Anna Marie Hahn (born Filser; July 7, 1906 – December 7, 1938) was a

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-born

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serial killer A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more persons,A * * * * with the murders taking place over more than a month and including a significant period of time between them. While most authorities set a threshold of three ...

Biography

Early life

Anna Hahn was the youngest of twelve children though five of her siblings had died by the time Anna was born. Her father, George Filser, was a furniture manufacturer, and the family was considered to be well-off financially. At age 19, she became pregnant with her son Oskar, and told her family that the father was a

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physician, Dr. Max Matscheki, a well-known cancer researcher. However, no record of a Dr. Matscheki has ever been found; to this day, the identity of Oskar's real father is unknown. Hahn's scandalized family sent her to the

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in 1929, while her son remained in

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with her parents. While staying with relatives Max and Anna Doeschel in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

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, Hahn met fellow German immigrant Philip Hahn; they married in 1930. Hahn briefly returned to Germany to retrieve Oskar, then she and her husband started a family.

Murders

Hahn allegedly began poisoning and robbing elderly men in Cincinnati's German community to support her

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habit. Ernst Kohler, who died on May 6, 1933, was believed to be her first victim. Hahn had befriended him shortly before his death. He left her a house in his

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. Her next alleged victim, Albert Parker, 72, also died soon after she began caring for him. Prior to Parker's death, she signed an

I.O.U. An IOU (abbreviated from the phrase "I owe you") is usually an informal document acknowledging debt. An IOU differs from a promissory note in that an IOU is not a negotiable instrument and does not specify repayment terms such as the time of re ...

for $1,000 that she borrowed from him, but after his death, the document was either discarded or simply "disappeared". Jacob Wagner, 78, died on June 3, 1937, leaving $17,000 cash to his "beloved niece" Hahn. She soon began caring for 67-year-old George Gsellman, also of Cincinnati. For her service before his death on July 6, 1937, she received $17,000. Hahn killed her last victim, Georg Obendoerfer, on August 1, 1937, after he traveled to

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, with her and her son. Police said that Obendoerfer, a

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, "died in agony just after Mrs. Hahn had bent over his deathbed inquiring his name, professing she did not know the man". Hahn's son testified at her trial that he, his mother, and Obendoerfer traveled to Colorado by train from Cincinnati together and that Obendoerfer began getting sick en route.

Investigation

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revealed high levels of

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in Obendoerfer's body, which aroused police suspicions. Exhumations of two of her previous clients revealed that they had been poisoned. Hahn was a prime suspect, and was soon arrested. Anna marie hahn small

Hahn was convicted after a four-week trial in November 1937.

Sentenced to death Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, she went to the

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at the

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on December 7, 1938. She was buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery in Columbus.

Biography

Early life

Murders

Investigation

See also

References

Further reading