“MODERN BORGIA”

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 255, 27 October 1937, Page 8

“MODERN BORGIA”

QUEER DEATHS OF ELDERLY MEN ARREST ON MURDER CHARGE CINCINNATI, Aug. 24. Anna Hahn, a 31-year-old comely former German schoolteacher, has been arrested and charged with the murder of George Seliman, 67. The police believe they have a modern Borgia, who has been killing off a series of old men friends as rapidly as they assigned their substantial estates to her. The arrest followed a report from a city chemist of the discovery of traces of a metallic poison in Seliman’s body. detectives are now investigating the Cxa'eer deaths of five other elderly men. Police now admit that they have “just started uncovering what may be a colossal series of crimes.” Mrs Hahn’s fingerprints and pictures have been sent to Munich, Germany, where she formerly taught in a school, and to Vienna, where her first husband, Dr. Max Matscheki, practised medicine. She admitted having bought a bottle of poison, which her husband, Philip Hahn, a telegraphist, had given the police. She admitted also having known four men among those whose

deaths are being investigated. Mrs Hahn has said that she ministered to them during their last illnesses and has admitted having collected altogether £14,000 for her ministrations. The men concerned include George Obendoreer, 60, who was found dead in bed; Jacob Wagner, 78, and Albert Palmer, 72, for whose deaths the police could arrive at no satisfactory reasons.