Killing For Money : Stories of True Crime

By Sandra Winston

"Kill him...Just kill him...Anna Marie Hahn and Winnie Ruth Judd had two things in common. They were serial killers who murdered for profit. Anna Marie Hahn had a gambling habit.She indulged her addiction at the horse races and bookie joints throughout Cincinnati in the 1930s. Anna wasn't very good at picking horses, losing time and again while accruing debt.But it was an addiction had to be fed. She needed a scheme, a way to acquire money to keep her compulsion satisfied. Anna Marie Hahn was a clever woman. While walking through her neighborhood of elderly pensioners, the idea came to her like a bolt of lightning.She would befriend these lonely and pathetic men. Cook them meals, keep them company. Then she would kill them for profit. Secondly, we take a look at Winnie Ruth Judd. In 1931, Winnie Ruth Judd killed two of her best friends then cut one of them into pieces. She packed their remains inside two storage trunks and boarded a train for Los Angeles with the dead bodies as "luggage". The media circus surrounding her crime was a parallel of the O.J. Simpson case in the mid-1990s. Reporters and readers alike were hungry for every sordid detail. Ruth, as she was known to her friends, would be tried and sentenced for execution until being declared mentally incompetent. She would later be remanded to the care of the Arizona State mental hospital where she would "escape" over seven times. During her last escape, she would journey to northern California where she would adopt an alias and avoid detection for over six years before her recapture.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jun 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201956639

Book preview

KILLING FOR MONEY

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SANDRA WINSTON

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ANNA MARIE HAHN

RUTH JUDD

ANNA MARIE HAHN

Anna was flat broke. But when she saw a person walking down the street she would think that individual had HER money in their pocket. If she had to kill that person to get HER money, then she would take out her poison and say 'let's get this party started.' - forensic psychologist Paula Orange

Anna Marie Hahn had a gambling habit.

She indulged her addiction at the horse races and bookie joints throughout Cincinnati in the 1930s. Anna wasn't very good at picking horses, losing time and again while accruing debt.

But it was an addiction had to be fed.

She needed a scheme, a way to acquire money to keep her compulsion satisfied.

Anna Marie Hahn was a clever woman. While walking through her neighborhood of elderly pensioners, the idea came to her like a bolt of lightning.

She would befriend these lonely and pathetic men. Cook them meals, keep them company.

Then she would kill them for profit.

EARLY LIFE

Anna was born Anna Marie Filser on July 7, 1906. She would be the youngest of twelve children born to a well-to-do Catholic family. Nothing in her childhood would suggest that she would eventually become a serial killer. She was never abused sexually or physically.

Nonetheless, she had suffered a few concussions during her childhood years during ice skating, biking and skiing adventures. These head injuries may have attributed to altering her personality as sometimes been the case of some serial killers. Anna also stated that she was a sickly child, suffering from blood poisoning, goiters, and scarlet fever. It is her belief that these instances led to her mind changing that she could do the things that happened.

As a teen, she had given birth to a son named Oskar out of wedlock. The identity of the father has remained shrouded in mystery to this day although some claim a Viennese doctor had seduced Anna Marie.

She never revealed who the father was as he was a married man who wanted her to abort the child. Anna felt just like a mountain was falling on top of her, not killing her but just smothering and crushing her.

The pregnancy brought shame to Anna's family. They sent pregnant seventeen-year-old to live with a sister in Holland until the baby was born.

She would return to Germany afterward and remain there for five years. The shame of being a single mom in a conservative, judgmental society would prove to be too much for Anna to bear.

I could no longer stand those things that people were saying about my misfortune, Anna said. I was afraid that my son would understand those things. These things were hurting my mother who was caring for my boy.

Back in the day, Orange said. "Having a baby out of wedlock was the worst thing a woman could do in terms of family legacy. She had humiliated her entire family and was banished to another