The Little Fella in the Attic - Adultery and Murder Case - Part 1

On August 22, 1922, slightly before midnight, Walburga (Dolly) Oesterreich (pronounced “o-strike”) and her husband, Fred returned to their impressive 2-story home in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles after visiting friends.

Upon entering the house Dolly slipped on a throw rug and fell, exclaiming loudly as she hit the floor. Just then, Fred noticed a small figure descending the stairs from the 2nd floor. The pale figure held a pistol in each hand.

The little fella was Otto Sanhuber, Dolly’s young lover who, unbeknownst to Fred, lived in a crawl space in their attic. By Sanhuber’s own account, he had been living in one Oesterreich attic or another since 1913 when he was just 17.

It all started in Milwaukee. Fred Oesterreich owned a successful textiles manufacturing business. He started out in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in the early 1890s with apron manufacturing.

Fred’s workers, nearly all women and girls, worked 10-hour days, six days a week. Weekly pay for the by-the-piece work ranged from $6.50-$9.00. His factory was reportedly crowded with the machines and harried workers - hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Fred was a gruff, demanding taskmaster and a heavy drinker, frequently berating his seamstresses to work faster and closely monitored their production.

Walburga (Dolly) began working for Fred as a seamstress shortly after he started the business, when she was 12. She was an attractive and charismatic girl and Fred quickly took a liking to her. They married in 1897 when Fred was in his mid-20s and Dolly was 17.

Fred and Dolly’s only child, Raymond Oesterreich, was born in 1900. Raymond tragically passed away from an unspecified illness in 1909, one month shy of his 10th birthday.

Before his death, Raymond had been befriended by a 15-year-old sewing machine repairman who frequented both the apron factory and the Oesterreich home where he worked on Dolly’s machine: Otto Sanhuber.

After Raymond’s death, the grieving Dolly reportedly transferred her attention and affection to Otto, telling him that he now took the place of her lost son. They would spend hours walking, talking and reading together, deepening a bond that evolved from a family friendship into a romantic relationship between Dolly and Otto in the years that followed.

By 1913, when she was 33 and Otto was 17, their bond had deepened to a sexual relationship. Early encounters were clandestine, often taking place in Fred’s factory after closing, at hotels, Otto’s rooming house, or at the Oesterreich residence when Fred was absent. Dolly would refer to Otto as her “vagabond half-brother” to neighbors to explain his frequent presence at the house and to deflect suspicion.

As neighborhood gossip escalated, Dolly and Otto met less in public and more inside her home. Their emotional connection was described as intense, secretive and fraught with risk, blending Dolly’s maternal protectiveness with growing passion while Otto was becoming increasingly fixated on Dolly.

The situation came to a head one day when Fred unexpectedly returned home from the factory in the afternoon while Dolly and Otto were enjoying each other upstairs. Dolly hurriedly showed Otto how he could conceal himself in a crawl space among the rafters in the attic.

Otto remained there, silently, all that night. The next morning, after Fred had left, Dolly retrieved Otto from the crawl space and told him they would never have to be apart if he would live in her attic.

The undersized teen quit his job that day and began positioning boards over the rafter beams so he could fashion a sort of bed on them. To this he added a latrine bucket and a box for a desk. Otto fancied himself a budding pulp fiction writer and looked forward to getting a lot of writing done in the quiet attic after tapping into an electrical wire and installing a light bulb.

Dolly, who still worked at the factory most days had other ideas and soon showed Otto how she wanted the beds made, the house dusted, the dishes cleaned, etc.

At his Los Angeles murder trial many years later, Otto answered questions posed by his lawyer, a Mr. Wakeman, about the details of his strange existence as a member of the Oesterreich household:
(from the book, “Hollywood Lawyer” by Jerry Giesler)

Q. What did you do?
A. Well, I had my work to do in the house. There was the scrubbing to be done and cleaning to be done, dusting and each day I had service to do for Fred - Mr. Oesterreich.
Q. What was that?
A. Well, each morning I made up his bed for him, and each evening I would uncover it, you know, so it would be handy for him to go to bed, and then he took a bath almost every day, and he would shave himself; and Fred, he was a big businessman, he did not have time for such things, and when he would get ready in the morning he would throw everything right down. And I would pick it up and put it away, you know, and so I waited on him, and when he wanted a shirt or a collar or anything out of the neat drawers, he would just throw out what was not needed and, of course, I would put them back again.
Q. Now, when would you do that work that you are stating that you did?
A. Oh, it was a regular thing, sir, every day.
Q. Did Mrs. Oesterreich keep a servant?
A. No sir.
Q. Never?
A. They had no servant in their house.
Q. Excepting just yourself?
A. Yes sir.
Q. What other work did you do in the house for Mrs. Oesterreich?
A. Well, I made up the beds, and changed the linen about two times a week. They loved to sleep clean, and I made up the beds for them, and put away their clothes, and dusted Fred’s clothes, because he had some beautiful things, and I would keep them in order for him and dust them, and dust his shoes, you know, so he would look neat always. And then I would wash the dishes when he wasn’t home. And I would get the vegetables clean - and they were clean - everybody praised her, how clean her things were; and scrubbed the floor and kept it clean, and kept the floor neat, you know - she loved to have a beautiful floor - and dusted it, you know.
*******
Q. Well now, tell us about that. What did you see of her? You say that at first you saw her sometimes before he went away, and later that you would see her usually in the morning, after he had gone, I believe. Is that correct?
A. As a rule, sir. Nothing went regular.
Q. Nothing was regular?
A. No, sir.
Q. Did you see her other times?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. When, what times of the day?
A. Oh, whenever - well I guess whenever I was willing and she wanted to see me.

Sanhuber reported later that he thought of Mrs. Oesterreich as his benefactress, that her loving kindness to him built up an overpowering loyalty and a silent devotion within him, so much so that he thought of her as “the only woman in the world”. Otto also later testified that he and Dolly had sex up to eight times a day.

Furthering his dependency on Dolly was the fact that Otto had never known who his parents were. He was left on a doorstep as an infant and raised as an orphan.

Once he was established in his new home, Otto sometimes would leave the house for evening walks on occasions when Dolly and Fred were out for the night and he was certain they wouldn’t be home until late.

Otto also later testified that at this time, and with Dolly’s help, he purchased a pistol so that he would feel safe while on his walks. He later purchased a second pistol, which he gave to Dolly.

Dolly would later testify that, on occasion, Fred would tell her that he had heard a noise in the attic. Or complain that he had put leftover food in the refrigerator for later but the next day it would be gone. Dolly would tell him that because he drinks so much, he probably forgot that he ate the food himself. And that she didn’t hear anything in the attic and he was just hearing things.

Fred and Dolly each had their own bedroom because, she said, Fred liked to stay up late reading. So, Otto’s crawl space garret was soon moved as far away as possible from Fred’s room.

Because he was terrified of being discovered by Fred, Otto quickly learned how to move about in the attic without making a sound.

In 1914 Fred and Dolly purchased a much larger Milwaukee home, after Dolly had made sure it had adequate attic space for Otto. As he would do in their future home in L.A., Otto moved into the home’s attic prior to the Oesterreich’s arrival.

Sanhuber continued to occupy himself in the attic with reading books Dolly brought to him from the library and writing his lurid detective and science fiction stories. Dolly would submit Otto’s stories to pulp fiction magazines and a few of them were even published.

In 1918, Fred decided to expand his manufacturing operations to Los Angeles. Dolly agreed to the move, with her one condition being that she got to pick out their house. Dolly soon discovered that an L.A. home with an attic was a rarity, but she did find one.

The next step in her plan was to send Otto ahead to California where he was to stay in a hotel near the L.A. train station and wait for their arrival. Communications in 1918 not being what they are today, Otto did not know exactly when the Oesterreich’s would arrive. so, he waited every day at a spot near the arrival area from where he could observe all arriving passengers.

He would have to wait and watch for a number of days before he finally saw Dolly and Fred get off their train. We’re not sure how, but Dolly managed to convey to Otto the hotel where they were staying, and by the next morning the little fella was watching the hotel.

Otto soon saw Fred leaving for his new factory. He quickly reconnected with Dolly. The two then went to the new Oesterreich home where, prior to Fred and Dolly’s arrival, Otto moved into his new attic home where life would soon resume as before.

After five years hidden in attics, with no exposure to sunlight or fresh air, Otto had become quite stunted, weak and pale. One observer described Sanhuber as having a “fish-belly yellow” skin color.

End of Part 1 of 2
Part 2 coming soon