THE MAN IN THE ATTIC | THE BIZARRE CASE OF DOLLY OESTERREICH

hey guys it's bella welcome back to my channel or if you're new here welcome i hope you enjoy your time i hope you guys are all having an incredible day today in today's video we are going to be covering another mystery monday case and this one is a doozy like it is a wild ride if someone told me this story i would think they were telling me like the plot of a movie or something like if i had not researched this for days i just wouldn't believe it it's it's insane i have no other word to describe it so strap in buckle up get ready i've always found this case super intriguing like it is wild so i've wanted to cover it on my channel for a really long time now but i just kind of haven't yet because it's not you know a 50 minute long case and i'm not going to make up information to make it 50 minutes long but whenever i do videos that are you know under 40 minutes or something i always get comments about the fact that it seems like i'm not trying or putting an effort i promise you guys i put the same amount of effort into every single one of my videos i love doing these i want to make sure i get all of my information and i want to bring you guys the best videos possible but i also want to do cases that i find really really interesting that may not make up a 40 minute video so i hope you guys find this one as interesting as i do even though it's not you know a super duper long case so let's get into it just before we get into it i quickly want to thank today's sponsor native for making this video possible they recently launched their new haircare line which i am obsessed with i have been using the strengthening almond and shea butter shampoo and conditioner and hair mask too which oh my goodness first of all smells phenomenal but it has just made my hair feel so healthy and so strong i tend to get a lot of breakage and damage in my hair because i use heat on it quite a lot so this has really really helped to reduce breakage and also to restore moisture to my hair so it 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shampoo and conditioner for just 1440 which is amazing and you can also use my code to get 20 off any of the deodorants and body wash so make sure you guys check that out i will leave all of the information and the link in my description down below and let's go ahead and get into today's case and just because i know i'm going to get comments about it because i know you can see it because it's very obvious little yellow and neon orange but she's alright she's just got a sore little foot at the moment and so she's got a splint on and some soft wrapping around it and she should be getting it off in a week or two but i promise she's okay she's been the best little girl she just sleeps on our bed all day just like this oh to be a dog just sleeping while the people around me work to pay my rent and for my food and everything else so the case we're going to be talking about today took place in california in the early 1900s and it involves the ostrich family which consisted of wahlburger ostrich who went by dolly and she was a housewife in her early 30s and her husband fred ostrich who was in his mid-30s and he was a successful business owner he owned a few successful businesses one of which was a textile or apron factory so let me tell you a little bit about them quickly dolly was born in 1880 to immigrant parents and it's unclear whether she was born in imperial germany or she was born shortly after her parents immigrated to the us but either way she did grow up in milwaukee in wisconsin and she grew up among a community of fellow german immigrants her family were quite poor so when dolly was 12 she actually had to go out and get a job and she worked at a textile mill which is where she met her future husband fred ostrich who was 17 at the time which is kind of gross i mean they didn't get married till she was 17 but she was 12 when they met like just does not sit right with me and also she was described as good looking which feels really uncomfortable to describe a 12 year old that way so i'm really hoping that description is from when she was like a little bit older but she was also described as charismatic she had a ton of friends at the factory she made friends very easily and so she very quickly caught fred's attention and like i said they got married when dolly was 17 years old after they got married they started working on building their businesses and like i said they did end up having a few successful businesses one of which was that apron factory and because of this they you know they were doing quite well financially they had some good money but it also meant that fred was working long hours which just you know wasn't great for dolly because she was a woman with needs and her needs were not being met because he would either come home too late he would be too busy or he would be too drunk to satisfy her and on top of that apparently he was not great in the sack which probably you know the alcohol also contributed to that but you know he was not great in bed and this just left dolly feeling really unsatisfied and really unhappy so in 1913 when dolly was 33 years old she was at home and she was about to do some sewing when she realized that the sewing machine was broken so she calls fred up at work she goes hey can we get a repairman out here and fred sends out this 17 year old guy named otto sanhuber and he actually worked with fred so dolly already knew who otto was and she was kind of hoping or expecting that otto would be the one sent out because i guess you know she was kind of into him or something and she decided that she was going to get her claws into him so when otto showed up and he knocked at the door dolly answered the door wearing nothing but a robe and you know i guess it worked and otto was like oh hot damn because they ended up sleeping together and starting an affair right then and there and they continued this affair so at first they would kind of go to different hotels and that sort of thing so that nobody would catch them fred wouldn't catch them and wouldn't know what's going on but hotels cost money fred's money specifically and they didn't want fred to notice that his money was going missing and that dolly was sending it going to hotels with some guy that worked at his factory so eventually dolly was like you know i'm getting tired of having to go to hotels i don't want fred to notice his money going missing we're sleeping together so frequently it's just annoying to have to go to hotels all the time let's just do it at my house and so they ended up sleeping together and continuing their affair in dolly and fred's bed while fred was at work and he was coming over so often that neighbors started noticing and they were like who is this guy that you've got at your house all the time and dolly was like oh that's just my step-brother she told them he was a vagabond so that's why he was kind of coming around all the time and the neighbors believed it and they got away with it but despite getting away with it they were just worried that people were starting to notice they didn't want fred to notice or anyone to mention anything to fred but they also didn't want to go back to going to hotels and having to go there all the time or having to spend fred's money on them and risk him finding out that way so dolly came up with a plan and she asked otto if he would quit his job to come and live in her attic which is right above her and fred's bed like right above them and you know that way they wouldn't have to sneak out to hotels people wouldn't see him coming in and out and he wouldn't have a job so he could come down and they could just kind of do their thing all day long and dolly was a housewife so she had a ton of time for activity while fred was at work so i was like great that sounds like a great idea i mean for him from his point of view this would have been great because he gets to have sex with dolly every day she is the love of his life he gets free food free shelter he doesn't have to work and he's also always dreamed of being a pulp fiction writer so basically while fred is home he can't go anywhere he's got a hole up in the attic he can just write his stories during that time he's got so much free time to practice writing his novels he also didn't really have any friends or family so it was kind of you know i guess what more could a guy want so dolly got him situated she brought a bed up there for him she brought a desk up there for him so he could sit him right she would bring him books from the library every single week she would obviously bring him food up there every single day the la times reported and i quote that at night he would read mysteries by candlelight and he would write stories of adventure and lust he worked on writing pulp fiction stories that he hoped to one day have published and by day he made love to dolly and helped her keep the house and made a bathtub gin and this went on for the next five years so he lived in their addict and then would come downstairs during the day while fred was at work to you know jump dolly's bones i guess for five years this guy lived in an addict for five years until 1917 because in 1917 fred decided he wanted to move to la to get away from milwaukee and get away from their house because he was starting to think that he was going crazy because he heard all of this stuff happening you know he could hear footsteps at night he noticed that their food from their fridge was like being eaten way quicker than two people could eat all of it and he would kind of bring this up with dolly like do you hear those sounds do you notice our food going down and she was like what are you talking about like maybe you should see a doctor it's the gaslighting for me making this man think he is literally crazy and fred actually did go to the doctor and the doctor couldn't find anything wrong with him so fred just really thought he was going crazy so he wanted to get out of that house and he wanted to move to la so ahead of the move fred and dolly go to la to find a house to move into and dolly had a very specific request she wanted there to be an attic in the house and she found one a lot a lot of la houses didn't have addicts but she found one that had an attic and overlooked sunset boulevard and she was like great this is the one fred we're moving here and fred was like okay and they got the house and they went back to milwaukee and while they were packing up all of their stuff getting ready for the move dolly made sure that otto went to la early so that he could get situated in the attic so that fred would never see him go up there in the first place he would already be there by the time they moved so over the next few months in la otto was doing great he was writing his pulp fiction stories and even managed to get a few published which he got a little bit of money from so he was able to provide dolly with some money to help with food and that kind of thing and meanwhile fred was getting more and more paranoid because the noises had followed him from milwaukee to l.a funny that right i mean for me what i don't understand is dolly obviously had a very specific request to get a place with an annex so he knew that there was an attic in the house so surely if he thought he was hearing noises he would like go up there and make sure he's not going crazy like as soon as he got up there he would see a desk and a bed and books and food and he would be like okay i'm not crazy that there's someone living up here i mean imagine he did though imagine he's like i'm hearing some weird up here so he goes up there and there's just some dude writing stories by the candlelight and he's like what the hell is going on but alas he did not do that and he was just getting increasingly frustrated because he was hearing all these things and noticing the food kind of depleting but dolly was saying she didn't hear or see anything so he was getting really frustrated and he was taking his frustrations out on dolly and so they were fighting a lot by 1922 dolly and fred's fights were pretty much constant and on the 22nd of august they had their biggest fight yet and otto could actually hear it from the attic and he decided that he wanted to go and protect dolly the love of his life so he crawls down from the attic through this small hole which actually exits into dolly and fred's bedroom and in the bedroom he noticed fred's two 25 caliber pistols and he grabs them and he runs down to the kitchen to confront fred and immediately as soon as fred sees him he's like oh my god like it kind of all clicks for him because otto worked for him at a point so he recognized him and he was like oh my god this guy has been living in my attic for the past like 10 years at this point and it's the added salt in the wound of the fact that he's been thinking that he's been going crazy he's moved to l.a because he thought he was going crazy and it followed him here so he's been getting even more paranoid you know dolly's been kind of gaslighting him like i'm not hearing anything like maybe you should go and see a doctor only to find out he was never going crazy dolly's little boy toy has been up living in the attic and he's been paying for his food he's been paying for his shelter and he's been burning his wife so obviously fred and otto get into a bit of a scrap and the gun goes off right and the first shot hits the ceiling but the next three hit fred in the chest which kills him instantly otto and dolly immediately start panicking and otto goes and locks dolly in a closet which locks from the outside because that would give her an alibi obviously she couldn't have killed fred if she was you know locked in this closet and she couldn't have locked herself in there because it locks from the outside and then otto steals a few of fred's expensive items and he runs upstairs into the attic because he knew that the neighbors would call the police after hearing dolly screaming during the fight and also hearing the gunshots and so when the police arrive they find fred dead on the floor they find dolly passed out in the closet and they asked her what happened and she says well a burglar came he locked me in the closet he shot fred and he stole some of fred's expensive items like his watch and the police were a bit you know suss they didn't really believe it but they had no evidence to prove otherwise so they couldn't really do anything about it they didn't know that otto was in the attic with fred's watch and his other valuable items so dolly was free to keep living her life so dolly's a widow now right and she's got all of fred's money now that he's passed away obviously she's his wife so it's all gone to her and her and otto could very well continue to be a couple out in the open like normal people but instead with fred's money dolly goes to buy a new place with of course an attic in it and they continue on like they always were otto goes and lives in the attic he comes down by day to sleep with dolly and he goes up there at night and writes his stories he doesn't leave nothing changes even though it could and they could continue a normal relationship out in the open i have no idea why they decided to do that i mean what happens next might explain why dolly wanted to do that but i i can't explain for the life of me what otto's reasoning was maybe he'd just become so accustomed to it and he was comfortable with it and he enjoyed it i don't know maybe he liked the thrill of it or maybe he just didn't want it to kind of look suspicious that fred dies and then she's all of a sudden with otto like he didn't want the police to come looking into anything i don't know but anyway like i said it was pretty clear why dolly wanted to keep the secret up because she ended up going and meeting a new fella he was a successful lawyer his name was herman shapiro and they were really into each other right away and dolly actually got him a gift pretty early on in the relationship she got him would you guess it a diamond watch and herman was like hey wait a minute isn't this the watch that the robbers stole from your husband when they like robbed you and killed him and she was like oh yeah i actually found it around the house like you can have it and herman was like okay makes sense cool and he wore it every day but like i said herman was a successful lawyer so eventually he went back to working long hours which dolly wasn't happy with it was just like fred she was feeling very unsatisfied even with you know old may otto in the attic so she decided to go out and get another fella this guy named roy klum and roy was an aspiring actor and a businessman and she actually convinced roy to dispose of one of the 25 caliber pistols that was used to kill fred so she goes to him and she's like oh i just i found this gun at my house and it resembles the gun that was used to kill fred and it definitely wasn't the gun that was used to kill him but it just looks like it i wouldn't want the police to get the wrong impression you know i don't want anyone to think the wrong thing so can you just kind of get rid of it for me and roy was like yeah okay you know that makes sense and he went and chucked it in the la brea tar pits for her obviously there were two guns that were used to kill fred and she still had the second one at home but she didn't want to ask rory to get rid of both because that would just be way too sketchy right so she actually enlists the help of her neighbor and she goes to her neighbor and she says to him the same thing like oh i found this gun at my house it really resembles that gun and just don't want anyone to get the wrong idea so can you just kind of bury it for me and her neighbor again was like yeah okay you know that makes sense and he buried it in his backyard for her i don't know how she was convincing all these men to do this sketchy stuff for her i mean she must have been a real sweet talker and i know what you're thinking that was a bad idea from dolly you know i tell carrie about all of these cases every time i research a case i give them the whole rundown and as soon as i got to that part he was like oh that was a mistake and he would be right now two more people have evidence of fred's murder and to make matters worse a couple years later dolly breaks up with roy and roy is so pissed that he goes to the police and he's like hey look a couple years earlier dolly had me bury this gun and i'm just now realizing that that may have been really sketchy and so the police go and recover the gun from the la brea tar pits and then they go and arrest dolly and bring her in for questioning and her neighbor sees her being arrested and he's like oh that's not good and so he goes and digs up the gun from his backyard that she had him bury earlier for her and he takes it to the police and he says look dolly had me bury this gun a couple years earlier and i don't want to be a part of a cover-up or anything so now obviously dolly's been arrested and she's in prison kind of waiting for her trial or whatever's gonna happen and she's freaking out because otto is in her attic and she can't get food or anything up to him he probably has no idea what's going on so when herman comes to visit her you know her lawyer lover she tells him hey look you know my vagabond stepbrother is living in our attic and i'm in prison so i can't bring him any food so can you bring him food and if you just go and knock on the roof of our closet he'll know to come out and herman's like okay you know that makes sense sure and he goes he knocks and otto comes down and as soon as otto comes down he tells herman everything he's like yeah her and i having a ton of sex it's great and herman's like what the heck bro and he kicks otto out and then he also goes and gets dolly release from prison because you know he's a fancy schmancy lawyer and by this point the guns have corroded so much they can't be tied to dolly because for a few years now they've been buried in someone's backyard and buried in a tarpit so there's no evidence connect to connect her and all of the charges against her a drop after she gets out herman actually comes to live with her for the next seven years because i guess having some guy in her attic to have sex with every day wasn't a deal breaker for him but then after seven years so in 1930 hermann actually caught dolly cheating on him because dolly was never satisfied with just one fella and herman was pissed so he went to the police and he gave them all of the evidence that he had collected over the last seven years to prove that dolly had in fact murdered her late husband fred osterick and he also told them all of the information he had about otto and the fact that otto had likely locked her in the closet grabbed some of fred's stuff like his watch and then ran up and hid in the attic and then it was both of them together who killed fred so dolly was obviously arrested and the police set out to find otto and they did find him a year later and arrested him but in the year that they were looking for him he had actually moved to canada and changed his name to wall decline and gotten married and then eventually moved back to l.a which is where he was arrested and after they arrested him he actually admitted to everything including the fact that he lived in the attic for 10 years when his trial began the media just went crazy because obviously it is such a bizarre case and he was you know kept in a tiny secluded cave-like attic for 10 years which the defense really did use to their advantage they claimed that dolly enslaved him and because of that he had the mind of an eight-year-old and so he should be found not guilty by reason of insanity but in the end he was found guilty of manslaughter but here's the catch the previous year just one year before he was convicted the statute of limitations on manslaughter had actually expired so he was free to go i mean this confuses me for so many reasons because first of all how did they even have this entire trial and convict him of manslaughter if the statute of limitations was already up and second of all if he's convicted of literally manslaughter like literally murdering this guy what on earth even is the statute of limitations like oh congrats you got away with it for long enough that now you don't get punished for it i don't understand so they then had a trial for dolly on a conspiracy charge which i don't know if they didn't have the evidence to prosecute her for murder or if maybe because of the way otto's trial went they knew about the statute of limitations so they just didn't bother charging her i mean the conspiracy charge also confuses me i don't know what the laws were like back then but nowadays in california i'm pretty sure that the statute of limitations on conspiracy is only three years so i'm not sure but it didn't matter anyway because dolly's trial ended up resulting in a hung jury and she was free to go and then by 1936 they decided not to prosecute her again and that was that the charge against her was dropped completely she stayed in la after that and remarried and she ended up passing away in 1961 when she was 80 years old after his trial otto left la and there's really no records of what happened to him after i'll be really curious to know actually how his life turned out but that is everything for this case it is truly a bizarre one it's probably one of the most bizarre cases i've ever looked into like there was some guy living in her attic for 10 years and she was gaslighting her husband into thinking he was crazy for hearing footsteps it's wild it's a wild ride so i would really love to hear your thoughts in the comments down below i hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day and hopefully i will see you in my next video bye guys

Channel: Bella Fiori

Views: 482,270

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Id: nGciUGCxfuE

Length: 26min 25sec (1585 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 27 2022