Anna Marie Hahn

Anna Marie Hahn
Mug shot of Anna Marie Hahn
Born Anna Marie Filser
July 7, 1906
Bavaria, Germany
Died December 7, 1938 (aged 32)
Ohio Penitentiary
Columbus, Ohio, U.S.
Cause of death Electrocution
Other names Marie Felser, Marie Fisher, Arsenic Anna, The Blonde Borgia, Angel of Mercy
Criminal penalty Death
Details
Victims 5
Span of crimes
 May 6, 1933–August 1, 1937
Country United States
State(s) Ohio
Date apprehended
 1937

Anna Marie Hahn (born Filser; July 7, 1906 – December 7, 1938) was a German-born American serial killer.

Biography

Anna Hahn was the youngest of twelve children. As a teenager, she allegedly had an affair with a Viennese physician, though no records have been found of a Viennese doctor by the name she gave. The illicit relationship produced a son named Oskar (also spelled "Oscar"). Hahn's scandalized family sent her to the U.S. in 1929, while her son remained in Bavaria with her parents. While staying with relatives Max and Anna Doeschel in Cincinnati, Ohio, Hahn met fellow German immigrant Philip Hahn; they married in 1930. Hahn briefly returned to Germany to retrieve Oscar, then set upon life as a family with Philip.[1]

Hahn allegedly began poisoning and robbing elderly men and women in Cincinnati's German community to support her gambling habit. Ernst Kohler, who died on May 6, 1933, was believed to be her first victim. Hahn had befriended him shortly before his death; he left her a house in his will.[2] Her next alleged victim, Albert Parker, 72, also died soon after she began caring for him. Prior to Parker's death, she signed an I.O.U. for $1,000 that she borrowed from him, but after his death, the document was either discarded or simply "disappeared". Jacob Wagner, 78, died on June 3, 1937, leaving $17,000 cash to his "beloved niece" Hahn. She soon began caring for 67-year-old George Gsellman, also of Cincinnati. For her service before his death on July 6, 1937, she received $15,000.[3]

Georg Obendoerfer was the last to die, on August 1, 1937, after he traveled to Colorado Springs, Colorado with Hahn and her son.[4] Police said that Obendoerfer, a cobbler, "died in agony just after Mrs. Hahn had bent over his deathbed inquiring his name, professing she did not know the man". Hahn's son testified at her trial that he, his mother, and Obendoerfer traveled to Colorado by train from Cincinnati together and that Obendoerfer began getting sick en route.[3] An autopsy revealed high levels of arsenic in Obendoerfer's body, which aroused police suspicions. Exhumations of two of her previous clients revealed that they had been poisoned.[3]

Hahn was convicted after a sensational four-week trial in November 1937. Sentenced to death, she went to the electric chair at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus on December 7, 1938.[5][6] She was buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery in Columbus.

References

  1. ↑ Franklin, Diana Britt (2006-10-30). The Good-bye Door. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87338-874-0. OCLC 63116896. Archived from the original on 2010-01-21.
  2. ↑ "Anna Marie Hahn". Serial Killer Central. 2005-02-01. Archived from the original on 2010-12-21. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
  3. 1 2 3 Lohr, David. "Arsenic Anna: The True Story of Anna Marie Hahn". Crime Library. Archived from the original on 2009-09-04. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
  4. ↑ "Indictment Will Be Asked Today In 'Poison Plot'". Daily Times. 1937-08-11. Retrieved 2010-01-17.
  5. ↑ "German Cooking". Time. 1937-11-15. Retrieved 2010-01-11.
  6. ↑ "Mrs. Hahn Begs for Mercy, Then Dies in Electric Chair". Pittsburgh Press. 1938-12-08. Retrieved 2010-01-17.

Further reading

  • Franklin, Diana Britt (2006-10-30). The Good-bye Door. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press. ISBN 978-0-87338-874-0. OCLC 63116896. Archived from the original on 2010-01-21.
  • "Anna Marie Hahn", Mind of a Killer (DVD), Kozel Multimedia, 1998.
  • Peter Vronsky: "Female Serial Killers: How and Why Women Become Monsters", Berkley Books, New York (2007), p. 441
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