Women Serial Killers of the 20th Century by Sylvia Perrini Read Free Book Online

to her. When the prison authorities arrived to escort her to the death chamber, she could barely walk. On entering the execution room and seeing the electric chair, Anna fainted. Officials revived her with ammonia and carried her to the chair, to which they strapped her. All the time she was crying and pleading for help.

     
     

    Ohio State Penitentiary electric chair
     
    No one replied to Anna ; the officials just hastily fastened the electrodes to her skin and then placed a black mask over her head. Anna continued to cry and haltingly recited the Lord's Prayer. Then Anna abruptly stopped praying; her hands clenched and her body arched straining against the straps that held her. Her body began jerking and convulsing while the electric current raced through her body. Anna Hahn was pronounced dead at 8:13:30 pm on December 7th, 1938.
     

    One of the letters Anna wrote the day before her execution was her confession to the murders of the four men. This she sold to a newspaper in exchange for her son to receive a quality education.
    Anna’s son, twelve-year-old Oscar, was placed with a foster family somewhere in the Midwest. The newspaper kept its promise to Anna and never revealed Oscar’s whereabouts and paid for his education.

CAROLINE GRILL S
    A cure for boredom?
     
    Caroline Grills née Mickelson was born in 1890 in Balmain, Sydney, Australia to George (a seaman) and Mary Mickelson. On the 22nd of April 1908, Caroline, at the age of eighteen, married Richard William Grills, a real-estate agent. When Caroline’s mother Mary died, her father remarried a woman called Christina.
    During their marriage, Caroline and Richard had five sons and a daughter. Caroline seemed happy and content with life. She had a wide circle of friends and a large extended ever-growing family as her children grew, married, and had children of their own. Caroline was known affectionately as Aunty Carrie. All who knew her liked Caroline; she had a happy-go-lucky character and a smile almost invariably on her face. Physically, Caroline was small, barely just over four feet tall (1.22 meters,) plump, fair-haired, had a fresh complexion, and wore thick-rimmed glasses. She was a typical fifties house-proud housewife who enjoyed cooking, baking, and helping out with her grand-children.
    When her house became overrun with rats, she immediately set about eliminating them by buying a large quantity of “Thallrat”. Caroline discovered that she rather enjoyed watching the rats writhe around in agony before finally dying. It increased the smile on her face.
    In 1948, when Caroline was fifty-eight , her father died. In his will, he left his house on 13 Gerrish Street in the Sydney suburb of Gladesville to Caroline, with the stipulation that Caroline’s step-mother, Christina Mickelson, enjoy a life-long tenancy. In short, this meant that Caroline was unable to occupy the house until after Christina’s death. Although Christina was in her eighties, for her age, she was in excellent health. To Caroline’s annoyance, it did not look as if she would be able to move into the house any time soon.
    Caroline began frequently visiting Christina, telling other relatives that she worried about Christina living alone. On every visit, she would be laden down with homemade cakes and would make her stepmother endless cups of tea. To friends and relatives, Caroline appeared totally selfless in her caring and concern. Within a few short months, Christina’s health began to fail, her hair began to fall out, her eyesight began to fail, and she eventually died. Because of Christina’s age, no one was suspicious as to her cause of death. Immediately after the funeral, Caroline and Richard moved into the house.
    Caroline, as she had with the rats , had rather enjoyed watching Christina suffer and die. It relieved her boredom and gave her a strange sense of power. She began visiting a relative of her husband’s, an Angelina Thomas. Angelina had a cottage in Leura in the