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Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21215, 9 December 1938, Page 9

SENT TO ELECTRIC CHAIR

Fate of “ Blonde Borgia ” Poisoner of Old Men Frantic Efforts for Reprieve Onlted Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright (Received December 8, 7.50 p.m.) COLUMBUS (Ohio), December 7. Mrs Anna Marie Hahn, handsome 32-year-old German born housewife, who described herself as an “angel of mercy” but whom the State attorney branded “Blonde Borgia” was electrocuted to-night for the murder of the 78-year-old Jacob Wagner, one of four old men she befriended and poisoned for their savings. Marie Hahn cried for help to the last. She was the first woman to die in Ohio’s electric chair. One of the strangest criminals in America’s ahnals, her case attracted international attention, particularly in Germany where her aged mother steadfastly believing in her daughter’s innocence, went into retirement due to shame. Extraordinary efforts were made to obtain a reprieve. Both Federal and, State authorities, however, refused to intervene even at the last moment when her 12-year-old gon personally pleaded with the Governor for his mother. A sensation was caused during her trial by the revelation of her strange vagabond life and her method of encouraging old men to become boarders. At her house after which she gave them poison when she learned they had sufficient funds to make their deaths profitable to herself. One of the principal witnesses against her was a man hopelessly crippled by poison she had administered to him.