Los Angeles Times
March 20, 1995, Monday, Home Edition
SECTION: Metro; Part B; Page 3; Metro Desk
LENGTH: 899 words
HEADLINE: L.A. SCENE / THE CITY THEN AND
NOW : 'BAT MAN' CASE: A LURID TALE OF LOVE
AND DEATH
By Cecilia Rasmussen
Even by the standards of the day, this
was one of the most outrageous slayings of
the age. And it fed the front pages for
eight years. Walburga (Dolly) Oesterreich
was at the center of one of the city's most
sensational love affairs, a tale feasted on
by the city's newspapers in the 1920s and
'30s, when brassy headlines reflected the
cutthroat competition.
Newspapers described her as a "naughty
vamp" and "comely." Her eyes and her
appetites would bring a long line of men
into her life -- and send one to his death.
She had been a Milwaukee housewife,
married to a dour, hard-drinking apron
manufacturer named Fred Oesterreich. But
the
housewife, and the house, had a secret: Her
lover, Otto Sanhuber, a small, quiet sewing
machine repairman who had worked for
Oesterreich, lived for 10 years in the
attic
over the apron manufacturer's bed, hidden
there by Dolly.
When the Oesterreiches moved to Los
Angeles, Sanhuber came along and took up
residence in the attic of a house above
Sunset Boulevard.
One summer night, when he heard the
Oesterreiches quarreling, Sanhuber came out
of his hideaway and shot Fred Oesterreich
to
death.
The investigations and trial were to
last eight years and end in a mistrial.
Dolly Oesterreich was never retried on
charges of conspiracy to commit murder.
However her "sex slave," Sanhuber, was
convicted.
*
Their bizarre arrangement began in 1913,
when Dolly Oesterreich, 26, called her
husband at the apron factory, complaining
that her sewing machine did not work. Her
husband sent Sanhuber, 17, to fix it. Dolly
Oesterreich, who had noticed Sanhuber at
the
factory, greeted him in a silk robe,
stockings, heavy perfume and nothing else.
It was the beginning of a decade-long
affair.
In 1918, when the Oesterreiches moved to
Lafayette Park Place in Los Angeles,
Sanhuber quietly moved in right over them.
At night, he read mysteries by candlelight
and wrote stories of adventure and lust. By
day he made love to Dolly Oesterreich,
helped her keep house and made bathtub gin.
On Aug. 22, 1922, the Oesterreiches
returned home arguing. As the fight grew
louder, Sanhuber hurried down from the
attic
to protect her, carrying two.25-caliber
guns. When Oesterreich recognized Sanhuber,
he flew into a rage. They struggled, the
guns went off and Oesterreich was shot.
Thinking fast, Sanhuber locked Dolly in
a closet, then hurried upstairs to his
hideaway before police arrived, summoned by
a neighbor who heard the shots.
She told police that a burglar had shot
her husband, taken his expensive watch,
locked her up and fled.
But the detective became suspicious when
she said that she and her husband had never
quarreled. Fred Oesterreich was a wealthy
man, and although the detective considered
that motive for murder, he had no evidence.
Dolly moved to a house nearby, and
Sanhuber stayed in that attic too, writing
on a typewriter he bought with proceeds
from
the sale of his stories and with the
nickels
and dimes -- never anything larger --
bestowed on him by Dolly.
Freed from her marriage, she became fond
of her estate attorney, Herman S. Shapiro.
She gave him a diamond watch, which he
recognized as the one that the supposed
burglar had stolen the night her husband
was
slain. She explained that she had found it
later under a window seat cushion.
While Sanhuber wrote and Shapiro spent
long hours in court, Oesterreich took up
with a businessman named Roy H. Klumb. She
begged him for a favor: She had a gun that
looked just like the one that killed her
husband. And she worried that the police
might find it and suspect her of murder.
Would he get rid of it for her? Dutifully,
Klumb threw the gun into the La Brea Tar
Pits.
She told the same story to a neighbor,
who buried the second gun in his yard.
When Oesterreich broke off with Klumb,
he told police about the gun and the tar
pits. On July 12, 1923, 11 months after the
murder, police found the gun near the
oozing
tar and Oesterreich was arrested.
The day the headlines hit, the neighbor
walked into the police station with the
second gun.
But both were too rusted to determine
whether they had fired the fatal bullets.
From jail, Oesterreich pleaded with
Shapiro to buy groceries for Sanhuber and
to
tap on the ceiling of the bedroom closet to
let him know he should come out.
Sanhuber, starved for conversation,
began telling the attorney lurid tales
about
his 10 years with Dolly. Shapiro issued an
ultimatum, and Sanhuber left the state.
After Oesterreich was released on bail,
Shapiro moved in with her --but not into
the
attic. The charges were eventually dropped.
But in 1930, after seven stormy years
with Oesterreich, Shapiro moved out and
came
clean. He told authorities what he knew.
A second warrant was issued for
Oesterreich's arrest; she was charged with
conspiracy, and Sanhuber was charged with
murder.
The papers dubbed it the "Bat Man" case
after learning that Sanhuber had led a
cave-
like existence in the attic.
The jury found Sanhuber guilty of
manslaughter, in spite of his defense that
he had been enslaved by her. But the
statute
of limitations had run out and Sanhuber,
now
43, walked free.
At Oesterreich's conspiracy trial, famed
attorney Jerry Giesler won a hung jury, and
Oesterreich was free.
In 1961, she died at age 75, less than
two weeks after marrying her second husband
and 30-year companion, Ray Bert Hedrick.
GRAPHIC: Photo, Dolly Oesterreich at 1923
hearing with, from left, attorney Jerry
Giesler, detective Herman Cline and
attorney
Frank Dominguez. Los Angeles Times; Photo,
Jurors visit Lafayette Park Place house
where Fred Oesterreich was shot to death.
Los Angeles Times