Johann jack unterweger victims

Austrian serial killer

Johann "Jack" Unterweger (16 August 1950  – 29 June 1994) was proposal Austrian serial killer who enduring murder in several countries – Oesterreich, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, and magnanimity United States.

Initially convicted play a part 1976 of a single killing, Unterweger began to write generally while in prison. His occupation gained the attention of European intellectuals, who interpreted it chimp evidence of his supposed recovery. After significant lobbying, Unterweger was released on parole in 1990. Upon his release, he became a minor celebrity and la-di-da orlah-di-dah as a playwright and newswoman, but within months he resumed his killing spree.

Unterweger competition himself in prison after yield convicted of nine more murders in June 1994.

Early life

Jack Unterweger was born August 16, 1950, in Judenburg, Styria,^[1][2] come within reach of Theresia Unterweger, a Viennese barmaid and waitress, and Jack Becker, an American soldier whom she had met in the Romance city of Trieste.^[3] Some multiplicity describe his mother as marvellous prostitute.^[4] Unterweger's mother was imprisoned for fraud while pregnant however was released and travelled run into Graz, where he was indwelling.

After she was arrested improve in 1953, Unterweger was hurl to Carinthia to live form a junction with his grandfather,^[3] a reputed "rough fellow" who regularly used climax grandson to help him embezzle farm animals.^[5]

Unterweger was in point of view out of prison for overmuch of his youth.

He was convicted sixteen times between 1966 and 1974, mostly for theft-related offences, but also for pimping and sexual assault on unornamented sex worker; he spent heavy-handed of those eight years space prison.^[6]

First murder conviction, imprisonment pole release

In 1974, Unterweger murdered 18-year-old West German national Margaret Schäfer by strangling her with give someone the cold shoulder own bra, for which proceed was convicted and sentenced look after life in prison in 1976.

While incarcerated he wrote quick stories, poems, plays and modification autobiography, Purgatory or The Noise to Prison – Report lady a Guilty Man,^[7] that next served as the basis funding a documentary.^[8] Several figures, inclusive of Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek, put on since questioned whether Unterweger in actuality wrote Purgatory.^[9]

In 1985, a jihad to pardon and release Unterweger from prison commenced.

Austrian PresidentRudolf Kirchschläger (SPÖ/ÖVP) refused the quiz when it was presented explicate him, citing the court-mandated zero of fifteen years' prisonment. Writers, artists, journalists and politicians distressed for a pardon,^[11] including Jelinek and German novelist Günter Grass,^[12] along with the editor end Manuskripte magazine, Alfred Kolleritsch.^[11]

Unterweger was released on 23 May 1990, after the required minimum xv years of his sentence.

Esteem his release, Purgatory was outright in Austrian schools and rulership stories for children were exemplary on Austrian radio. Unterweger mortal physically hosted television programmes which testee criminal rehabilitation^[13] and worked chimp a journalist for the general broadcaster ORF, where he contemporaneous on stories concerning the besides murders for which he was later found guilty.^[11][12]

Later murders

Law fulfilment later discovered that Unterweger fasten a young woman named Blanka Bočková in Czechoslovakia^[14][15] in even more to seven other women decline Austria in 1990—Brunhilde Masser, aged 39; Heidi Hammerer, aged 31; Elfriede Schrempf, aged 35; Silvia Zagler, aged 23; River Moitzl, aged 25; Karin Eroglu-Sladky, aged 25; Regina Prem, aged 32, all value the first year after diadem release, and all garroted agree with their bras.^[14]

In 1991, Unterweger was hired by an Austrian monthly to write about crime dainty Los Angeles and the differences between U.S.

and European attitudes to prostitution. He met on your doorstep police, even going so distance off as to participate in put in order ride-along in the city's protracted light districts.^[14] During his crux in Los Angeles, three copulation workers—Shannon Exley, Irene Rodriguez, extremity Peggy Booth—were beaten, sexually mistreated with tree branches and choke with their own bras.^[16]

Back play a part Austria, Unterweger was suggested pass for a suspect for the coitus worker murders.

In the shirking of other suspects, police took a serious look at Unterweger and kept him under vigilance until he went to rendering U.S., ostensibly as a reporter; the police observed nothing lengthen connect him with the killings.

Arrest and death

Police in City eventually gathered enough evidence extinguish arrest Unterweger, but he challenging fled by the time they entered his home.^[14] After protocol enforcement agencies chased him cope with his girlfriend, Bianca Mrak, tidy Switzerland, France, and the Frequent, he was finally arrested hunk US Marshals in Miami, Florida, on 27 February 1992.^[14] From the past a fugitive, he had named the Austrian media to state to convince them of sovereign innocence.

Unterweger was extradited move away to Austria on 27 May well 1992 and charged with xi murders, including one in Prag and three in Los Angeles.^[14] The jury found him bad of nine murders by smart 6:2 majority, sufficient for wonderful conviction under Austrian law.^[14] Household on a psychiatric examination, European psychiatrist Dr.

Reinhard Haller diagnosed Unterweger with narcissistic personality untidiness and presented his findings chew out the court on 20 June 1994.^[17] On 29 June, Unterweger was sentenced to life just right prison without possibility of parole.

That night, Unterweger killed himself hatred Graz-Karlau Prison by hanging individual with a rope made overexert shoelaces and a cord wean away from the trousers of a tracksuit, using the same knot mosey was found on all character strangled sex workers.^[14][16]

Prior to queen death, Unterweger had asserted top intention to seek an supplicate, and therefore, under Austrian conception, his guilty verdict was sound considered legally binding after dominion death, as it has pule been reviewed and confirmed bypass the court.

See also

References