JUST IN: The FIRST Woman EXECUTED in Ohio’s Electric Chair | Serial Killer Anna Marie Hahn

(This was Ohio State Penitentiary, Columbus, December 7th, 1938, 8:00 at night. A single electric chair sat waiting under cold, hard light. A room full of silent witnesses watched as a small, 5-ft blond-haired woman, 32 years old, was strapped into it. Her name was Anna Marie Hahn, and in a matter of minutes, the state of Ohio would do something it had never done before in its entire history, execute a woman.

But, here is what makes this story truly unforgettable. Before that switch was thrown, Anna Marie left behind a 20-page handwritten confession, written in her own hand, from her own death row cell, admitting to everything. Every name, every poison, every victim. Now, ask yourself this, why would an innocent woman confess to five murders the night before she dies? That answer will change everything you think you know about this case.

 Stay with us, because this story goes far deeper than one execution. Welcome to Red Mark Files. If this is your first time here, hit that subscribe button, because you are not going to want to miss a single second of what comes next. Before we talk about what Anna Marie Hahn did, you need to know who she did it to. Her victims were not strangers picked at random.

 They were real men, elderly, hard working, and deeply rooted in Cincinnati’s close German immigrant community. Men who had spent their entire lives building something small, but meaningful. Men who simply needed a little help in their final years, and that need is exactly what she used against them. Ernest Kock was 73 years old when he died on May 6th, 1933.

 He was a well-known, community rooted man. He had no serious medical concerns before Anna Marie came into his life. Shortly before his death, he left her his house, just like that. Albert Parker was 72, a retired railroad man, quiet, hard working, trusting. He loaned Anna Marie $1,000 and signed an IOU to prove it.

 When he died, that document was gone, simply vanished. Jacob Wagner was 78 years old, a gentle gardener in Cincinnati’s German settlement. He was so fond of Anna Marie that he changed his will, leaving her $17,000 in cash and calling her his beloved niece. Jacob Wagner was not her uncle. He was her victim, and his death is the one that ultimately sent her to the electric chair.

 George Gesselman was 67. Before he died, Anna Marie had worked her way into his finances and walked away with $15,000. Georg Obendorfer was also 67, a cobbler. He was the last. In the summer of 1937, he boarded a train to Colorado Springs with Anna Marie and her young son Oscar. He never came home. Every single one of these men shared the same quiet tragedy.

They were aging. They were lonely. They had no one watching closely enough. There was one man, George Heiss, who escaped. But the way he escaped and what he failed to do afterward would cost four more men their lives. We will get to that. So, who exactly was Anna Marie Hahn? To the people of Cincinnati, she looked like the perfect immigrant success story.

 A devoted mother, a warm neighbor, a caring woman who gave up her time to look after sick, elderly men when no one else would. But that image was built on a foundation of lies, and it started long before she ever set foot in America. Anna Marie was born Anna Marie Filser on July 7th, 1906 in Bavaria, Germany. She was the youngest of 12 children.

 Her father, Georg Filser, was a furniture manufacturer, and the family was considered financially comfortable. But comfort was never quite enough for Anna Marie. Even as a child, she always wanted more. By the time she was in her early 20s, her hunger for more had already caused a family scandal. She became pregnant and claimed the father was a well-known Viennese cancer researcher named Dr.

 Max Macheki. Investigators later searched for any record of this man. They found nothing. No such doctor existed under that name. The identity of her son Oscar’s real father remains unknown to this day. Her family, embarrassed and scandalized, made a swift decision. In 1929, they sent Anna Marie to the United States to stay with relatives in Cincinnati, Ohio.

 Oscar was left behind in Bavaria with her parents. In Cincinnati, she met Philip Hahn, a fellow German immigrant. They married in 1930. She briefly returned to Germany to bring Oscar back, and for a short while, things looked normal. They were not. Court records show that Philip Hahn fell mysteriously ill not long after the marriage. He was hospitalized.

 He survived, but the marriage did not last. With no real caregiving experience, Anna Marie somehow talked her way into becoming a live-in attendant for elderly men in the community. Around the same time, according to prosecutors, her gambling debts were quietly growing. A deadly plan was beginning to take shape.

By the early 1930s, Anna Marie Hahn’s life was quietly falling apart. Her marriage to Philip Hahn was breaking down. The bakery business they ran together in Cincinnati’s German district was slow, routine, and nowhere near enough to satisfy her. She was bored. She was restless. And according to court records, she was drowning in debt.

 Her vice was horse race betting. She gambled heavily, and she lost often. The debts piled up faster than she could manage them. She needed money, and she needed it in a way that required very little honest work. So, she made a calculated decision. She positioned herself as a caregiver inside Cincinnati’s German immigrant community.

 And that choice was not accidental. This was a community held together by trust, shared language, and a deep sense of cultural familiarity. These people looked out for one another. They welcomed one another into their homes. Anna Marie understood that, and she weaponized every bit of it. Her victims were never chosen at random. They were selected.

 Elderly men, men living alone, men with modest savings, and no one checking on them regularly. She entered their homes as a helper, managing their meals, their medications, and in many cases their finances. She made herself indispensable. She made herself trusted. And then there was George Heiss. One afternoon, Anna Marie brought him a mug of root beer.

 When she stepped out of the room, he noticed flies land on the drink. They died almost instantly. George Heiss grew suspicious. He dismissed her and sent her away, but he never told the police. She walked straight out of his home and straight toward her next victim. Nobody was watching, and she knew it. There was one man who suspected the truth and watched flies drop dead from a drink she brought him.

 But what he did next would cost four more men their lives. Anna Marie Hahn did not need a partner. She worked alone. Court records confirmed no co-conspirators were ever identified or charged alongside her. Every step of what she did, she planned it, prepared it, and carried it out entirely by herself. That detail alone makes this case deeply unsettling.

 Her weapons of choice were arsenic and croton oil. Both were difficult to detect in the 1930s. Both were accessible enough that no single purchase would raise suspicion. She administered the poisons through food, drink, and medicine. Things she personally prepared and personally delivered to the men who trusted her completely.

 When investigators eventually searched her Cincinnati home after her arrest, what they found left them stunned. According to prosecution testimony, the amount of poison discovered inside that house was enough to kill half of Cincinnati. This was not a crime of impulse or rage. This was a stocked, deliberate, ongoing operation.

 The financial side was just as carefully planned as the physical side. Court records show she forged documents, positioned herself as a beneficiary in wills, and made IOUs disappear after borrowing money from her victims. She inserted herself into Jacob Wagner’s estate as his so-called beloved niece, a title she had no right to, but claimed without hesitation.

 Even her son Oscar’s presence was part of how she moved through the world. She used the image of a mother traveling with her child to appear completely normal, including on the final train ride to Colorado Springs with Georg Oberndorfer. This was not a crime of passion. This was a system, quiet, calculated, and cold.

 Now we get to the part that changes everything. Between 1933 and 1937, Anna Marie Hahn moved quietly through Cincinnati’s German community like a shadow. Each victim trusted her. Each victim paid for that trust with his life, and each time she walked away with something, a house, a debt erased, an inheritance, a life savings.

 This is how it happened. Ernest Kock, 73 years old, May 6th, 1933. Ernest was Anna Marie’s first known victim. By all accounts, he was a healthy, community-rooted man with no serious medical history before she entered his life. She befriended him. She made herself useful, and then, without warning, he was dead. He left her his house.

 No investigation was opened. No questions were asked. A lonely old man had died, and a kind woman had been remembered in his will. That was how it looked. That was exactly how she wanted it to look. Albert Parker, 72 years old. Albert was a retired railroad man, quiet, decent, and trusting. He loaned Anna Marie $1,000. She signed an IOU.

 It was a simple, honest transaction between two people who trusted each other. When Albert Parker died, that IOU was gone. Court records note the document was either discarded or simply disappeared. The debt vanished with it. So did Albert Parker. Jacob Wagner, 78 years old, June 3rd, 1937. Jacob was a gentle gardener in Cincinnati’s German settlement.

 He was warm and generous, the kind of man who saw the best in people. He grew so fond of Anna Marie that he rewrote his will, leaving her $17,000 in cash and referring to her as his beloved niece. Anna Marie Hahn was not his niece. She was his killer. Jacob Wagner’s death became the formal murder charge on which Anna Marie was convicted and sentenced to death.

 George Gesselman, 67 years old, July 6th, 1937. Less than 5 weeks after Jacob Wagner died, George Gesselman was gone, too. Before his death, Anna Marie had worked her way deeply into his life and his finances. He died. She walked away with $15,000. Another quiet death, another grieving community, and still nobody suspected a thing.

 Georg Oberndorfer, 67 years old, August 1st, 1937. This is the one that brought her down. In the summer of 1937, Anna Marie convinced Georg Oberndorfer, a cobbler, to travel with her to Colorado Springs. She brought her young son Oscar along. It looked like a simple holiday trip. They boarded a train together in Cincinnati.

 According to Oscar’s own testimony at trial, Georg Oberndorfer began getting sick on the train before they even arrived. By the time they reached Colorado, he was deteriorating rapidly. He died in the hotel room shortly after arriving. When authorities came, Anna Marie Hahn looked them in the eye and told them she did not even know the man.

 She had just crossed state lines with him. Then she did something that nobody expected. She offered to pay for his funeral. That offer raised immediate suspicion. An autopsy was ordered. The results came back, arsenic poisoning confirmed. She stood over his deathbed and told police she didn’t even know the man, but she had just crossed state lines with him.

 What investigators found next would bring her entire world crashing down. When Anna Marie Hahn returned to Cincinnati from Colorado with her son Oscar, she likely believed the worst was behind her. She was wrong. Detectives were already waiting. Arrest warrants had been prepared. The moment she arrived back in Cincinnati, law enforcement moved in.

 What happened next said everything about the kind of woman she was. She did not break down. She did not panic. She showed up composed, well-dressed, and completely calm, projecting the image of a woman who had nothing to hide and nothing to fear. She performed innocence with the same confidence and charm she had used to walk into the homes of five elderly men.

But that performance could not hold up against what investigators found inside her home. When detectives searched her Cincinnati residence, they were stunned by what was sitting inside it. The amount of poison discovered in that house was staggering. >> [music] >> One detective later said there was enough poison found to kill half of Cincinnati.

 This was not the home of an innocent woman. This was the home of someone who had been operating a deliberate, ongoing poisoning campaign. By this point, her marriage to Philip Hahn had long since effectively ended. He played no role in the events that followed. The reaction across Cincinnati’s German-American community was one of complete shock.

 These were people who had welcomed Anna Marie into their circle, trusted her with their elderly, and never once doubted her intentions. Her motive was never complicated. It was not insurance. It was not revenge. It was plain, direct financial theft. Wills manipulated, documents forged, and estates quietly stolen from men who never saw it coming.

The arsenic found in Georg Oberdorfer’s body did not just close one case. It opened several others. Investigators began looking back at every elderly man Anna Marie Hahn had ever cared for. What they found was a pattern, a quiet four-year trail of death that had never once raised an alarm. Authorities ordered the exhumations of her previous victims.

 The toxicology results came back. Poisoning was confirmed in multiple bodies. For four full years, she had operated without suspicion, and the reason was painfully simple. She was a caregiver. Elderly men in her care fell ill and died. That was not unusual. That was expected. Her role gave her the perfect shield. Without Georg Oberndorfer’s death in Colorado, in a different state, under a different jurisdiction, where an autopsy was ordered almost immediately, she may never have been caught at all.

Throughout the entire investigation, Anna Marie maintained her innocence. She remained calm. She remained composed. She gave investigators nothing. But the evidence was already speaking for itself. Prosecutors built their case around what they called a mass murder-for-profit scheme. Five men, four years.

 Every single one of them robbed before they were buried. Four years, five men, all quietly dead. All their money gone, and not a single person had suspected a thing, until one hotel autopsy changed everything. The Colorado autopsy was the crack in the wall, and once it opened, everything came crashing through. The arsenic levels found in Georg Oberndorfer’s body were not trace amounts.

They were definitive. There was no room for doubt, no room for explanation, and no innocent reason for what the toxicology report showed. Investigators then received the exhumation results from her previous victims back in Cincinnati. One by one, the findings came back the same. Poisoning confirmed. The pattern was now documented in black and white.

 What had looked like a series of sad but natural deaths was now something else entirely. A deliberate, calculated killing campaign stretching back four years. Then came the search of her Cincinnati home. The poison stockpile investigators discovered inside removed any last shadow of doubt. This was not a woman who had made one terrible mistake.

 This was a woman who had been prepared, stocked, and ready. And then came the most devastating blow of all, one that came from inside her own family. Her son Oscar testified at trial. He told the court that he, his mother, and Georg Oberndorfer had traveled together by train from Cincinnati to Colorado, and he confirmed that Oberndorfer had begun getting sick en route.

 Those words, spoken by her own 12-year-old child, carried enormous weight in that courtroom. Anna Marie Hahn was formally arrested and charged. When the news broke across Cincinnati that enough poison had been found in her home to kill half of the city, the public reaction was one of complete and utter disbelief. In the fall of 1937, Anna Marie Hahn walked into a courtroom, and Ohio stopped to watch.

 The trial lasted 4 weeks, and was one of the most publicized criminal cases the state had ever seen. The jury was unusual for the era, 11 women and one man. That detail alone made headlines. Anna Marie came to court every single day looking composed and put together. Clean clothes, neat hair, calm expression.

 She sat through every piece of evidence against her and performed innocence like it was second nature. But the prosecution was not fooled, and neither was the jury. Prosecutors laid out their argument clearly. This was a mass murder-for-profit scheme. Every victim had been financially drained before he was poisoned.

 Every death had been carefully arranged to look natural, and Anna Marie Hahn had walked away richer each time. Two testimonies hit hardest. George Heiss, the man who had watched flies drop dead from a drink she brought him, took the stand and told the court exactly what he had seen. And then there was Oscar, her own son, 12 years old.

 He testified that he, his mother, and Georg Oberdorfer had traveled together by train from Cincinnati and that Oberdorfer had begun getting sick before they even arrived. The jury deliberated for less than 3 hours. Guilty, no recommendation for mercy. Under Ohio law, that absence of mercy meant only one thing, an automatic death sentence.

On November 10th, 1937, Judge Bell formally sentenced Anna Marie Hahn to death by electrocution. She maintained her innocence as every single word of that sentence was read aloud. She became the first woman ever sentenced to death by electrocution in the state of Ohio. Her attorneys appealed. The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court.

 The court refused to block the sentence. Her fate was sealed. On December 1st, 1938, Anna Marie Hahn was transferred to Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus. She had spent months telling herself that Ohio would never execute a woman, that at the last moment someone would step in, that the state would back down. Nobody backed down. In her final hours, she stopped pretending.

She picked up a pen and wrote page after page after page, 20 pages in total. A full handwritten confession admitting to the poisonings, expressing deep confusion about why she had done what she did, and above everything else, pouring out her fear for what would happen to Oscar when she was gone. She requested no last meal.

 She was too consumed by grief and panic to eat. Reports from the prison indicate she consumed only basic liquids or nothing at all. Oscar, just 12 years old, spent most of that final day with her. When the time came to take her to the execution chamber, he was brought to the door and turned away. He walked to the prison chapel and sat alone while his mother died.

 Her attorneys made one last desperate appeal to a federal court. It failed. At 8:00 that evening, Anna Marie was dressed in blue pajamas with a brown top, her golden blonde hair disheveled. Guards led her down the death house corridor past the cells of 12 condemned men. Every one of them stepped forward to the front of his cell and stood in silence.

 She looked at them and called out, “Goodbye all of you and God bless you.” Then she reached the execution chamber door and collapsed. Two guards and two matrons picked her up and carried her inside. She was placed into the chair, stretched her arms toward the witnesses, and cried, “Mr. Woodard, don’t do this to me. Think of my boy. Is nobody going to help me?” She turned to the prison chaplain, Father John Sullivan, and whispered, “Be careful, Father. You’ll be killed.

” Father Sullivan began the Lord’s Prayer. She recited it with him word by word. In the middle of that prayer, the switch was thrown. At 8:13 in the evening on December 7th, 1938, Anna Marie Hahn was pronounced dead. She was 32 years old. The first woman ever executed by the state of Ohio. After her death, Anna Marie’s attorney sold her 20-page confession to the Cincinnati Enquirer under one condition.

 Every dollar earned would go into a trust fund for Oscar. That promise was kept. Oscar eventually settled with a foster family in the Midwest. He lived a relatively normal life and went on to serve in the United States Navy during World War II. Ernest Coke, Albert Parker, Jacob Wagner, George Gesselman, J. Org Obendorfer. Five men who trusted someone they believed was helping them.

 They deserved so much better. Anna Marie Hahn spent years poisoning men to secure money and freedom. In the end, the only thing she secured was her own place in history as the first woman the state of Ohio ever executed. And somewhere in a prison chapel, a 12-year-old boy sat alone waiting for a mother who would never walk out.

 Which moment in this story hit you hardest? Drop it in the comments below. I read every single one. And if you haven’t already, please hit subscribe because next week we are covering another case just as chilling as this one. See you then.