After nearly fifteen years of service in the office of the district attorney, Dudley Miller Outcalt had earned plaudits from courthouse veterans as one of the ablest of Hamilton County prosecutors.
Tough, commanding, and forceful, he loved the chase and the victory. That was reflected in his avid, lifelong interest in flying and automobile racing. During World War I, he had been a fighter pilot in the famed 94th Aero Squadron commanded by the celebrated Ace of Aces, Eddie Rickenbacker of Columbus, Ohio. Outcalt returned to Cincinnati after the war to study at the University of Cincinnati and its law school. After a short stint in private practice, he became an assistant county prosecutor in 1923 under District Attorney Charles S. Bell. Subsequently, Outcalt served under two other Hamilton County prosecutors, Nelson Schwab and Louis J. Schneider, both of whom also became judges. In 1936 Outcalt succeeded Schneider as prosecutor.
Rickenbacker and Outcalt remained friends after the war, sharing a passion for speed. Rickenbacker turned to auto racing, driving at the Indianapolis Speedway, which he subsequently bought. When the renowned Indianapolis 500 race came around, Outcalt invariably found a job working in the pits. He also took Rickenbacker-owned race cars out for a spin on the track and, on occasion, rode as copilot.
Outcalt shared the prosecutorial duties with three of his most trusted assistant district attorneys: Carson T. Hoy took the Obendoerfer case, Simon Leis was assigned to the Palmer and Heis cases, and Loyal S. Martin took charge of the Gsellman case. Outcalt would handle the prosecution on the indictment, namely the death of Wagner. It was a formidable team.
The team for the defense, Hoodin, thirty, and Bolsinger, fifty-eight, appeared to be at a disadvantage. Both were civil attorneys who now had on their hands their first capital murder case, and an extremely high-profile one at that. Assisting the pair in preparing for the trial were Sidney Brant, Sidney Kahn, and Hiram C. Bolsinger Jr.
Anna Marie’s trial would be held in what was known as “The Big Courtroom” on the third floor of the Hamilton County Courthouse. As the presiding criminal judge at the time, Nelson Schwab occupied what was the largest courtroom in the county, but recognizing the frenzy of interest in the Hahn case, he loaned his bench to Judge Bell.
The courthouse was designed to suggest to all who entered the weight and majesty of the law. Built in the Greek Ionic style, in six floors it housed the courts, county offices, and the county jail. Cincinnati’s favorite son, William Howard Taft, laid the cornerstone in 1915, two years after he had left the White House. The massive structure was completed in 1918 at a cost of $2.5 million.
Indiana limestone decorated the exterior, and inside, twenty-five different varieties of marble dominated the décor. Halls and stairways were of Vermont marble, but each courtroom had marble from a different Midwest quarry. The building also boasted an innovative ventilating system that worked much like air-conditioning today. A large fan in the basement drew in outside air that then passed through a water bath to clean the air of soot and contaminants and to cool it. The air was then forced throughout the building and out through vents in the courtroom. Five oversized windows directly behind the jury box let in light and air.
Brass and bronze hardware was used throughout, and the Seal of Hamilton County appeared on every doorknob. A pair of polished brass lamps and shades, twenty-four inches high, graced each side of the bench.
The G. Henshaw & Son’s furniture company of Cincinnati made all the courtroom furniture of Honduras mahogany. Four rows of wooden benches on each side of the center aisle began at the rear of the courtroom. Devoid of upholstery, the benches were most uncomfortable, yet spectators “lucky” enough to gain admittance to the trial sat there hours on end.1
The court added sixty folding chairs for the trial due to the tremendous interest in the Hahn case. The large press corps sat at tables directly behind the tables for the prosecution and for the defense. A highly polished brass railing, or “bar,” enclosed the bench, the cramped witness stand that faced the jury, and the court reporter’s desk. When Judge Bell was on the bench, attorneys were allowed to approach the bar, but they were not permitted to touch it.
Judge Bell disappointed the press corps initially, particularly the large contingent representing out-of-town newspapers. They had petitioned for telegraphic services in the courtroom during the trial. He ruled against that—a wire room was established elsewhere in the courthouse—and further ruled that there would be no photographs permitted while court was in session. The cameramen had a field day before and after court and during recesses, however, posing the defendant, attorneys, bailiffs, and even the jury, as needed.
Fifteen deputy sheriffs, an unusually large number, were summoned to ensure order in the court during the trial.
On the sixth floor of the courthouse, Anna Marie held celebrity status while in the county jail, where a higher-than-usual number of visitors stopped by just for the chance to walk by her cell and see her. On the first weekend, she strolled the hall, greeting passersby warmly. Newspapers began referring to her as the jail’s “prima donna,” reigning over her fellow prisoners. Each day she was to appear in court, two other prisoners attended to her every need, curling her hair, straightening her dress, and manicuring her nails. A third brought her cigarettes or coffee.
“I have my faith and the knowledge that I have told the truth,” she said as she sat in a straight chair, having her hair done. “They will never get a confession out of me, because I can’t confess to something I never did.”
Jail matron Mary King revealed that Anna Marie became upset each time a reference was made to her jail cell. “It’s not a ‘cell,’” she insisted. “It’s a room!” Mrs. King had to agree, inasmuch as the women’s quarters also served as hospital rooms on occasion. Each room contained a dresser, a chair, and a cot. Curtains appliquéd with tulips graced the windows.
After two weeks of questioning and preliminary trial proceedings, it was clear to Mrs. King that Anna Marie was tired. The accused tried to keep busy, though, particularly with her sewing, embroidering, and knitting. She instituted informal sewing classes for the other female inmates, classes that became a regular part of the jail’s rehabilitation program after Anna Marie had departed.
A month before the trial, George Elliston of the Times-Star obtained an exclusive jailhouse interview with Anna Marie. Elliston was the newspaper’s “sob sister” but as hard-nosed covering crime as any of her male counterparts. Anna Marie told Elliston, somewhat bitterly, that she had never “cheated” anyone out of money. What she owed was “largely to tradespeople whom I didn’t get a chance to pay when I was locked up here.”
The accused went on at length about her trials and tribulations.
“If I were guilty of one-half or one-fourth of the things they accuse me of, I would be a monster. I pick up the paper every day, wondering what new charge they will hunt up. I read that I am supposed to have murdered or stolen or defrauded someone or other. Half the time it is some person I never even have heard of.
“My comfort is that no one can be judged guilty of any crime until it is proven he has done the deed. I am innocent of murder, arson, and theft and of everything they have charged to me. I can and will prove it. . . . The only thing that worries me is the lies they tell. But even that doesn’t make a great deal of difference, because I am innocent.”2
Anna Marie hoped her sister, Katti, would be able to come to Cincinnati for the trial. “It would be a comfort to me to have some member of my family with me,” she said. Because Katharina Filser, Anna Marie’s mother in Fuessen, was sixty-nine and not in good health, her sons and daughter withheld from her the news of her youngest child’s arrest and pending trial. Anna Marie had sent her family a cablegram: “Please don’t worry about me. I am innocent. That’s all what counts. Just pray for me. Lovingly, Annie.”
Nobody from her family came for the trial. In fact, nobody from her family ever saw her again.
1. Today the courtroom, now designated Courtroom 340, remains virtually the way it was in 1937. A 1938 bar association photo montage on the wall includes Bell, Outcalt, Hoodin, and both Bolsingers, father and son.
2. George Elliston, “Mrs. Hahn Trying to Bring Sister to Cincinnati for Trial,” Cincinnati Times-Star, Sept. 7, 1937, 1.