Family secretly watched for 10 years -- SOLVED Mysteries, Episode 4

there is a sub-genre of detective fiction that deals with locked room mysteries which are about crimes that are seemingly impossible to commit the standard example being a murder victim found inside of a room that was locked from the inside today we're going to look at a real-life locked room mystery that took almost a decade to solve and when the truth finally came out nobody believed it it literally sounded like fiction but before we get into today's story if you're a fan of the strange dark and mysterious delivered in story format then you come to the right channel because that's all we do and we upload three four even five times every week so if that's of interest to you please replace the like buttons cocoa puffs with similarly shaped dog food also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads alright let's get into today's story on august 22nd 1922 shots rang out from inside a stately victorian home in beverly hills where dolly and fred ostrich lived neighbors called police right away and when officers stepped into the front door they saw the entire house was trashed on the floor in the living room was fred who had been shot to death and next to him were three 25 caliber shell casings with weapons drawn the police cleared the entire first floor there was no one down there they heard screaming coming from upstairs and so they run up the stairs and they get up there and no one's upstairs and then they heard the screaming again and they realized it was coming from inside of a closet in the master bedroom and so as the police are clearing the second floor they yell out to this woman and they say who are you what are you doing in the closet and she yells back i'm dolly i'm okay but i'm trapped and so after the police finish clearing the upstairs and they're sure it's safe they go over to the closet door and they do try the handle it's locked they ask her do you know where the key is and she says no and so before they start trying to break the door down they did a quick search of the upstairs to see if maybe they could find the key to the closet and sure enough across the hall in another bedroom they found it on the ground and so they took the key back they opened the door up and out came dolly she was okay but obviously very frantic and panicked and they asked her you know what happened and she told them a very abrupt and chaotic story she said she had been hanging clothes inside of this big walk-in closet and her back was to the door when she heard a fight break out on the first floor and before she could even turn around to go investigate she said the closet door was swinging shut and then she heard it lock from the outside and she didn't get to see who it was that shut the door the whole thing was a bit of a head scratcher for police because they're thinking okay well you know was it one person that attacked fred downstairs and then ran upstairs and shut and locked the door immediately afterwards before dolly could come out and see or was there two people one person downstairs attacking and one person upstairs shutting and locking the door or was it more than two people and despite the house being totally ransacked and there being lots of valuable stuff in their house dolly said the only thing she could tell was missing was the diamond encrusted wrist watch that fred always wore was not on his wrist when they discovered his body and why detectives wondered were these burglars or this burglar carrying a 25 caliber weapon something that small was more likely to be found in a woman's purse than in a home invasion when police spoke to neighbors they were quick to say fred and dolly fought all the time and earlier that night they had gotten into a really bad one but as much as police wanted to point the finger at dolly it was just impossible for her to have committed this crime because how could she have murdered fred and then ran upstairs and locked herself in the closet from the outside and then also somehow deposited that key across the hall in another room it just didn't make any sense but since the police had little else to go on they dug into the new widow's past dolly was born in germany in 1880 and following a move to milwaukee wisconsin just before the turn of the century she married fred who was three years older than her fred was driven and successful but he was also a raging alcoholic and prone to violence and so as fred built up his textile empire opening up factory after factory all across the midwest their marriage grew strained he was mean and she was lonely when they moved from milwaukee to southern california in 1918 their new neighbors immediately were aware of the fact that dolly and fred fought loudly and often and they frequently bickered in public police looked high and low to see if dolly had maybe taken a lover but no one had ever seen her with anyone but fred and so while they might be miserable they seem to be faithful and so try as they might the police could find no clues that suggested anything darker or more dangerous than a petty and meaningless marriage the case hung open and suspicion continued to trail dolly even though it was physically impossible for her to have committed the crime now free from her unhappy marriage dolly moved into a new home in los angeles and she took up with her estate lawyer hermann shapiro who was handling her husband's million-dollar estate but just like her late husband her new boyfriend shapiro worked long hours and he was not around much so she was lonely all over again so she went out and got another boyfriend a guy by the name of roy klum and she began seeing the men at the same time a year after fred's death captain herman klein of the beverly hills police department dropped by dolly's estate lawyer boyfriend's office detectives were still suspicious of dolly even though the case still made no sense and so captain klein goes into shapiro's office and wouldn't you know it sitting on the desk is this beautiful diamond-encrusted wristwatch that looks an awful lot like the watch dolly claimed was the one thing stolen from her house on the night of her husband's murder when the captain asked shapiro how he got this watch shapiro told him that dolly had given it to him as a gift but i know where you're going with this because i thought the same thing too i know about the missing diamond watch and the night of the murder i asked dolly about it when she gave it to me and she told me that that was actually a mistake the watch was never missing and she later on found it tucked underneath a sofa cushion in the living room the captain was not buying this and so as soon as he left shapiro's office he immediately confronted dolly about the watch and dolly said ah you know what that's right i did find the watch but i didn't think it was that important so i didn't tell you guys the captain couldn't believe what he was hearing and shortly after the newspapers found out about this new twist in this totally bizarre case and they went wild with it putting all the heat back on dolly spooked by the headlines dolly's second boyfriend roy klum came forward to the police and said i have a confession to make dolly made me hide one of her 25 caliber pistols and i threw it in the labria tar pits and then before police could even go get that gun one of dolly's neighbors came forward and said yeah i got a confession to make dolly asked me to get rid of a 25 caliber pistol and i buried it in my backyard so police went out and recovered both weapons but they were so badly rusted they couldn't confirm if they were in fact the murder weapons and dolly had an excuse when the police confronted her with these guns she said oh yeah those old things i've had those in the house for years but you know given the circumstances of my husband's death just felt a little awkward keeping them around the house so i had some friends get rid of them the police were not buying this and so in july of 1923 they arrested dolly for killing fred but despite these new developments the facts of the case had not changed it was still physically impossible for dolly to have committed this crime she was locked in the closet from the outside and so with dolly in jail awaiting trial investigators tirelessly hacked into her story to try to find holes in it but they had no success and so after every theory that might connect her to the crime was ultimately discarded they had to drop the murder charges and dolly was released seven years went by and the crime was largely forgotten about and then in 1930 dolly and her state lawyer boyfriend shapiro they broke up and shapiro immediately called the police and said you know what i haven't been entirely truthful i know a lot more about what happened to fred than i've let on and in fact i have someone in the office with me right now that can tell you the whole story investigators flew to shapiro's office they go through the doors and sitting inside is a man they never knew existed his name was otto sanhuber he was a quiet small sewing machine repairman slash aspiring dime store fiction writer and the story he would tell them would be more bizarre and laura than any investigator could have imagined it began almost a decade before the murder when otto was a teenager he had worked for fred in one of his milwaukee factories one day in 1913 dolly complained to fred that her sewing machine was broken and so fred asked one of his employees who he knew was a sewing machine repairman the then 17 year old otto if he would go over to his house and fix the sewing machine for his wife dolly knew her husband was going to send otto specifically to their house and she was very attracted to otto and so when otto showed up all she had on was a silk robe stockings and heavy perfume thus began dolly and otto's affair which at first they conducted in a pretty typical way meeting secretly in hotels but when that became burdensome they moved their relationship back into the ostrich home with otto needing to sneak in and out around fred's schedule but it wasn't long before nosy neighbors were asking dolly you know who's that strange man coming around your house all the time and she would say oh that's my vagabond half brother but dolly and otto knew they couldn't continue in this way but instead of breaking it off or returning to secret hotel liaisons dolly decided that otto should take up residence in the ostrich home in a secret hideaway in the attic that way no one would see him coming or going otto who had no family to miss him quit his job at the factory moved into the secret room and then never left pretty quickly otto and dolly fell into a routine where when fred would leave for work for the day otto would come downstairs they'd spend time together and then otto would clean the house and then make bathtub gin before fred came home otto would sneak back upstairs to write pulp stories about lust and adventure and he would read newspapers and magazines by candlelight around this time fred started complaining to dolly about strange noises in the house he also started to notice they were running through food a lot faster than normal and a couple times he thought he was short of cigar but no matter how much fred complained dolly was always able to convince him that everything he was hearing and seeing was in his head and so over the next five years they would live in four homes in milwaukee and always these strange sounds and oddities about the house would follow them but fred never investigated in 1918 fred told dolly he wanted to move to southern california and so dolly hunted down a house with an attic a rarity in the area and she sent otto ahead when fred and dolly arrived otto was already ensconced in the attic and fred moved in right beneath him by the time fred and dolly got in their final argument on the night of august 22nd 1922 otto had been secretly living with them for almost a decade on that deadly night otto was in a secret room listening to drunk fred getting louder and angrier and clearly getting physical with dolly and so worried that he might kill his lover otto leapt out of the attic and ran downstairs carrying two 25-caliber pistols he runs into the living room and he confronts fred and fred is astounded to see his formerly teenage sewing machine repairman who abruptly quit the factory so suddenly and completely now standing in his living room and so fred lunged at otto and otto just started shooting it was then that dolly hatched the scheme that had almost let them get away with it knowing the police would be there any minute dolly staged the house to look like a robbery she told otto to lock her inside of the closet and then ordered him to go back up into the attic and so when the police got there otto was crouched silently right above their heads after the killing otto moved in with dolly in her new house and even though they could have had a normal open relationship dolly ordered otto to go live in the attic of this new house as well it wasn't until a year later when dolly was briefly arrested after the police found out about the hidden guns that otto was forced to come out of the attic while dolly was sitting in jail for these gun charges she begged her estate lawyer boyfriend shapiro to go get groceries for her vagabond half brother otto who lived in her attic she said when you delivered them make sure you go to the bedroom and knock on the ceiling that will let them know it's safe to come out but when shapiro arrived and followed the procedure and otto came out otto was so starved for human interaction and conversation that he wound up telling shapiro the whole insane story but instead of going to police shapiro told otto that he should just leave and he did he went and became a janitor and he got married the secret held until dolly and shapiro broke up for good at which point shapiro called the police dolly and otto were arrested and the press went insane they called this the batman case because otto was living like a bat in a cave this was before batman the comic was a thing otto was convicted of manslaughter but the statute of limitations was up so he was allowed to walk free as for dolly she was allowed to walk free too because the jury hung on her conspiracy to commit murder charges after the trial otto disappeared and nothing more is known about him as for dolly she stayed in la and she died in 1961 at the age of 80 two weeks after marrying yet again so that's gonna do it guys if you found the secret in today's episode let us know in the comments what it is and where you found it so give us the time stamp and if you're the first to do that we will pin you at the top of the comment section if you enjoyed today's video and you haven't done this already please replace the like buttons cocoa puffs with similarly shaped dog food also please subscribe to our channel and turn on all notifications so you don't miss any of our weekly three four even five video uploads if you want to get in touch with me you can direct message me on instagram or on twitter my username for both platforms is the same it's just john ballen416 i also have a ton of content over on tiktok where my username is mr ballen if you have a story suggestion please submit it to our subreddit just called mr ballin it's linked in the description below so whether i see you on twitter instagram tik tok reddit youtube or some combination just know that i really appreciate your support and until next time that's gonna do it see ya

Channel: MrBallen

Views: 2,680,572

Keywords: strange, dark, mysterious, mystery, unsolved mystery, solved mystery, solved, mrballen story, scary story, true crime, true story, true, story, story time, campfire story, bedtime stories, bedtime story, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, affair, apron, textile, weird, spooky, sketchy, bizarre, disturbing, batman, bat man, bat, attic, secret room, secret club, secret, crawl space, hidden room, locked room, locked room mystery, la brea tar pits, tar pits, Los Angeles, la, detective, investigators, baffled, crime, oof

Id: b4iNqoLQ-1E

Length: 13min 41sec (821 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 04 2021