Customer Reviews

The Good-Bye Door: The Incredible True Story of America's First Female Serial Killer to Die in the Chair (True Crime)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a fascinating true story about America's first female serial killer to die in the electric chair. The book covers Anna Marie Hahn's life as a favored child in Bavaria, to her descent into crime as a serial killer, and finally to her execution. The book is an easy, but compelling read--I couldn't put it down and read it in less than 2 days! I had the pleasure of meeting the author, Diana Franklin, and discussing the book with her. Diana's thorough research investigating these murders (which took place in the mid- to late-1930s) and the resulting trial and media coverage is clear. She was able to recreate Anna's actions in astounding detail. Anyone who is interested in reading true crime stories should definitely add this book to their list of "must reads"!

As an avid reader of true crime, I thoroughly enjoyed "The Good-bye Door." How this incredible story, told in such captivating detail by the author, escaped attention all these years is hard to fathom. In its day, it was describled as "the greatest mass murder in the history of the country." Fortunately for history, this author took the time to chronicle Anna Marie Hahn's arrest, trial, incarceration, and execution in Ohio. "The
Good-bye Door" is engrossing from beginning to end. I loved it.

"The Good-bye Door" is a masterful recreation of a heinous crime that took place almost 80 years ago. The manuscript is so vividly crafted that I felt like a voyeur, watching every move made by this serial killer, Anna Marie Hahn. When she finally was arrested, I was there when police questioned her. When her trial began in a crowded Cincinnati courtroom, I was sitting in the first row. When she stood rigidly before the bar, I felt the judge's pain at having to pronounce the death sentence. And when she went to the electric chair after a year in the Ohio penitentiary, I was swept up by the emotional scene in front of me. Readers will be amazed, as I was, at the author's skill in bringing this story to life. A wonderful book.

I happened to meet the author, Diana Britt Franklin, at a conference and she was so enthusiastic about her book that I immediately went home and ordered it. I usually read historical fiction and haven't had much interest in books about crime, so I was skeptical. I found the book to be extremely well researched, documented and fascinating. It is not gory or violent in any way. Rather, it is a detailed description and account of a very sick and evil mind and the heinous crimes she committed. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in human nature and the many paths and turns the human mind follows. By the time you finish the book, you feel like you were at the trial yourself. That is quite an achievement for crimes that were committed 70 years ago.

This book must have been quite an undertaking for the author as all the primary players in this drama are long dead. However, the story is well researched, very well written, and almost devoid of typos and grammatical errors. (I think I found one.) "The Good-bye Door" tells the story of Anna Marie Hahn, the first female serial killer to die in the electric chair. Anna Marie was a young Bavarian immigrant who came to America partly to escape her past. She settled in a largely German area of Cincinnati and later sent for her young son.

Adept at social relationships (as are many sociopaths), Anna Marie soon ingratiates herself to elderly men in the neighborhood. She bilked them out of whatever money she could and then systematically poisoned them. However, Anna Marie is an enigma. In some cases, she was willing to kill for relatively small amounts of money and the "gain" for her appears to be very little... unless you consider that she may have enjoyed poisening her victims. In the end, at the age of 32, when death was imminent and Anna Marie was forced to reckon with her own demons, she begged pitifully and screamed as she was strapped into Old Sparky.

Oddly, Anna Marie always claimed to love her son, Oscar, who was 12 at the time of her death. She often stated that everything she did was to provide for him. While her son does appear to be perhaps the only person she felt any real affection for, I believe even this love was selfish and tainted by her own vanity and narcissism.

While it is unclear how much Oscar knew of her muderous activities, Anna Marie exhibited no emotion when she had Oscar serve the arsenic-laced food to the victims. Did Oscar ever see her poison the food? Did Oscar ever assist his mother in poisoning the meals she "lovingly" prepared for the elderly men in her care? No one will ever know... but I suspect he knew a great deal more than he was ever willing to say. Certainly, Oscar exhibited problems maintaining appropriate peer relationships and had learned from his mother how to lie with ease. Given that Anna Marie did NOT shield her son from these ammoral activities, nor the grotesque manner in which the victims were forced to suffer and die, it can only be concluded that even the love she claimed to feel for Oscar was shallow and lacking in humility and honesty.

Anna Marie was certainly not raised by abusive parents or forced to live in abject poverty and suffering. If anything, she was probably coddled by her mother and rarely held accountable for her actions. When she did burn the bridges with her remaining family members, she was shunned and ignored. Not one person from her family of origin expressed any sympathy for her plight, and not one family member ever attended her trial. Having suffered the consequences of a tainted relationship with Anna Marie for many years, perhaps they already knew what many others failed to see until it was too late.

Few true crime writers I have read can match Diana Franklin's inpressive ability to re-create an incredibe story such as this and place the reader right in the middle of it. This is not a bloody tale of an ax murderer who ran amuk, but it is just as shocking today as it was 80 years ago. I was astounded that this woman, Anna Marie Hahn-of whom I had never heard-could ingratiate herself to so many elderly men and women, then snuff out their lives so callously. She must have had super powers of persuasian to get them to trust her, giving her hundreds of dollars in "loans". I did have sympathy for her husband as he maintained his dignity throughout the ordeal. Her son, however, although young, came across to me as a willing pawn to his mother's activities with lies and subterfuge. However, any child that would have to endure a mother's trial, incarceration, and death in the electric chair deserves some sympathy from the reader, I suppose. This story is absolutely fascinating merely because if it were not true crime, it hardly would be believeable. The author's skillful dedicationto details makes it so.

Although I've lived in Ohio for most of my life, I had never heard the story of Anna Marie Hahn. Her story is fascinating and is clearly detailed in Franklin's entertaining book. It is obvious that a lot of investigative work was done before the writing. Franklin uses actual newspaper articles and notes from the judge and lawyers to lay out Anna's story. Franklin's wry sense of humor helps to lighten the mood of the subject and its implications--that a beautiful woman can take the lives of so many elderly, and hardly no one notices. From beginning to end the story is riveting, and I highly recommend it.

"The Good-Bye Door" is an enthralling read for both true crime fans and history buffs. Although a sensation at the time, Anna Marie Hahn has not only vanished from the popular conscience but, as the author points out, she has also nearly disappeared from official public records. Diana Franklin's five years of painstaking research, based largely on newspaper accounts, trial transcripts and Hahn's own handwritten confession, has yielded the chilling tale of a headstrong young German immigrant who arrived in Cincinnati in 1929 as an outcast following the birth of her illegitimate son. Trading on her youth and good looks, Hahn preyed on some of the most vulnerable members of society for five years before being caught. Franklin's straightforward, dispassionate retelling of Hahn's crimes and punishment avoids the popular sensationalism of the 1930s and lets her shocking story speak for itself.

The Good Bye Door by former journalist Diana Britt Franklin is an unusual--to me--true crime story inasmuch as it deals with the relatively rare female serial killer, and the first in the US to die in the electric chair.
It reads like a novel. It is sharply written, yet successfully portrays each character's humanity, including that of the murderous woman.
I loved the sense and texture of the time in which these events happened. It was easy to picture the places and lives of the people who lived in the book. Also easy to understand why it has won several awards.
Even though the outcome is known, The Good Bye Door is stil an exciting read.

To those of us who are naïve enough to think that serial killers are a product of our generation, one only needs to remember the oft quoted philosophy of George Santayana: "Those who can not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The words were penned prior to 1906.

In "The Good-bye Door," author Diana Britt Franklin reweaves the story of Anna Marie Hahn, a prolific killer in Cincinnati. Though the terminology had yet to be coined -- the term used in her day was "mass murderer" -- surely Anna fits the bill of "serial killer". As Franklin transports us back to the 1930's, we are mesmerized by a tale of avarice, lies, and murder.

Except that the verdict is revealed in the prologue, we follow Anna's life as silent onlookers, wondering what the outcome of her actions will bring. As death follows upon death, then arrest and trial arrive, we still are unsure whether she is capable and guilty as charged. Lies are ever present, but part of us wants to believe her.

Just as we accept the evil that has been done and the verdict, we are confronted by Anna Hahn's time spent on death row and our own conflict between justice and mercy.

If this were fiction it would be remarkable, but as a true story it is sensational, thanks to the exhaustive research Ms. Franklin has done to bring alive this disturbing tale.