Nannie's Kitchen Nook

The Killer: Born Nancy Hazel (November 4, 1905-June 2, 1965), Nannie Doss was a serial killer responsible for the deaths of 11 people between 1927 and 1954. In October of 1954, she confessed to killing four of her husbands, two of her children, one of her sisters, her mother, her two grandsons, and a mother-in-law from her first marriage. Growing up in Blue Mountain, Alabama, her favorite hobby was reading romance magazines and novels. Nannie  married at the age of 16 to Charley Braggs, who divorced her after his mother died of mysterious circumstances. After realizing her second husband, Robert Harrelson, was an alcoholic, Nannie put rat poison in his corn whiskey jar. Her third husband, Arlie Lanning, was a lecher who died of what was believed to be heart failure. Richard Morton married Nannie in 1952, and the couple was married for about a year. After poisoning her mother, Nannie poisoned Morton for being adulterous. Her fifth marriage was to Samuel Doss, a minister who disapproved of the romance novels Nannie adored. In October of 1954, Nannie killed Doss in order to collect the two life-insurance policies she had taken out on him. Nannie Doss was sentenced to life imprisonment, and she died from leukemia in 1965. When confessing to the murders, Nannie Doss giggled and joked about her crimes, which earned her the moniker, “The Giggling Granny.”

The House: Pictures of the house Nannie shared with her fifth husband in Tulsa, Oklahoma are rare. My research has shown, in fact, that the house where Nannie poisoned Sameul Doss no longer exists. Based on historical context, as well as Nannie's arrest records, however, we find that the house was most likely a modest home in a working-class neighborhood of the 1950s. A small, single-family home with a central kitchen, where Nannie prepared the arsenic-laced coffee and stewed prunes leading to Samuel's death.

The Floor Plan: For legal reasons, I was unable to find the floor plan for the mansion at Fox Hollow Farm. I was able, however, to piece together a conceptual idea of what the indoor swimming pool room may have looked like. The ground plans below include a lounge and reception area, a wet bar and kitchenette, supporting rooms for the swimming pool, the wooded backyard and trials where human bone fragments were found, and the initial discovery area where Baumeister's son found a human skill in 1994. Baumeister lied to his family by telling them the skull was one his father, a doctor, had and didn't want any longer. Baumeister claimed that he buried the skull behind the house.  

Sources:

Albert, Natasha; Allen, Erin; Armistead, Sherri; Bradley, Josh. Herb Baumeister: The I-70 Strangler. Radford University: School of Psychology, 2024.

Cawthorne, Nigel, The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large. Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2011.

Hall, Dan T. (Director). "The Haunting of Fox Hollow Farm." Vizmo Films, 2011.

Hall, Steve. "Baumeister Program is Chilling But Flawed." The Indianapolis Star, 1997. 

Higgins, Will. "House with Dark Past Fulfills Family's Dream." Chillicothe Gazette, 2012.

Hundley, Wendy. "Slayings: Clues, Years Grow in Unsolved Cases." Dayton Daily News, 1996.

Hundley, Wendy. "The Gay Slayings Mystery." Dayton Daily News, 1996. 

Kaufman, Michelle. "Bone Found During Sunday Search of Herbert Baumeister Property." 2022. www.wrtv.com.  Accessed 5 June 2026.

Labalme, Jenny. "Suicide Note Mentions Marriage, Business But Not Bones". The Indianapolis Star, 1996.

Rogers, Pat. "True Nightmares: Crazy Love." Discovery Studios, 2015.

United Press International. "UPI Focus: Sheriffs Link 9 Deaths to Indiana Man." 1998. www.upi.com. Accessed 5 June 2026.