Speaker 1: She came to America chasing a fresh start, but everywhere
Speaker 1: she ventured, men seemed to die, their wills were changed,
Speaker 1: their bank accounts were emptied, and their symptoms were always
Speaker 1: the same. But no one questioned the charming German caregiver
Speaker 1: who appeared to help everyone that she met. Eventually, though,
Speaker 1: she had one victim too many, and the truth finally
Speaker 1: began to surface. This is the story of a woman
Speaker 1: who killed silently, poisoning her victims. This is the story
Speaker 1: of arsenic Annie.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
Speaker 1: The following podcast maid more mature audience listener discretion. Do
Speaker 1: you see a difference?
Speaker 2: Oh, does it look bigger?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks bigger. It's huge, right, it's massive. Get
Speaker 1: your mind out of the gutter. Awkward, don't go there.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about my muscles. I've been going to the gym.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm flexing. We have decided to go on a
Speaker 2: tropical vacation. We haven't done a tropical vacation for years
Speaker 2: in the spring, and so we're like, holy shit, we
Speaker 2: got to get our our urses to the gym.
Speaker 1: Yeah, get our beach bods on the go. But it's
Speaker 1: also not just like, hey, get a beach bod. It's
Speaker 1: like I've been eating shitty. I need to get healthy again.
Speaker 1: I have a history in my family, have some high
Speaker 1: blood pressure stuff. I should probably do the adult thing here,
Speaker 1: you know, take care of myself.
Speaker 2: You're getting up there in age, you know, so you
Speaker 2: got to start taking care of yourself.
Speaker 1: Yet, calm down, it's not that bad.
Speaker 2: I know you're still a spring chicken. I guess we
Speaker 2: could say I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm just as spry as I was yesterday, but not
Speaker 1: the day before. I don't know if that's the saying.
Speaker 1: It just made it up, but it seemed to work well.
Speaker 2: I do also have to say, I don't know. Going
Speaker 2: to the gym too, it's so nice for your mental
Speaker 2: health and just clearing your mind right. It's a good
Speaker 2: time a year to be doing that. I think you're right.
Speaker 1: And then there's also the like it almost puts you
Speaker 1: in a mindset of eating better too. You're going to
Speaker 1: the gym, You're like, well, I just went and worked out.
Speaker 1: I feel good, I'm happy. I'm not going to just
Speaker 1: go and eat a sleeve of oreos, which is probably
Speaker 1: what I generally do on a Sunday afternoon or something
Speaker 1: like that. What I would do is go home be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to just consume a bunch of calories
Speaker 1: because I waste my gym time. I'm going to eat
Speaker 1: healthy to balance it out, so it like perpetuates some
Speaker 1: better living.
Speaker 2: It's like the snowball effect in a good way.
Speaker 1: There you go, the good snowball effect. Another good snowball
Speaker 1: effect too is when multiple people join up on Patreon
Speaker 1: and support the show, we can really grow. So thank
Speaker 1: you and shout out to Mariah Carellis, Claire Jones, Shariah Kegle,
Speaker 1: Blackie Alexander, and David Walter who all signed up and
Speaker 1: are supporting us and joining that amazing snowball that we
Speaker 1: have of a community over there that.
Speaker 2: Was not planned. That sounded like it was almost rehearsed.
Speaker 2: But that's just Ben.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm enjoying trying to like fit it in in
Speaker 1: a in a.
Speaker 2: Natural stuff like that. Yeah, he's that good.
Speaker 1: Can you tell? I did improv in high school? We
Speaker 1: had an interesting story today. I mean I could talk
Speaker 1: about my muscles and vacations and snowballs all day long.
Speaker 1: But I think we should get over to the story
Speaker 1: of Arsenic Annie.
Speaker 2: H I agree, Holy moly, this is going to be
Speaker 2: a gooder. I think it is a.
Speaker 1: Little bit of an older case, so I will say that.
Speaker 1: But we are staying in the nineteen h We're not
Speaker 1: going back to the eighteen hundred, so it's not like, well,
Speaker 1: I guess it is a whole other century. I was
Speaker 1: going to say, we're not going back a century, but
Speaker 1: we are. We are, all right, I just dated myself.
Speaker 1: We're going back one century, not too how about that.
Speaker 2: I feel like the ones that we've done recently have
Speaker 2: been a little bit newer, so well, that's.
Speaker 1: Kind of why I picked this one, is it's been
Speaker 1: a while since we've doed back in time a little
Speaker 1: bit around that clock. So we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: Arsenic Annie.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Annie Marie Filsner entered the world on July seventh, nineteen
Speaker 1: oh six, in the quiet Bavarian town of FEUs in Germany.
Speaker 1: It was the kind of place where people knew each
Speaker 1: other for generations, and gossip traveled faster than the church
Speaker 1: bells that rang through the town air. Her parents, George
Speaker 1: and Kathrina, well, they were doing pretty well for themselves.
Speaker 1: George made furniture, and the Filser name actually carried a
Speaker 1: very kind of respect that comes with steady work and
Speaker 1: a big family. Anna was the twelfth child to be
Speaker 1: born into this family, so it's a large family to
Speaker 1: say the least, no kidding, And she was the baby
Speaker 1: of the house. And by the time she came along,
Speaker 1: her parents had actually already buried five of those children.
Speaker 2: What, Yes, that's freaking heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: Yes, And then not to mention, two more of the
Speaker 1: older boys would eventually be lost in the First World War,
Speaker 1: So death loss, it was definitely an unfortunate thing that
Speaker 1: was woven into the family long before Anna will even
Speaker 1: really learn to speak. Now, as the youngest daughter, Anna
Speaker 1: grew up pushing from the harsher edges of life. We
Speaker 1: all look at the youngest of the family. The baby
Speaker 1: tends to get coddled a little bit more, right, and
Speaker 1: that's certainly this case in this story. Her mother adored her,
Speaker 1: and in a household that had known so much tragedy,
Speaker 1: it was easy to see why the surviving children, especially
Speaker 1: the youngest one, was held a little closer. But Anna
Speaker 1: wasn't a child who stayed close for long. Her early
Speaker 1: years were filled with sickness, and she had a long,
Speaker 1: frightening battle with blood poisoning that kept her in the
Speaker 1: hospital for months, followed by a go to your operation
Speaker 1: that left her frail and anxious. In fact, she genuinely
Speaker 1: thought she might die at one point, and maybe that
Speaker 1: brush with mortality did something to her, because when she recovered,
Speaker 1: she began pushing boundaries, in fact, every boundary that she
Speaker 1: could really find. By her teenage years, Anna was slipping
Speaker 1: out of bedroom windows long after curfew, sneaking out to parties,
Speaker 1: and testing the limits of her parents' patience. Now Feusen
Speaker 1: was a small place, too small for secrets, but she
Speaker 1: still found ways to lie her way out of trouble.
Speaker 1: Even then, people remembered her charm, the soft spoken girl
Speaker 1: with blonde hair who always had a reason, always had
Speaker 1: an explanation, and somehow always got away with having another chance.
Speaker 1: School was something that never really interested her. She drifted
Speaker 1: far away from studies, and later in her life even
Speaker 1: insisted that she completed coursework for teaching, even though there
Speaker 1: was no way of verifying that. But I digress. What
Speaker 1: she was good at, though, was people. She learned early
Speaker 1: on that a well timed smile or a carefully spun
Speaker 1: story could get her what she wanted. But like many
Speaker 1: young women, life shifted sharply when she found herself pregnant.
Speaker 1: She was seventeen years old in a conservative Catholic town
Speaker 1: and now pregnant, and that wasn't something that the family,
Speaker 1: like the Philsners, could easily hide. Now, Anna insisted that
Speaker 1: the father of her child was a Viennese doctor, a
Speaker 1: brilliant cancer researcher by the name of doctor Max maskushek.
Speaker 1: It sounded impressive, almost heroic even, but the problem was simple.
Speaker 1: There was no record of him that existed anywhere. No
Speaker 1: one saw him, no one knew of him. He was
Speaker 1: just something that she said. The truth, whatever it was,
Speaker 1: didn't matter as much as the scandal, and the scandal
Speaker 1: certainly came fast. It seemed like for the first time
Speaker 1: in her life, Anna's charm wasn't enough to smooth things over.
Speaker 1: So to contain the damage, parents sent her to live
Speaker 1: with her sister Caddie in Holland. She gave birth to
Speaker 1: her son, there Oscar on May thirty first of nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty five. She's still unmarried with this doctor knowher in
Speaker 1: sight and still the source of the family shame. And
Speaker 1: then she came back home. But the relationship between Anna
Speaker 1: and the rest of the Filsner household, while it was
Speaker 1: never quite the same. Oscar stayed behind with Anna's mother
Speaker 1: while Anna tried to reclaim her place in Fusen. But
Speaker 1: words spread fast, people whispered, and Anna, who always had
Speaker 1: the gift of gab, found herself boxed in by her
Speaker 1: own choices. By the time she was in her early twenties,
Speaker 1: Anna had outgrown her small Bavarian life, or maybe she
Speaker 1: had simply burned too many bridges to stay. Either way,
Speaker 1: she was looking outwards past the mountains and towards the
Speaker 1: United States of America. It held the prospect of a
Speaker 1: chance to start fresh, and by the winter of nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty nine, Anna had convinced herself that America would fix everything,
Speaker 1: because the US was far enough away that her past
Speaker 1: couldn't follow. So when she stepped onto the SS Muchin
Speaker 1: with a second class ticket and a suitcase, she was
Speaker 1: excited to leave the small Bavarian town's opinion behind her.
Speaker 2: That makes sense. Fresh starts are definitely appealing. I am curious, though,
Speaker 2: did she take her baby with her? Did she leave
Speaker 2: the babe with her parents.
Speaker 1: Her son stayed behind for now, for now, for now. Yes,
Speaker 1: so the plan would be to you know, head over
Speaker 1: to the States, get her root set, and then bring
Speaker 1: her son over.
Speaker 2: That was the s point. Okay, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: It is too bad that everyone just I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I was going to say things have changed,
Speaker 2: but I think people actually are still a little bit gossipy.
Speaker 2: It's just maybe about different things nowadays.
Speaker 1: I think it's different things and in different ways for sure,
Speaker 1: Like if someone's getting pregnant and they don't know who
Speaker 1: the father is, that might spread a little bit of gossip,
Speaker 1: but it's not going to be anything out of the
Speaker 1: ordinary these days.
Speaker 2: It's not necessarily going to put shame on your family.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. It's not like, oh she's pregnant, Hey, excited
Speaker 1: to meet the kid. That's going to be the more reaction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be the stuff that spreads, Oh she doesn't
Speaker 1: know who the father is, or she says it's this doctor.
Speaker 1: Might be a little bit of whispers, but no one's
Speaker 1: really going to care in this case. Hey, being religious
Speaker 1: where you know, premarital sex is a thing that sort
Speaker 1: of stuff. That's where the scandal really starts, when you
Speaker 1: get back into the olden days, olden days. And so yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a whole different life, a whole different set
Speaker 1: of standards, I guess. But there's definitely still scandals that happen.
Speaker 1: It's just different.
Speaker 2: Topics, h you say it is. Yeah, it's definitely different.
Speaker 1: And now with social media too, it adds a whole
Speaker 1: new layer.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, isn't that the truth?
Speaker 1: When she arrived in New York in February after days
Speaker 1: at sea, she then traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, a city
Speaker 1: that felt way familiar with its German roots. Much of
Speaker 1: the neighborhood spoke the same language that she grew up with,
Speaker 1: and it had its beer hauls, its bakeries and butcher shops,
Speaker 1: and church bells and German newspaper. It probably felt honestly
Speaker 1: more like Germany than America at first. Even she moved
Speaker 1: in with her relatives, Max and Anna Doschel. They were
Speaker 1: kind and patient from the very beginning. They even covered
Speaker 1: her ship fare when she arrived, but within weeks she
Speaker 1: got sick with scarlet fever and spent almost a month
Speaker 1: bedridden in their home. Now the docials. They took care
Speaker 1: of her while she recovered, expecting she would pay them
Speaker 1: back when she found work sort of thing. So they
Speaker 1: covered the fair, but it was you know, hey, we gotcha,
Speaker 1: just whenever you can pay us back. But as soon
Speaker 1: as Anna was healthy again, she simply left. There was
Speaker 1: no repayment or apology or explanation, just nothing.
Speaker 2: Okay, So she didn't really believe or think she owed
Speaker 2: them anything.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and this is the first hint of a pattern
Speaker 1: that would later control her entire life. If she could
Speaker 1: slip away from like an IOU or a responsibility like that,
Speaker 1: then she would I don't like that, No, it's greasy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So she soon found work, landing a job as a
Speaker 1: chambermaid at the massive five hundred room hotel Elms. It
Speaker 1: was an eye opening place for a young immigrant. Wealthy
Speaker 1: travelers came and went, leaving behind tips, stories, and opportunities
Speaker 1: as well. Anna watched carefully how people trusted hotel staff
Speaker 1: with personal belongings, and how easy it could be to
Speaker 1: get close to these strangers, and how charm something she
Speaker 1: had could smooth over almost anything. But the most life
Speaker 1: changing moment in Cincinnati happened somewhere far less glamorous at
Speaker 1: a community dance hall. That's where she met Philip Hahn,
Speaker 1: a telegraph operator for Western Union. Now Philip was polite, practical,
Speaker 1: and honestly the exact opposite of Anna in almost every way.
Speaker 1: He believed what she told him, and that she had
Speaker 1: trained as a nurse in Germany, which was clearly not true.
Speaker 1: That she wanted a stable life again, not so much,
Speaker 1: and that she was ready to put down roots again
Speaker 1: not so much. She was moving all over the place,
Speaker 1: her son was a country away, and you know, all
Speaker 1: these things were far off from the reality of her
Speaker 1: actual situation. Now, whether they were true, that she was
Speaker 1: actually striving for them or not, well, it didn't really matter.
Speaker 1: What mattered was Philip believed them through and through, and
Speaker 1: on May fifth, nineteen thirty, after a short courtship, they
Speaker 1: married in Buffalo, New York.
Speaker 2: I was just going to say, well, why wouldn't he really? Right?
Speaker 2: I feel like someone that you're interested in is necessarily
Speaker 2: be spelling lies to you, right, so I think you
Speaker 2: would just believe them?
Speaker 1: Why not? Yeah, you're totally right. Now. That same summer,
Speaker 1: Anna returned to Germany briefly to bring Oscar with her.
Speaker 1: Now five years old, he's coming to America. The three
Speaker 1: of them settled into a modest home in Cincinnati, trying
Speaker 1: to build a normal family life. But normal while that
Speaker 1: never lasted long. Around Anna, she started dipping into the
Speaker 1: finances of some older men that she'd known before the wedding,
Speaker 1: though there's no evidence that there was any sort of
Speaker 1: romantic or physical intimacy or anything. She just simply used
Speaker 1: her charm. One of those men was Charles Oswald, a
Speaker 1: retired baker she rented a room from for a short period.
Speaker 1: Now he'd grown attached to her back then, imagining a
Speaker 1: future between them, and now he denied signing over apparently
Speaker 1: twenty seven shares of Union Gas and Electric to her.
Speaker 1: Yet somehow those stocks landed in her possession. Bank records
Speaker 1: also show seven hundred dollars shifting into Anna's account around
Speaker 1: that same time. Now, she didn't really talk about it,
Speaker 1: Philip didn't really seem to ask in Oswald. Well, he
Speaker 1: didn't pursue anything, he couldn't prove anything, and probably because
Speaker 1: well he gave them to her and didn't want to
Speaker 1: admit it. But by nineteen thirty one, she sold all
Speaker 1: those stocks that she had acquired and used the money
Speaker 1: to help the couple invest in a small family business,
Speaker 1: a bakery and delicatesian kind of like a deli with
Speaker 1: baked breads and such as. Well, you know, so the
Speaker 1: idea of running their own shop, well it looked good
Speaker 1: on paper, especially during a time when steady work was
Speaker 1: hard to come by. But Anna wasn't built for slow,
Speaker 1: careful progress. She well, she wanted money fast instead, and
Speaker 1: she found a place where she could chase that feeling
Speaker 1: the race track. A harmless, little two dollar bet would
Speaker 1: win her two hundred and sixty dollars early on, and
Speaker 1: that small victory hooked her into betting at the racetrack,
Speaker 1: and very quickly she moved from the occasional wager to
Speaker 1: betting twenty dollars to thirty dollars and even fifty dollars
Speaker 1: a day. And remember this is the late nineteen twenties.
Speaker 2: Well, I was just thinking, that's a slippery slope right.
Speaker 1: There, exactly. And this was money that the couple absolutely
Speaker 1: could not afford to lose. And so as a result,
Speaker 1: the bakery began to struggle. Bills piled up, and Philip
Speaker 1: worked long shifts to keep them afloat. By nineteen thirty two,
Speaker 1: their little shop was hanging on by a threat. The
Speaker 1: Great Depression didn't spare small businesses either, and with Anna's
Speaker 1: growing gambling habit draining their pockets, the shop never really
Speaker 1: had a fair chance. When it finally folded, the couple
Speaker 1: found themselves renting rooms inside the home of a man
Speaker 1: by the name of Koch, a sixty to two year
Speaker 1: old widower who had owned the house and rented out
Speaker 1: rooms to lodgers, including Anna and a local physician named
Speaker 1: doctor Arthur Voss. Now. Koche was quiet, frail, and grateful
Speaker 1: for the company. To Anna, though he wasn't just company.
Speaker 1: He was a man with money, a man with feeling health,
Speaker 1: and no close relatives really to keep an eye on him.
Speaker 1: So she made a move and became a part of
Speaker 1: his life with almost no effort. Really. She began helping
Speaker 1: around the house, you know, preparing meals, running errands, and
Speaker 1: betraying herself as a caring, dependable presence. Philip meanwhile, worked
Speaker 1: long hours and wasn't home much. But soon Anna started
Speaker 1: stealing from Koch small things at first, you know, loose change,
Speaker 1: pantry items, and other things from other people in the
Speaker 1: house too, including prescription pads from doctor Arthur Voss who
Speaker 1: but these prescription pads, well, they turned into a dangerous territory.
Speaker 1: Using a doctor's forged signature, she began writing orders for morphine,
Speaker 1: which she filled and kept for herself. Now whether she
Speaker 1: used it, recreationally sold it, or whatever isn't exactly clear.
Speaker 1: But what is clear is that Coach suddenly got very
Speaker 1: sick around the same time, and it is possible that
Speaker 1: she began experimenting with this as her first means of poison.
Speaker 2: Okay, it's interesting because she seems like she could be good,
Speaker 2: but then she is. Also she's actually just this terrible human.
Speaker 1: She's a monster. I will see. Yeah, yes she is, But.
Speaker 2: I don't know. There's little glimpses I guessed it in
Speaker 2: there where it's like, okay, like she could have gone
Speaker 2: a good way.
Speaker 1: But anyone can, anyone can go a good way. But
Speaker 1: what is what is she showing that's good about her?
Speaker 2: I'm yeah, I guess everything she does does have an
Speaker 2: ulterior motive.
Speaker 1: So yeah, she's manipulating every single person around her. She's
Speaker 1: creating relationships and everything for means to an end. Now
Speaker 1: I don't know for certain, but even her husband. Potentially
Speaker 1: there's a means to an end there. She's not necessarily
Speaker 1: after him for hey, a relationship, a husband, a partner,
Speaker 1: someone to go through life and enjoy things with and
Speaker 1: maybe raise her son, that sort of stuff. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I think she's more after someone to financial
Speaker 1: support her. And there is a little bit of evidence
Speaker 1: to go along with that that I'll mention here a
Speaker 1: little bit later.
Speaker 2: I don't know. For some I don't maybe it's because
Speaker 2: it's like a female or for some reason. I'm just
Speaker 2: struggling because, you know, I like the idea of someone
Speaker 2: wanting a fresh start and stuff. But I know, yeah,
Speaker 2: she's a terrible person. It's going to just get worse.
Speaker 2: So I need to change my mindset.
Speaker 1: Think of it this way.
Speaker 2: Why did she want a fresh start because she burnt
Speaker 2: shit back home? I guess exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's looking for a fresh start, not because she's
Speaker 1: looking for herself, but she's looking for fresh people to.
Speaker 2: Manipulate who don't know of her ways exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, Throughout April and early May of nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 1: well Co suffered waves of excruciating abdominal pain, vomiting weakness,
Speaker 1: and even trouble swallowing. Doctors believed that he was getting
Speaker 1: throat cancer and that was causing this. And Anna, well,
Speaker 1: she never questioned that diagnosis. In fact, she supported it
Speaker 1: and almost even encouraged it. Oddly enough, and on May sixth,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three, Koch passed away. No one suspected anything criminal,
Speaker 1: no one ordered an autopsy, and Anna the attentive caretaker
Speaker 1: position that she jumped into while she walked away with
Speaker 1: everything he had. Koach's will named her his soul air shit.
Speaker 1: He gave her his home, personal belongings, and whatever savings
Speaker 1: he had left. She even kept his ashes in an
Speaker 1: urn on her mantle for a while.
Speaker 2: Huh, okay, that I mean but she okay, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to keep listening. She did care for him,
Speaker 2: but also she was probably the reason of his just demise.
Speaker 1: So oh she was for sure?
Speaker 2: Yes, Oh, okay, okay, she shed He would have lived
Speaker 2: a longer life without her having ever moving.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't say technically that she was for sure. I
Speaker 1: don't believe she was conveyed did on him. Let's say that,
Speaker 1: but it's almost certain. How's that?
Speaker 2: Okay? Okay, that's sad?
Speaker 1: So years later, when her crimes did finally come to light,
Speaker 1: investigators would revisit Coach's death and classify it as her
Speaker 1: likely first poisoning.
Speaker 2: Okay, so.
Speaker 1: They know that she is the cause of his death,
Speaker 1: but there's technically not a conviction attached to his name.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of why I'm being iffy on the
Speaker 1: clarification there. They've attached that death to her, but there's
Speaker 1: no conviction, is what I'm trying to say now. At
Speaker 1: the time of his death, though, too, there was no
Speaker 1: red flags raised, No one questioned it. It was just, oh,
Speaker 1: you know what, stuff happens to older people, and that
Speaker 1: was really that.
Speaker 2: And he was literally just this little old man that
Speaker 2: lost his wife and wanted company.
Speaker 1: Pretty much now, before Coach, Anna gambled, lied and stole,
Speaker 1: and she hadn't crossed a line that directly ended someone's
Speaker 1: life before. But after Koch While she learned something, she
Speaker 1: learned that she could get away with murder, and once
Speaker 1: Anna realized that, everything started to accelerate. In nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: four and nineteen thirty five, more financial chaos followed. Their
Speaker 1: home on Coleraine Avenue suffered multiple suspicious fires, three in total.
Speaker 1: None were large enough to destroy the home entirely, but
Speaker 1: each resulted in an insurance payout. By the third fire
Speaker 1: in May of nineteen thirty six, the Hans in fact
Speaker 1: collected roughly two thousand dollars in combined insurance money, not
Speaker 1: a fortune, but definitely enough to keep them afloat for
Speaker 1: a while. Investigators years later would note that the pattern
Speaker 1: was certainly odd, but at the time nothing stuck to her.
Speaker 1: Just like with Koch, Anna walked away clean. Now around
Speaker 1: this same time, she tried taking out a policy for
Speaker 1: life insurance on her husband. And this is where I
Speaker 1: was saying, I'm not certain that the relationship with her
Speaker 1: husband was something of a partnership, and she's searching for
Speaker 1: hey actual husband, because at first she tried to take
Speaker 1: out a ten thousand dollars life insurance policy, which the
Speaker 1: company refused, but then she applied for a five thousand
Speaker 1: dollars one, which was approved, and right on cue, Philip
Speaker 1: became mysteriously ill. His legs stiffened and he developed something
Speaker 1: called drop foot, making it very hard to walk. Doctors
Speaker 1: couldn't explain it, and Philip eventually thankfully recovered, but the
Speaker 1: timing wasn't lost on anyone once Anna's full story finally
Speaker 1: came out.
Speaker 2: So his life was worth five thousand dollars to.
Speaker 1: Her potentially, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: I mean I don't know what that equates to now,
Speaker 2: but yeah, that's not much really.
Speaker 1: No, not in the grand scheme of things now. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: in June nineteen thirty six, she met George Heath, a
Speaker 1: coal dealer. He was friendly, trusting, and far too generous
Speaker 1: with Anna. He invited her into his life. He let
Speaker 1: her cook for him and started referring to her even
Speaker 1: as his girl and just like Koch and even Philip,
Speaker 1: while he soon became violently sick. Now, George eventually connected
Speaker 1: the dots himself, though after a few too many meals
Speaker 1: prepared by Anna, he realized something wasn't right. When he
Speaker 1: finally kicked her out of the home, he was partially paralyzed.
Speaker 1: Now he survived, but he knew exactly what had happened,
Speaker 1: that she was poisoning him. In July nineteen thirty six,
Speaker 1: she was now crossing paths with Stina Cable in a
Speaker 1: public restroom. Now Stina was there and the two met,
Speaker 1: and they began chatting, and Anna convinced her to go
Speaker 1: grab a beer together. At some point during their brief friendship,
Speaker 1: money went missing, about eight hundred dollars in total, in fact,
Speaker 1: and Steena became extremely ill, suffering symptoms that matched Anna's
Speaker 1: known methods of poisoning. Now, thankfully, she too survived, but
Speaker 1: only barely, spending nearly a year recovering from the encounter. Now,
Speaker 1: these incidents, while they marked a very important change in
Speaker 1: Anna's behavior, she wasn't just taking advantage of older men anymore.
Speaker 1: She wasn't targeting people only for their inheritance. She was
Speaker 1: in fact expanding, testing to see how far she could
Speaker 1: push things, how many different ways she could make cash appear,
Speaker 1: and how quickly she could remove someone who got in
Speaker 1: her way. Because remember, she just met this person in
Speaker 1: a public bathroom and went for a few beers and
Speaker 1: started a friendship with this woman. And now suddenly they
Speaker 1: too are falling ill, and her.
Speaker 2: Pockets are filled with you know, a few hundred bucks exactly.
Speaker 1: So things are definitely expanding beyond you know, just the
Speaker 1: charming these old men who are looking for a friend,
Speaker 1: She's looking for anyone who wants a friend. She was
Speaker 1: learning that if people collapsed, that if people you know,
Speaker 1: had issues, They just assumed illnesses. If someone died, people
Speaker 1: assumed age, bad luck, or you know what, natural decline.
Speaker 1: No one suspected the smiling, blonde Bavarian immigrant who offered
Speaker 1: home cooked meals warm company to her friends and you
Speaker 1: know what, a little bit of care along the way.
Speaker 1: By the end of nineteen thirty six, Anna's first verified
Speaker 1: killing would be that of seventy two year old Albert Parker.
Speaker 1: He was a lonely widower who welcomed Anna's attention and
Speaker 1: trusted her more than he should have. She eased into
Speaker 1: his life, visiting often, sharing meals, and accepting loans that
Speaker 1: she never intended to repay. As with so many of
Speaker 1: her relationships, things started with warmth and ended in illness.
Speaker 1: Now Parker began suffering intense stomach cramps, waves of nausea,
Speaker 1: and spells of weakness. The symptoms grew worse over time,
Speaker 1: and by March of nineteen thirty seven he was bed ridden.
Speaker 1: There was no reason for doctors to suspect foul play.
Speaker 1: In fact, when he died on March twenty sixth, he
Speaker 1: was an elderly man living alone and had found him quietly.
Speaker 1: At least that's what everyone thought. The IOU he had
Speaker 1: given Anna conveniently vanished, and she slipped away from the
Speaker 1: situation with one less creditor and one more secret, and
Speaker 1: not long after would be seventy eight year old Jacob Wagner.
Speaker 1: He was another elderly gentleman, a German immigrant living in Cincinnati,
Speaker 1: and Anna built trust with him by showing up regularly
Speaker 1: with food. There were small comforts and friendly conversations as
Speaker 1: always too, and she even introduced herself to his neighbors
Speaker 1: as his niece, which no one questioned. Within weeks, she
Speaker 1: was managing his meals, spending long stretches of time inside
Speaker 1: his home, and it's no surprise that he began suffering
Speaker 1: the same pattern of symptoms, vomiting, abdominal pain, and sudden weakness.
Speaker 1: Anna was poisoning him through one of his favorite drinks,
Speaker 1: orange juice, something he enjoyed and never suspected that.
Speaker 2: Bitch, don't fuck with someone's orange juice, right.
Speaker 1: Like, come on now now. On June third, nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: died in agony. Doctors saw nothing suspicious about a frailman dying,
Speaker 1: but you know what, his relatives immediately noticed something unusual.
Speaker 1: There was a new will that appeared one that left
Speaker 1: seventeen thousand dollars nearly all of his savings too. Anna.
Speaker 1: It was a shocking amount of money, especially given how
Speaker 1: recent she had you know, just appeared into his life.
Speaker 2: Mm hm.
Speaker 1: His family contested it, pushing for clarity, but without any
Speaker 1: reason to believe that a crime had taken place, their
Speaker 1: concerns went nowhere. The deaths certificate, well, it listed natural causes,
Speaker 1: and Anna collected the inheritance, and nobody, not even her
Speaker 1: closest acquaintances, noticed that she just walked away from her
Speaker 1: second poisoning in a matter of months.
Speaker 2: That is a lot of money. But I just also
Speaker 2: have to say too, like these men living in their
Speaker 2: seventies back then, that's like a pretty good age, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: exactly so, I it also makes sense that no one
Speaker 2: would question that at all.
Speaker 1: Now. Just over four weeks later, another man crossed her path.
Speaker 1: This time it was sixty seven year old George Jiselman,
Speaker 1: a widowed rail worker who lived a quiet, modest life.
Speaker 1: He needed help around the house and was glad to
Speaker 1: pay Anna for her time. She told people she was
Speaker 1: acting as a nurse, a role that she never actually
Speaker 1: studied for, but she played convincingly well, at least enough
Speaker 1: to gain trust. All this while, Anna had been using
Speaker 1: arsenic as her weapon of choice, But by the summer
Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty seven, Anna had also started experimenting with
Speaker 1: another substance called croton oil, a toxin that caused violent
Speaker 1: vomiting and dehydration. She had purchased it the year before
Speaker 1: and now began using it to speed up the effects
Speaker 1: of illnesses. Joselman fell sick almost immediately after eating the
Speaker 1: meals that she prepared for him, and his condition deteriorated fast.
Speaker 1: There was wretching, collapsing. He was unable to hold food
Speaker 1: down or water. It became a constant. He died on
Speaker 1: July SI, just days after Anna entered his life, and
Speaker 1: before his final week was over. He had paid her
Speaker 1: a total of fifteen thousand dollars for her quote unquote
Speaker 1: quote care that she was providing him.
Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, gracious, So she made that amount of
Speaker 2: money in just a couple of days.
Speaker 1: Really, basically yeah. He had no close relatives to follow
Speaker 1: the money, no one who questioned why his health had
Speaker 1: taken a nose dive so suddenly, and in a pattern
Speaker 1: that was becoming increasingly clear in hindsight. Anna wasted no
Speaker 1: time collecting what she believed she was owed, but behind
Speaker 1: the scenes, her problems were only getting worse. The inheritance
Speaker 1: money that she kept bringing in it was being burnt
Speaker 1: away almost as fast as it arrived. Her gambling lost
Speaker 1: her more than it ever won her home life with
Speaker 1: Philip had grown cold and distant, and she was running
Speaker 1: out of elderly men in Cincinnati who had already you
Speaker 1: know what, began hearing whispers about a woman with borrowing habits.
Speaker 1: She needed another victim, someone with money, someone she could isolate,
Speaker 1: someone who trusted her enough to travel with her to
Speaker 1: get away from those growing whispers. And that's when she
Speaker 1: met George Odin Beaufort, a quiet, sixty seven year old
Speaker 1: cobbler who kept to himself and lived a simple life.
Speaker 1: She wasted no time making herself indispensable to him. She visited, often,
Speaker 1: helped with errands, played the part of a warm companion,
Speaker 1: just as she had with so many others. Now, George
Speaker 1: was kind, soft spoken, and lonely, the exact type of
Speaker 1: man that Anna gravitated towards, and it didn't take long
Speaker 1: before she convinced him to take a trip with her.
Speaker 1: The story she told him was that she had property
Speaker 1: in Colorado, a ranch in fact, that she wanted to
Speaker 1: show him. It sounded extravagant, and George trusted her. Her
Speaker 1: young son, Oscar, was even going to come along in
Speaker 1: the trip, which gave this trip some more con text,
Speaker 1: more safe feeling, even innocent appearance. So the three boarded
Speaker 1: a train together in late July of nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: heading westward towards what George believed was a pleasant getaway now.
Speaker 1: Oscar later told an interviews that his mother served George
Speaker 1: several drinks during that train ride. There were just simple refreshments,
Speaker 1: nothing suspicious on the surface, but soon after drinking them,
Speaker 1: George began to feel sick, and by the time they
Speaker 1: reached Colorado Springs, Well, he was invisible agony. He could
Speaker 1: barely stand without support, his legs shook underneath him, and
Speaker 1: his stomach twisted in cramps so severe that he had
Speaker 1: trouble even speaking. Anna didn't let this ruin the plans, though,
Speaker 1: She checked them into the Park hotel as if nothing
Speaker 1: were wrong. While George lay curled up on the bed,
Speaker 1: sweating and dry heaving, she went sightseeing with her son.
Speaker 1: She told the hotel staff simply not to worry about George.
Speaker 1: She was just tired from the trip. She smiled her
Speaker 1: friendly mile as she explained this, and no one questioned her.
Speaker 1: By July thirty first, George couldn't walk in his zone.
Speaker 1: His symptoms kept getting worse, with vomiting, diarrhea, unbearable abdominable pain,
Speaker 1: and it was obvious he needed some medical help. Things
Speaker 1: were getting so bad, but Anna did finally take him
Speaker 1: to Memorial Hospital, but once he was admitted, she just
Speaker 1: left him there. The staff thought her behavior was strange.
Speaker 1: She didn't ask exactly many questions, she didn't seem worried,
Speaker 1: she didn't exactly stay very long. She was just distant
Speaker 1: and George Odin Beaufort, unfortunately, died on August first, nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven, in a hospital bed hundreds of miles from home.
Speaker 1: There was no explanation that doctors had. His decline had
Speaker 1: been so sudden, so violent, and so unlike anything they
Speaker 1: routinely saw with older patients. In fact, so much so
Speaker 1: that they reported the death to police. Not because they
Speaker 1: were they suspected a murder, but it was just so
Speaker 1: unusual they needed the information documented so as per request
Speaker 1: of the police, the hotel staff entered the room after
Speaker 1: George's death. They began cataloging his belongings, which was standard procedure,
Speaker 1: but as they worked through the list of items he
Speaker 1: was known to carry, they realized several pieces were missing.
Speaker 1: A diamond ring that he had worn early while it
Speaker 1: was gone, as was his gold watch and a few
Speaker 1: other small valuables he'd always kept on him. Hotel staff
Speaker 1: filed a report mentioning the missing items from the room,
Speaker 1: and officers learned that a woman matching Anna's description had
Speaker 1: tried to pawn similar items at a local pawn shop.
Speaker 1: The pawn dealer described her perfectly, and by the time
Speaker 1: police arrived at the hotel to question her, while she
Speaker 1: was already gone, she had fled Colorado and headed back
Speaker 1: to Cincinnati. Now words spread quickly, Colorado investigators contacted Ohio authorities,
Speaker 1: and while they relayed everything Georgia's sudden illness, the missing jewelry,
Speaker 1: the attempted pawn and the fact that Anna A's story
Speaker 1: she gave investigators about hardly knowing the men when they
Speaker 1: did question her, didn't line up with the hotel logbook,
Speaker 1: which listed them as traveling together. George's family told police
Speaker 1: that George had been in good health before the trip.
Speaker 1: They also said he had spoken about Anna Fondley so
Speaker 1: much so that he, you know what, traveled with her
Speaker 1: and trusted her. So they definitely knew each other. And
Speaker 1: when they heard she had already attempted to withdraw eleven
Speaker 1: thousand dollars from his bank account, claiming to be his wife, yeah,
Speaker 1: the suspicion turned into outrage. His relatives knew George had
Speaker 1: never been seriously ill, He was active, steady on his feet,
Speaker 1: He lived a simple, predictable life. None of it made
Speaker 1: any sense, so they reached out to the Cincinnati police,
Speaker 1: and here's where everything began to unravel. For Anna. Investigators
Speaker 1: started by checking into her background, and they learned that
Speaker 1: she wasn't just a passing acquaintance of George. She had
Speaker 1: purchased you know, the train ticket herself. Even she'd also
Speaker 1: checked into the hotel with him, as we knew, and
Speaker 1: she'd tried to withdraw those thousands of dollars in the
Speaker 1: bank account. All of this was painting quite the picture,
Speaker 1: and it didn't take long for rumors to drift through
Speaker 1: Cincinnati as well. People talked neighbors remember details suddenly worth repeating.
Speaker 1: A banker mentioned that Anna had once tried to access
Speaker 1: another elderly man's funds. A grocer recalled how she always
Speaker 1: seemed to be caring for someone who was on their
Speaker 1: last legs, even though those men never looked sick until
Speaker 1: she arrived. Someone else pointed out that there was other
Speaker 1: deaths that just happened in the past year that seemed
Speaker 1: to surround her. And then came the breakthrough. The Wagner family,
Speaker 1: still bitter about Jacob Wagner's strange will that gave her
Speaker 1: all of his possessions and everything he owned, well, they
Speaker 1: reached out to the police after hearing about George Odenbaufer.
Speaker 1: They said Jacob had been perfectly fine before Anna moved
Speaker 1: into his life, and they even mentioned the orange juice
Speaker 1: she always brought him. They complained about how quickly she
Speaker 1: took char Ardud of his house, and they told investigators
Speaker 1: outright quote, we always believed that will was fake. Not
Speaker 1: long after that, relatives of George Joselman appeared with concerns too,
Speaker 1: and then acquaintances of Albert Park and then people who
Speaker 1: knew Eric Kosch, and it was a loose thread basically
Speaker 1: at this point, a loose thread that, like on a sweater,
Speaker 1: you pull this and it just stitches, keep coming undone.
Speaker 2: Well, it was really only a matter of time that
Speaker 2: did she think she was going to just be able
Speaker 2: to keep getting away with this shit?
Speaker 1: She seemed to like, it's just bonkers.
Speaker 2: Really.
Speaker 1: But for the first time now though, like police were
Speaker 1: realizing they might not be dealing with a single suspicious death.
Speaker 1: This was more like a pattern that looked a lot
Speaker 1: like a serial killer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a serial kill.
Speaker 1: She is. Yeah, and she, like you said, thought that
Speaker 1: she could just keep doing it. Meanwhile, Colorado authorities were
Speaker 1: still trying to determine how George oden Beaufer had died
Speaker 1: so quickly. They arranged for a full autopsy, and when
Speaker 1: the results came in, they found his cause of death
Speaker 1: was arsenic, not a trace amount, not an accidental contamination,
Speaker 1: but a massive, unmistakable dose. The moment this finding was
Speaker 1: shared with Cincinnati, everything changed. Investigators now had a confirmed
Speaker 1: poisoning tied to a woman whose past was suddenly filled
Speaker 1: with convenient deaths. They reached out to Hamilton County officials
Speaker 1: with growing concerns suggesting that more autopsies might actually be necessary.
Speaker 1: It was an unusual request. I mean, Ohio had already
Speaker 1: buried several of these men. Exhimation was invasive, it was
Speaker 1: costly and emotionally difficult for families, but curiosity was quickly
Speaker 1: turning into alarm, and the families agreed that it had
Speaker 1: to be done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would too if I were them.
Speaker 1: Yep. So within days, the bodies of Jacob Wagner and
Speaker 1: George Gisselman were lifted from their graves and sent for examination,
Speaker 1: and the results were shot. Wagner's organs contained four times
Speaker 1: the lethal dose of arsenic, so much poison that the
Speaker 1: medical examiner said he couldn't believe the man survived for
Speaker 1: as long as he did. Just Slman's body showed something different,
Speaker 1: but equally disturbing signs of severe poisoning by croton oil,
Speaker 1: a toxic substance that causes uncontrollable vomiting and dehydration. As
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, she was playing with new new substances.
Speaker 1: Let's say that his illness had matched all these things perfectly,
Speaker 1: and with this information, investigators could no longer pretend that
Speaker 1: there were simply coincidences. So by the time police went
Speaker 1: to search Anna's house. They weren't just looking for clues.
Speaker 1: They were expecting to find something incriminating, and what they
Speaker 1: discovered exceeded anything they predicted. Inside covers, drawers, and tucked
Speaker 1: behind bottles, they found poisons galore, arsenic rat poisoning, mysterious
Speaker 1: powders and liquids, and unmarked containers. They found documents linked
Speaker 1: to multiple victims, bank books, IOU's altered papers, and questionable
Speaker 1: wills that were clearly forged. Upon examination, the financial trails
Speaker 1: showed sudden cash deposits, pawn slips, and withdrawals that lined
Speaker 1: up neatly with each victim's death. They also found evidence
Speaker 1: of her gambling debts and her attempts to ensure her
Speaker 1: husband's life. People who had once been close to the
Speaker 1: victims also began to speak up. Neighbors remembered bringing meals
Speaker 1: things like that that she do to these ill individuals survivors.
Speaker 1: In fact, they recalled becoming violently sick after food that
Speaker 1: she prepared. Others described being pressured to sign documents that
Speaker 1: were too they were too weak to read them or
Speaker 1: really understand what was going on. Taken together, these accounts
Speaker 1: painted a picture that matched the forensic findings and everything
Speaker 1: that was in her home all too well. There was
Speaker 1: no question of whether Anna Marie Han was poisoning men.
Speaker 1: Point the only question left was how many men had
Speaker 1: she actually killed. She was swiftly arrested on August twenty fourth,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven. In fact, she almost seemed calm when
Speaker 1: officers informed her she was being taken into custody. She
Speaker 1: didn't protest or expressed shock, just a brief flicker of irritation,
Speaker 1: as though police had interrupted her day rather than you know,
Speaker 1: accusing her of murder. At the headquarters, investigators began asking
Speaker 1: the questions They pressed her on, the sudden inheritance from
Speaker 1: Jacob Wagner, the trip to Colorado with George Odenbaufer, and
Speaker 1: the found forged documents tying her to estates that should
Speaker 1: never have passed into her hands. And of course she
Speaker 1: denied everything, claiming she was being targeted because she was
Speaker 1: a foreigner, a mother, and a woman trying to make
Speaker 1: a living. But when detectives confronted her with the toxicology
Speaker 1: reports and evidence found in her house, well that's when
Speaker 1: things started to crumble. During one interview, she admits that
Speaker 1: she had given quote medicine to several of the men,
Speaker 1: though she insisted she was only trying to help their ailments. Later,
Speaker 1: she shifted again, suggesting that perhaps they'd accidentally taken the
Speaker 1: wrong doses. Eventually, she offered more direct admissions, acknowledging she
Speaker 1: had given arsenic to four of the men, only to
Speaker 1: take it back during the next round of questioning. Though meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the public's interest in the unfolding story grew rapidly. Newspapers
Speaker 1: described her as attractive, charming, and deceptively gentle, leaning heavily
Speaker 1: into the contrast between her appearance and the accusation against her.
Speaker 1: More witnesses began stepping forward as well, strengthening the case.
Speaker 1: But somehow, even as the mounting evidence made her situation
Speaker 1: look increasingly dire, Anna maintained a sense of confidence. She
Speaker 1: hired attorneys and insisted she was going to clear her name,
Speaker 1: but it was too late for that. The forensic reports
Speaker 1: had been conclusive, the financial motive was clear, and the
Speaker 1: number of suspicious deaths connected her continued to rise. The
Speaker 1: trial of Anna Marie Han began on October eleventh, nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty seven. Reporters filled the hallways before sunrise, hoping to
Speaker 1: secure seats in a courtroom already buzzing with anticipation, and
Speaker 1: curious locals waited outside just to catch a glimpse of
Speaker 1: the woman accused of poisoning elderly men for money. Remember
Speaker 1: this is in an era where female killers were almost
Speaker 1: unheard of. The idea of a young mother sitting at
Speaker 1: a defense table made the case irresistible to the public.
Speaker 1: Anna walked into the courtroom, dressed neatly, her hair tidy,
Speaker 1: her expression again almost confident. She looked more like a
Speaker 1: school teacher than someone accused of murdering multiple men, and
Speaker 1: that contrast became the constant point of fascination for the press,
Speaker 1: who studied every glance, every tilt of her head, and
Speaker 1: just searching for signs of the monster that they expected
Speaker 1: to see. When things began, the prosecution didn't waste time
Speaker 1: establishing their narrative. She was only tried for one of
Speaker 1: the murders. That was the murder of Jacob Wagner, because
Speaker 1: his case carried the strongest forensic evidence, the clearest financial motive,
Speaker 1: and the highest chance of securing a conviction that would
Speaker 1: still result in the maximum penalty. Still, prosecutors were prepared
Speaker 1: with much more evidence and stories to discuss beyond just
Speaker 1: his death. In this case, they called doctors, toxicologists, and
Speaker 1: coroners who examined the exumed bodies of Jacob Wagner and others.
Speaker 1: The courtroom listened as experts described lethal concentrations of arsenic
Speaker 1: found in their organs, amounts far beyond anything accidental or
Speaker 1: even environmental. Charts and diagrams were brought in to explain
Speaker 1: how arsenic ravages the human body, and then the prosecution
Speaker 1: brought forward the people who had known these men, relatives, neighbors, acquaintances.
Speaker 1: They all took the stand and described how Anna had
Speaker 1: appeared in their lives, offering to help with meals, errands,
Speaker 1: and all this companionship. They described sudden illnesses that began
Speaker 1: shortly after her involvement, and financial decisions that made no sense.
Speaker 1: Wills changed, loans were given, savings withdrawn, all of it.
Speaker 1: One by one, they traced her presence through each victim's
Speaker 1: final days. The most impactful testimony came from a survivor,
Speaker 1: George Heiss. He had once trusted Anna enough to let
Speaker 1: her care for him, only to become violently ill after
Speaker 1: eating food she prepared and he grew seriously concerned and
Speaker 1: realized what was happening before he confronted her and told
Speaker 1: her to leave. Financial experts would follow, laying out the
Speaker 1: rapid rise in Anna's bank accounts and deposits and everything
Speaker 1: after each death. Records show life insurance policies, forge wills,
Speaker 1: and sudden access to accounts that had once belonged to
Speaker 1: the deceased, And after weeks of testimony, the defense well
Speaker 1: they finally had their turn. Their strategy centered on reframing
Speaker 1: Anna as a devoted mother driven by desperation and aunt malice.
Speaker 1: They argued that the confession that she had given to police,
Speaker 1: while it was a result of pressure and exhaustion. They
Speaker 1: questioned the validity of the exhumed remains and suggested that
Speaker 1: the men had died from natural causes, causes that merely
Speaker 1: mimicked poisoning. Anna herself took the stand as well, Looking
Speaker 1: calm and composed, She denied every single accusation, insisting she
Speaker 1: had cared for these men, not harm them, and that
Speaker 1: she was a victim of lies, misunderstanding, and the circumstances
Speaker 1: around her twisting the story. Her son, Oscar just twelve
Speaker 1: years old, now testified that he'd never seen his mother
Speaker 1: give poison to anyone. He described her as loving and
Speaker 1: a tentative, and the sight of the young boy defending
Speaker 1: his mother stirred a law a lot of sympathy in
Speaker 1: that courtroom. But sympathy only goes so far.
Speaker 2: Well, that was a pretty good strategy though, to put
Speaker 2: him in there. Hey, death defense, it's kind of dirty.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, I think there. I don't know if they
Speaker 1: would allow that today. I'm not sure if there's like
Speaker 1: a certain age or anything. I really have no clue, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't hear about it, really, you certainly don't. Now.
Speaker 1: By the end of the defense's presentation, the evidence presented
Speaker 1: by the prosecution still dominated the courtroom. The jury had
Speaker 1: heard over a hundred witnesses, each adding another piece to
Speaker 1: the puzzle that no longer resembled any sort of coincidence.
Speaker 1: The closing arguments summed up the case with a sharp clarity.
Speaker 1: Wherever Anna went, illness followed, and death wasn't far behind.
Speaker 1: When the jury finally retreated to deliberate, the courtroom held
Speaker 1: its breath, and it took them only a very short
Speaker 1: time to reach a decision. As they filed back in
Speaker 1: the courtroom and sat stiffly at the defense table. She
Speaker 1: stared straight ahead, almost refusing to look at the jurors
Speaker 1: as they returned to their seats. The foreman stood up
Speaker 1: and the room went still. The jury found Anna guilty
Speaker 1: of first degree murder for the seventy eight year old
Speaker 1: Jacob Wagner.
Speaker 2: Good there would have been if it was any other outcome,
Speaker 2: that would not be okay. I agree, It's very obvious. Really,
Speaker 2: they had so much evidence, so.
Speaker 1: Much, a ridiculous amount. Now Anna didn't collapse or cry. Instead,
Speaker 1: she stared blankly ahead, just frozen in disbelief. It was
Speaker 1: as if she finally realized that charm, that confidence, that
Speaker 1: the calm explanations she had relied on her entire life,
Speaker 1: they were no longer enough to protect her.
Speaker 2: It had expired yeap.
Speaker 1: Now, her husband, Philip Hann, who had remained loyal through
Speaker 1: the trial despite everything swirling around his wife, he broke
Speaker 1: down upon hearing that decision. He leaned forward in his
Speaker 1: seat and buried his face in his hands, shaking as
Speaker 1: though the ground had been pulled from beneath him. Now,
Speaker 1: their son Oscar wasn't present for the verdict On November tenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven. The judge pronounced the sentencing. When asked
Speaker 1: if she had anything to say, Anna stood, trembling but defiant.
Speaker 1: She insisted she was innocent. Her voice cracked as she
Speaker 1: addressed the court, but it wasn't enough to change the outcome.
Speaker 1: Anna was sentenced to death in the electric chair.
Speaker 2: Oh my, okay, I was wondering if that was going
Speaker 2: to be the sentencing.
Speaker 1: Newspapers across the country ran dramatic headlines, calling her the
Speaker 1: blonde Borgia, the poised angel, and even arsenic Annie.
Speaker 2: M there we go.
Speaker 1: The idea of a woman, not just any woman, but
Speaker 1: a young, attractive mother being sentenced to death electrified the public.
Speaker 1: Pun intended. Some felt she deserved nothing less, but others
Speaker 1: felt unsettled by the thought of a woman in the
Speaker 1: electric chair. But regardless of opinion, the name Anna Marie
Speaker 1: Hahn was now cemented in American true crime history. Anna
Speaker 1: was soon transported to Ohio State Penitentiary and Columbus, arriving
Speaker 1: on December one, nineteen thirty seven. The prison's women's section
Speaker 1: was small, and her new home was a narrow cell
Speaker 1: in the death House, the same building that held the
Speaker 1: electric chair. She was now destined to meet. While the
Speaker 1: few other women in the penitentiary worked in quiet, repetitive routines,
Speaker 1: Anna spent most of her time alone, cut off from
Speaker 1: the rhythms of normal prison life. Guards described her as
Speaker 1: polite but withdrawn, pacing in her cell, sitting for hours
Speaker 1: with her hands folded in her lap. Her appeals moved
Speaker 1: slowly through the court system as her attorney's fouled motion,
Speaker 1: arguing the evidence was circumstantial, that publicity had influenced the jury,
Speaker 1: and that her confession had been made under duress. But
Speaker 1: in early nineteen thirty eight, the Ohio courts of appeal well,
Speaker 1: they rejected the claim. While the rejections stacked up an
Speaker 1: as emotional state shifted, she leaned heavily into religion, meeting
Speaker 1: with priests, reading scriptures, and writing letters filled with expressions
Speaker 1: of faith and remorse. Now whether this transformation was genuine
Speaker 1: or a grasp for comfort in her final final days,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to know, but by all accounts she became
Speaker 1: deeply devout. Her son, Oscar, visited her when he could,
Speaker 1: escorted into the penitentiary by relatives who cared for him.
Speaker 1: As her execution date approached, Anna spent her time writing letters, praying,
Speaker 1: and speaking with the prison's chaplain, Father John Sullivan. December seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight began quietly inside the alcohol Io State Penitentiary.
Speaker 1: Anna had barely slept. She knew it was coming, and
Speaker 1: in the hours leading up, she paced her cell, gripped
Speaker 1: her bars, and whispered prayers and pausing every few minutes
Speaker 1: to sit down, as though her legs couldn't hold her
Speaker 1: upright for long. Evening approached and Father John Sullivan arrived
Speaker 1: to sit with her. The two spoke softly, their voices
Speaker 1: barely audible outside the cell. He read scriptures with her,
Speaker 1: offered comfort in the only form she still believed in,
Speaker 1: and at eight pm the guards came for her. The
Speaker 1: walk to the execution chamber was short, but halfway there,
Speaker 1: her knees began to buckle. She began to shake so
Speaker 1: violently that the guards had to support her by her arms,
Speaker 1: and they paused to give her a moment to breathe,
Speaker 1: but she seemed unable to find her footing. Her terror
Speaker 1: was overwhelming her. With the help of smelling salts, they
Speaker 1: marched her forward. Her eyes were wet and unfocused as
Speaker 1: the heavy wooden door at the end of the corridor
Speaker 1: grew nearer. Reporters, attorneys, officials, and the Warden himself watched
Speaker 1: as Anna was helped into the chair and leather straps
Speaker 1: were pulled tight around her wrists and ankles. Her head drooped,
Speaker 1: and when she finally lifted it, her face was streaking
Speaker 1: with tears. Father Sullivan stood close repeated the Lord's Prayer
Speaker 1: with her, and she recited it softly, breath by breath,
Speaker 1: and the final words barely escaped her lips. When the
Speaker 1: warden gave the signal at eight thirteen pm, the switch
Speaker 1: was thrown. The current surged through her body, snapping her
Speaker 1: head back against the chair as the electricity did its work,
Speaker 1: and within seconds her body fell still. The doctor stepped forward,
Speaker 1: checking for a pulse, and pronounced her dead at thirty
Speaker 1: two years old. Warden Woodward looked shaken, unable to hide
Speaker 1: the weight of overseeing the first execution of a woman
Speaker 1: in Ohio's history.
Speaker 2: They don't mess around back then. I feel like all
Speaker 2: of this shit happened so quickly, Like her trial was
Speaker 2: the year previous and now it's the next year and
Speaker 2: she's gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she sat on death row for one year.
Speaker 2: Wow, yep, okay.
Speaker 1: Not only that, but even the morning after her death
Speaker 1: well in the cemetery grounds in Columbus. Her burial happened
Speaker 1: on December eighth, so just one day later, there's there.
Speaker 1: It is done now. It was overseen by a few
Speaker 1: officials and a priest who read a brief prayer before
Speaker 1: she was lowered into the ground. It was definitely a
Speaker 1: stark contrast from the spectacle that her trial was like.
Speaker 1: Like you mentioned a year ago, it was so many people,
Speaker 1: so many headlines, so much interest. But now there was
Speaker 1: barely anyone standing around her. Now she was placed in
Speaker 1: a Catholic cemetery, though not in consecrated ground. Her crimes
Speaker 1: made sure that was not going to be the case. Oscar,
Speaker 1: her twelve year old son, did not attend the burial.
Speaker 1: In the days following her execution, he was moved into
Speaker 1: the care of another family, with his name changed to
Speaker 1: protect him from the attention that still did surround the case.
Speaker 1: His mother had been one of the most talked about
Speaker 1: killers of the decade, and her story had spread far
Speaker 1: beyond just Ohio. The best hope for his future was
Speaker 1: definitely anonymity. In the years that followed. People kept returning
Speaker 1: to Anna's case, not because of the scale of the
Speaker 1: murders per se, but because of who she was, a
Speaker 1: female serial killer. That alone was enough to return to
Speaker 1: her story. That alone was rare at the time, trying
Speaker 1: to understand how someone who appeared warm, polite, and eager
Speaker 1: to help could someone like that could carry out so
Speaker 1: many poisonings without detection. It all made for public fascination
Speaker 1: and honestly something historical. Her crimes also had an unexpected
Speaker 1: impact on how investigators approached suspicious deaths, especially those involving
Speaker 1: elderly victims. Before her arrest, many of the men she
Speaker 1: poisoned were simply believed to have died of age related
Speaker 1: illness or natural causes. Autopsies weren't always performed, especially when
Speaker 1: there was no obvious trauma. Anna's case helped shift that thinking.
Speaker 1: Forensic toxicology while it began to play more of a
Speaker 1: central role in death investigations, especially where poisoning was obviously
Speaker 1: a possibility. Because of it all, her case became an
Speaker 1: example used in training and textbooks, a reminder that a
Speaker 1: quiet death could still be a violent one. For the
Speaker 1: families of the victims, answers came too late to bring
Speaker 1: any real comfort. They received confirmation, yes, but not really closure.
Speaker 1: Some of them learned only through newspaper headlines that their
Speaker 1: loved ones in fact had been exhumed and tested, and
Speaker 1: the realization that Anna had deliberately targeted these men long
Speaker 1: before authority suspected anything. While left lingering bitterness. By the
Speaker 1: time her trial concluded, many felt that justice had been served,
Speaker 1: but none walked away feeling whole. Over time, the edges
Speaker 1: of the story while it began to soften like many do,
Speaker 1: but the core of it remains very unsettling. It's not
Speaker 1: a tale of rage or impulse, but of patience and calculation.
Speaker 1: Poison requires closeness, it requires time, and in every case,
Speaker 1: Anna stayed long enough to watch her victims deteriorate, always
Speaker 1: positioning herself as the helpful caregiver. That contradiction, the smiling
Speaker 1: face and the deadly intent. That's what kept her case
Speaker 1: alive long after she was gone. In the end, Anna
Speaker 1: Marie Han left behind no legacy of her own, with
Speaker 1: even her son starting a new life with a new name,
Speaker 1: She left only the stories of those who died under
Speaker 1: her care. Her burial plot in Columbus remains quiet, with
Speaker 1: no crowds, without flowers, and without the family she had
Speaker 1: once tried to build a life with. History remembers her,
Speaker 1: but certainly not for the smiling, polite, beautiful woman she
Speaker 1: portrayed herself as, but simply as arsenic Annie. And that's
Speaker 1: the story of arsenic Anny.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, for the record, I'm definitely not on her
Speaker 2: side at all anymore. She is like peer evil, peer
Speaker 2: chaos really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the irony too in the fact that she
Speaker 1: wanted money fast, but she has the patience to kill
Speaker 1: someone slowly like that.
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like she did so many though in
Speaker 2: a fairly short period of time though, And she did
Speaker 2: gather a lot.
Speaker 1: Of money that just pissed away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like she just I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, lost it all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is crazy because that money should have, you know,
Speaker 2: lasted with her for a long ass time.
Speaker 1: So technically, she wasn't even killing for money. She was
Speaker 1: killing for a gambling addiction. That's what she was killing for,
Speaker 1: not for wealth, for gam for entertainment. She was killing
Speaker 1: for entertaining herself in a different way, not because she
Speaker 1: per se enjoyed the killings, and not saying she didn't.
Speaker 1: She may have, but she was looking for pursuing her gambling.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so she really did have two problems. A
Speaker 2: gambling problem and then she also was like a cold
Speaker 2: blooded murderer.
Speaker 1: I think she's just one big old problem. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: herself you know.
Speaker 2: Well, I can't remember the one guy's name. Well, and
Speaker 2: the female too. They both just dodged a bullet. Like
Speaker 2: that is so awesome that that one guy you know,
Speaker 2: kept her out, was able to step back and realize, like,
Speaker 2: this lady is doing this to me, because yeah, his
Speaker 2: fate was like pretty well sealed.
Speaker 1: Basically he managed to escape because he had that realization. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so props to him for actually coming to that realization
Speaker 1: because that would probably be hard to do, especially when
Speaker 1: you have someone who's convincing you and talking you into
Speaker 1: these things and is charming.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when she's really good at what she's doing exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 2: because she I think she comes off as just like
Speaker 2: pure innocent really to.
Speaker 1: Them, right, Oh definitely, and that's what she does. She
Speaker 1: plays this up. Yeah, she's hiding behind a mask of innocence,
Speaker 1: beauty even but when really behind it is a full
Speaker 1: on monster.
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, and she did something to her husband as well, right,
Speaker 2: she at least.
Speaker 1: Was testing poisons on him. Whether she was intending to
Speaker 1: kill him or not, I don't know, but yeah, he
Speaker 1: definitely got sick. He had that the foot thing, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the what was it a drop leg they called it,
Speaker 1: And yeah, he got better, thankfully, and she just went
Speaker 1: on to other people. Maybe she realized it might be
Speaker 1: too close. Maybe he's not old enough and she targeted
Speaker 1: older people. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, he had to know that something was going on, though.
Speaker 2: I think she was doing something and he was just
Speaker 2: turning away from it.
Speaker 1: Well, he was working all the time though too. He
Speaker 1: may not have been aware of all these people that
Speaker 1: she's seen.
Speaker 2: Well, if I just suddenly brought in, say twenty grand,
Speaker 2: would you not be like what you doing?
Speaker 1: Did he know she was bringing in that money? Or
Speaker 1: does she just bring it in and just instantly go
Speaker 1: gamble it and he knew none the wiser I guess.
Speaker 2: But I mean like the police were able to find
Speaker 2: it very easily throughout their home. So I mean like
Speaker 2: if he opened his eyeballs and was observant, there would
Speaker 2: be signs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, clearly he wasn't. Maybe he knew, you're right,
Speaker 1: Maybe he knew but maybe he was just ignorant to
Speaker 1: the situation. Maybe he didn't want to know, and he
Speaker 1: forced himself to turn a blind eye that way, and
Speaker 1: that's how he didn't know.
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, what a wild story though, that is.
Speaker 2: You know, it's pretty shitty to think that you could
Speaker 2: get up to that age and then someone just like
Speaker 2: takes that much advantage of you. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's bonkers. People suck, they do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's literally how we could end every one
Speaker 2: of these cases.
Speaker 1: Ye welcome, wicked and grim. People suck, thank you, goodbye.
Speaker 2: Yeah, not all people, but there definitely are some, like
Speaker 2: really really evil ones out there.
Speaker 1: There's good souls and bad souls. There's light, there's dark.
Speaker 1: It's yin and yang, right, but yeah, yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: hard to see the light sometimes when you look at
Speaker 1: people like this because god dang, she sucks. But anyways,
Speaker 1: I digress. You guys are amazing. The fact that you're
Speaker 1: here supporting us says you guys are some of the
Speaker 1: cool people out there. You don't suck, You're awesome. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I'm going to leave it at that and until next time,
Speaker 2: stay wicked.