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MURDER: Fred Oesterreich

Life in the attic of the home his lover lived in with her husband was calm but one night an argument led to a murder.

It all started with Walburga ‘Dolly’ Korschel. Born in 1880, she grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in a community of German immigrants. By the age of 12, Dolly had started working at Fred Oesterreich’s textile mill. Workers there described her as highly charismatic and attractive with many friends.

Dolly very quickly attracted the attention of Fred and by the time Dolly was 17 she was married to her boss. Despite being the boss’s wife, Dolly continued to be close with the workers, settling disputes and acting as the messenger for the employees and Fred. Yet, there were still rumours that 17-year-old Dolly was having affairs since the beginning of her marriage.

Years later in 1913 when Dolly was 33 she needed her sewing machine repaired, this was how she would meet Otto Sanhuber. Dolly invited the 17-year-old into the home she shared with Fred and the affair began that very day. To keep the neighbours from getting suspicious about the young man in the home, Dolly told them Otto was her “vagabond half brother”.

When the time came when they wanted to hide the affair further, Otto was sent to live in the attic. Restricted to silence during the hours that Fred was home, Otto would spend his time reading and writing Sci-Fi stories on paper. His only entrance/exit would be inside the couple’s closet, connected to their bedroom. When Fred was at work, Otto was free to roam the home without worrying about making too much noise. He would do housework for Dolly and she would send his stories to publishers on his behalf. Later on in life, Otto would describe himself as a “sex slave” and that he and Dolly would have sex a minimum of 8 times a day. Fred remained unaware of the situation.

In 1918 Fred wanted to move to Los Angeles but Dolly refused unless she got to pick the new house. Fred agreed. She would end up picking a house with an attic which was extremely rare for LA homes. Otto would move into the new place days before the couple joined him in the home.

It went back to the same routine again up until August 22nd, 1922.

Dolly and Fred had been arguing for hours and Otto began believing that Dolly was in danger. He snuck out of the attic, collecting two .25 calibre pistols from out the bedroom bureau before he walked out to where he could hear the couple still arguing. A struggle began between Otto and Fred it ended with Fred getting shot three times, and dying in the home.

Quickly after the shots, Otto and Dolly went to cover the murder up by staging a botched robbery. Dolly took some cash and Fred’s diamond watch and gave them to Otto to hide in the attic with. Before he was able to go hide, they locked Dolly into the closet and tossed the key outside the room. With Dolly in the closet, Otto took what was given to him and grabbed the two guns and hid away in the attic. The police arrived after the neighbours reported the gunshots, instantly they suspected Dolly but couldn’t exactly understand how she locked herself inside the closet.

For 8 years, Otto hid away in the attic now having a typewriter to use since he no longer had to stay quiet. Dolly had hired a personal attorney, (Herman Shapiro) after she was accused of killing her husband. The two started having an affair and no one suspected anything more. 1930 it started crumbling away when Dolly gifted Shapiro a diamond watch, the same watch that she claimed was stolen from her home the night her husband died. Dolly claimed that she found it in the yard.

Another of Dolly’s lovers Roy Klumb went to the police after he found out about the relationship with Herman. He told the police that Dolly had asked him to throw a gun into La Brea Tar Pit shortly after the murder. A neighbour had come forward with a similar story except they buried the gun under a rose bush on their lawn, claiming that Dolly asked them to get rid of it since she “did not want to get into trouble”. The police got both guns and were able to match them to the murder despite how decayed they were. Dolly was arrested under suspicion of murder.

Whilst Dolly was being held in jail she requested for Herman to go and check on her vagabond half brother that lived in the attic. When Herman got there he was greeted by a pale and thin but rather polite Otto. He quite willingly explained his relationship with Dolly and confessed to his role in the murder.

He was arrested for manslaughter and was dubbed The Bat Man by the press. Otto was soon released since the statute of limitations had expired. He changed his name to Walter Klein and moved to Canada, he would later go on to marry and moved back to LA where he lived out his life in relative peace.

Dolly’s trial went to a hung jury and by 19136 the indictment was dropped and Dolly wasn’t charged. She remained in LA until she died in 1961. She too lived rather peacefully after getting away with murdering her husband.

(originally posted on medium.com/@natasha.leigh)

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Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA

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