Jack Unterweger : The Vienna Prostitute Killer

the republic of austria is a landlocked country in central europe despite its smaller size it shares a border with eight countries germany czech republic slovakia slovenia hungary italy switzerland and liechtenstein after world war ii austria was divided into four zones controlled by the united states great britain france and the soviet union but they negotiated full independence in 1955 and declared permanent neutrality jack underweigher claimed that he killed a young woman in a fit of rage and was sent to prison for life that was only the beginning of his con that ultimately led to his release which would bring him money fame and even more opportunities to murder this is monsters [Music] [Applause] [Music] on december 11 1974 24 year old jack unterweger was traveling in germany with his girlfriend barbara scholes with the intention of going to her parents house to get some money when they arrived the house was locked and her parents were asleep so jack suggested they rob someone clearly the most obvious solution to their problem that was when they saw barbara's neighbor 18 year old margaret schaefer walking up to her house barbara invited her to hang out and the young woman climbed into their car jack parked the car near a local bar and grabbed margaret pulling her into the front seat he tied her hands behind her back and pushed her down onto the floor jack went through her purse and only found a few dollars so he asked her if she had more money at home and she said yes they drove back to her house and barbara used margaret's key to sneak inside and get the money she also took some of her clothes this was not enough to satisfy jack's appetite for violence so he drove margaret into the woods where he ordered her to undress and tied her up it was freezing cold outside with snow on the ground and jack enjoyed watching her shiver in the frigid woods barbara waited in the car as jack walked margaret into the trees and used a steel rod to beat her then he strangled her with her own bra after leaving the woods they tossed the metal rod and all of margaret's clothes besides a fur coat she had been wearing margaret's body was discovered three weeks later by some hunters barbara was arrested for a different crime in january and when police ran the identity of her boyfriend they saw that jack had a record of violence against women in 1970 jack had been arrested for abducting a 16 year old girl and trying to coerce her into prostitution in 1973 and 1974 jack had a number of complaints against him from women on may 13 1974 jack picked up a woman named daphne in salzburg austria he had offered to give her a ride to the train station but instead he took her to a secluded area where his car got stuck in the mud when daphne tried to walk away from the situation jack knocked her down and tied her up with her stockings in all of the cases against jack that had been proven he tied women's hands behind their back in a unique way he would tie each wrist separately and then tie a knot between them this is how daphne described that he tied her up as well he pushed her back into the car and sexually assaulted her with a steel rod while masturbating when he was finished he asked daphne if she was going to turn him in and she promised that she wouldn't when a good samaritan pulled up and asked if they needed help she ran to the vehicle and asked for a ride then she went straight to the police jack was arrested but managed to smuggle some painkillers into the jail and used them to fake a suicide attempt he was moved to a psychiatric facility and released a few months later this made him free and able to commit the murder of margaret schaefer when barbara was questioned following her arrest she immediately confirmed that jack had killed margaret jack was charged with the murder and he confessed claiming he did it in a fit of rage he claimed that he saw his mother's face when he killed margaret he still went to trial and during that time he was assessed by a psychiatrist the doctor reported that he demonstrated egocentricity aggressiveness and sexual perversion with a sadistic component the doctor also added that he was an extremely dangerous unpredictable and incurable individual on june 1st 1976 jack unterweger was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison when jack went to prison he was pretty uneducated and that was due to his rocky upbringing at least based on his own autobiography jack was born johann unterweger on august 16 1950 in udenburg styria austria during this time austria was under occupation by allied forces and struggling to recover from world war ii his mother teresia unterweger had left home when she was young and worked as a waitress and barmaid in vienna she also got by with the occasional theft or fraud like many young women in europe at the time she met an american soldier named jack becker and she was soon pregnant she was arrested for fraud while pregnant but was released shortly before jack was born she claims she named him after the soldier when teresia was arrested again two years later jack was sent to live with his grandfather in corinthia there jack claimed that his grandfather ferdinand weiser was a philanderer who taught him that women were to be used jack said that his grandfather would bring dates home who were actually prostitutes and he witnessed their sexual activity these claims of abuse by his grandfather helped him get sympathy from people but none of it seemed to be true charlotte ower was ferdinand's stepdaughter and her mother maria had lived with the man for 20 years maria lived there the whole time that jack was there besides the last two months she said that ferdinand was a hard-working man who built roads during the war along with their cottage charlotte said that she sent her own children to spend summers with her mother and stepfather while jack was living there and his depiction of the situation was not true she admitted that ferdinand was a gruff man who liked to drink but never abused anyone and didn't use women in 1958 jack was sent to live with other relatives before being put into foster care by the time jack was in his teens he was living mostly off the money he made from crime he claimed that he would threaten prostitutes and other pimps with a steel rod something he apparently kept with him until the end of 1974 when he killed margaret schaefer after his life sentence was imposed he began teaching himself to read and write he was a model prisoner spending most of his time studying in the library he got his diploma and sent away for some correspondence courses while reading in the library he thought to himself hey i could do this and started writing stories he ended up getting some of his work published and that led to him writing episodes for a children's radio show called the bedtime program for little ones then he wrote an autobiography called figa fiore which means purgatory in english and it not only became a best seller it was made into a film now it's said that the book was not well written but since people were reading it with the knowledge that it was written by a prison inmate they seemed to think that that made it more profound the media started talking about him and people started campaigning for his release writers artists journalists and politicians begin asking the president to pardon jack not even just to release him but to pardon him because he wrote a [ __ ] book and it worked austria was working on reforming the prison system and they saw this is the perfect opportunity to show off their ability to reform a criminal look at jaguntervieger he came in a murderous psycho and we turned him into an educated successful author you're welcome i mean nobody bothered to ask exactly what the prison did to rehabilitate jack because if they did they would have found absolutely nothing the prison didn't put him through an education program they didn't give him counseling or any type of mental health treatment they just waved a wand and suddenly jack was magically a [ __ ] angel after jack passed the mandatory 15 years of his life sentence he was released on may 23 1990. they released him with absolutely no limitations no meetings with a psychiatrist and though he was technically on parole he had no mandatory meetings with a parole officer despite him having been in prison for murdering a young woman and having a criminal record of past abuses he was just free and clear all because he wrote a book it's truly baffling and yeah he didn't even make it out of 1990 before he started murdering again what a shocker he spent 15 years in prison and he went directly back to murdering he moved to vienna and was treated as a bit of a celebrity he began doing interviews and doing investigative journalism which was his public persona and he lavished in the spotlight he appeared on panels speaking about prison reform he would do live readings of his writing and built a large following of fans mostly women he purchased a sports car and lived a lavish public life but he still wanted to kill and didn't want to get caught again so he began choosing his victims much more carefully on september 14 1990 in prague czech republic called czechoslovakia at the time thirty-year-old blanca bakova went out to have a drink with a friend but they got into a fight and she left the bar the friend would later tell police that he went outside to see if she was still around but she wasn't out there she had been offered a ride from a man in a sports car and she accepted the following day her body was discovered on the bank of a river just outside the city she was naked laying on her back with her legs spread wide open she had had her hands tied behind her back and was strangled to death this murder didn't give anybody reason to connect it to jack and would go unsolved for some time on october 26 1990 39 year old brunhill demasser was a prostitute working in the red light district of grass austria she told a friend that she was going to work later than normal to get a few more customers so she could make some extra money she was picked up and never returned on january 5th 1991 her body was discovered in the woods outside of town she was naked and had been beaten and strangled with a piece of her own clothing while brunehilda was still missing on december 5th 1990 31 year old heidi hammerer was murdered in lustinau on austria's western border near switzerland her body was discovered in the woods three weeks later by hikers she was also naked with her legs spread apart her wrists were bruised by restraints and she had been beaten and strangled with pantyhose on march 7 1991 another grass prostitute 35 year old alfreda schrempf went missing from where she had been working in the city her body wasn't discovered until october 5th 1991 in a wooded area outside of town her remains were completely skeletonized so the medical examiner couldn't determine a cause of death but since there was no bullet knife or blunt force trauma to the skeleton they said it was likely she was strangled this killing spree most likely boosted jack's confidence and he began killing women in vienna where he lived before alfreda's body was found four prostitutes in vienna had gone missing 23 year old sylvia zagler 25 year old sabina moitsel 32 year old regina prem and 25 year old karen ira glue the first body to be discovered was sabina's on may 20th 1991 she was in a wooded area with nothing but a leotard pulled up around her shoulders she had been strangled with her own pantyhose she was face down with her legs spread apart something it was becoming clear the killer liked to do with his victims his intense hatred of women made him want to shame them as much as possible sabine's husband had filed a missing persons report on her a month earlier she worked at a bakery during the day but unbeknownst to him she had also been working as a prostitute occasionally at night three days later karen's body was found even deeper into the woods she was killed the same way and left in the same position police were on edge just waiting for the call that someone had found the bodies of the other two missing women on june 3rd jack walked into the police headquarters for a scheduled interview with chief max edelbacher this time jack was not the one being questioned he had taken on a journalism assignment from the austrian broadcasting corporation to write an article about the missing and murdered prostitutes in vienna at this time the chief hadn't connected jack to the murders so he answered the questions as best as he could being an ongoing investigation there would always be details he couldn't reveal but he did inform jack that he hadn't connected the murders to any suspect good news for jack i guess right it wasn't until a few days later that chief edelbacher mentioned his interview to his wife and when she heard his name she said don't you know who that is clearly he didn't when she told him exactly who jack unterweger was he made sure to run a background check of jack and what he found didn't initially trouble him he saw that jack had been convicted of another murder but he was in germany and the woman wasn't a prostitute he was 24 at the time and now he was 40 and hadn't been in trouble since his release he was successful and the chief didn't see why he would risk everything to kill some prostitutes so he shrugged it off because you know serial killers worry about the risks to their career when they're murdering people eventually a retired police officer august shenner saw the news about the various murdered prostitutes and they reminded him of another case he had worked on it was the 1974 murder of margaret schaefer he contacted authorities in vienna and told them that these murders were similar to the previous murder and that jack had been paroled not long before they started happening this wasn't news to the police in vienna but then august told them that the 1974 murder wasn't the only one he had been investigating on april 1 1973 the body of 25 year old maraca horvath was found in a lake in salzburg austria she had been beaten and drowned the killer had used a necktie to tie her hands behind her back in the same unusual knot the recent victims were found with they also found some of her belongings not far away like the killer had driven away from the body and tossed the purse from his car a ways down the street exactly like the more current cases august shenner was able to track down the tie to a specific shop it was distinctive and the manufacturer told him that it had been sold from a shop in wells it wasn't until jack was arrested almost two years later that august was able to connect a suspect to the murder he learned that jack lived in salzburg at the time of marica's murder and he had been in wells at the time the tie was purchased when questioned jack tried to claim he was in jail on the night of march 31st but that wasn't true he was arrested for an immigration violation on april 4th so he was free and able to commit the murder of marica the only problem was that august couldn't prove it then jack was sentenced to life in prison which made most people forget about the poor young woman who was murdered not august jenner though he knew that jack unterweger was responsible for the murder and having such similar murders happening right after he was released on parole was no coincidence the authorities in vienna finally began taking a serious look at jack as the killer but they wouldn't find any hard evidence right away jack went on to use his interview with chief edelbacher along with interviews with various prostitutes in vienna's red light district to publish a print article as well as a radio broadcast about the current state of fear in vienna regarding the killer not only was jacketing a thrill by taunting the police about a crime he himself had committed but he is also giving himself a reason to be seen in the red light district with various prostitutes he's writing an article about them oh you saw my car in the area when a woman went missing of course i was there interviewing people jack had done such a good job posing as a journalist who was writing about prostitution he was given an assignment to write about the difference between prostitution and united states and europe he would need to fly to los angeles so he can interview prostitutes there he arrived at the los angeles international airport on june 11 1991 while there he stayed at the infamous cecil hotel and interviewed a number of prostitutes he also talked to the police and even went on a ride-along jack was in los angeles for five weeks and during that time three prostitutes were murdered 35 year old shannon eggsley 33 year old irene rodriguez and 26 year old peggy jean booth they were all picked up from spots they worked near the cecil hotel and were all beaten sexually assaulted with a tree branch and strangled with their own bras all of their hands were tied behind their back using the same unique knot investigators would eventually notice that he used a different yet equally unique knot to tie their pantyhose or bras around their necks when he strangled them they were tied in an almost braided fashion shannon's body was discovered the same day that jack was doing a ride along with some officers in some of the seedier areas of la while jack was in la the murders and gats and the murders in vienna were linked and they were trying to match jack's movements with the dates the women went missing but weren't having much luck jack learned that he was a suspect and went into the police station to offer up alibis one of his alibis was that he was in vienna with an underage girl named katarina on march 7 1991 the night el farina shrimp went missing in grass but when investigators interviewed katarina it turned out that she was a rather organized young woman and had brought her calendar in with her on it she could see that she had been at a social function that day and she remembered going home afterward then she told investigators she couldn't have been with jack because she was sure he was doing a reading in graz that day oh what a coincidence authorities were now certain that jack was their serial killer but they needed more proof if they wanted to get a warrant for his arrest in vienna in graz however the courts had no problem issuing a warrant for jack's arrest they believed that him lying about his whereabouts on march 7 1991 was grounds enough for his arrest on suspicion of murder unfortunately the news printed the story about the warrant before authorities were able to arrest jack and he fled this gave investigators the opportunity to search jack's apartment and the first thing they found was a pile of items that jack wasn't allowed to have as a felon three pair of handcuffs a switchblade and a 12-gauge shotgun they also found documents that they would be able to use to track his movements over the entire time he had been out of prison since jack had received numerous subsidies from the ministry of arts and education after he was released he had to keep the receipts for all of his expenses related to his writing gas receipts hotel bills all things that told authorities exactly where he was and exactly when investigators also found diaries that jack had written from 1975 up until he was released from prison and then a new one that started september 3rd 1991. in his older diary he had written murder of margaret schaefer on december 11 1974 so investigators believed it was unlikely that jack hadn't written in a journal from may of 1990 to september of 1991. he most likely wrote incriminating entries so he had the good sense to destroy them did he really coincidentally not keep a journal during the time that multiple women were murdered in the same way that matched his mo seems unlikely by now authorities knew that jack had fled arrest and wouldn't be coming back on his own they assumed he was either in switzerland or italy both countries he had spent considerable time in outside of austria they posted bulletins with authorities in those countries but he never surfaced on february 20th he called the media in austria and told them he would call in at 5 pm the next day to do an interview live on the air the following day at 5 00 jack called in and proceeded to tell the world that he was being persecuted and that an old retired cop had it out for him he also said that from the minute he fell under suspicion he had made himself available to police except he was saying that from an unknown location because he fled the area but okay despite jack's narrative being complete [ __ ] the media ate it up over the next few days there were headlines about the witch hunt and articles about how police were only focused on jack because of his past there were many people that didn't seem to understand that when jack was first suggested as a suspect the police didn't believe it they had to be convinced that jack was the killer it also seems to have eluded most people that once jack was gone the murder stopped on february 15th jack had driven to switzerland and picked up his girlfriend bianca who worked at a bar there he told her that a retired police officer in salzburg was so enraged at his release that he was framing him for the prostitute murders he convinced bianca to flee with him and they drove to france from there they got a flight to new york city where they would catch a connecting flight to miami jack managed to drive his car away from the airport remove the license plate ditch it and then make it back to the airport before the flight left soon they were in miami and with twelve hundred dollars to their names they managed to rent an apartment and buy furniture the one-bedroom apartment was 315 a month and the landlord just wanted two months rent up front then bianco went to a local club and got a job as a go-go dancer most likely getting paid in the form of cash tips since they weren't american citizens it was at a phone booth in miami that jack called the media and did his live interview he was on the phone for about seven minutes which was more than enough time for authorities to trace the call but he wasn't worried he was one person in a city with hundreds of thousands of people how would they find him the next day they checked out some of the foreign papers and saw a story about them it said that people were worried that bianca was in danger and it made her realize that her family didn't know that she was okay she told jack that she had to call her mother and he told her it wasn't a good idea for some reason his call to be in the spotlight was okay but her call to her mother would get them caught it's a common tactic with con artists to isolate people from their families the more bianca talked to her family the more chance she had of learning the truth she couldn't live with her mother worrying about her and she ignored jack and went to a pay phone to make the call her mother answered and she told her briefly that she was okay but the call cut off she wasn't sure what happened but she was able to get her mother a message that she was okay so she relaxed and the couple returned to their apartment while in miami jack was communicating with a woman in austria named elizabeth she worked for a publication called success magazine and had fallen under jack's spell before he fled now she was helping him by sending him his medication he had a thyroid condition and he had also talked her into sending him money when she ran out of money she asked her boss gert schmidt if he could help so he offered to pay jack ten thousand dollars to do an exclusive interview about his life on the run when elizabeth told jack what her boss had offered he was ecstatic he would be able to support himself and bianca and he'd be able to buy a 1967 mustang fastback he'd been eyeing gert agreed to wire him in advance and then pay the remaining amount when they did the interview jack gave him the wiring instructions and was told he'd be able to pick up the cash the next day what neither jack nor elizabeth knew was that gert did not like jack he had worked with the man a few times before and he just had a bad feeling about him when he learned that elizabeth was helping him out while he was on the run he was concerned and came up with a plan to help the police when gert met with investigators on february 26th they still had no idea where he was they hadn't traced his call and still thought that he was either in switzerland or italy gert was the one who informed them that he was in miami and handed them a slip of paper that read usa money exchange 207 11th street miami beach he told the investigators that elizabeth was wiring the money that day and that jack would be picking it up the next day there wasn't enough time to get interpol involved so authorities in austria called the miami police and talked to a homicide detective he said they couldn't legally arrest jack but the federal marshals could and he would get them a copy of the arrest warrant unfortunately the foreign warrant was still not enough for federal marshals to arrest him but they learned that he had entered the u.s with a tourist visa and didn't disclose that he had a felony conviction this gave the marshals a reason to detain him four u.s marshals waited across the street from the usa money exchange and as soon as their target walked around a corner they immediately recognized him he noticed them but didn't abandon his plan bianca went into the business while jack waited outside when bianca returned they started to walk away before jack bolted into an alley one of the marshals gave chase and quickly caught up with him they also arrested bianca but she was taken back to her apartment which was searched and then she was released her visa was valid so they had no reason to hold her she called her mother and told her that jack had been arrested her mother responded good now come home her mother was another person who never liked jack she also didn't know that her daughter was on another continent and told bianca she expected her home in an hour bianca had to break the news that she was in miami of course she was technically free but authorities from austria were still going to question her they actually came to her bianca was interviewed the next day and it was clear that she didn't know anything about jack's involvement in the prostitute murders she was absolutely positive that he was innocent she returned to austria with the authorities jack had to undergo an extradition hearing and at the time california was thinking about keeping him in the u.s to be tried for the murders of the three prostitutes the fbi had worked the case and connected him to the killings but jack didn't want to stay in the u.s and face a possible death sentence so he waived his right to fight extradition the good news was that the law in austria allowed them to try a criminal for crimes they committed in other countries jack always the one to embellish his stories for dramatic effect claimed that he could see the electric chair from his holding cell in the metropolitan correctional center in miami there's no cell there that you could be held in that would give you a view of the electric chair this was all to manipulate people into feeling sorry for him jack was extradited to austria where he continued to claim his innocence he used a hotel receipt as an alibi for his whereabouts during the disappearance of brunhilda massar on the evening of october 26th he had stayed in a hotel in the town of zonkdvite undergland but when authorities checked the hotel's records it turned out that he had paid for a room on both the 26th and the 27th but he didn't actually check in until the 27th so he could have easily been in graz the night before as it was less than two hours away he also tried to use catherine as an alibi again even though investigators already knew he was lying about that during his trial more of his alibis fell apart he claimed to be on the phone with a woman named karen at the time of sylvia zagler's disappearance and when karen was first questioned she was unsure of the exact date of the conversation now that she was on the stand she was positive that it happened on the evening of april 8th when asked why she was so sure she responded because i meditated on it oh well then he's clearly innocent then the prosecutor pointed out a letter that karen had written to jack in prison where she basically asked him what he needed her to do to help him a different woman he claimed to have been with on the night of another disappearance also couldn't remember exactly which night he was with her on top of jack's whereabouts perfectly matching the locations of the victims even in california an analyst had microscopically matched fibers found on one of the victims to a scarf and a pair of pants found in jack's closet they found traces of blood under one of the victim's fingernails that came back as type b which was jack's blood type they also found a blonde hair in jack's car that matched the dna of blanca bakova of course all that proved was that blanca had been inside jack's car but if it was that innocent why had he been adamant that she had never been in his car that makes the evidence much more suspicious now this was all circumstantial evidence but circumstantial doesn't mean incorrect it just acts as a method of closing the gap that reasonable doubt can go through what are the chances that these women were all murdered in the same way that jack had murdered margaret in the same locations he had been even happening three times in a different country at the exact same time he was there having one victim's hair in his car mysteriously since he claims she was never there having the killer be someone who had the same blood type and wore the exact same scarf and pants that jack did and all having it be one big coincidence very slim jack was found guilty of nine out of the 11 counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison two of the victims bodies were too badly decomposed to be able to convict beyond a reasonable doubt jack told the judge that he planned on appealing the verdict then the next day he was found dead in his cell he had used a shoelace and part of a string from his pants to hang himself he strangled himself the same way he had strangled his victims investigators even noted that the knot he used to tie his own noose was the same as the knot they had found on the bras and pantyhose he had tied around his victim's necks some think that jack was only trying to fake another suicide attempt in order to gain sympathy he had hung himself at the moment he knew guards were coming to check on him but the guards didn't intervene it's also possible that jack just refused to go back to prison we'll never know jack unterweger still has people who believe he was set up and never committed any murders after being released from prison others are angry at why he was let out in the first place a violent man who committed a violent crime and psychiatrists knew he was likely to remain violent was released to the world with no supervision it makes you think that maybe jack wasn't the only monster in austria at the time if you're the victim of domestic abuse please reach out to someone for help please talk to your local battered women's shelter or call the national domestic abuse hotline at 1-800-799-safe that's 1-800-799 or you can go to thehotline.org to chat with someone online the great thing about this website is that at any time hitting the escape key twice will take you to a google search page that way if your abuser is nearby you won't get caught looking for help if you're having feelings of harming yourself or someone else or even just need someone to talk to please contact your local mental health facility call 9-1-1 or call mental health america who operate the national suicide prevention hotline at 1-800-273-talk that's 1-800-273-8255 they're available 24 hours a day 7 days a week and we'll talk to you about any mental health issue you might be facing thanks so much for watching this video you can help us out by hitting the like button or leaving us a comment you can also subscribe to the show to ensure you don't miss an episode if you'd like to support the show you can do that by checking out our merchandise at teespring you can also discuss the channel and the episodes on our subreddit are forward slash this is monsters you can find more ways to support our show and how to find us on social media by visiting this is monsters.com thanks again and be safe you

Channel: this is MONSTERS

Views: 259,246

Keywords: True crime, jack unterweger, vienna killer, austria, serial killer

Id: B4ej-blm-BY

Length: 33min 47sec (2027 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 21 2022