The Lover in The Attic (This is a Work in Progress)
The Strange and Sensational Tale of Walburga Oesterriech
(I unlisted this and now I can’t save it as a draft again — which is kind of annoying — This piece isn’t finished but I’ll try and sort it out today 26/03/2024)
In 1930s Los Angeles, a murder came to light that was peculiar even by Tinsel Town’s standards. The murder itself was commonplace enough, but the circumstances surrounding the killing of Fred Osterriech were far from it. Central to this salacious tale is Walberga — known as Dolly — Oesterriech.
The “Femme Fatale”
Born in 1880 to German immigrant parents (no one knows whether this was in the US or back in Germany), Walberga Korshel was brought up in the farming communities of the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area, where a large number of fellow Germans had settled and had started to establish themselves. Common to the experience of first-generation immigrants the world over, it was an existence characterised by hardship and struggle, and Dolly started working outside of the home at the age of 12.
Unfortunately, there aren’t many photos of Dolly as a young woman, which is a shame because she was reported to be vivacious and popular at the apron factory where she worked. Despite appearing rather middle-aged and matronly in the photo at the start of this article, you can detect a hint of that fun person remaining, and that the name Dolly was a better fit than Walburga. She had a wide circle of friends and when married to Fred, had a gift for smoothing over workplace issues and taking the sting out of her husband's brusque and somewhat bullying demands on his employees.
Fred and the marriage
She caught the attention of her boss, Fred Oesterreich (The wealthy owner of the apron factory), and they were married when Dolly was 17. There wasn’t a massive age gap between Dolly and Fred (only five-ish years — though Dolly’s accurate birth date and location are lost to the mists of time), and they seem to have reasonably well matched in the beginning, though fundamental differences of temperament and sex drive (possibly made worse by Fred’s heavy drinking) would eventually cause cracks to appear.
Fred was a hard-working, hard-drinking dour man who was described as a “skinflint with an iron will” whereas Dolly, even at the time of the court proceedings was described as “comely” and a “naughty vamp”. It is very apparent that the marriage was not a bed of roses, and the situation can only have worsened over time as they lost their only child, Raymond at age 9 in 1910. Prior to this, Dolly was known to take lovers, while her husband took to the drink that possibly bore partial blame for the unfortunate marital situation. It was only after this point that one of the lovers became the permanent feature that ultimately lead to tragedy.
The Batman
Otto Sanhuber
