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I have been listening to the Martha's Vineyard Beach and Book Club, which actually Elena recommended to me.
She did not listen to it, but she said, girl, this title sounds so you.
And let me tell you, it did. I've been listening to it while I walk, and I am absolutely loving it.
I love all the different narrators. I love Audible.
There's more to imagine when you listen.
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Visit audible.com slash morbid. I am absolutely obsessed with a sweet treat after dinner, and my favorite sweet treat right now is my mochi.
It's mine, not yours. Just kidding. You can have some too.
This is a cool, creamy scoop of ice cream wrapped in a soft, chewy dough.
It's like a sweet little ice cream dumpling or ravioli.
I'm obsessed. It's pillowy. It's satisfying.
I feel indulged. I just love it so much.
I really am obsessed with the strawberry flavor right now.
My mochi is only around 70 calories per piece, which like, hello, that's amazing.
My mochi is gluten-free and each box has six perfectly portioned mochi snacks.
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I love, love, love them after dinner. This August, look for the purple box of My Mochi ice cream at your local grocery store and feel joyfully chill with the coolest treat around, My Mochi. hey weirdos i'm elena i'm ash and what was that weird ass dance that you just did this is mormon It's nighttime morbid.
It is. I was trying to hit record and then I did a whoop and I came back.
So that's what that was. I'm lulling. But you know what?
I hit record because we're here. Go off, sister.
So I'm like weirdly like super congested right now.
Like it hit me all the way over here. And it's, you know, it's my story.
So like, I'm sorry that I'm so congestual, but I think you sound great.
I hope so. I always think you sound great.
You know what the annoying thing? There's a difference between congested and like sexy Lindsay Lohan sick voice.
Yeah, like sultry. Congested, you just sound more nasally and slightly more annoying.
And then like when your throat hurts, you feel coffee and sexy and like you are operating like a sexy phone line.
A sexy phone line. Which honestly, I feel like that's kind of setting us up for the story.
It doesn't involve a sexy phone line at all, but... weirdly i feel like it's are the vibes are the vibes they're sexy phone line vibes sort of okay all right all right so let's let's just go right into this let's like dive in what time is it we gotta dive i don't even know oh i was like who the fuck is that i just got a zola notification let me move my phone aside who the fuck is zola You don't know what Zola is?
No, I was like, because you were like, who the fuck is that?
I was like, Zola. Who's Zola texting me?
They're not even our advertiser, but they should be because they're a wedding planning website.
No, I'm just kidding. They are, but like you should use them if you're planning your wedding.
They're great. There you go. Right now, my morbid hat is on, not my bride hat.
Ready? Boo. So our story begins on August 22nd, 1922.
I'm weirdly in like a place of old timey lately, but you and I are very different old timey gals.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And sometimes there's just little like bumps where you go through like, oh, I'm in an old timey phase right now.
Yeah, I'm in like a glitzy, glammy sort of old-timey phase, but like there's also murder, which makes it terrible.
Which brings down the glitz and glam factor exponentially.
Heavily, I would say. Exponentially, I liked better.
But anyway, so our story starts on that date, August 22nd, 1922, with Fred Osterich and his wife Walburga, a.k.a.
Dolly Osterich. Dolly's such a cute name.
Way better than Walburga. Yeah, that's hard to say.
I still like Walburga, but I like Dolly better.
Yeah, just flows better. But the two of them, little cute married couple, they had just returned to their Los Angeles home after just going out to a little party with a couple of their friends.
They got home around 11 p.m., and as they settled in for the night, Dolly took her jacket to their coat closet, which was on the second floor.
And as she was hanging her coat, she was pushed into the closet from behind and heard the lock click.
What? That's how I said our story begins, my friends.
What the fuck? Shoved into the closet. And then locked in.
Locked in. I'm claustrophobic already. And unfortunately, I don't even know how big this closet was, but it was like 1922 in California.
I don't think you're getting a lot of storage space.
No, I don't think that was a big closet.
No. So at first, Dolly's like, is this my husband Fred like pulling some kind of weird prank on me?
Like, what the fuck? I'd be pissed. And I'm sure she was already planning what she would say to him once he let her out of there.
Oh, yeah. Because I know I would. But unfortunately, this was not a joke.
As Dolly was locked inside the closet, she started to hear what sounded like two men struggling and then heard three consecutive gunshots.
Oh. Followed by complete and utter silence.
Oh. Luckily, the neighbors had heard the gunshots and they, the L.P., hello the labd received a call from a concerned neighbor asking if they could please go check on the house located at 858 north andrews boulevard where dolly and fred lived so the believer the police i gotta go you know it's it's late night it is and i'm like congestion and tripping over words yeah it's just really a vibe yeah that's our that's the show name It's long.
It's a mouthful. But it's got a good jingle.
Eventually, we'll shorten it when it gets really popular.
Yeah, just late at night. It just ends there.
Oh, yeah. You got to leave congested. You got to leave that.
So when the police arrived at the home, it was still completely dark.
All of the lights had been turned off. And they soon heard muffled screaming coming from the second floor, our girl Dolly.
So they race up the stairs. They locate the closet where the screaming was coming from.
And outside the closet, there was like a little table right next to the door.
And there was a key lying on top. So they're like, could this be the key?
I wonder. It was a major key. So the officers use said key and out of the closet comes a very distraught Dolly.
She explains everything to the investigators about being shoved in by somebody she thought was her husband but now realized most likely was not.
And the investigators had to break the news to her that, yes, the loud bangs that she heard while she was locked inside the closet were gunshots.
Once they had turned on the lights of the home, they had found her husband Fred lying dead in their living room.
He had been shot three times, twice in the chest and once in the head.
Oh, geez. Yeah, this was pretty brutal. Yeah.
Yeah. And the scene was a complete mess.
There was furniture tipped all over the place.
Tons of the couple's belongings were scattered across the floor.
And the investigators were like, okay, clearly this is some kind of home invasion.
But, you know, maybe perhaps the intruder came to burglarize the house and was caught off guard when Dolly and Fred got back, panicked, and ended up killing Fred.
Or was the plan all along to catch the couple off guard and kill Fred intentionally?
Because Dolly had been shoved in the closet like that.
Yeah. So the police were going to have to investigate to find out.
And remember, we're dealing with the LAPD, so get ready for a wild ride.
Oh, man. They actually really don't fuck up at all, but it takes a long time.
We'll get there. Just saying. We'll get there.
Don't worry. It's a journey. Yeah, you know?
So once Dolly calmed down, she was able to explain that Fred was the owner and operator of a textile manufacturing company.
He had two plants, one in Milwaukee and one where they lived in L.A., He was extremely successful, and so in turn, they had a lot of money.
And actually, they had had two attempted break-ins at their home within recent months, and Fred had told Dolly that he kind of thought he was hearing strange noises within the house at night.
Certain things seemed to be moving around or going completely missing, especially money and food.
Huh. Weird. And his cigars. He was like, my cigars keep going missing.
And I know I'm not smoking as many as that are going missing.
And it's like, is somebody just breaking in and taking random things like a cigar and leaving?
Yeah, right? And then coming back and stealing food?
Like, what's happening? Like, what is going on?
Yeah. And money. So weird. And like, they're just coming in the night?
Yeah, and just going. I'm also like, you're not like tiptoeing downstairs with a baseball bat?
Yeah, what's going on? I literally did that the other night.
I love that. Yeah, you know? Love that for you.
So after getting the rundown on who these people were and what they could have potentially gone through here, the officers started assessing the scene.
Now, Fred's pocket watch had been stolen off his body, and Dolly told them this was like a very specific, expensive pocket watch.
It was an octagon in shape, and it was lined with diamonds.
Like the entire outside was encrusted with diamonds.
Flashy. It was. She'd given it to him a few years ago as a gift, and now it was gone.
Damn. But that seemed to be the only thing that was missing.
This entire home was a ravaged mess and nothing but that one pocket watch was missing.
In fact, the pocket where Fred had been wearing his pocket watch attached to like a little chain actually had his wallet inside of it filled with cash.
Huh. The same pocket where his pocket watch was flushed with cash.
Flushed with cash. Yes, Mona Lisa, baby.
Why would the burglar not also take advantage of the cash that was straight up at their fingertips?
Yeah, no, this is specific. It is. So the only thing investigators thought was that after the intruder killed Fred, they were trying to get out of there as fast as they could, took the first thing of value they saw, and got the hell out once they got it.
Okay. And I guess, you know, if that's lined with diamonds, you're gonna... And it's hanging off his pocket.
It's right there. You snag it, you run out.
Yeah. But once they started talking to the neighbors, the plot only thickened.
Because the neighbors said that they had seen what looked to be a man at the rear of the couple's home moving about in the shadows.
But they said that the lights in the house went out about 20 minutes after they'd seen that man outside.
Hmm. So if the intruder truly had panicked, taken the nearest item of value and left, why would they go back to the house 20 minutes later simply to turn off the lights and also take nothing else with them?
That didn't make any sense. Yeah. They say that time waits for no one, neither should payday.
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Eventually, the LAPD would get to the bottom of this case and find out exactly why the killer didn't leave immediately after shooting Fred.
It would just take close to 10 years to reach a conclusion here.
And when they would, the truth uncovered would be way fucking crazier than anyone ever expected.
I'm just really glad we're going to get an answer.
We got an answer. I'm real glad. This is not unsolved and it's solved in the wildest way.
This is a wild case. Oh, let's go. I'm sure a lot of people are starting to kind of like figure this one out because this is one of the first true crime cases I've actually ever heard of.
Oh, really? And I know it's like... covered frequently, but I kind of tried to like shift it up a little bit, you know?
Oh, why? I don't think I've, I think I know the names, but I don't know a lot about this.
Really? Yeah. Well, you're about to. Look at that.
But before we get there, let's learn a little bit more about Fred and Dolly, shall we?
Let's do it. It's like a little icebreaker game with like fun facts about them.
No, I'm just kidding. I don't like icebreakers.
I'll give it to you straight. Oh God, I hate icebreakers.
Fucking icebreaker. No. Although I do have like good two truths and a lie, like locked and loaded.
I'm not going to tell them right now, but.
Because you don't want to ruin it. No, but I have those in case I ever meet any of you.
But I have those. I do have those. Just be forewarned.
But anyways, back to the key players here.
Let's go. Fred and Dolly. What's up? Exactly.
So Dolly had been born in 1880 to German immigrant parents.
It's unclear whether she was born in Germany or if she was born here shortly after her parents arrived.
Okay. But when she was a teenager, she was grown up in Milwaukee and she got a job at Fred's plant.
Imagine that. Yeah. Fred was also a German immigrant, and he was also known to hire immigrants to work for him, so that's how they met.
Look at that, a meet cute. A cute little meet cute.
Cute German meet cute. I'm German too. Me too.
Hey. Hey. Look at that. So Dolly was described by everybody, family, friends, co-workers, as a comely woman, meaning she was like kind of a whole package.
She was attractive, she was easy to get along with, and she was kind of a peacemaker whenever there was any dispute going on at the plant.
Like, she always wanted to have people be in a good vibe.
Get everybody back to business. Yeah. Get everybody back to feeling good.
Yeah, just a chill, pretty lady. You need, you honestly, everybody needs a chill, pretty lady.
Hell yes. Who's just there to make the vibes right.
I agree. We all need that. We should look into that.
Yeah. You know? Everybody should just have one in the office.
Yeah, handy dandy, pretty, chill lady. Yeah.
I love it. I love that. Yeah. So it didn't take long for Dolly to catch Fred's eye because she's a pretty chill lady.
Who keeps the vibes right. Exactly. You're picking up what I'm putting down here.
So at the plant after Dolly and Fred started dating because they did start dating.
Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. She became the go-between with Fred and anybody who was irritated with him.
Because it sounds like Fred could be a little bit difficult from time to time.
A lot of times people would go to Dolly with their concerns and be like, hey, can you tell Fred that I was a little bit late today, but I'm going to stay late to make up for it?
And she'd be like, sure, sure, sure. Pretty chill lady with the good vibes at your service.
That's me. So after dating for a few more years, they actually got married.
It's unclear what year exactly that was, but Dolly was like in her early 20s.
Okay. Now, by that time, they actually had already had a son together named Raymond, but unfortunately, his life would be cut short in the summer of 1910.
It's again unclear how old he exactly was and how he exactly died, but he died young and it inevitably created tension with Fred and Dolly's marriage.
Oh, that's so sad that it's like, you know, it's going to go one way or the other.
Yeah, it's either going to bring you closer or completely tear you apart.
There's no middle ground there, I feel like.
And unfortunately, I'm saying unfortunately a lot.
I mean, this is all very unfortunate. It is.
I think I literally wrote that later. But Fred started drinking more often and really just put everything he had left into work.
Like everything he had. He would spend extra hours at the factory and that left little time for Dolly.
And while he was there, he was getting more and more grumpy with his employees, which only led to Dolly having to put out more and more fires.
And she was happy to do it, but she was also suffering.
Yeah. Yeah, of course. Not only had she lost the first child that she'd ever had, but she was also kind of losing her husband in a way.
Yeah, she's going at it alone. Yeah, she's lonely and she's completely desperate for any kind of companionship.
And this led to a lot of affairs going down while Fred was at work and Dolly was left to her own devices.
Oh, no. The LA Times said of Dolly during this time, her eyes and her appetites would bring a long line of men into her life.
Oh, no. And boy, were they correct. Because the good thing was, even though the couple's marriage was suffering, the business was not.
With Fred pouring himself into work, the company was actually thriving and they were making more money than they ever had.
Eight years after Raymond passed away in 1918, Fred was ready to open up the Los Angeles plant and wanted to move out there with Dolly.
Because at that point, the LA plant didn't even exist yet.
They were just living together in Milwaukee.
Okay. So this was when they bought their Silver Lake neighborhood home and headed out west, which leads us actually back to the investigation.
In the summer of 1922, the investigators working this case were completely baffled.
They're sitting at the house and they're like, what the fuck is going on here?
So they were able to determine that Fred had been shot with a .25 caliber pistol, and they found a little bit of evidence at the scene, but not really that much.
There was a bullet lodged in the ceiling above Fred's body.
Four shell casings were around the body, and a set of unidentified fingerprints were found on the closet's doorknob.
And because this was in 1922, the fingerprints weren't really that exciting yet.
Ah, okay. Not a lot to go off of here, but luck would soon change.
Just a few days after Fred was killed, actually an anonymous caller placed a call to Dolly and Fred's home.
Dolly had a friend staying with her because she was obviously kind of shaken up and didn't really want to be alone in the house.
Yeah. So her friend picked up and the caller asked if there was going to be any kind of reward for information leading to the arrest of the Slayers.
That's what they said. Oh. Now, as soon as the friend asked who was calling, the person on the other line slammed the phone down and ended the call promptly.
Ooh. Creepy, right? Yeah. So Detective Klein, who was leading the investigation of this case, strongly felt like whoever had placed that call had somehow been involved with Fred's murder.
Yeah. But we never find out who. Come on.
He instructed everyone who would pick up a phone call at the house to keep callers on the line if they were asking about anything about the murder, and specifically if they were asking about rewards for information.
And they hoped that the caller would try the house again, but he wouldn't.
But not to worry, they got another lead that same day.
Okay. Because that same day, a separate team was at the station questioning Fred's former plant manager, Harry Vose.
He had been the plant manager in Milwaukee, but actually headed straight to LA once he heard about Fred's death.
He told the investigators that he was there to help Dolly with Fred's affairs, like kind of sort everything out.
But the investigators wanted to know more about his experience with Fred.
Vose said that Fred had been a pretty difficult guy.
He said that he would lose his temper over very small mistakes that his employees made.
He drank pretty frequently, pretty heavily.
And because of his generally off-putting disposition, Vose actually couldn't think of that many people that even liked Fred.
Oh, no. Which is sad. It is sad. You know?
And it's like he was going through it, too.
That's the thing. He had lost a child. Yeah.
That's going to change you in a core way.
Fundamentally. That's the thing. Yeah. But he was going on and on about all the people who disliked Fred.
And one such person that kind of caught, like, the investigator's eyes was Edward Flood.
He was a German immigrant and a previous convict that was hired by Fred to work in the Milwaukee plant shortly before the L.A. plant was opened.
Yeah. Now, Edward had actually lived with Fred and Dolly in Milwaukee for a while.
Oh, wow. But Fred had fired him for one reason or another.
And after Edward was fired, he ended up going back to prison.
And while he was incarcerated, he sent a ton of threatening letters to Dolly and Fred saying that he would kill Osterich if it took 100 years.
Oh. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty solid. Yeah, that's a good lead right there.
Now, he did end up getting out of prison before Fred was killed.
And he was believed to have headed out west, like after hearing that Fred had moved out west.
Meaning he very well could have been trying to make his way to Fred to end his life.
But unfortunately, the cops were never able to catch up with this man.
And spoiler alert, he's not our murderer.
Oh. Just a little red herring. Yeah? Yeah.
There you go. Cool. Mysteries. Cool. Hashtag mystery.
Hashtag mysterious. So another unfortunate thing, and this is where I said I feel like I've already used that word like 900 times this episode, but it's fitting.
It is. Everything is very unfortunate so far.
It's a series of unfortunate events with Lemony Snicket.
Exactly. So the mystery caller, like I said, never called the house again.
They never were able to find this man that threatened to kill Osterich if he, like, with his dying breath.
For a hundred years. For a hundred years.
So they don't really have a lot to go off of these investigators.
So they're like, should we sit down with Dolly again?
Ask her a couple questions. Might as well.
Like, let's go through the night. Fred was killed again.
That won't be traumatizing for her. No. So they asked her about the lights that had been on in the house before she and Fred returned home.
Were there any lights that were on? And she said they left a light burning in the upstairs bedroom and left one on the porch so that they would be able to see when they got back and the one in the bedroom was on so that it looked like someone was home while they were gone.
Because remember, they had had previous break-in attempts.
Yeah. Now, other than adding that small detail, nothing else about Dolly's story changed.
Now, that same day, Dolly and some of her friends headed to the funeral home because they had to identify Fred's body.
Now, usually this would actually happen on the day that the person gave their testimony at an inquest into somebody's death slash murder.
Yeah. But Dolly's doctor had spoken directly to the police.
And again, according to the LA Times, Dr. E.C.
Wackler told them, quote, not to force Dolly to identify the body and testify before the coroner's jury on the same day.
He was like, she can't go through that. That's too much.
So they took her to identify the body, and she was able to identify it in a whisper saying, that is my husband.
And as soon as she finished speaking, she collapsed to the ground.
Oh, it just makes you so sad. Oh, that breaks my heart.
Now, Fred's funeral was held August 28th, 1922, and he was later buried at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Los Angeles.
But still, even when they buried him, the police were not any closer to identifying the person who landed him there.
He killed Fred. I'm gonna get there. You gotta know.
So in the weeks and the months that followed Fred's death, the investigators again were not any closer.
And by the winter of 1923, they were just straight up out of ideas.
They're like, you know what? They're like, we're straight up stumped.
We don't know. Who knows? They originally believed that Fred had been the victim of like a surprise burglar or even a pair of burglars.
Burglars? The Hamburglar. The Hamburglar.
It was, I am burglar. I can never say burglar.
That's it. It's hard. But they were like, maybe it was a pair of them who panicked when the couple returned.
Like, all the investigators are kind of trying to figure out this burglar theory.
Yeah, they're throwing spaghetti against the wall, seeing what sticks.
Precisely, girlfriend. I know. But... One of these investigators, the lead investigator, Detective Klein, not so convinced.
He was like, there's too many strange details that just can't be explained away.
That's true. If this truly was a robbery, why had they only taken the pocket watch and not the man's wallet in which had flush with cash?
Like, why would they not take that? Weird.
And why did they stick around for at least 20 minutes after Fred had been killed?
Yeah. This is definitely not just a burglary.
No, it's not. I'll tell you that right now.
It's just not. I know it. They know it. We all know it.
Keith Morrison in the corner, he knows it for sure.
Hey, Keith. Keith absolutely knows it. The guy down the street right now knows it.
We all know it. Everybody is knowing it.
Yeah. Come on, LAPD. Come on. Now, Detective Klein, I got to give him like a high five.
Oh, yeah. Because he got the feeling that Dolly was hiding something.
Sweet, loving Dolly. Dolly, come on. Just with the good vibes, making everybody happy.
She was getting the vibes right, though.
Yeah, I don't know. She might have been.
But Detective Klein, he had gut feelings and he trusted them.
I'm worried. He just couldn't put his finger on what it could be that she was hiding.
Yeah. Now, they actually even went as far when he started to feel this way as examining the closet that Dolly had been locked in for a false door or any kind of removable panel to see if maybe she had locked herself in there but would have a way to get out.
Wow. But they couldn't. There was no trap door, no nothing.
That would have been insane. Can you imagine if they found a trap door?
That'd be insane. That would take this story to a whole different level.
But still, Detective Klein was like, I don't know.
I've got a gut feeling about this lady. She maybe didn't have a trap door in the closet, but she's hiding something else.
Something's going on. Now, in the initial interview that he had conducted with her, she told him that her and her husband, Fred, had never had a single fight between them.
Um... I mean, I don't think so. Yeah, neither did Detective Klein.
I don't think anyone can say that. No. Especially not you guys.
Immediately smelled bullshit. Yeah. They had been married over 20 years.
Yeah. And never got in one fight. Like, come on.
Never. Never. Never. Never. Ridiculous. Like, I got annoyed at Drew today for how he parked in our driveway.
Are you kidding? It's just the way that things go.
So that spring he went to interview the Osterich's friends and neighbors and he was like, I'm going to catch these people.
Like the neighbors are going to want to talk.
He's like, I want to know if there was any trouble in what was claimed to be paradise.
They all said that Fred worked a lot. So it would have been near impossible for him to carry out any kind of affair or have any secret like that.
And they'd never seen Dolly with another man.
They hadn't even heard any yelling coming from the house other than the night that Fred was killed.
Wow. Yeah. Okay. And the yelling that they did hear was just Dolly yelling for help.
Yeah. So stumped but still determined, Detective Klein just kept investigating.
He's a real G. He didn't realize it, but somebody very close to Dolly would soon give him a clue that he was absolutely desperate for.
So he's walking through the courthouse that same spring one day.
And just by chance, so was Dolly's lawyer, Herman Shapiro.
Herman! I love that Shapiro is just a lawyer last name.
It is. You have to be a lawyer. You must be.
You really have to. Now, the two men said hello briefly, but as he was walking by, Klein noticed something shiny and familiar looking.
Get the fuck out. Shapiro was holding an octagonal pocket watch lined with diamonds on the outside edges.
Shut the fuck up. The same kind that was missing from Fred's body and the exact description that Dolly had given Detective Klein, her very self.
Someone's got to explain this to me. Nobody made two of those pocket watches, I'll tell you that.
Nope. No, they didn't. So with that, Klein was like, hey, Shapiro, like, can you come over here and chat?
Maybe we could go down to the station? Shapiro's like, well, let's fucking do it.
Yeah. So he gets there. I'll bring my new pocket watch.
Let's go. Yeah, like, have you seen this shit?
Yeah. He gets there and unleashes a bombshell.
Not only are he and Dolly lawyer and client.
Oh, yeah. But they are lovers. They are lovers.
The plot thickens. Oh, no. She'd given him the pocket watch for his birthday, he said.
And he just assumed that it was something she'd made for him and didn't realize that it once belonged to the dead husband of his client.
Wow. So now with that knowledge, Klein wanted to talk to Dolly again and asked her to come down to the station.
So when he asked her about the watch, she was like, OMG, funny story, Detective Klein.
I actually found the watch cleaning and I totally forgot to tell you.
How silly am I? What? I just found it cleaning and I said, you know, I didn't want it to collect dust in a drawer somewhere and I didn't want to throw it away.
So I was like, well, my lawyer's birthday is coming up.
I'll give it to him. We are fucking after all.
Well, my lawyer's birthday is coming up.
Like, wow. Okay. I don't even know what to say about that.
Yeah. The fact that she thought that that was a viable excuse.
Like she was like, oh, This looks crazy.
I know. It looks so wild. But here's the reality of the situation.
I just found it and didn't tell you. Yeah, I just found it.
The burglar was so nice. He stuffed it in between the couch cushions.
And then I just didn't tell you and instead gave it to my lawyer.
Yeah, I just didn't want to, you know, stir anything up.
Yeah, who wants to do that? Yeah, she said, because the detective Klein was like, why did you not tell us that you found this crucial piece of evidence that has been missing from your home for quite some time now?
And she's like, ah, details. Shh. She said, I didn't think it was that important.
And I really didn't want to complicate things for everybody.
So I just kept it to myself. Ma'am, this is not a Wendy's.
Ma'am. Ma'am. Why are there ridges on Reese's peanut butter cups?
Probably so they never slip from her hands.
Could you imagine? I'd lose it. Luckily, Reese's thought about that.
Wonder what else they think about. Probably chocolate and peanut butter.
The town of Agde in France is famous for sun, sand, sea and sex.
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The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption.
His wife claims he's been bewitched by a beautiful clairvoyant.
Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting.
I am the Archangel Michael. The whole town has been thrown into chaos.
As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all.
Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson, and journalist Leo Schick for The Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption and magic.
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So now Detective Klein was starting to paint himself a picture.
With Fred out of the way, Dolly had inherited literally millions and millions of dollars.
And had complete freedom to do whatever she wanted with whomever she wanted.
Tale as old as time. Get rid of the husband, get the inheritance, live your best life.
Damn. But since there was no way that she was the one who could have pulled the trigger, who was she working with?
Exactly. Was it possible that her own lawyer helped her get rid of her husband?
Dun, dun, dun. The investigators on the case started digging into Shapiro, the lawyer, but they found out that he actually had not known Dolly before Fred was killed.
Wow. So it was not Shapiro. Okay. Could not have been him.
Wow, so he's new. You're supposed to say, then who?
Not Shapiro. Now, somehow they were able to learn of a man that Dolly had dated before she hooked up with her lawyer and like maybe was still seeing on the side.
Eek. She's living her best life out here.
Yeah, apparently. This man was Roy Klum, and it turns out that Dolly was dating two men at the same time.
I'm somehow not shocked by this. Nor am I. Yeah.
But when Roy found this out, he actually went down to the police station because he's a scorned lover.
And he had some incriminating information about Dolly.
And if she was going to fuck him over, then he was going to fuck her over.
Oh, no. He said that shortly after Fred was killed, Dolly had come to him and gave him, quote, the broken parts of a .25 caliber revolver wrapped in a handkerchief and told him to throw it where no one could find it, end quote.
Wow. That's specific. That's damning. And did he question her when she did this?
Who are these people? This happens so often that somebody's like, yeah, they just gave me this severed leg wrapped in newspaper and they said to just throw it down a well.
But I had no idea that it was like... someone's leg.
Like, why would I know that? Like, why would I question that?
And it's like, what are you doing? It's like, yeah, I did help these two guys, like, throw a package into the Hudson River, but I didn't know that it was a human.
I didn't look inside. No one has ever asked me to hide something for them or to destroy something for them.
I can promise you that I don't think anyone will ever ask me for help with that.
And it's like, and if somebody did, I'd be like, What did you do?
Right. What did you do? Like, what have you done here?
And if you're not willing to tell me, then you need to go ask someone else.
You gotta, and honestly, don't tell me. I don't want to know.
Don't, no, don't involve me in this. It's never, I'm always amazed at these people that are just like, yeah, so I just did it.
Yeah. Like, what? Well, you're amazed at this man's then because he wanted to make her happy, so he took the package to a tar pit in Hancock Park, and he just knew that that would be the last of it.
Wow. But fortunately, it wasn't. Apparently, Klum did not have a great arm, and he had not tossed the package far enough.
Fucking Klum. Meaning, yeah, he's just a Klum.
Yeah, he's such a Klum. Meaning that it actually landed right on the edge of the pit, and the police literally just picked it up and took it into custody.
Yes. Amazing. So now Dolly was brought to the station again.
Wow. This time Detective Klein wanted to know why she'd given a .25 caliber gun to her boyfriend and asked him to get rid of it.
Did it maybe have anything to do with the fact that that was the gun that her husband was murdered with?
Just throwing it out there. She explained that just like she had found the pocket watch while she was cleaning, she also just found this gun lying around the house and she said, how crazy would it look if I had a gun? in my house while this investigation was going on.
How interesting was it that it was the same kind of gun used to actually kill her husband?
She's like, wow, do you think it could be the murder weapon?
Well, I just wanted to get rid of it just in case it was.
Like, bad memories. This is incredible that she is claiming.
The fact that she's not even coming up with a different story for this one, she's like, same thing.
She's like, I've been cleaning a ton. Clean, clean, clean.
And I just, whoop, keep uncovering things.
Oh, a gun. Yeah. Just uncovered, like, King Tut's tomb.
It was so wild. It was very casual, though.
I didn't tell anyone, though. I didn't think it was important.
Yeah. Like, okay. Whatever, guys. Yeah. So now that he had found two critical pieces of evidence that connected back to Dolly...
Klein felt very confident that she was somehow involved in this murder, and on July 12th, 1923, Dolly was officially arrested.
Yeah. I feel good about that. So do I. So the news hit the papers the next day, and now that people in town were reading about the case and knew that Dolly was behind bars, they kind of seemed ready to let their guard down and go to the police with new information.
Wow, that's shocking and new. No one ever does that.
It's so wild. Tale as new as ever. Beauty and the Beast.
Yes. The remix. The remix. So one of Dolly's neighbors said that shortly after Fred was murdered, she had gone to him and asked him to get rid of a gun for her.
Apparently she had multiple. Wow. This, yeah, is ridiculous.
And this neighbor said that he, no, yes, this neighbor said she feared that she was going to be suspected of the murder since she had another gun in her possession.
And he was just trying to be neighborly and help her out.
So he buried the gun in his yard for her.
Okay. They were like, can you show us? And he was like, yeah, it's over there.
I like a lot of my neighbors. I'm not burying.
I don't even know my neighbors. But neighbors, if you're listening, don't come knocking on my door if you need to bury a gun.
Don't come knock on my door. I'm not going to be doing that for you.
I'm not waiting for you. I'm not burying evidence for you.
I'm not going to prison for you. No, definitely not doing it.
Love you so much. We'll go to your barbecue, but I'm not burying guns for you.
No. Nor Claire. I'll be as neighborly as I can up until that point.
Like, is that even neighborly or is that just like felonly?
That's felonly is what that is. Like, don't become a felon for your neighbor.
I didn't agree to that. Like, I don't know if that's a felony, but.
When I entered the neighborhood, I did not agree to that.
No, no, no. That was not in the homeowners association document that I read.
So. But this man started reading, or this woman, I'm not quite sure who, but started reading more headlines and was like, you know, I'm not feeling so good about this decision I made anymore.
That gun buried in the backyard feels like it's pretty damning.
Yeah. That was kind of like the end of that, though.
Like, it didn't really go much further than that.
This is so... So weird. It's the wildest.
It doesn't feel real. This is so weird. But it very much is.
It very much is. So Dolly was being held on $50,000 bail and she had a trial set for December.
And when it began, the only one really there to testify against her was Klum.
Other than that, there was literally no evidence.
Fucking Klum. So the charges were dropped and she was free to go.
Stop. She's free to go, but the story doesn't end there, don't worry.
This woman found the pocket watch. The best part about this is that this is not just, oh, it was a pocket watch.
Even if it was inscribed, it's like... It's octagonal.
This is an octagonal, diamond-encrusted...
Pocket watch. Like, the most gaudy, outrageous, bougie pocket watch you could ever imagine.
There's only one on planet Earth. And she's like, whoa, I know.
How cuckoo nuts. So weird. I just found it.
And then the gun. Oh. Oh, my God. Thank you for bringing that up.
I found that, too. Yes. And then I just gave several guns to everyone within an arm's length of me.
It's just what I do. And they all buried them accordingly.
Like, what? And they're like, you can go, ma'am.
Also, like, what does it say about her that these people were like, yeah, it's fine.
Oh, it's impressive as fuck. I just want to know, like, what vibes will...
She was always the one to make sure the vibes were immaculate.
So I feel like she's got her own set of vibes that she knows how to use them.
Vibes and morals that she adheres to. Oh, yeah.
Her own set. She was able to move on with her life, and she was also able to get the millions of dollars that Fred had left her.
Wow. So she used the money to buy another home in L.A. and seemed ready to put everything behind her.
But Detective Klein was still lurking, and he was still sure that she was somehow involved, but was starting to worry that he was never going to be able to prove this.
Oh, man. So, seven years went by. Seven years?
She got to just hang? Yeah, she just hung out.
She got to, like, hang out with Shapiro and everybody.
Poor Fred. But in 1930, things between Dolly and her old lawyer lover, Herman Shapiro, had ended.
And they had not ended amicably. Ooh. So Herman was ready to go to the police with, you guessed it, more information about Dolly and her weird suspect behavior.
Oh, Herm. I love Herm. So he said, just like...
I don't even know what to tell you to do right now, but just like prepare yourself in whichever way you see fit because this is wildwild.com.
Oh, no. It's the wild, wild west out here.
Dot org. Dot org. Thank you. So he said while he was still her attorney, he was visiting her in jail one day and obviously they were still lovers too.
So she made an odd request. She asked him to go to the grocery store and deliver a bag of groceries to her home.
And Herman was like, for old time's sake, like, just you want the host to have groceries?
Like, are you forgetting that you don't have a husband anymore?
Like, hello, you're in prison. You're incarcerated.
Yeah. You're literally sitting in a prison cell in front of me.
Like, you are currently incarcerated, ma'am.
Do you want Honeycrisp or Gala apples? I'm so confused.
I guess I'll just go with this. He's like, I feel like all of those groceries might be bad by the time you get out of here.
Yeah, I don't know. I just like expiration dates.
But she's like, oh my gosh, silly me. I didn't tell you who they were for.
I didn't tell you who these groceries were for.
And she explained that her vagabond half-brother was living with her and she was worried about him starving if nobody brought any food to the house because he didn't have any money to buy food for himself.
Oh. So Herman was like, oh, that's terrible and sad.
Like, of course I'll take care of that. Why haven't I met your brother yet?
I'm so excited. Would love us. Let's go.
So she was like, okay, just like slow down, Herman.
Okay. Like I haven't given you the list yet.
And I also have like serious instructions for you.
Very specific. Okay. So she's like, here's the list.
And then she says, you're going to bring these groceries to the second floor right in front of the attic door.
Once the groceries are there, please scratch on the door three times and then immediately leave.
Get the fuck out of there. My brother does not like company.
And he was like, lady, you're cooked. Is your brother a cat?
You don't scratch for your cats to tell them their food's ready.
Like what? Bye. Like, what the fuck? Like, what?
Not just, like, not knock on the door? What?
Like, does Herman have acrylics? Is it going to work?
I hope he doesn't bite his nails. What if he gets a splinter?
I know. What do you do here? I don't know.
Put him on the spot. Now I really want to leave those very specific instructions for my next door dasher.
Yes. I just might be on the lookout. Pass me on the lookout door now.
You're scratched three times. Oh, man. So Herbert, that's not even his name.
Just Herm. This man. Herman, thank you. Just Herm, thanks.
Your thing. It's me, Herm. I also like the vibes to be immaculate, so I'll scratch that door for you.
I love that Herm was just like... Okey-doke.
He really loved her. He did. So he set out to the grocery store to grab up some foods.
And then he headed to Dolly's for this very strange delivery service.
But instead of leaving like Dolly had told him to after he scratched the door three times, he was like, I'd like to meet this vagabond brother of yours.
So he waits, and sure enough, a man opens the attic door, a small man wearing glasses.
To Shapiro, he seemed to be around 30 years old, and it was clear that he was startled to see a man standing before him.
But after a couple seconds, he outstretched his hand and he said, Hi, I'm Otto Sanhuber.
Hey, Otto. Yep. Shapiro was like... You don't sound like you're Dolly's brother.
No, he was like, oh, you're Dolly's brother.
Like, great to meet you. And Otto was like, brother?
I am her lover. Oh, and Herm was like, um, no, no, no, sir.
He was like, no, I am. know me so like you might think this is where shapiro loses his shit but remember this man is a lawyer yeah so now he's got questions to ask oh good for him so otto explains that he hasn't spoken to anybody in a very long time but he seemed very eager to tell shapiro all about his sex life with dolly oh and told him about his backstory too he said i grew up in milwaukee and i actually worked for fred you know do you know fred oh yeah i do my job was actually to repair sewing machines And he had been working for Fred since he was 15 years old, he said.
He knew Dolly from working at the plant, and one day when he was 17 years old, 17.
What? Fred told him that Dolly's sewing machine was in need of assistance and asked that he head over to the home to check it out for her.
17-year-old Otto. Are you fucking kidding me?
So, 17-year-old Otto just heads out there to repair a sewing machine, but Dolly's got other things in mind.
What the fuck, Dolly? And she opens up the door to this boy wearing nothing but stockings and a silky robe.
Dolly. Disgusting. What the fuck? And that day marked the start of a years-long affair.
Jesus. Otto said that the two of them had been having relations eight to ten times a day almost every single day since then, to which I say, bullshit.
I was just going to say, that's a lie. What?
That is a lie. I don't even have things to say.
That is a lie. That is incorrect. That is not factual.
That is a lie. That is unreal. That's a lie.
That is unreal, sir. That's a lie, Otto.
You lie like a rug. You lie. You lie. You lie like a rug that I would put on top of the Otto man.
Oh, there you go. Yeah. I wouldn't put a rug on it, though.
No. But when things really first started, they would meet up at hotels, Otto explained, you know, do the deed and then head their separate ways.
Oh my god, he was a child. What the fuck?
He was groomed. But eventually, Dolly started inviting Otto over when Fred was at work for the day.
She would tell the neighbors that Otto was her half-brother so that they wouldn't assume anything was up.
Ew. But after a while, yeah, for real, but after a while of just bringing him into the home out in the open, Dolly was worried that people didn't believe Otto was her brother, and worse, she thought Fred was catching on.
But she was smart, and she was a woman who got her own way, so she came up with a plan.
She convinced Otto to leave his job at the factory and move into her and Fred's attic so that when Fred was gone for the day, they could go on doing the nasty and the neighbors would never catch on and neither would Fred.
I'm sorry, what? Move into my attic so that we can continue to fook and not raise suspicion.
Move into the attic of my house. That I live in with my husband.
Okay. What? Okay, I was just making sure that I heard that right.
And Otto said, I agreed without even batting an eyelash.
Yeah, of course he did. Because, sad, Otto was an orphan, so he didn't have much family, and he was willing to do pretty much anything to make her happy.
Oh, she preyed on him. Yeah, I think there was like a weird Oedipus thing going on here.
Yeah. Clearly Dolly was a straight up predator and she used that to her advantage.
And this is like so sad and strange and just like fucked up.
But the LA Times reported that Otto loved Dolly as a boy loves his mother.
So he was willing to do pretty much anything to make her happy and continue this affair with her.
This is fucked up what she did. Yeah, that's really sad.
Like this is a 17-year-old. It's not okay.
A child. He'd signed up for a lot unknowingly, I think.
Yeah. He was completely confined to the attic and was at Dolly's beck and call for relations or anything she wanted because when they weren't doing the nasty, he would sit up there and read detective novels and eventually actually started writing his own novels up there.
She had a sex slave in the attic. Oh, it literally gets to that point where like he's referred to as a sex slave.
Like what the fuck? After Fred and Dolly would go to bed, he would sometimes go to the kitchen and grab a snack or one of Fred's fancy cigars.
Oh! so that's where the food and the cigars are going and one can assume the money wow that was missing wow so fred was correct when he mentioned to dolly that random things and food were going missing and he certainly was hearing things in the night he told dolly that he saw strange shadows passing outside their bedroom door but dolly would convince him that his mind was playing tricks on him because he'd had too much to drink Oh, damn.
So she knows that kid is just bopping around their house at night.
Just be Bopalupa, baby. Wow. The affair carried on for five years, literally right over Fred's head.
Oh my God. Like literally went over his head. literally right in his own house.
Yeah, like, fuck a whole bunch of that. Like, just divorce your husband.
That's the thing. And, you know, back then, like... It's the 20s.
I keep forgetting, like, it was the 20s.
It's the 20s, yeah. So she couldn't have, but still.
But, like, don't move your lover into your attic.
This is wild. And you're keeping a child confined into your attic.
That's the other thing. This is not a grown man who agreed to... Yeah, this isn't, like, a 30-year-old man, which would still be outrageous.
Yes. But it's, like... This is a literal child.
Yeah. Technically, if like the 30-year-old was into it, it's not illegal.
Right now, this is very illegal what you're doing, man.
You kidnapped someone. So many layers. Wild.
But Fred would leave for work in the morning and Otto would come down and do everything Dolly claimed to be doing as far as cleaning and taking care of the house.
She literally had a sex life. Wow. And when Fred was on his way home, Otto would go back up into the attics, and sometimes when she could, Dolly would sneak food and books up to him if she had the chance.
I'm speechless. Now remember, this was all happening when the couple lived in Milwaukee.
So this was like at the very beginning of the story.
This is before the LA plant even opened up.
I thought this was like right, wow. No, this was in Milwaukee.
Wow. So when Fred decided to, and remember, they're having this conversation in front of the LA attic.
Yeah, yeah. So like what the fuck? So when Fred decided to expand the business and move out to California with Dolly, she was very insistent that they buy a house that had an attic.
And you might say, strange request. And actually, at the time, it was pretty rare to find a house in LA with an attic.
A lot of them didn't have attics. But Fred agreed and was like, that's a weird request, but sure.
And he found a house with an attic. I guess he wasn't one to ask a lot of questions.
Apparently not. No. So they found their house, and before they moved in, Dolly sent Otto out to California with the address and instructed him to set himself up in the attic before the movers arrived.
And he was able to. He was able to. Now, clearly, this sounds absolutely insane to us.
Why would this man just give up his life to live in someone's attic?
But here are a few things to remember. One, he's literally an orphan.
He has no family whatsoever. None. Two, he had quit his job at Fred's plant when Dolly urged him to, so there was no job leaving him tethered to Milwaukee and mix that with no family.
Number three, the affair started when he was underage and his frontal lobe was still developing, therefore he wasn't good at making decisions yet.
True. We're talking about somebody who was literally groomed here.
And four, he had been living in Dolly and Fred's attic for five years at this point.
Five years. I'm sure the idea of even making the trip to California, like, out in the big great world was fucking terrifying.
Seriously. But he knew at the end of it, he'd end up in an attic.
He would get another attic. Like, safe and confined again.
Yeah, it probably really was that, like, feeling when people come out of, like, prison.
Yes. And they, like, sleep in a bathroom because, like, the space is just too much for them.
Right. I feel like that's probably similar.
I mean, I think so. Like, five years in an attic?
Five fucking years just in the attic. Just in the attic.
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So off he went to California to set himself up in the attic before anybody could catch on to him.
And remember, we're sitting in front of this now attic telling Shapiro this, and he tells Shapiro all about his journey here.
And then the conversation steered over to Fred's murder.
Otto knew all about the murder, and he told Shapiro that Dolly was right about the previous break-in attempts.
Those were actually real. Oh. And for that reason, one day when Dolly was out and Fred was at work, Otto left too to get a gun so that he could protect them if need be.
He said that he felt a great sense of responsibility to protect the house and Dolly and Fred.
Wow. Okay. Probably more Dolly, but you get the point.
Yeah, I would say so. So the night of Fred's murder, Otto was reading in the attic and he heard Fred and Dolly come home.
And according to him, he had heard the two of them arguing very loudly with each other when they got home.
And Dolly had previously alluded to Fred being abusive toward her.
So Otto thought that she was in trouble and ran down the stairs with his gun.
And he said once he reached the living room, he saw Dolly lying on the floor and Fred was over her, standing over her.
Fred looked over, saw Otto, and in the commotion probably assumed that he was some kind of burglar or was completely confused about why his employee from like 10 years ago was sitting in front of him.
Was it in LA? So he lunged at him. And the two started wrestling over the gun, which is when it fired one shot into the ceiling.
Remember? Oh, okay. That bullet lodged in the ceiling in the four casings, but he'd only been shot three times.
Yeah. that seemed to catch fred off guard and that's when otto was able to get the gun and shoot fred three times once in the head twice in the chest wow fred was most likely dead before he even hit the floor damn so otto kept talking to shapiro which thinking about it now is truly something because he has no idea that he's telling all of this to a straight up fucking lawyer yeah like what no idea So he tells Shapiro that it was his idea to stage the scene.
So he locked Dolly in the closet and left the key to the closet on the table in plain sight so that she would be released easily.
Took Fred's watch, started destroying the place, then returned to the attic while the police searched the house.
He was in the attic while the LAPD was searching the fucking home.
Why did they not search the attic? I do not know, but I'm going to go with because LAPD.
Yeah. Wow. That's their big fuck up here.
There it is. But so Dolly started screaming when she knew Otto was safely tucked away and the rest you already know.
Wow. But something that you might be questioning now, if Dolly had bought this new house after she inherited her millions and was pretty much free to do as she pleased, then why was Otto still living in the attic?
Yeah. Why didn't he just come down and live in the house?
Oh, yeah. Well, I guess he just wasn't used to it.
He would later tell a jury that after almost 10 years of this arrangement, he and Dolly had the kind of relationship that was based on dominance and submission and that he was essentially her sex slave.
He said it himself. Wow. Okay. He would do whatever she wanted him to, and she was free to have romances with whoever she wanted to.
Wow. Quite the arrangement. So Shapiro was overwhelmed, to say the least.
Otto literally told this man that he had been in the attic the entire time that he had known Dolly and been in a relationship with her.
And during some of this time, Shapiro was also in a relationship with this woman and had relations with her while this man was living in the attic.
Oh, my God. And Otto was like, yeah, I was like sitting in the attic every time that happened.
But like, don't worry, there was good insulation.
I didn't hear much. Are you kidding me?
I am not kidding you. He literally said that?
There's good insulation? There's good insulation.
Wow. Now, I can only blame this next event on pure shock and maybe just like Shapiro feeling really bad for this guy, which in a weird, I do too, you know?
Yeah. Like this is fucked up that he murdered a man.
Yeah, he's a broken, broken man. Exactly.
And he's a murderer. He's a murderer now.
But he was also groomed by this woman. There's like many layers to this.
It's a lot. It's all sad. So Shapiro told Otto, you gotta get the hell out of here, and helped him pack his bags and make his way to motherfucking Canada.
No. He said, fuck that, I'm in Canada. Fuck that, I'm in Canada.
Shout out to Linz. Shout out to Linz. None of you will understand what we're saying, but...
Otto was on his way to Canada. Wow, don't do that.
Yeah, that's not good. This dude needs help.
So every last piece of evidence against Dolly came from her messy ass relationships.
Damn. Roy Klum went to the police about the gun.
Shapiro had been seen wearing Fred's pocket watch and now was sitting here reading everything I just went through that Otto had told him to the police.
And the ironic thing here is that the police presumably never would have found out this information if it hadn't been for Dolly herself shitting where she ate.
That's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is.
The fact that she had to send him to the house.
Exactly. And the fact that she hired a lawyer for this very reason because she needed one on deck in case she ever got in trouble for setting up the murder of her husband.
Wow. And then she led this man right to her murderous side piece.
Wow. What are you doing, ma'am? So luckily, the detectives were able to find Otto in Canada.
He had married a woman and was going by the name Walter Klein.
But he was promptly brought back to L.A. for questioning and then to stand trial for the murder of Fred Osterich.
Yeah, you're not going to get away. No. You're not going to do that, Otto.
No. So during his questioning, he actually repeated everything that he had told Shapiro.
The shooting, in his eyes, was self-defense.
Not only was he in fear of Dolly's life, but also his own, he said.
And Dolly was arrested soon after. And once the newspapers grabbed hold of this story, you can imagine how wild shit went.
The media, this is like fucked up, but this is what happens, calling Otto all kinds of nicknames.
The Attic Lover, Bat Boy, and the Batman of Los Angeles.
Oh, come on. So mean. It's also like not creative.
But Dolly wasn't really concerned with any of it.
As far as she was concerned, she hadn't pulled the trigger, and therefore she could never be convicted of murder.
Untrue. But it wasn't so simple. Dolly was not going to be living the rest of her life as comfortably as she had envisioned, maybe not.
Because Fred's siblings, John, William, and his sister P.C.
Teets – I love that that's her name. P.C.
Teets. P.C. Teets. would be contesting his will.
Hell yeah, they would. John said that he himself had discovered a final will that awarded $50,000 each to all of the siblings.
$50,000 that was supposed to go to Harry Voss.
You remember him, the plant manager. Another $50,000 should go to the Christian Science Church and Mrs. Margie Tex of Chilton.
Oh, my God. Literally Chilton. That just hit me.
Young Rory Gilmore. Look at that. She was also awarded some money.
She was an old family friend and Dolly's mother and her were to get $30,000 each.
Oh. It's a lot of money. And things then got even more complicated.
While they were preparing to go to trial, investigators were tipped off that Otto was responsible for attempting to burn down the Milwaukee plant.
Oh. Yes. William Greenwald, the deputy state fire marshal in Wisconsin, said that his office received a tip from an anonymous source that an employee of the plant had been offered $1,000 to set it on fire.
Damn. Could that have been Otto? Bribed by a woman named Dolly?
Perhaps. We'll never know because there was not enough evidence to support this claim of arson, so it kind of just went away.
We know. But it was worth mentioning. We know.
And it's a good example of all the interest in Dahlia and Otto's case and how it was bringing tons and tons of different accusations up.
So all of that kind of just went away. Oh, okay.
Nothing ever happened with him. They could never determine if it was really Otto that was going to start that fire.
And luckily the fire didn't burn the plant down.
Yeah. So it's like... The siblings, they were never able to prove that that will was valid.
But it did kind of like hold things up for a little bit.
Yeah, but still. So Otto was indicted for the murder of Fred Osterich on April 11th, 1930.
And in a statement to the press, the DA said that Dolly was remaining silent, but maybe she shouldn't because they hinted that there might be more than one indictment if she kept quiet.
Because remember, she hasn't been rearrested yet.
Now, just a few days later, he makes good on this promise, his little hint there, and Dolly was also indicted.
It had been close to eight years since Fred was killed.
Eight years. So before the trial, the papers continued their wild reports, and even the attorneys involved fed into their nonsense.
Otto's attorney indicated that he was going to plead guilty by reason of insanity, which was a huge thing back then because nobody ever did that, and it never really worked.
Yeah. And that he might reveal shocking details about a third person who had been involved in the murder.
The DA's office released their own statement about this third party, saying that they were also aware there may have been a third killer, but that they weren't ready to reveal what information they did or did not have.
Stop! I gotta know! Now, as the trial moved forward, the theory that a third person was involved just kind of went away.
Damn, there's a lot of things that just float off into the abyss here.
Just literally nobody is just, they're just like, well, we got to get them for this.
Vapor. Vapor, bye. So Dolly and Otto were originally going to be tried together for Fred's murder.
Their lawyers had hoped that they would be tried separately, though.
So Otto's lawyer petitioned the court to allow for separate trials.
But Superior Court Judge Walton Woods refused the request.
He said they're being tried together. Walton is not. not gonna stand for that shit walton woods would never never no so dolly's lawyer though appealed to that refusal and won so they were ultimately tried separately damn auto would be tried first and dolly would be tried as soon as his trial was over which they hoped would be by the end of june or early july So Otto's trial started at the beginning of June, and the original plan was to go with the same story that he told Shapiro and then the cops who arrested him.
But as the trial started, his attorneys kind of came up with a new strategy.
He told the court that he had only told that story because Dolly's original attorney, Herm Herm Shapiro, Herm convinced him that it would help her during her trial.
What? He said, this is quotes, the confession I made before the grand jury was the story that I had been coached on for years.
I told it because, for years, it had been drummed into me that this was the only way to save Mrs. Osterich if I was arrested was to tell the story.
What? He said that entire story was actually made up completely by Shapiro, and that the real story was that Otto had been so scared by the gunshot that he spent the night huddled in the attic and hiding in fear.
He had not killed Fred, he said. Nope. So now we've told three separate stories.
Yeah. One where Otto is the hero who saves Dolly.
Yep. One where he's the hero and saves Dolly, but there's also a random third person involved.
And finally, this last one where he's actually not involved at all.
And he's just crying upstairs. Yes. Yeah.
But his defense team harped on a really good point that Otto was a young man when Dolly had started a quote-unquote relationship with him.
He was only 17 years old, a child in the eyes of the law.
When she groomed him. Exactly. They really made her and she really made herself the femme fatale of this story, which really wasn't that hard to do because she pretty much is and was.
Now, they also, of course, pointed out the fact that she had multiple partners.
She had been with Otto, Herman Shapiro, and Roy Klum all at the same time.
And they started referring to the latter man as Dolly's basement lover.
Oh, so she's got an attic and a basement lover.
Yes. There was no proof to substantiate that, but it was a fun thing for them to do.
I was going to say, did anything come for that to come about?
I don't know what I was trying to say there.
It's late. I was trying to say, did anything happen for that to come about for them to call him a basement lover?
I think just the fact that she had an attic lover.
Yeah. So you got to have a basement one.
Yeah. And like, you know, like a porch lover and a swimming pool lover.
Yeah. Just all areas of your house. Mudroom lover.
Mudroom lover. I like that. A pantry lover.
Ooh. I'm a pantry lover. I love a pantry.
I was literally just going to say I love a good pantry.
I do. So in the end, the DA was able to show that Otto wasn't the scared young boy tethered to the attic that he claimed to be.
He could come and go as he pleased. In fact, he and Dolly actually had a joint bank account together at one point.
What? Yes. And at the end of the day, the DA said he was a willing participant in a man's murder.
Damn. So on the first day of July 1930, both sides rested their cases and the jury was sent out to deliberate.
When they came back, they read their verdict aloud to the room.
Otto Sanhuber was guilty. Yeah. Of manslaughter.
Oh. Yeah. They had considered first-degree murder, but none of the jurors felt that he was guilty of that, per se.
They all felt, like, bad for him. Yeah, it's like one of those.
In a weird way, like, he was groomed. He was, yeah.
But he also needs to face consequences because he took a man's life.
Yeah. Unfortunately, when sentencing came the next day and the judge ordered...
Otto had to spend zero days in prison. He was free to go.
What? Because the statute of limitations on manslaughter had run out.
Shut the fuck up. Yup. Are you kidding me?
Nope. The fact that we have the statute of limitations on manslaughter, like the fact that that even existed, what?
What the fuck? Wow. Yeah. Wow. So he was free to go.
Wow. And he just like dipped. Yeah, just by.
Like scot-free. Wow. Well, probably not scot-free because I'm sure he went through a lot in the attic.
He carried manslaughter. Yes, yes, that too.
But still. Now, Dolly's trial was pretty similar to Otto's.
The DA argued that the murder was so planned out because Dolly would inherit millions of dollars that she and Otto could spend together or she could just get rid of him and spend it herself.
Yeah. and they also used her sex life to paint a picture of her depravity.
He also theorized that Dolly had shot Fred herself, whipping out a secret pistol that she had in a hidden compartment of the home.
None existed. I mean, that's a no for me, but also she had a handful of guns that she was just handing out like Halloween candy, so I wouldn't be shocked.
She had a whole ass man in the attic. I wouldn't be shocked if she had a hidden compartment with a little gun in it.
I think he was kind of playing to the fact that the jury might not have been shocked if she had that.
Yeah, exactly. But Dolly was able to hire a very notorious defense lawyer, Jerry Geisler.
My bad. He had repped Errol Flynn, Charlie Chaplin, and even our girl Marilyn.
Wow. Marilyn Monroe. So safe to say he was pretty fucking good.
And on the stand, Dolly sobbed and said that she and Otto had never conspired to murder her husband, Fred, and that Otto had taken it upon himself to murder the man as he was just walking down the stairs one day.
Oh, yeah. And she had nothing to do with it.
No, of course. So the jury took two days to deliberate.
And on August 24th, they told the judge that they were, quote unquote, hopelessly deadlocked.
Really? Yes. So they were sent back to their hotel for the evening and asked to reconvene the next morning.
The next morning, they still couldn't decide whether she was guilty or not.
I didn't see that coming. So this was declared a mistrial and Dolly was held in her cell while the DA's office decided whether it would be worth it to retry the case.
So later that fall, it was decided that it was not worth the time or the money of going through another trial, especially if she was just going to be found guilty of manslaughter and free to go because of the statute of limitations.
So Dolly was released from custody in December of 1930.
And she was able to live out the rest of her life in Los Angeles with a new man, Ray Burt Hedrick.
She also got to keep her inheritance from Fred.
Stop. She and Ray married after years of being together, but she died two weeks after they got married, April 14th, 1961.
She was 80 years old. Holy, she got married at 80 years old and then died two weeks later?
And then dipped two weeks later. Damn. Which makes me wonder, like, did she know that she was dying and wanted to leave the money to Ray and, like, wanted him to be her husband, you know?
Wow. But it also reminds me of the case that I just covered, Marguerite Alley-Bear.
She also had this, like, whirlwind of a life and murdered a man.
Yeah. And died at 80 years old. Wow. Weird, right?
Yeah. Yeah. Now, Otto presumably went back to Canada with his wife, who stuck by his side throughout his arrest and the trial.
Guys. But he died in 1948, so he ended up dying before Dolly.
Yeah, early. Sad. Damn. And that is the case of Dolly and Fred and Otto.
That is a story. That is a story of the man's in the attic.
I think we should name this episode the man's in the attic.
The man's in the attic. Perhaps. Yeah. That is, it's sad.
Really sad. It's sad in like so many levels.
So many different levels of sad. So many people got hurt by her.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. That like the amount of outreach she had for fucking up people's lives is like pretty, pretty crazy.
Yeah. It's a good cautionary tale, though, of, like, don't piss people off and treat them badly because it's always going to come back and bite you in the ass.
Yeah, like, don't be shitty to people. No.
Like, it's not going to end up well for you.
No, like, don't fuck with people. Don't fuck with people.
Just don't. Stop being a dick. Please. I like how you ended that very politely.
Please. And I'd like to ask you to please keep listening.
And we hope you... Keep it. Weird. But never as weird as Dahlia Sterich because what the motherfucking fuck.
Do not keep people in your attic. Unless they sign up for it and are of legal age.
Yeah, keep Christmas decorations in your attic, not anything else.
Yeah, keep your second wardrobe in your attic.
There you go. Like I do. That's just my winter clothes.
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