This book is a fascinating look at Anna Marie Hahn, a woman who came from Bavaria under mysterious circumstances only to end up in Ohio where she left a trail of murders behind her. This book explores her life, her cloudy backstory, and the events that led up to her conviction and execution. If you're looking for a good entree into true crime stories, or just looking for a riveting read, I would recommend this book. ( )

I was shocked by this book. When I began reading it, I completely missed the part of the title linking her as the first woman executed in the electric chair. So as I read the book I figured she was to face execution but not such a landmark one. She did it. She has all the tell tale marks of the psychopathic mind. In her confession that she wrote as she breaking down right before her date with the chair she confessed to some of the crimes but still tried to give a sort of twisted justification for them. Also in irony, she could have probably spared herself execution if she had confessed once caught to begin with but took the same tactic that Ted Bundy took. She was in complete denial that the there was a strong case against her and instead of dealing with the situation from a point of contrition that would have in that time period most likely given her life for her being woman and nothing else....stayed in warped perception that though she knew she did these things no court of law could be as clever as to catch her at it. As I said, Ted Bundy was the same way which is why after reading her story I had to reread his because her obstinacy of truth in the face of it reminded me of his sort of psychopathology. Only as the eve her execution loomed was she willing to act contrite and do what she should have done before her trial to save her live. Only then did she seem to recognize that by virtue of sex or her son nobody was going to spare her. Her crimes were plainly to horrific. She took advantage of those most needy in our society and deserving of our watchful and dutiful care.

But again I cite the irony in her case. If she had just yielded to her crimes and stood from a point of contrition she probably would never been executed. Women were still thought of as incapable of such horrors. Her arrogance and impunity that no court of law could possibly hold her responsible for what she'd done was her true undoing since she was willing to live in prison by the time her execution came around.

It's a sad story for what happened to those neglected elderly people and the monster that came in seeming a guise of comfort but really a devil in disguise to feed them poison and steal anything of worth they had. And while she did this, she brought her son along. What did he see? How much did he know? All the court records know for sure is when all the cards were against his mother, she pointed the figure indirectly at her own son. The boy being immature was too young to realize the implication. But the implication was a mother who was an accused for profit serial killer was saying it wasn't me at all it was my son. Any mother that could say and do that truly is a psychopath. ( )