Comfort Food Killer | The Good-bye Door: The Incredible True Story of America's First Female Serial Killer...

The Good Bye Door | The Good-bye Door: The Incredible True Story of America's First Female Serial Killer to Die in the Chair ... | Diana Britt Franklin

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	• The Good-bye Door: The Incredible True Story of America's First Female Serial Killer to Die in the Chair ... Diana Britt Franklin Kent State University Press, 2006 - 244 pages average customer review:based on 24 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A Mesmerizing True Tale

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.

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Comfort Food Killer

It's been more than a month since I devoured The Good bye-Door but I can't stop thinking about it! The true story of this serial murderer is interwoven with the familiar threads of the yin rejection by family and friends counterbalanced with the yang of revenge in the form of seduction: charisma is used as the tool of killing. Diana Franklin's masterful research and brilliant reporting traces the short, tragic life of Anna Marie Hahn, a pretty young German woman who arrives penniless in the U.S. Somewhere along the way she must have heard "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach." She cooks familiar comfort foods for her victims and cunningly provides a digestive in the form of fast-acting poison. The author unravels a tale of consequences as one financial crisis for Anna Marie leads to the death of one unsuspecting old gentleman, and then another and another and yet more. With heartless lack of remorse, the "heroine" leaves her victims to suffer, never believing for a moment that the tables will turn. In the end the reader is forced to confront and analyze every side of the debate about capital punishment as the author forces us to witness the horror of the execution chamber. You may read a thousand true crime thrillers. You'll never forget this one! *****five stars.

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The Good Bye Door

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.

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Great Book

If you like a great read, this book will give it to you. Hope this author writes another!

Interesting read

A very interesting subject. Was very surprised I had never heard of this killer before. The only problem I had was towards the middle and end the story really started to drag for me. The author tried her best and wrote in an entertaining way, but just failed to keep my interest.I think a lot of the reason it dragged was the author mainly wrote the book by going by newspaper stories from that period,and just couldn't maintain my interest in a book this length. I did finish the book, and still think it was an interesting subject and fairly entertaining book. Anna ( the killer) was one of the worst sociopaths I have read about in some time. Even used her small son as a defense and co-hort in her crimes.

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Nicknamed the "Blonde Borgia," Anna Marie Hahn was a cold-blooded serial killer who preyed on the elderly in Cincinnati's Over-the-Rhine District in the 1930s. Told here for the first time is Anna Marie's gripping story, an almost unbelievable tale of multiple murders, deceit, and greed.

Born in Bavaria in 1906, Anna Marie brought shame to her pious family when as a teenager, she gave birth to an illegitimate son, Oscar. Shipped off to America in 1929 where she initially lived with the elderly relatives in Cincinnati, she married Philip Hahn, a Western Union telegrpher, with whom she bought a new house and opened a delicatessen/bakery.

Pressed economically by the Great Depression, the ever-resourceful Anna Marie found other ways to get the money to support her passionate pasttime -- betting on horses. She tried burning down the house, then the deli, for the insurance, and she tried killing her husband, also for the insurance. Then she took to befriending the neighborhood elderly, latching on to their life savings before feeding them arsenic with deadly results. How many did she dispatched in this way? Some say as many as a dozen.

For weeks her Cincinnati trial for "the greatest mass murder in the history of the country" was a front-page sensation across the nation. Thousands of curiosity seekers came daily to the courthouse to try to get a glimpse of Anna Marie. Nearly 100 witnesses gave damning testimony against her, and the jury's guilty verdict put her on the path to the electric chair. Finally, when all appeals were exhausted, Anna Marie, age 32, was executed on December 7, 1938, at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus. In a handwritten "confession" found in her cell, she admitted to four murders.

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