The Chronology
Every date below is drawn from the family archive or the period press. This is the spine of the story an agent, producer, or scout can hold in one reading.
Last updated 2026-07-31
The Chronology
Othmar John Hitz, a Swiss businessman, builds a coffee and real estate fortune in oil-boom Venezuela. He places assets in the name of people he trusts, chiefly his lawyer.
Anna Maria Hitz is born in Caracas, the only child of Othmar John Hitz and Anna Spring Hitz. She is the sole heir.
A will is registered at the Third Circuit Registry of Caracas. Later the family finds that the registry no longer holds it, and that the dead man’s name is misspelled on the paper they kept.
The official cause is kidney failure. His former wife says poison. Years later, when the grave is opened on a court order, the family says there is no body in it. The death certificate is never completed.
During a custody war fought across Swiss and Venezuelan courts, Anna Maria is taken from a street outside her school. The Swiss press begins calling her the Goldspatz, the golden sparrow in the golden cage.
“D.C. Heiress to $10 Million Fortune Missing.” Twenty-six days before she can claim an accounting of the estate, a seventeen-year-old vanishes from Washington. The search runs in four languages across three continents.
A cable arrives. She is married, a mother, and tells her mother to stop the persecution. Her mother does not believe the cable is real. The Washington Daily News runs: “Heiress Turns Up.”
Caracas newspapers cover pawned jewels, bearer shares handed to police, and a courtroom fight over the estate. Ultimas Noticias counts “50 Millones que dejo Hitz.” No one in the family ever collects.
At New York University, Elisabeth Hitz begins an oral history after her mother shows her the 1965 newspapers. The archive is assembled over the next decade: about 144 original documents.
She dies without ever collecting the fortune and without telling her granddaughter the full story. The case file stays in the family.
The memoir is in final edit. A six-to-eight-episode limited series is in development. Twelve documents are public. Life rights sit with one rights holder. Why the anniversary matters →
The open questions: where is Othmar’s body, who really wrote the will, what became of the Swiss accounts, and why the fortune was never collected. Documented facts · Public archive · Rights