Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / Arsnic Annie - Anna Marie Hahn

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Arsnic Annie - Anna Marie Hahn · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: She came to America chasing a fresh start, but everywhere
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: she ventured, men seemed to die, their wills were changed,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: their bank accounts were emptied, and their symptoms were always
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the same. But no one questioned the charming German caregiver
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: who appeared to help everyone that she met. Eventually, though,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: she had one victim too many, and the truth finally
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: began to surface. This is the story of a woman
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: who killed silently, poisoning her victims. This is the story
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: of arsenic Annie.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: The following podcast maid more mature audience listener discretion. Do
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: you see a difference?
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, does it look bigger?
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks bigger. It's huge, right, it's massive. Get
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: your mind out of the gutter. Awkward, don't go there.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about my muscles. I've been going to the gym.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm flexing. We have decided to go on a
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: tropical vacation. We haven't done a tropical vacation for years
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: in the spring, and so we're like, holy shit, we
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: got to get our our urses to the gym.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, get our beach bods on the go. But it's
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: also not just like, hey, get a beach bod. It's
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: like I've been eating shitty. I need to get healthy again.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I have a history in my family, have some high
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: blood pressure stuff. I should probably do the adult thing here,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: you know, take care of myself.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: You're getting up there in age, you know, so you
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: got to start taking care of yourself.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Yet, calm down, it's not that bad.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I know you're still a spring chicken. I guess we
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: could say I don't.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I'm just as spry as I was yesterday, but not
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the day before. I don't know if that's the saying.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: It just made it up, but it seemed to work well.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I do also have to say, I don't know. Going
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: to the gym too, it's so nice for your mental
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: health and just clearing your mind right. It's a good
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: time a year to be doing that. I think you're right.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: And then there's also the like it almost puts you
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: in a mindset of eating better too. You're going to
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the gym, You're like, well, I just went and worked out.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I feel good, I'm happy. I'm not going to just
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: go and eat a sleeve of oreos, which is probably
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: what I generally do on a Sunday afternoon or something
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: like that. What I would do is go home be like, oh, well,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to just consume a bunch of calories
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: because I waste my gym time. I'm going to eat
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: healthy to balance it out, so it like perpetuates some
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: better living.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: It's like the snowball effect in a good way.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: There you go, the good snowball effect. Another good snowball
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: effect too is when multiple people join up on Patreon
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: and support the show, we can really grow. So thank
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: you and shout out to Mariah Carellis, Claire Jones, Shariah Kegle,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Blackie Alexander, and David Walter who all signed up and
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: are supporting us and joining that amazing snowball that we
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: have of a community over there that.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Was not planned. That sounded like it was almost rehearsed.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: But that's just Ben.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm enjoying trying to like fit it in in
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: a in a.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Natural stuff like that. Yeah, he's that good.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Can you tell? I did improv in high school? We
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: had an interesting story today. I mean I could talk
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: about my muscles and vacations and snowballs all day long.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: But I think we should get over to the story
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: of Arsenic Annie.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: H I agree, Holy moly, this is going to be
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: a gooder. I think it is a.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Little bit of an older case, so I will say that.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: But we are staying in the nineteen h We're not
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: going back to the eighteen hundred, so it's not like, well,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: I guess it is a whole other century. I was
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: going to say, we're not going back a century, but
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: we are. We are, all right, I just dated myself.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: We're going back one century, not too how about that.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I feel like the ones that we've done recently have
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: been a little bit newer, so well, that's.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Kind of why I picked this one, is it's been
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a while since we've doed back in time a little
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: bit around that clock. So we're going to talk about
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Arsenic Annie.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Annie Marie Filsner entered the world on July seventh, nineteen
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: oh six, in the quiet Bavarian town of FEUs in Germany.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: It was the kind of place where people knew each
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: other for generations, and gossip traveled faster than the church
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: bells that rang through the town air. Her parents, George
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and Kathrina, well, they were doing pretty well for themselves.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: George made furniture, and the Filser name actually carried a
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: very kind of respect that comes with steady work and
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: a big family. Anna was the twelfth child to be
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: born into this family, so it's a large family to
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: say the least, no kidding, And she was the baby
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: of the house. And by the time she came along,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: her parents had actually already buried five of those children.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: What, Yes, that's freaking heartbreaking.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, And then not to mention, two more of the
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: older boys would eventually be lost in the First World War,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: So death loss, it was definitely an unfortunate thing that
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: was woven into the family long before Anna will even
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: really learn to speak. Now, as the youngest daughter, Anna
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: grew up pushing from the harsher edges of life. We
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: all look at the youngest of the family. The baby
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: tends to get coddled a little bit more, right, and
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: that's certainly this case in this story. Her mother adored her,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: and in a household that had known so much tragedy,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: it was easy to see why the surviving children, especially
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the youngest one, was held a little closer. But Anna
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: wasn't a child who stayed close for long. Her early
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: years were filled with sickness, and she had a long,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: frightening battle with blood poisoning that kept her in the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: hospital for months, followed by a go to your operation
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: that left her frail and anxious. In fact, she genuinely
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: thought she might die at one point, and maybe that
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: brush with mortality did something to her, because when she recovered,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: she began pushing boundaries, in fact, every boundary that she
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: could really find. By her teenage years, Anna was slipping
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: out of bedroom windows long after curfew, sneaking out to parties,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: and testing the limits of her parents' patience. Now Feusen
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: was a small place, too small for secrets, but she
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: still found ways to lie her way out of trouble.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Even then, people remembered her charm, the soft spoken girl
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: with blonde hair who always had a reason, always had
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: an explanation, and somehow always got away with having another chance.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: School was something that never really interested her. She drifted
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: far away from studies, and later in her life even
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: insisted that she completed coursework for teaching, even though there
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: was no way of verifying that. But I digress. What
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: she was good at, though, was people. She learned early
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: on that a well timed smile or a carefully spun
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: story could get her what she wanted. But like many
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: young women, life shifted sharply when she found herself pregnant.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: She was seventeen years old in a conservative Catholic town
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: and now pregnant, and that wasn't something that the family,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: like the Philsners, could easily hide. Now, Anna insisted that
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: the father of her child was a Viennese doctor, a
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: brilliant cancer researcher by the name of doctor Max maskushek.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: It sounded impressive, almost heroic even, but the problem was simple.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: There was no record of him that existed anywhere. No
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: one saw him, no one knew of him. He was
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: just something that she said. The truth, whatever it was,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: didn't matter as much as the scandal, and the scandal
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: certainly came fast. It seemed like for the first time
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: in her life, Anna's charm wasn't enough to smooth things over.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: So to contain the damage, parents sent her to live
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: with her sister Caddie in Holland. She gave birth to
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: her son, there Oscar on May thirty first of nineteen
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: twenty five. She's still unmarried with this doctor knowher in
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: sight and still the source of the family shame. And
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: then she came back home. But the relationship between Anna
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: and the rest of the Filsner household, while it was
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: never quite the same. Oscar stayed behind with Anna's mother
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: while Anna tried to reclaim her place in Fusen. But
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: words spread fast, people whispered, and Anna, who always had
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the gift of gab, found herself boxed in by her
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: own choices. By the time she was in her early twenties,
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Anna had outgrown her small Bavarian life, or maybe she
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: had simply burned too many bridges to stay. Either way,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: she was looking outwards past the mountains and towards the
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: United States of America. It held the prospect of a
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: chance to start fresh, and by the winter of nineteen
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: twenty nine, Anna had convinced herself that America would fix everything,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: because the US was far enough away that her past
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: couldn't follow. So when she stepped onto the SS Muchin
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: with a second class ticket and a suitcase, she was
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: excited to leave the small Bavarian town's opinion behind her.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: That makes sense. Fresh starts are definitely appealing. I am curious, though,
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: did she take her baby with her? Did she leave
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: the babe with her parents.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Her son stayed behind for now, for now, for now. Yes,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: so the plan would be to you know, head over
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: to the States, get her root set, and then bring
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: her son over.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: That was the s point. Okay, okay, yeah, that makes sense.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: It is too bad that everyone just I don't know.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: I mean, I was going to say things have changed,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: but I think people actually are still a little bit gossipy.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: It's just maybe about different things nowadays.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I think it's different things and in different ways for sure,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Like if someone's getting pregnant and they don't know who
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: the father is, that might spread a little bit of gossip,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: but it's not going to be anything out of the
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: ordinary these days.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: It's not necessarily going to put shame on your family.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Right exactly. It's not like, oh she's pregnant, Hey, excited
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: to meet the kid. That's going to be the more reaction. Yeah,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: that's gonna be the stuff that spreads, Oh she doesn't
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: know who the father is, or she says it's this doctor.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: Might be a little bit of whispers, but no one's
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: really going to care in this case. Hey, being religious
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: where you know, premarital sex is a thing that sort
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: of stuff. That's where the scandal really starts, when you
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: get back into the olden days, olden days. And so yeah,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: it's just a whole different life, a whole different set
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: of standards, I guess. But there's definitely still scandals that happen.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: It's just different.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Topics, h you say it is. Yeah, it's definitely different.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And now with social media too, it adds a whole
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: new layer.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, isn't that the truth?
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: When she arrived in New York in February after days
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: at sea, she then traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, a city
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: that felt way familiar with its German roots. Much of
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood spoke the same language that she grew up with,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: and it had its beer hauls, its bakeries and butcher shops,
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: and church bells and German newspaper. It probably felt honestly
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: more like Germany than America at first. Even she moved
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: in with her relatives, Max and Anna Doschel. They were
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: kind and patient from the very beginning. They even covered
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: her ship fare when she arrived, but within weeks she
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: got sick with scarlet fever and spent almost a month
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: bedridden in their home. Now the docials. They took care
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: of her while she recovered, expecting she would pay them
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: back when she found work sort of thing. So they
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: covered the fair, but it was you know, hey, we gotcha,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: just whenever you can pay us back. But as soon
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: as Anna was healthy again, she simply left. There was
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: no repayment or apology or explanation, just nothing.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: Okay, So she didn't really believe or think she owed
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: them anything.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Exactly, and this is the first hint of a pattern
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: that would later control her entire life. If she could
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: slip away from like an IOU or a responsibility like that,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: then she would I don't like that, No, it's greasy.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: So she soon found work, landing a job as a
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: chambermaid at the massive five hundred room hotel Elms. It
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: was an eye opening place for a young immigrant. Wealthy
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: travelers came and went, leaving behind tips, stories, and opportunities
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: as well. Anna watched carefully how people trusted hotel staff
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: with personal belongings, and how easy it could be to
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: get close to these strangers, and how charm something she
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: had could smooth over almost anything. But the most life
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: changing moment in Cincinnati happened somewhere far less glamorous at
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: a community dance hall. That's where she met Philip Hahn,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: a telegraph operator for Western Union. Now Philip was polite, practical,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: and honestly the exact opposite of Anna in almost every way.
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: He believed what she told him, and that she had
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: trained as a nurse in Germany, which was clearly not true.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: That she wanted a stable life again, not so much,
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: and that she was ready to put down roots again
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: not so much. She was moving all over the place,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: her son was a country away, and you know, all
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: these things were far off from the reality of her
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: actual situation. Now, whether they were true, that she was
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: actually striving for them or not, well, it didn't really matter.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: What mattered was Philip believed them through and through, and
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: on May fifth, nineteen thirty, after a short courtship, they
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: married in Buffalo, New York.
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: I was just going to say, well, why wouldn't he really? Right?
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: I feel like someone that you're interested in is necessarily
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: be spelling lies to you, right, so I think you
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: would just believe them?
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Why not? Yeah, you're totally right. Now. That same summer,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Anna returned to Germany briefly to bring Oscar with her.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Now five years old, he's coming to America. The three
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of them settled into a modest home in Cincinnati, trying
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: to build a normal family life. But normal while that
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: never lasted long. Around Anna, she started dipping into the
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: finances of some older men that she'd known before the wedding,
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: though there's no evidence that there was any sort of
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: romantic or physical intimacy or anything. She just simply used
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: her charm. One of those men was Charles Oswald, a
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: retired baker she rented a room from for a short period.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Now he'd grown attached to her back then, imagining a
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: future between them, and now he denied signing over apparently
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: twenty seven shares of Union Gas and Electric to her.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Yet somehow those stocks landed in her possession. Bank records
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: also show seven hundred dollars shifting into Anna's account around
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: that same time. Now, she didn't really talk about it,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Philip didn't really seem to ask in Oswald. Well, he
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: didn't pursue anything, he couldn't prove anything, and probably because
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: well he gave them to her and didn't want to
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: admit it. But by nineteen thirty one, she sold all
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: those stocks that she had acquired and used the money
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: to help the couple invest in a small family business,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: a bakery and delicatesian kind of like a deli with
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: baked breads and such as. Well, you know, so the
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: idea of running their own shop, well it looked good
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: on paper, especially during a time when steady work was
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: hard to come by. But Anna wasn't built for slow,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: careful progress. She well, she wanted money fast instead, and
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: she found a place where she could chase that feeling
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the race track. A harmless, little two dollar bet would
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: win her two hundred and sixty dollars early on, and
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: that small victory hooked her into betting at the racetrack,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: and very quickly she moved from the occasional wager to
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: betting twenty dollars to thirty dollars and even fifty dollars
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: a day. And remember this is the late nineteen twenties.
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: Well, I was just thinking, that's a slippery slope right.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: There, exactly. And this was money that the couple absolutely
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: could not afford to lose. And so as a result,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: the bakery began to struggle. Bills piled up, and Philip
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: worked long shifts to keep them afloat. By nineteen thirty two,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: their little shop was hanging on by a threat. The
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Great Depression didn't spare small businesses either, and with Anna's
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: growing gambling habit draining their pockets, the shop never really
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: had a fair chance. When it finally folded, the couple
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: found themselves renting rooms inside the home of a man
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: by the name of Koch, a sixty to two year
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: old widower who had owned the house and rented out
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: rooms to lodgers, including Anna and a local physician named
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: doctor Arthur Voss. Now. Koche was quiet, frail, and grateful
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: for the company. To Anna, though he wasn't just company.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: He was a man with money, a man with feeling health,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and no close relatives really to keep an eye on him.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: So she made a move and became a part of
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: his life with almost no effort. Really. She began helping
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: around the house, you know, preparing meals, running errands, and
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: betraying herself as a caring, dependable presence. Philip meanwhile, worked
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: long hours and wasn't home much. But soon Anna started
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: stealing from Koch small things at first, you know, loose change,
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: pantry items, and other things from other people in the
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: house too, including prescription pads from doctor Arthur Voss who
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: but these prescription pads, well, they turned into a dangerous territory.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Using a doctor's forged signature, she began writing orders for morphine,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: which she filled and kept for herself. Now whether she
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: used it, recreationally sold it, or whatever isn't exactly clear.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: But what is clear is that Coach suddenly got very
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: sick around the same time, and it is possible that
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: she began experimenting with this as her first means of poison.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, it's interesting because she seems like she could be good,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: but then she is. Also she's actually just this terrible human.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: She's a monster. I will see. Yeah, yes she is, But.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: I don't know. There's little glimpses I guessed it in
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: there where it's like, okay, like she could have gone
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: a good way.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: But anyone can, anyone can go a good way. But
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: what is what is she showing that's good about her?
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: I'm yeah, I guess everything she does does have an
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: ulterior motive.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: So yeah, she's manipulating every single person around her. She's
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: creating relationships and everything for means to an end. Now
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know for certain, but even her husband. Potentially
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: there's a means to an end there. She's not necessarily
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: after him for hey, a relationship, a husband, a partner,
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: someone to go through life and enjoy things with and
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: maybe raise her son, that sort of stuff. I don't
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: think so. I think she's more after someone to financial
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: support her. And there is a little bit of evidence
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: to go along with that that I'll mention here a
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: little bit later.
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: I don't know. For some I don't maybe it's because
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: it's like a female or for some reason. I'm just
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: struggling because, you know, I like the idea of someone
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: wanting a fresh start and stuff. But I know, yeah,
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: she's a terrible person. It's going to just get worse.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: So I need to change my mindset.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: Think of it this way.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Why did she want a fresh start because she burnt
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: shit back home? I guess exactly.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's looking for a fresh start, not because she's
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: looking for herself, but she's looking for fresh people to.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Manipulate who don't know of her ways exactly. Yeah.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Now, Throughout April and early May of nineteen thirty three,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: well Co suffered waves of excruciating abdominal pain, vomiting weakness,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: and even trouble swallowing. Doctors believed that he was getting
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: throat cancer and that was causing this. And Anna, well,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: she never questioned that diagnosis. In fact, she supported it
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and almost even encouraged it. Oddly enough, and on May sixth,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty three, Koch passed away. No one suspected anything criminal,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: no one ordered an autopsy, and Anna the attentive caretaker
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: position that she jumped into while she walked away with
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: everything he had. Koach's will named her his soul air shit.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: He gave her his home, personal belongings, and whatever savings
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: he had left. She even kept his ashes in an
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: urn on her mantle for a while.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Huh, okay, that I mean but she okay, I don't know.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to keep listening. She did care for him,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: but also she was probably the reason of his just demise.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: So oh she was for sure?
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, Oh, okay, okay, she shed He would have lived
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: a longer life without her having ever moving.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't say technically that she was for sure. I
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: don't believe she was conveyed did on him. Let's say that,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: but it's almost certain. How's that?
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: Okay? Okay, that's sad?
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: So years later, when her crimes did finally come to light,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: investigators would revisit Coach's death and classify it as her
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: likely first poisoning.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Okay, so.
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: They know that she is the cause of his death,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: but there's technically not a conviction attached to his name.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of why I'm being iffy on the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: clarification there. They've attached that death to her, but there's
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: no conviction, is what I'm trying to say now. At
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the time of his death, though, too, there was no
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: red flags raised, No one questioned it. It was just, oh,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: you know what, stuff happens to older people, and that
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: was really that.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: And he was literally just this little old man that
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: lost his wife and wanted company.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Pretty much now, before Coach, Anna gambled, lied and stole,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: and she hadn't crossed a line that directly ended someone's
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: life before. But after Koch While she learned something, she
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: learned that she could get away with murder, and once
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Anna realized that, everything started to accelerate. In nineteen thirty
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: four and nineteen thirty five, more financial chaos followed. Their
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: home on Coleraine Avenue suffered multiple suspicious fires, three in total.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: None were large enough to destroy the home entirely, but
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: each resulted in an insurance payout. By the third fire
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: in May of nineteen thirty six, the Hans in fact
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: collected roughly two thousand dollars in combined insurance money, not
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: a fortune, but definitely enough to keep them afloat for
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a while. Investigators years later would note that the pattern
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: was certainly odd, but at the time nothing stuck to her.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Just like with Koch, Anna walked away clean. Now around
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: this same time, she tried taking out a policy for
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: life insurance on her husband. And this is where I
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: was saying, I'm not certain that the relationship with her
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: husband was something of a partnership, and she's searching for
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: hey actual husband, because at first she tried to take
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: out a ten thousand dollars life insurance policy, which the
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: company refused, but then she applied for a five thousand
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: dollars one, which was approved, and right on cue, Philip
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: became mysteriously ill. His legs stiffened and he developed something
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: called drop foot, making it very hard to walk. Doctors
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: couldn't explain it, and Philip eventually thankfully recovered, but the
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: timing wasn't lost on anyone once Anna's full story finally
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: came out.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: So his life was worth five thousand dollars to.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: Her potentially, Yeah, okay.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: I mean I don't know what that equates to now,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: but yeah, that's not much really.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: No, not in the grand scheme of things now. Meanwhile,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: in June nineteen thirty six, she met George Heath, a
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: coal dealer. He was friendly, trusting, and far too generous
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: with Anna. He invited her into his life. He let
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: her cook for him and started referring to her even
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: as his girl and just like Koch and even Philip,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: while he soon became violently sick. Now, George eventually connected
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the dots himself, though after a few too many meals
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: prepared by Anna, he realized something wasn't right. When he
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: finally kicked her out of the home, he was partially paralyzed.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Now he survived, but he knew exactly what had happened,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: that she was poisoning him. In July nineteen thirty six,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: she was now crossing paths with Stina Cable in a
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: public restroom. Now Stina was there and the two met,
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: and they began chatting, and Anna convinced her to go
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: grab a beer together. At some point during their brief friendship,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: money went missing, about eight hundred dollars in total, in fact,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: and Steena became extremely ill, suffering symptoms that matched Anna's
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: known methods of poisoning. Now, thankfully, she too survived, but
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: only barely, spending nearly a year recovering from the encounter. Now,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: these incidents, while they marked a very important change in
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: Anna's behavior, she wasn't just taking advantage of older men anymore.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: She wasn't targeting people only for their inheritance. She was
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: in fact expanding, testing to see how far she could
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: push things, how many different ways she could make cash appear,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and how quickly she could remove someone who got in
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: her way. Because remember, she just met this person in
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: a public bathroom and went for a few beers and
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: started a friendship with this woman. And now suddenly they
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: too are falling ill, and her.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Pockets are filled with you know, a few hundred bucks exactly.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: So things are definitely expanding beyond you know, just the
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: charming these old men who are looking for a friend,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: She's looking for anyone who wants a friend. She was
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: learning that if people collapsed, that if people you know,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: had issues, They just assumed illnesses. If someone died, people
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: assumed age, bad luck, or you know what, natural decline.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: No one suspected the smiling, blonde Bavarian immigrant who offered
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: home cooked meals warm company to her friends and you
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: know what, a little bit of care along the way.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: By the end of nineteen thirty six, Anna's first verified
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: killing would be that of seventy two year old Albert Parker.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: He was a lonely widower who welcomed Anna's attention and
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: trusted her more than he should have. She eased into
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: his life, visiting often, sharing meals, and accepting loans that
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: she never intended to repay. As with so many of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: her relationships, things started with warmth and ended in illness.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Now Parker began suffering intense stomach cramps, waves of nausea,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and spells of weakness. The symptoms grew worse over time,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and by March of nineteen thirty seven he was bed ridden.
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: There was no reason for doctors to suspect foul play.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: In fact, when he died on March twenty sixth, he
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: was an elderly man living alone and had found him quietly.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: At least that's what everyone thought. The IOU he had
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: given Anna conveniently vanished, and she slipped away from the
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: situation with one less creditor and one more secret, and
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: not long after would be seventy eight year old Jacob Wagner.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: He was another elderly gentleman, a German immigrant living in Cincinnati,
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: and Anna built trust with him by showing up regularly
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: with food. There were small comforts and friendly conversations as
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: always too, and she even introduced herself to his neighbors
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: as his niece, which no one questioned. Within weeks, she
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: was managing his meals, spending long stretches of time inside
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: his home, and it's no surprise that he began suffering
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: the same pattern of symptoms, vomiting, abdominal pain, and sudden weakness.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Anna was poisoning him through one of his favorite drinks,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: orange juice, something he enjoyed and never suspected that.
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: Bitch, don't fuck with someone's orange juice, right.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: Like, come on now now. On June third, nineteen thirty seven,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: died in agony. Doctors saw nothing suspicious about a frailman dying,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: but you know what, his relatives immediately noticed something unusual.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: There was a new will that appeared one that left
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: seventeen thousand dollars nearly all of his savings too. Anna.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: It was a shocking amount of money, especially given how
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: recent she had you know, just appeared into his life.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: Mm hm.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: His family contested it, pushing for clarity, but without any
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: reason to believe that a crime had taken place, their
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: concerns went nowhere. The deaths certificate, well, it listed natural causes,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and Anna collected the inheritance, and nobody, not even her
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: closest acquaintances, noticed that she just walked away from her
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: second poisoning in a matter of months.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: That is a lot of money. But I just also
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: have to say too, like these men living in their
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: seventies back then, that's like a pretty good age, right, yeah,
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: exactly so, I it also makes sense that no one
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: would question that at all.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Now. Just over four weeks later, another man crossed her path.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: This time it was sixty seven year old George Jiselman,
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: a widowed rail worker who lived a quiet, modest life.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: He needed help around the house and was glad to
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: pay Anna for her time. She told people she was
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: acting as a nurse, a role that she never actually
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: studied for, but she played convincingly well, at least enough
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: to gain trust. All this while, Anna had been using
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: arsenic as her weapon of choice, But by the summer
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: of nineteen thirty seven, Anna had also started experimenting with
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: another substance called croton oil, a toxin that caused violent
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: vomiting and dehydration. She had purchased it the year before
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and now began using it to speed up the effects
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: of illnesses. Joselman fell sick almost immediately after eating the
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: meals that she prepared for him, and his condition deteriorated fast.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: There was wretching, collapsing. He was unable to hold food
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: down or water. It became a constant. He died on
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: July SI, just days after Anna entered his life, and
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: before his final week was over. He had paid her
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: a total of fifteen thousand dollars for her quote unquote
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: quote care that she was providing him.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, gracious, So she made that amount of
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: money in just a couple of days.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Really, basically yeah. He had no close relatives to follow
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: the money, no one who questioned why his health had
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: taken a nose dive so suddenly, and in a pattern
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: that was becoming increasingly clear in hindsight. Anna wasted no
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: time collecting what she believed she was owed, but behind
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: the scenes, her problems were only getting worse. The inheritance
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: money that she kept bringing in it was being burnt
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: away almost as fast as it arrived. Her gambling lost
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: her more than it ever won her home life with
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Philip had grown cold and distant, and she was running
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: out of elderly men in Cincinnati who had already you
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: know what, began hearing whispers about a woman with borrowing habits.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: She needed another victim, someone with money, someone she could isolate,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: someone who trusted her enough to travel with her to
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: get away from those growing whispers. And that's when she
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: met George Odin Beaufort, a quiet, sixty seven year old
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: cobbler who kept to himself and lived a simple life.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: She wasted no time making herself indispensable to him. She visited, often,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: helped with errands, played the part of a warm companion,
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: just as she had with so many others. Now, George
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: was kind, soft spoken, and lonely, the exact type of
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: man that Anna gravitated towards, and it didn't take long
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: before she convinced him to take a trip with her.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: The story she told him was that she had property
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: in Colorado, a ranch in fact, that she wanted to
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: show him. It sounded extravagant, and George trusted her. Her
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: young son, Oscar, was even going to come along in
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: the trip, which gave this trip some more con text,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: more safe feeling, even innocent appearance. So the three boarded
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: a train together in late July of nineteen thirty seven,
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: heading westward towards what George believed was a pleasant getaway now.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: Oscar later told an interviews that his mother served George
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: several drinks during that train ride. There were just simple refreshments,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: nothing suspicious on the surface, but soon after drinking them,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: George began to feel sick, and by the time they
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: reached Colorado Springs, Well, he was invisible agony. He could
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: barely stand without support, his legs shook underneath him, and
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: his stomach twisted in cramps so severe that he had
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: trouble even speaking. Anna didn't let this ruin the plans, though,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: She checked them into the Park hotel as if nothing
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: were wrong. While George lay curled up on the bed,
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: sweating and dry heaving, she went sightseeing with her son.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: She told the hotel staff simply not to worry about George.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: She was just tired from the trip. She smiled her
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: friendly mile as she explained this, and no one questioned her.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: By July thirty first, George couldn't walk in his zone.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: His symptoms kept getting worse, with vomiting, diarrhea, unbearable abdominable pain,
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: and it was obvious he needed some medical help. Things
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: were getting so bad, but Anna did finally take him
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: to Memorial Hospital, but once he was admitted, she just
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: left him there. The staff thought her behavior was strange.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: She didn't ask exactly many questions, she didn't seem worried,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: she didn't exactly stay very long. She was just distant
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: and George Odin Beaufort, unfortunately, died on August first, nineteen
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: thirty seven, in a hospital bed hundreds of miles from home.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: There was no explanation that doctors had. His decline had
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: been so sudden, so violent, and so unlike anything they
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: routinely saw with older patients. In fact, so much so
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: that they reported the death to police. Not because they
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: were they suspected a murder, but it was just so
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: unusual they needed the information documented so as per request
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: of the police, the hotel staff entered the room after
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: George's death. They began cataloging his belongings, which was standard procedure,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: but as they worked through the list of items he
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: was known to carry, they realized several pieces were missing.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: A diamond ring that he had worn early while it
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: was gone, as was his gold watch and a few
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: other small valuables he'd always kept on him. Hotel staff
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: filed a report mentioning the missing items from the room,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: and officers learned that a woman matching Anna's description had
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: tried to pawn similar items at a local pawn shop.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: The pawn dealer described her perfectly, and by the time
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: police arrived at the hotel to question her, while she
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: was already gone, she had fled Colorado and headed back
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: to Cincinnati. Now words spread quickly, Colorado investigators contacted Ohio authorities,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: and while they relayed everything Georgia's sudden illness, the missing jewelry,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: the attempted pawn and the fact that Anna A's story
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: she gave investigators about hardly knowing the men when they
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: did question her, didn't line up with the hotel logbook,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: which listed them as traveling together. George's family told police
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: that George had been in good health before the trip.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: They also said he had spoken about Anna Fondley so
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: much so that he, you know what, traveled with her
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: and trusted her. So they definitely knew each other. And
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: when they heard she had already attempted to withdraw eleven
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars from his bank account, claiming to be his wife, yeah,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: the suspicion turned into outrage. His relatives knew George had
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: never been seriously ill, He was active, steady on his feet,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: He lived a simple, predictable life. None of it made
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: any sense, so they reached out to the Cincinnati police,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: and here's where everything began to unravel. For Anna. Investigators
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: started by checking into her background, and they learned that
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: she wasn't just a passing acquaintance of George. She had
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: purchased you know, the train ticket herself. Even she'd also
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: checked into the hotel with him, as we knew, and
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: she'd tried to withdraw those thousands of dollars in the
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: bank account. All of this was painting quite the picture,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and it didn't take long for rumors to drift through
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: Cincinnati as well. People talked neighbors remember details suddenly worth repeating.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: A banker mentioned that Anna had once tried to access
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: another elderly man's funds. A grocer recalled how she always
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: seemed to be caring for someone who was on their
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: last legs, even though those men never looked sick until
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: she arrived. Someone else pointed out that there was other
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: deaths that just happened in the past year that seemed
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: to surround her. And then came the breakthrough. The Wagner family,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: still bitter about Jacob Wagner's strange will that gave her
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: all of his possessions and everything he owned, well, they
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: reached out to the police after hearing about George Odenbaufer.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: They said Jacob had been perfectly fine before Anna moved
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: into his life, and they even mentioned the orange juice
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: she always brought him. They complained about how quickly she
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: took char Ardud of his house, and they told investigators
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: outright quote, we always believed that will was fake. Not
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: long after that, relatives of George Joselman appeared with concerns too,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: and then acquaintances of Albert Park and then people who
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: knew Eric Kosch, and it was a loose thread basically
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: at this point, a loose thread that, like on a sweater,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: you pull this and it just stitches, keep coming undone.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Well, it was really only a matter of time that
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: did she think she was going to just be able
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: to keep getting away with this shit?
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: She seemed to like, it's just bonkers.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Really.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: But for the first time now though, like police were
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: realizing they might not be dealing with a single suspicious death.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: This was more like a pattern that looked a lot
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: like a serial killer.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's a serial kill.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: She is. Yeah, and she, like you said, thought that
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: she could just keep doing it. Meanwhile, Colorado authorities were
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: still trying to determine how George oden Beaufer had died
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: so quickly. They arranged for a full autopsy, and when
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: the results came in, they found his cause of death
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: was arsenic, not a trace amount, not an accidental contamination,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: but a massive, unmistakable dose. The moment this finding was
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: shared with Cincinnati, everything changed. Investigators now had a confirmed
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: poisoning tied to a woman whose past was suddenly filled
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: with convenient deaths. They reached out to Hamilton County officials
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: with growing concerns suggesting that more autopsies might actually be necessary.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: It was an unusual request. I mean, Ohio had already
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: buried several of these men. Exhimation was invasive, it was
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: costly and emotionally difficult for families, but curiosity was quickly
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: turning into alarm, and the families agreed that it had
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: to be done.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would too if I were them.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Yep. So within days, the bodies of Jacob Wagner and
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: George Gisselman were lifted from their graves and sent for examination,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: and the results were shot. Wagner's organs contained four times
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: the lethal dose of arsenic, so much poison that the
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: medical examiner said he couldn't believe the man survived for
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: as long as he did. Just Slman's body showed something different,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: but equally disturbing signs of severe poisoning by croton oil,
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: a toxic substance that causes uncontrollable vomiting and dehydration. As
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, she was playing with new new substances.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Let's say that his illness had matched all these things perfectly,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: and with this information, investigators could no longer pretend that
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: there were simply coincidences. So by the time police went
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: to search Anna's house. They weren't just looking for clues.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: They were expecting to find something incriminating, and what they
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: discovered exceeded anything they predicted. Inside covers, drawers, and tucked
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: behind bottles, they found poisons galore, arsenic rat poisoning, mysterious
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: powders and liquids, and unmarked containers. They found documents linked
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: to multiple victims, bank books, IOU's altered papers, and questionable
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: wills that were clearly forged. Upon examination, the financial trails
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: showed sudden cash deposits, pawn slips, and withdrawals that lined
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: up neatly with each victim's death. They also found evidence
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: of her gambling debts and her attempts to ensure her
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: husband's life. People who had once been close to the
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: victims also began to speak up. Neighbors remembered bringing meals
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: things like that that she do to these ill individuals survivors.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: In fact, they recalled becoming violently sick after food that
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: she prepared. Others described being pressured to sign documents that
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: were too they were too weak to read them or
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: really understand what was going on. Taken together, these accounts
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: painted a picture that matched the forensic findings and everything
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: that was in her home all too well. There was
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: no question of whether Anna Marie Han was poisoning men.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Point the only question left was how many men had
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: she actually killed. She was swiftly arrested on August twenty fourth,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven. In fact, she almost seemed calm when
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: officers informed her she was being taken into custody. She
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: didn't protest or expressed shock, just a brief flicker of irritation,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: as though police had interrupted her day rather than you know,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: accusing her of murder. At the headquarters, investigators began asking
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: the questions They pressed her on, the sudden inheritance from
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Jacob Wagner, the trip to Colorado with George Odenbaufer, and
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: the found forged documents tying her to estates that should
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: never have passed into her hands. And of course she
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: denied everything, claiming she was being targeted because she was
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: a foreigner, a mother, and a woman trying to make
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: a living. But when detectives confronted her with the toxicology
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: reports and evidence found in her house, well that's when
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: things started to crumble. During one interview, she admits that
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: she had given quote medicine to several of the men,
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: though she insisted she was only trying to help their ailments. Later,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: she shifted again, suggesting that perhaps they'd accidentally taken the
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: wrong doses. Eventually, she offered more direct admissions, acknowledging she
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: had given arsenic to four of the men, only to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: take it back during the next round of questioning. Though meanwhile,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: the public's interest in the unfolding story grew rapidly. Newspapers
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: described her as attractive, charming, and deceptively gentle, leaning heavily
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: into the contrast between her appearance and the accusation against her.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: More witnesses began stepping forward as well, strengthening the case.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: But somehow, even as the mounting evidence made her situation
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: look increasingly dire, Anna maintained a sense of confidence. She
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: hired attorneys and insisted she was going to clear her name,
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: but it was too late for that. The forensic reports
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: had been conclusive, the financial motive was clear, and the
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: number of suspicious deaths connected her continued to rise. The
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: trial of Anna Marie Han began on October eleventh, nineteen
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: thirty seven. Reporters filled the hallways before sunrise, hoping to
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: secure seats in a courtroom already buzzing with anticipation, and
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: curious locals waited outside just to catch a glimpse of
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: the woman accused of poisoning elderly men for money. Remember
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: this is in an era where female killers were almost
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: unheard of. The idea of a young mother sitting at
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: a defense table made the case irresistible to the public.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: Anna walked into the courtroom, dressed neatly, her hair tidy,
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: her expression again almost confident. She looked more like a
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: school teacher than someone accused of murdering multiple men, and
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: that contrast became the constant point of fascination for the press,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: who studied every glance, every tilt of her head, and
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: just searching for signs of the monster that they expected
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: to see. When things began, the prosecution didn't waste time
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: establishing their narrative. She was only tried for one of
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: the murders. That was the murder of Jacob Wagner, because
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: his case carried the strongest forensic evidence, the clearest financial motive,
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: and the highest chance of securing a conviction that would
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: still result in the maximum penalty. Still, prosecutors were prepared
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: with much more evidence and stories to discuss beyond just
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: his death. In this case, they called doctors, toxicologists, and
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: coroners who examined the exumed bodies of Jacob Wagner and others.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: The courtroom listened as experts described lethal concentrations of arsenic
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: found in their organs, amounts far beyond anything accidental or
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: even environmental. Charts and diagrams were brought in to explain
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: how arsenic ravages the human body, and then the prosecution
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: brought forward the people who had known these men, relatives, neighbors, acquaintances.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: They all took the stand and described how Anna had
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: appeared in their lives, offering to help with meals, errands,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: and all this companionship. They described sudden illnesses that began
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: shortly after her involvement, and financial decisions that made no sense.
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: Wills changed, loans were given, savings withdrawn, all of it.
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: One by one, they traced her presence through each victim's
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: final days. The most impactful testimony came from a survivor,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: George Heiss. He had once trusted Anna enough to let
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: her care for him, only to become violently ill after
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: eating food she prepared and he grew seriously concerned and
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: realized what was happening before he confronted her and told
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: her to leave. Financial experts would follow, laying out the
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: rapid rise in Anna's bank accounts and deposits and everything
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: after each death. Records show life insurance policies, forge wills,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: and sudden access to accounts that had once belonged to
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: the deceased, And after weeks of testimony, the defense well
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: they finally had their turn. Their strategy centered on reframing
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Anna as a devoted mother driven by desperation and aunt malice.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: They argued that the confession that she had given to police,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: while it was a result of pressure and exhaustion. They
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: questioned the validity of the exhumed remains and suggested that
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the men had died from natural causes, causes that merely
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: mimicked poisoning. Anna herself took the stand as well, Looking
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: calm and composed, She denied every single accusation, insisting she
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: had cared for these men, not harm them, and that
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: she was a victim of lies, misunderstanding, and the circumstances
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: around her twisting the story. Her son, Oscar just twelve
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: years old, now testified that he'd never seen his mother
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: give poison to anyone. He described her as loving and
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: a tentative, and the sight of the young boy defending
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: his mother stirred a law a lot of sympathy in
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: that courtroom. But sympathy only goes so far.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Well, that was a pretty good strategy though, to put
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: him in there. Hey, death defense, it's kind of dirty.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, I think there. I don't know if they
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: would allow that today. I'm not sure if there's like
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: a certain age or anything. I really have no clue, but.
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't hear about it, really, you certainly don't. Now.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: By the end of the defense's presentation, the evidence presented
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: by the prosecution still dominated the courtroom. The jury had
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: heard over a hundred witnesses, each adding another piece to
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the puzzle that no longer resembled any sort of coincidence.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: The closing arguments summed up the case with a sharp clarity.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: Wherever Anna went, illness followed, and death wasn't far behind.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: When the jury finally retreated to deliberate, the courtroom held
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: its breath, and it took them only a very short
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: time to reach a decision. As they filed back in
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: the courtroom and sat stiffly at the defense table. She
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: stared straight ahead, almost refusing to look at the jurors
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: as they returned to their seats. The foreman stood up
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: and the room went still. The jury found Anna guilty
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: of first degree murder for the seventy eight year old
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: Jacob Wagner.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Good there would have been if it was any other outcome,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: that would not be okay. I agree, It's very obvious. Really,
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: they had so much evidence, so.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Much, a ridiculous amount. Now Anna didn't collapse or cry. Instead,
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: she stared blankly ahead, just frozen in disbelief. It was
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: as if she finally realized that charm, that confidence, that
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: the calm explanations she had relied on her entire life,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: they were no longer enough to protect her.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: It had expired yeap.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: Now, her husband, Philip Hann, who had remained loyal through
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the trial despite everything swirling around his wife, he broke
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: down upon hearing that decision. He leaned forward in his
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: seat and buried his face in his hands, shaking as
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: though the ground had been pulled from beneath him. Now,
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: their son Oscar wasn't present for the verdict On November tenth,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven. The judge pronounced the sentencing. When asked
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: if she had anything to say, Anna stood, trembling but defiant.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: She insisted she was innocent. Her voice cracked as she
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: addressed the court, but it wasn't enough to change the outcome.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Anna was sentenced to death in the electric chair.
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: Oh my, okay, I was wondering if that was going
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: to be the sentencing.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Newspapers across the country ran dramatic headlines, calling her the
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: blonde Borgia, the poised angel, and even arsenic Annie.
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: M there we go.
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: The idea of a woman, not just any woman, but
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: a young, attractive mother being sentenced to death electrified the public.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Pun intended. Some felt she deserved nothing less, but others
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: felt unsettled by the thought of a woman in the
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: electric chair. But regardless of opinion, the name Anna Marie
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: Hahn was now cemented in American true crime history. Anna
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: was soon transported to Ohio State Penitentiary and Columbus, arriving
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: on December one, nineteen thirty seven. The prison's women's section
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: was small, and her new home was a narrow cell
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: in the death House, the same building that held the
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: electric chair. She was now destined to meet. While the
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: few other women in the penitentiary worked in quiet, repetitive routines,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: Anna spent most of her time alone, cut off from
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: the rhythms of normal prison life. Guards described her as
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: polite but withdrawn, pacing in her cell, sitting for hours
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: with her hands folded in her lap. Her appeals moved
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: slowly through the court system as her attorney's fouled motion,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: arguing the evidence was circumstantial, that publicity had influenced the jury,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: and that her confession had been made under duress. But
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: in early nineteen thirty eight, the Ohio courts of appeal well,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: they rejected the claim. While the rejections stacked up an
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: as emotional state shifted, she leaned heavily into religion, meeting
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: with priests, reading scriptures, and writing letters filled with expressions
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: of faith and remorse. Now whether this transformation was genuine
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: or a grasp for comfort in her final final days,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: it's impossible to know, but by all accounts she became
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: deeply devout. Her son, Oscar, visited her when he could,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: escorted into the penitentiary by relatives who cared for him.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: As her execution date approached, Anna spent her time writing letters, praying,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: and speaking with the prison's chaplain, Father John Sullivan. December seventh,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: nineteen thirty eight began quietly inside the alcohol Io State Penitentiary.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Anna had barely slept. She knew it was coming, and
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: in the hours leading up, she paced her cell, gripped
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: her bars, and whispered prayers and pausing every few minutes
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: to sit down, as though her legs couldn't hold her
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: upright for long. Evening approached and Father John Sullivan arrived
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: to sit with her. The two spoke softly, their voices
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: barely audible outside the cell. He read scriptures with her,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: offered comfort in the only form she still believed in,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: and at eight pm the guards came for her. The
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: walk to the execution chamber was short, but halfway there,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: her knees began to buckle. She began to shake so
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: violently that the guards had to support her by her arms,
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: and they paused to give her a moment to breathe,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: but she seemed unable to find her footing. Her terror
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: was overwhelming her. With the help of smelling salts, they
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: marched her forward. Her eyes were wet and unfocused as
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: the heavy wooden door at the end of the corridor
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: grew nearer. Reporters, attorneys, officials, and the Warden himself watched
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: as Anna was helped into the chair and leather straps
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: were pulled tight around her wrists and ankles. Her head drooped,
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: and when she finally lifted it, her face was streaking
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: with tears. Father Sullivan stood close repeated the Lord's Prayer
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: with her, and she recited it softly, breath by breath,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: and the final words barely escaped her lips. When the
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: warden gave the signal at eight thirteen pm, the switch
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: was thrown. The current surged through her body, snapping her
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: head back against the chair as the electricity did its work,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: and within seconds her body fell still. The doctor stepped forward,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: checking for a pulse, and pronounced her dead at thirty
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: two years old. Warden Woodward looked shaken, unable to hide
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: the weight of overseeing the first execution of a woman
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: in Ohio's history.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: They don't mess around back then. I feel like all
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: of this shit happened so quickly, Like her trial was
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: the year previous and now it's the next year and
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: she's gone.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she sat on death row for one year.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: Wow, yep, okay.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Not only that, but even the morning after her death
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: well in the cemetery grounds in Columbus. Her burial happened
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: on December eighth, so just one day later, there's there.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: It is done now. It was overseen by a few
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: officials and a priest who read a brief prayer before
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: she was lowered into the ground. It was definitely a
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: stark contrast from the spectacle that her trial was like.
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: Like you mentioned a year ago, it was so many people,
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: so many headlines, so much interest. But now there was
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: barely anyone standing around her. Now she was placed in
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: a Catholic cemetery, though not in consecrated ground. Her crimes
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: made sure that was not going to be the case. Oscar,
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: her twelve year old son, did not attend the burial.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: In the days following her execution, he was moved into
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: the care of another family, with his name changed to
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: protect him from the attention that still did surround the case.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: His mother had been one of the most talked about
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: killers of the decade, and her story had spread far
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: beyond just Ohio. The best hope for his future was
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: definitely anonymity. In the years that followed. People kept returning
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: to Anna's case, not because of the scale of the
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: murders per se, but because of who she was, a
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: female serial killer. That alone was enough to return to
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: her story. That alone was rare at the time, trying
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: to understand how someone who appeared warm, polite, and eager
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: to help could someone like that could carry out so
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: many poisonings without detection. It all made for public fascination
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: and honestly something historical. Her crimes also had an unexpected
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: impact on how investigators approached suspicious deaths, especially those involving
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: elderly victims. Before her arrest, many of the men she
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: poisoned were simply believed to have died of age related
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: illness or natural causes. Autopsies weren't always performed, especially when
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: there was no obvious trauma. Anna's case helped shift that thinking.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Forensic toxicology while it began to play more of a
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: central role in death investigations, especially where poisoning was obviously
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: a possibility. Because of it all, her case became an
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: example used in training and textbooks, a reminder that a
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: quiet death could still be a violent one. For the
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: families of the victims, answers came too late to bring
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: any real comfort. They received confirmation, yes, but not really closure.
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: Some of them learned only through newspaper headlines that their
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: loved ones in fact had been exhumed and tested, and
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: the realization that Anna had deliberately targeted these men long
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: before authority suspected anything. While left lingering bitterness. By the
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: time her trial concluded, many felt that justice had been served,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: but none walked away feeling whole. Over time, the edges
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: of the story while it began to soften like many do,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: but the core of it remains very unsettling. It's not
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: a tale of rage or impulse, but of patience and calculation.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: Poison requires closeness, it requires time, and in every case,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: Anna stayed long enough to watch her victims deteriorate, always
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: positioning herself as the helpful caregiver. That contradiction, the smiling
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: face and the deadly intent. That's what kept her case
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: alive long after she was gone. In the end, Anna
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: Marie Han left behind no legacy of her own, with
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: even her son starting a new life with a new name,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: She left only the stories of those who died under
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: her care. Her burial plot in Columbus remains quiet, with
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: no crowds, without flowers, and without the family she had
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: once tried to build a life with. History remembers her,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: but certainly not for the smiling, polite, beautiful woman she
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: portrayed herself as, but simply as arsenic Annie. And that's
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: the story of arsenic Anny.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: Okay, Well, for the record, I'm definitely not on her
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: side at all anymore. She is like peer evil, peer
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: chaos really.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the irony too in the fact that she
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: wanted money fast, but she has the patience to kill
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: someone slowly like that.
• 58:42
  Speaker 2: Well, I feel like she did so many though in
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: a fairly short period of time though, And she did
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: gather a lot.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: Of money that just pissed away.
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like she just I don't.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: Know, lost it all.
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is crazy because that money should have, you know,
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: lasted with her for a long ass time.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: So technically, she wasn't even killing for money. She was
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: killing for a gambling addiction. That's what she was killing for,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: not for wealth, for gam for entertainment. She was killing
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: for entertaining herself in a different way, not because she
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: per se enjoyed the killings, and not saying she didn't.
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: She may have, but she was looking for pursuing her gambling.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, so she really did have two problems. A
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: gambling problem and then she also was like a cold
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: blooded murderer.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: I think she's just one big old problem. Yeah, she
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: herself you know.
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: Well, I can't remember the one guy's name. Well, and
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: the female too. They both just dodged a bullet. Like
• 59:39
  Speaker 2: that is so awesome that that one guy you know,
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: kept her out, was able to step back and realize, like,
• 59:46
  Speaker 2: this lady is doing this to me, because yeah, his
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: fate was like pretty well sealed.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Basically he managed to escape because he had that realization. Yeah,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: so props to him for actually coming to that realization
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: because that would probably be hard to do, especially when
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: you have someone who's convincing you and talking you into
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: these things and is charming.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when she's really good at what she's doing exactly, Yeah,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: because she I think she comes off as just like
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: pure innocent really to.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: Them, right, Oh definitely, and that's what she does. She
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: plays this up. Yeah, she's hiding behind a mask of innocence,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: beauty even but when really behind it is a full
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: on monster.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: Okay. Well, and she did something to her husband as well, right,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: she at least.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Was testing poisons on him. Whether she was intending to
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: kill him or not, I don't know, but yeah, he
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: definitely got sick. He had that the foot thing, Yeah,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: the what was it a drop leg they called it,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: And yeah, he got better, thankfully, and she just went
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: on to other people. Maybe she realized it might be
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: too close. Maybe he's not old enough and she targeted
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: older people. I don't know.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: Well, he had to know that something was going on, though.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: I think she was doing something and he was just
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: turning away from it.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Well, he was working all the time though too. He
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: may not have been aware of all these people that
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: she's seen.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: Well, if I just suddenly brought in, say twenty grand,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: would you not be like what you doing?
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Did he know she was bringing in that money? Or
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: does she just bring it in and just instantly go
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: gamble it and he knew none the wiser I guess.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: But I mean like the police were able to find
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: it very easily throughout their home. So I mean like
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: if he opened his eyeballs and was observant, there would
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: be signs.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, clearly he wasn't. Maybe he knew, you're right,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: Maybe he knew but maybe he was just ignorant to
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: the situation. Maybe he didn't want to know, and he
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: forced himself to turn a blind eye that way, and
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: that's how he didn't know.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, what a wild story though, that is.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: You know, it's pretty shitty to think that you could
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: get up to that age and then someone just like
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: takes that much advantage of you. You know.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's bonkers. People suck, they do.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's literally how we could end every one
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 2: of these cases.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: Ye welcome, wicked and grim. People suck, thank you, goodbye.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not all people, but there definitely are some, like
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: really really evil ones out there.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: There's good souls and bad souls. There's light, there's dark.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: It's yin and yang, right, but yeah, yeah, it's just
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: hard to see the light sometimes when you look at
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: people like this because god dang, she sucks. But anyways,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: I digress. You guys are amazing. The fact that you're
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: here supporting us says you guys are some of the
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: cool people out there. You don't suck, You're awesome. Thank you.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: I'm going to leave it at that and until next time,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: stay wicked.