The Woman Who Hid Her Lover in the Attic for Nearly a Decade

In 1913, Dolly Oesterreich was an unhappily married woman in Milwaukee. One day she told her wealthy husband, Fred, that her sewing machine was broken, and he sent over a 17-year-old repairman named Otto Sanhuber. Dolly, then in her early thirties, answered the door in little more than a silk robe. The affair began almost at once.

To keep it secret, Dolly hatched an audacious plan. She had Otto quit his job and move into the attic of the very home she shared with Fred.

For years, Otto lived in the rafters like a ghost. By day, while Fred was at work, he came down to be with Dolly and help with chores. By night he retreated to the attic, writing pulp fiction by candlelight. Fred occasionally heard footsteps overhead and noticed food vanishing, but Dolly convinced him he was imagining things.

The arrangement mattered so much to Dolly that when the couple moved to Los Angeles in 1918, she insisted the new house have an attic, and sent Otto ahead so he’d be waiting. His strange life simply resumed in a new city.

Then, in 1922, Dolly and Fred came home and began to argue violently. Hearing it from above, Otto emerged with a pistol. Fred was shot three times and killed.
The lovers staged a burglary. Otto took Fred’s watch, locked Dolly in a closet, and slipped back into hiding before police arrived. It worked for years.

The truth surfaced only when Dolly gave Fred’s “stolen” watch to another lover, her attorney, who went to police. The press dubbed Otto “the Bat Man.” In the end, both walked free, Otto on an expired statute of limitations, Dolly on a hung jury. She took the full truth to her grave.