the night of Fred’s death, he and Dolly had argued and then Dolly had tripped on a throw rug. Otto, hearing yelling followed by a shriek and a thud, thought she was in danger from Fred and came running downstairs to her rescue, grabbing her guns on the way. In his panic he’d shot Fred and killed him. All those pulp adventure stories must have inspired him, though because he was the one who’d had the idea of making it look like a burglary, taking the watch, locking Dolly in the closet and then disappearing back to his attic before the neighbours could see him.
Dolly is released for lack of evidence – the watch wasn’t enough – but now that Herman knows about Otto, he convinces her to dump him before anyone else found out. Poor Otto slinks away heartbroken. Seven years pass. Herman and Dolly have a bad breakup, and in revenge the lawyer goes to the cops and tells all. Otto is tracked down – he’s managed to make a new life for himself, changing his name to Walter and taking a night-shift job (he could no longer stand sunlight); he’s even got married.
The press, who’d had a field day seven years earlier over Fred’s mysterious death, now really go to town, dubbing Otto “the Bat Man” and “the Phantom of the Attic.” It doesn’t hurt that under questioning, the pale, twitchy little man describes the affair in as much lurid detail as the court will allow in 1929. Eventually he’s found guilty, but only of manslaughter – on which the statute of limitations has expired. He’s free to go. Dolly is tried as an accomplice, but freed by a hung jury. She takes up with yet another man, but seems to have finally settled down, staying with this one for thirty years; they even get married shortly before her death at the age of ninety-something.
No one knows what happened to Otto – once freed, he disappears from the record. Since it’s hard not to sympathize with him a little, I hope things worked out for him and that his wife appreciated weird but devoted men.
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-21 03:52 pm (UTC)From:I'm going to hell, as what stood out for weirdness was "OMG, you shouldn't store your furs in an ATTIC!!"
I think I went with my mother to put her furs in cold storage at the furriers one too many times.
Poor Fred...
no subject
Date: 2011-06-21 04:22 pm (UTC)From:Apparently Fred did get suspicious a few times, but, well, he was a heavy drinker, and Dolly always managed to convince him he was seeing/hearing things, or that he’d eaten the leftovers in the pantry and forgotten about it. Then there was one time he came home early while Dolly was still out, and found a mystery man eating supper at his table, but he assumed Otto was a burglar and contented himself with throwing him out of the house. I suppose he could have saved himself if he’d questioned him instead, but then Otto would probably have gone along with the burglar explanation to protect Dolly. Perhaps that’s where he got the idea for the fake burglary after he shot Fred a few years later.