Walburga Austria

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Walburga Austria, ca.1930

Walburga "Dolly" Austria (* approx. 1864 or 1870 in Germany or Milwaukee , Wisconsin , † 1961 in Los Angeles , California ) was a housewife and the wife of a wealthy US textile manufacturer .

Famous and at times a media star , she was by the so-called " Attic Lover ( attic -lover) -Mordfall", considered one of the most bizarre in US criminal history is true and to this day the subject of movies, books and newspaper articles is Walburga Austria had her lover , one about 16 years younger than sewing machines - mechanics , more than ten years in the attic without the husband and the public would have noticed something which hides their changing houses. In 1922, the lover shot the husband.

Dolly and the man in the attic

The history

Walburga "Dolly" Oesterreich and her husband Fred Oesterreich lived as an entrepreneurial couple in Milwaukee , where they belonged to the community of German origin, which is strongly represented in this city . It is no longer possible to determine with certainty whether they immigrated from Germany or were born in the USA.

Fred Austria, little older than Dolly, ran a medium-sized factory, where about 60 workers mainly apron dresses sewn. He was feared as a strict superior and, according to contemporary witnesses, was considered to be violent, irascible and inclined to alcohol . He often argued with his wife. Dolly, on the other hand, was popular with seamstresses because of her friendly, balanced nature. The couple had a son, Raymond, who died in his teens around 1903 .

At this time, the at least 30-year-old, probably 36-year-old, met 15- to 17-year-old Otto Sanhuber , also of German descent and working as a mechanic for the well-known sewing machines of the Singer company in Austria. The young man, anything but an Adonis , but small in stature, slight, shy and bespectacled, reminded Dolly of her son who had died earlier. She fell in love with him and secretly began a passionate sexual relationship with him that lasted for several years. When both neighbors and her husband became suspicious of the frequent visits of the sewing machine mechanic to the Oesterreich house, the unequal couple came up with an unusual plan: Otto was supposed to - without the knowledge of the landlord - move into a small, windowless chamber in the attic of the House pull. This is how it happened: Otto quit his job and moved his few belongings and a stack of books under Dolly's roof, without the neighbors or husband Fred noticing anything.

The lover in the attic

Otto Sanhuber spent his life quietly and quietly in the attic of the Oesterreichs for over ten years, went unnoticed by several changes of house in Milwaukee and even made the big move to Los Angeles, California . There the trio took up residence on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood . Fred ran a factory here too, Dolly carefully divided her time between him and Otto. He still lived as if under the roof: at night he read a lot and wrote a few horror stories himself , which, with Dolly's help , he was able to send and even publish to several publishers of magazine novels . During the day, when Fred was in the factory, he took care of the house , made the beds for the Austrian family, dusted, cleaned and helped in the kitchen. In between he fulfilled his duties as a lover. And since it was the time of Prohibition in the United States, he burned black gin in the bathtub .

Since Fred Oesterreich, who is considered to be very thrifty , had no housekeeping despite his affluence , Dolly killed two birds with one stone: to Fred's satisfaction she was able to do the housework in spite of her help in the factory and at the same time indulge in the forbidden pleasures with her young lover . The young was paid home except with free accommodation and sex with plenty of paper and pencil for his attempts at writing, as well as ordinary portions from the always well-stocked refrigerator. Fred suspected nothing. The quick-witted Dolly always knew how to dispel growing suspicion because of strange noises and the refrigerator being emptied as if by magic - until a memorable August day in 1922.

The fatal shots

Fred Oesterreich, drunk and once again angry about the empty refrigerator, argued loudly with his wife. There was a marital scuffle in which Dolly slipped and fell with a loud scream on the runner in the living room. Otto, his dolly in need imagining, rushed out of his hiding place, grabbed two in a dresser lying firearms of caliber 25 and fired. He met several times and thoroughly - Fred lay in his blood on the living room carpet and was dead. The unexpectedly energetic Otto faked a break-in, pulled the expensive watch off Fred's wrist and locked Dolly in a closet. He threw the key into the hallway. Then he crept back up to his attic room and remained calm. The police, summoned by the neighbors, mistrusted the more “female” 6.35 mm pistols of the burglary version, but couldn't figure out how Dolly could have gotten into the locked cupboard on her own. Investigators never thought of checking the attic. Everything stayed the same: Dolly remained under suspicion, but in freedom, inherited Fred's millions and moved into a new house - with Otto under the roof.

The first trial

Widow Dolly Oesterreich enjoyed her unexpected freedom, turned to new lovers - at least over 50 - and began an affair with a certain Herman S. Shapiro, her lawyer , who was supposed to manage the newly inherited property. She gave him Fred's precious watch, explaining that she had found it under a pillow in the living room. The new lover proudly wore the deceased's watch for a walk. She entrusted one of the murder weapons to another lover as well as to a neighbor who was friends - one buried them in a tar pit , the other buried them in his garden. Both asked no questions. Only the "Chief of Detectives" Herman Cline, who was one of the first to be on the scene , remained suspicious. The experienced policeman had Dolly Oesterreich under suspicion from the start - not only because of the "ladies' pistols", which was atypical for burglars, but also, as he later testified in court, because of her unusual appearance for a wife who had just been assaulted and widowed. "She was the most controlled lady I have ever met," Cline said later. Soon he was able to record his first success: Shapiro's frivolous showing off with Dolly's love present in public reinforced suspicions against Austria, and the two weapons of crime also came to light: The third lover, now taken out of service by Dolly, had chatted, the neighbor moved to. Dolly was arrested and charged on suspicion of murder . During her pre-trial detention , the kind-hearted Dolly was very worried about poor Otto in his quiet hiding place and asked Shapiro, who was deeply in love, for a favor: There was a man under her roof who nobody knew about and who urgently needed fresh food. The lawyer found the "lover under the roof", had a long conversation with him and finally convinced him to go secretly to save himself and Dolly from conviction. Otto Sanhuber understood and ran away as secretly as he had lived under Dolly Oesterreich's roof for more than ten years. The widow, to Chief of Detectives Cline's regret, was acquitted for lack of evidence and lawyer Shapiro moved in with her.

The second process

The years passed. Otto Sanhuber, who with Shapiro's help had taken a job as a janitor in San Francisco , changed his name to Walter Klein and eventually moved to Vancouver , Canada . He married a Canadian and mostly worked as a doorman . At some point he reappeared in Los Angeles, where he worked as a night porter . He is said not to have made any contact with his old flame Dolly and her attic. However, some sources believe he blackmailed Dolly .

After seven turbulent years, Shapiro ended the love affair with Dolly Oesterreich in 1930 and moved out. Dolly had found a new lover, Ray Burt Hedrich, a businessman and manager of her fortune. The vengeful Shapiro went to the police and produced an affidavit covering what had happened eight years ago. Walburga Oesterreich and Otto Sanhuber, now Walter Klein, were arrested, tried and charged: Otto for murder, Dolly for aiding and abetting . Chief of Detectives Cline was finally there. The widow was defended by Jerry Giesler , then a young, ambitious lawyer, famous in later years as a successful criminal defense lawyer by Hollywood stars like Lana Turner . The process became a huge media spectacle in which to scandals and spectacular crimes not just poor Los Angeles County .

The now at least 60 years old, still stately widow and the now over 40-year-old lover faced each other for the first time in years. Sanhuber, dubbed “Attic Lover” (attic lover), “Ghost in the Garret” or “Bat Man” (bat man) by the tabloids , presented himself as a pale, thin man with thinning hair , thick horn-rimmed glasses, a badly fitting suit and a nervous twitch on the face. In a low voice he reported on his time as a “sex slave”, oedipal mother-and-child games and other slippery details that were eagerly picked up by the public and the press.

What attracted Dolly, who was never embarrassed about male acquaintances and always focused on style and chic clothes, about the colorless Sanhuber and the secret attic relationship, remained a mystery during the trial. Observers suspected a good deal of thirst for adventure, the search for an antipole to the dominant husband, and a mother complex developed because of the son's early death . Austria itself has not commented on it. Even more puzzling and in the dark, however, was why lover Sanhuber voluntarily placed himself in such a humiliating, long-term dependency on his lover's freedom of movement for so long. A full-grown Oedipus complex of the early orphan could, if one reads Sanhuber's descriptions of the relationship, have played an important role in it.

At the end of the spectacular process of weeks filled the headlines, Otto Sanhuber not of murder but only of was manslaughter for guilty found. Since the statute of limitations for this crime had expired by that time, he left the courtroom as a free man. Dolly Oesterreich was acquitted in a separate trial for lack of evidence. A melodrama that had lasted more than twenty years had come to an unspectacular end.

Otto Sanhuber disappeared from Los Angeles with his wife Mathilde without leaving any traces. Nothing is known about the rest of his life and his end. Walburga "Dolly" Austria changed her life and spent the last thirty years at the side of her last partner and business partner Hedrich in Los Angeles, where she died very old in 1961.

Aftermath

The story of the "marriage for three" and the lover who lived in the attic for ten years was one of the most spectacular criminal cases in the United States at the time. To this day, the case has repeatedly been included in anthologies about famous criminal cases , as well as being presented on websites or in memorabilia from renowned newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times .

In 1969, Shirley MacLaine embodied a character modeled on Walburga "Dolly" Austria in the Hollywood film Friends of the house are also people . In 1995 the television film The Man in the Attic (German: "Killer from the Shadow"), based on the case, was made with Anne Archer in the female lead.

The house in which Fred Oesterreich was killed by Sanhuber is still shown today to tourists in Hollywood on a special tour to the sites of known crimes, as is Fred Oesterreich's urn grave in the "Begonia Passage" of the Great Mausoleum in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale .

literature

  • Alan Hynd: The Case of the Attic Lover and other true crime stories. Pyramid Books, New York 1958.
  • Michael Parrish: For the People. Inside the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office 1850-2000. Angel City Press 2001.
  • Norman Winski: Sex and the Criminal Mind. The Genell Corporation, Van Nuys, Calif. 1965.
  • Marvin J. Wolf, Catherine Moder: Fallen Angels. Facts on File Publications. New York 1986.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Austria, Walburga
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Austria, Dolly (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American housewife and wife of a wealthy textile manufacturer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1864-1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Germany or Milwaukee , Wisconsin , United States
DATE OF DEATH 1961
Place of death Los Angeles , California , United States