The Man in the Attic & an Unsolved Mystery

Walburga “Dolly” Oesterreich was unhappy in her marriage. She and her husband, Fred, were financially successful, but Dolly was bored. One day, Dolly told Fred that her sewing machine was broken. She asked him to send one of his repairmen to fix it. Fred sent 17-year-old

Otto Sanhuber. When Dolly answered the door, she was wearing stockings, a silk robe, and not much else. It was the start of a lengthy affair. But when her neighbors asked questions, Dolly was in a pickle. How could she keep cheating on her husband without anyone finding out?

Then Brandi tells us about Sharon Kinne, whose life is shrouded in suspicion and mystery. Sharon was just 16 when she met 22-year-old James Kinne. The couple got married quickly, but their happiness didn’t last. On March 19, 1960, James was shot dead in their Independence, Missouri, home. Who could have done it? Sharon had the answer. It was the couple’s toddler.

And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases.

In this episode, Kristin pulled from:
“Sanhuber says he confessed to save widow,” Associated Press
“Attic batman and jury visit murder scene,” Universal Services
“Mystery of the man in the closet,” by Ruth Reynolds, the Honolulu Advertiser
“Lived like a bat in an attic,” by A.L. Wooldridge, the Post-Dispatch Sunday Magazine
“Bedroom in the attic,” by Spencer Hardy, King Features Syndicate
“‘Bat Man’ case: a lurid tale of love and death,” by Cecilia Rasmussen, Los Angeles Times
“The married woman who kept her lover in the attic,” By Addison Nugent, Atlas Obscura
“Lover in  the attic,” by Joseph McNamara, Daily News

In this episode, Brandi pulled from:
“Maybe I’ll Meet You on The Run” by Mark Gribben, The Malefactor’s Register
“Sharon Kinne” by J.J. Maloney, crimemagazine.com
“Sharon Kinne” wikipedia.org