Andrew Allas

In the steel town of Munhall, Pennsylvania, during the spring of 1932, the life of 16-year-old Andrew Allas was cut tragically short. His death on April 12 was not the result of an accident or sudden illness but of a cold-blooded plot for money, orchestrated by the very person who should have cared for him, his stepmother, Anna Allas. Andrew, a young white man on the cusp of adulthood, became the victim of a conspiracy born from greed.

The scheme revolved around a significant sum of money. In the months leading up to Andrew's death, Anna Allas had taken out insurance policies on her stepson's life totaling $18,300, a substantial amount for the era. All but $1,500 of this coverage was secured just two months before he died. When Andrew fell gravely ill, his brother George Allas Jr. pleaded with their stepmother to call for a doctor. Her chilling response was, "We don’t need a doctor. The undertaker will take care of things." Andrew soon died, with the cause initially unremarked.

However, the circumstances surrounding his death and the large insurance payout soon drew suspicion. Investigators from the insurance companies, along with county detectives, began to look more closely into the case. Their inquiry led them to a small circle of women in the local Hungarian immigrant community: Anna Allas, her neighbor Mary Chalfa, and a fortune teller named Gizella Young. The investigation widened after Young was arrested in connection with an assault on another woman, Stella Chalfa, who detectives believed was a future target of the insurance ring.

During questioning, the sinister plot began to unravel. Detectives learned that Anna Allas had consulted with Gizella Young, who read her tarot cards. Young told her, "There’s an ill person in your house," to which Anna replied, "Will he die?" When Young predicted, "He won’t live three days," Anna’s response was a damning, "Thank God!" The investigation revealed that Andrew had been poisoned. Anna Allas was so confident in her method that she boasted, "If they take him out of the ground twenty different times, American doctors cannot discover that."

The probe soon uncovered another suspicious death in the Allas household: that of Andrew’s 12-year-old brother, Stephen. Authorities concluded that he too had been a victim of a similar poisoning plot. The exhumation and post-mortem examination of Andrew's body confirmed he had been poisoned, providing the evidence needed to move forward.

Anna Allas and Mary Chalfa were arrested and indicted for the murder of Andrew Allas. However, prosecutors ultimately took them to trial for the poisoning death of his younger brother, Stephen. In a trial that captivated the public with its strange mix of scientific evidence and "tales of witchcraft in old Hungary," a jury found both women guilty of first-degree murder in February 1933. For their crimes, Anna Allas and Mary Chalfa were sentenced to life in prison and sent to the State Industrial Home for Women at Muncy, Pennsylvania. While their conviction was for Stephen's murder, it brought a measure of justice for the death of Andrew, whose life was sacrificed for an insurance payout that his killers would never collect.