The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes (25 page)

All Cline found out in Milwaukee was that Walburga and Fred Oesterreich had frequently quarrelled. Yet that was enough to establish that Walburga Oesterreich had lied to him. False in one thing, false in all?

Oesterreich had an estate of about a million dollars, but it was in such a tangled condition that his widow had to engage the services of one of Los Angeles’ ablest civil attorneys—Herman Shapiro—to untangle it for her. As Walburga was leaving Shapiro’s office the first day they met she presented him with a diamond-studded watch. “Here,” she said, “this belonged to my dear husband. I want you to have it.”

“Didn’t I read something in the papers about that burglar stealing a watch like this one from your husband?” asked Shapiro.

“Yes,” said Mrs Oesterreich, “but apparently he didn’t. I found this watch under the cushion of a window seat in the living room.”

Mrs Oesterreich put the house on St Andrews Place up for sale and bought a smaller house on North Beachwood Drive. There was a nice, comfortable attic in this house, too, so Otto Sanhuber went right along.

Somewhere along the way, Mrs. Oesterreich had struck up an acquaintanceship with an actor—a fellow named Bellows—and one day when they met for lunch in a Hollywood restaurant she reached into her handbag and handed him a large envelope. The envelope contained a .25-calibre revolver.

“What’s this?” asked Bellows.

“I keep it for self-protection,” said Mrs. Oesterreich. “But since dear Fred was also killed by a .25-calibre revolver, it might look suspicious if the police found this in my possession. So do me a favor, will you. Dispose of it somewhere for me.”

Bellows tossed the gun into the LaBrea tar pits—a piece of Los Angeles real estate that holds more secrets than a Hollywood casting couch.

One day about a year after the murder, Chief of Detectives Cline, still convinced that Mrs Oesterreich had guilty knowledge of her husband’s death, decided to drop into Shapiro’s office. He happened to notice the diamond-studded watch. When Shapiro explained where Mrs Oesterreich claimed to have found the watch, Cline clapped on his hat and headed for Beachwood Drive to arrest the woman and charge her with murder. A hold-up man, Cline knew, would not snatch a watch from a man he was murdering and then hide the watch under the cushion of a window seat.

What Cline was hoping for when he pinched Walburga Oesterreich was a confession. He didn’t get it. The lady, held without bail, screamed for Shapiro. “Go up to the big bedroom in my home,” Mrs Oesterreich instructed Shapiro, “and tap three times on the trap door in the closet. There’s somebody up there in the attic—a half brother of mine who’s a sort of a vagabond. Please tell him I’ve gone to Milwaukee on business and will see him soon.”

When Shapiro tapped three times on the trap door, the door opened and there was little Otto Sanhuber. Otto, now nearing his fortieth year, was the color of library paste but seemed to be in good health. When Shapiro, standing there in the closet and looking up, introduced himself and gave him Mrs Oesterreich’s message, Otto smiled and thanked him. Then, growing thoughtful, Otto said, “I feel as if I know you, Mr Shapiro. Mrs Oesterreich has spoken of you many times. It’s too bad that she has been so upset over something that I did.”

“That
you
did!”

“Yes, I shot Mr Oesterreich. It was an accident.”

“Tell me about it.”

Shapiro sat down on the floor of the closet, got out a pencil and pad, and began to make notes. It seemed that on the night of the murder, the Oesterreichs had come home, quarreling as usual. Otto, who had been cavorting around the house after raiding the refrigerator, had, instead of going back to the attic, decided to get into the fight. He knew where Mrs Oesterreich kept a little .25-calibre revolver, so he got it, then went downstairs and confronted Oesterreich. “Unhand this lovely woman!” said Otto, stealing a line of dialogue right out of one of his own stories. Oesterreich just glowered at little Otto and made a lunge for him. Otto, in a panic, pulled the trigger several times and the first thing he knew there was Fred Oesterreich lying on the floor dead.

Now Otto drew upon his talents as an author and concocted something to fool the police. He snatched Oesterreich’s diamond-studded watch and gave it to Walburga. Then, he rushed to the second floor with Mrs Oesterreich, told her to lock herself in the closet and shove the key through the crack between the bottom of the door and the floor, and disappeared into his hideaway in the attic.

It occurred to Shapiro that Otto had been pretty stupid. He should never have given that watch to Mrs Oesterreich and he should have locked Mrs Oesterreich in the closet himself, and left the key in the keyhole on the outside of the door. Then Chief of Detectives Cline would not have spotted the flaws in the whole business. But Otto, in a panic because he had just killed a man, hadn’t been thinking clearly.

Otto, not having talked to a living soul save Walburga Oesterreich (and, briefly, Fred) for four years, couldn’t dam up the flow of words. He lay on the floor of the attic and, looking down at the lawyer sitting in the closet, began to go over every phase of his long and unique relationship with Walburga Oesterreich.

Shapiro, deciding that Mrs Oesterreich needed a good criminal lawyer, enlisted the services of Frank Dominquez, one of LA’s cagiest mouthpieces. “Go out to that house on Beachwood Drive,” Dominquez said to Shapiro, “and get that man to hell out of that attic. In fact, tell him to get out of the country.”

Sanhuber went north to Vancouver, British Columbia. Dominquez went to the District Attorney, and, since Otto was out of the country and the lethal weapon was in the LaBrea tar pits, demanded the release of Mrs Oesterreich, and got it. Shortly thereafter Mrs Oesterreich got her husband’s inheritance and settled down to a comfortable life in the house on Beachwood Drive.

Seven years passed. Chief of Detectives Cline, now retired, wandered around Los Angeles, muttering in his beard. And then, one day in 1930, all hell broke loose. Shapiro, Mrs Oesterreich’s civil lawyer, went to the District Attorney. He and Mrs Oesterreich had gotten into some fierce fights about money and the lawyer, fearing injury or possible death at the hands of the woman, wished to make public an affidavit about the death of Fred Oesterreich. And so Shapiro spilled the whole story.

Mrs Oesterreich and Sanhuber were both in Los Angeles, but not seeing each other any more. The lady had found several new lovers, who were being paid well for their services. Otto, on the other hand, had married in Canada but, unable to find steady employment there, had returned to Los Angeles. He was working as a night porter in an apartment house so that he could sleep during the day when the sun was out.

When Mrs Oesterreich and Sanhuber were pinched, she refused to talk, but Otto went before a grand jury and repeated everything that he had told to Shapiro that day seven years previously. Mrs Oesterreich and Otto were both indicted for the murder of her husband.

Otto, tried first, had as his counsel Earl Seeley Wakeman, a man who had never lost a murder trial. Otto repudiated his confession so that the State was left with Shapiro’s second-hand account of the murder. The jury didn’t say yes and it didn’t say no. It found Otto Sanhuber guilty of manslaughter.

And maybe
that
didn’t stir up a fascinating legal dust storm. The statute of limitations on manslaughter ran out after three years, and here was a man who was guilty of a manslaughter committed
eight
years previously. Simple arithmetic was all that was needed to establish the fact that little Otto Sanhuber was five years on the laughing side of the limitations ledger. And so the little man was set free, to trail off, at the age of forty-four, into the silences, never to be heard from again.

Now Mrs Oesterreich went to bat, having as her counsel, Jerry Geisler, the cagiest lawyer in California. Walburga, now sixty-three years old, got on the stand in her own defense and laid all the blame on little Otto. She had not come forward at the time of her husband’s death and told the truth because she hadn’t wanted to be embarrassed by public disclosure of her private life. Embarrassed indeed!

The jury couldn’t quite make up its mind about Walburga; it disagreed. The murder indictment against the woman hung fire for six years and then, in 1936, the District Attorney, feeling he could never make the charge against the lady stick, moved to have the indictment nolle prossed.

Mrs Oesterreich began to plunge in the stock market, with disastrous results. In the early forties, with only a few thousand dollars to her name, she took up residence over a garage in the Wilshire district of the city. Four years later, when a reporter for one of the Los Angeles papers sought to interview her, he found that she had, like Otto, trailed off into the silences, leaving no trace.

The Blind Goddess of Justice sure was taken for one hell of a sleigh ride. After all, a man
was
scragged. It does seem that
somebody
should at least have been slapped by a good, stiff fine.

(Hubert Chevis, 1931)

C. J. S. Thompson

Who murdered young Lieutenant Hubert Chevis, and why? The case is as impenetrable now as it was in 1931. It is also one of the most sinister, since the murderer not only rejoiced at the agonizing death of Chevis but took equal delight in cruelly taunting his grieving family with exclamations of
“Hooray!” The identity of the person behind the
nom de meurtre
J. Hartigan remains as bafflingly obscure as the motive for the murder. Charles J(ohn) S(amuel) Thompson was the author of two books of poisoning cases in the 1930s.

How did a brace of partridges which had been cooked and served for dinner become impregnated with strychnine was a problem that was presented to a coroner’s jury during the inquiry into a remarkable poisoning case at Blackdown Camp near Aldershot?

In June 1931, Lieutenant Chevis, a young artillery officer, was occupying a bungalow at the camp where he was engaged on his military duties.

He was very popular in his regiment and was happily married; his wife having a flat in London, she often joined him with their two children at the bungalow at Blackdown.

On Saturday, 21 June 1931, a brace of partridges was ordered from a poulterer at Aldershot and they were delivered at the bungalow in a van. They were placed by the cook in an open meat-safe kept outside the building, and there they remained until they were required for dinner in the evening.

Late in the afternoon some friends called to see Lieutenant Chevis and his wife, and after having cocktails they remained chatting for some time.

After they had left, Lieutenant and Mrs Chevis sat down to dine early, as they intended to go to the Military Tattoo which was taking place that night.

The dinner was brought in by the batman, who placed the roasted partridges before Mrs Chevis who was seated at the table, and she proceeded to serve them. Lieutenant Chevis took one mouthful and exclaimed: “It tastes horrible!” and he refused to eat any more. He asked his wife to taste the bird to see if she found anything wrong with it. She just touched it with her tongue and said it tasted “fusty” and could not get the taste out of her mouth for a long time afterwards.

Lieutenant Chevis then ordered the batman to take the birds away and have them destroyed. Fifteen minutes later he was taken violently ill. He lost the use of his legs and terrible convulsions followed. A doctor was sent for and the lieutenant was at once removed to hospital, where he died in great agony early on the following Sunday morning.

Mrs Chevis was also taken ill shortly after the meal and was seized with severe pains. She was medically treated and eventually recovered.

The Coroner was notified and inquiries were at once set on foot by the police.

A further element of mystery was introduced into the case when it was learnt that a telegram had been received by Sir William Chevis, the father of the deceased man, on the day of his son’s funeral. It had been handed in at Dublin and contained the words: “Hooray. Hooray. Hooray.” On inquiry it was found that the form was signed on the back with the name “Hartigan” and the address of a well-known Dublin hotel. It further transpired that no one of that name was known at the hotel, nor had any person called “Hartigan” been staying there.

Another strange fact connected with the telegram was, it had been sent off before any announcement of the tragedy at Blackdown Camp had appeared in the Press. The matter was taken up by the police of the Irish Free State who, it was stated, had found that a man answering the description of the person who had handed in the telegram in Dublin had purchased strychnine from a local chemist.

The inquest on the body of Lieutenant Chevis was opened on 23 June, but was adjourned until 21 July for the analyst’s report. On 11 August it was resumed before a crowded Court by the deputy coroner for West Surrey.

In opening the proceedings he remarked that the evidence would clearly indicate the partridge as the means by which the poison had been conveyed. It was, however, a most unfortunate thing that both the partridges had been destroyed, especially the one served to Lieutenant Chevis, by his orders.

On the day of his funeral a telegram had been received at the house of his father, Sir William Chevis, who lived at Bournemouth, which contained the words: “Hooray. Hooray. Hooray.” It was not signed, but on the original form being obtained for inspection there was found on the back a signature and address which read: “J. Hartigan. Hibernia.” Although inquiries had been made by the Dublin police and every possible effort made, no trace could be found of the sender of the telegram, nor could his identity be established.