Favoriten Girl Murders

Last updated

The Favoriten Girl Murders were a series of sexually-motivated crimes committed against a young woman and two young girls: Alexandra Schriefl (d. 1988, aged 20), Christina Beranek (d. 1989, aged 10) and Nicole Strau (d. 1990, aged 8) in the Viennese district of Favoriten. This case was among the most extensive and costliest investigations in Austrian history.

Contents

For a long time, the investigators believed that a single serial killer was responsible for the murders. It was not until the introduction of DNA profiling and a DNA database that the murderers of Schriefl and Strau were arrested, in 2000 and 2001, respectively. Christina Beranek's killing is the only unsolved case left, although the public prosecutor and investigators alike believe that Herbert Petsch, the man convicted of killing Alexandra, killed her as well.

Murder of Alexandra Schriefl

On the night of 26 October 1988, Austria's national day, 20-year-old Alexandra Schriefl, a local saleswoman, was attacked, abused and strangled. She had previously been to the "Azzurro" discotheque on Himberger Street with some friends, and was last seen at a nearby telephone booth around 2:30, from where she called her boyfriend to pick her up. When the boyfriend arrived, however, Alexandra was gone. When she had not shown up in the morning, a search was initiated. It was not until eleven hours after she vanished that her naked body was found tied to a tree behind a billboard on Himberger Street. She had been strangled with her own sweater and stockings. [1]

The investigators looked for a masked man who had molested and attacked women in this area several times since July, a cab driver who, according to testimony, had spoken to Alexandra and was seen in front of the discotheque, as well as three young boys who, according to another testimony, were seen following Schriefl after she had left the building. Within a few weeks, more than 500 people were questioned, including visitors to the discotheque and a nearby bowling alley, as well as sex offenders living in the area. However, the culprit remained unidentified. [2] [3] [4]

On 11 November 1988, Alexandra Schriefl was buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery, with her funeral attended by over 250 mourners. [5]

Murder of Christina Beranek

On 2 February 1989, 10-year-old Christina Beranek disappeared while on her way home from school on Josef-Enslein-Platz in Favoriten. She was last seen alive shortly before 5 PM, when she bought a Mickey Mouse notebook from a tobacconist in Per-Albin-Hansson-Siedlung.

After searching for her, Christina's father found her on the 14th floor of house number 2 on Per-Albin-Hansson-Siedlung, at around 11 AM the following morning. The girl was partially undressed, abused, strangled and tied with her clothes to the railing. Forensics determined that she was killed between 5 and 10 PM the day before, with the perpetrator intercepting her shortly after she visited the tobacconist a few meters away from her house. It remained unclear whether he killed her immediately or moved her to another place in the house first. The girl's school bag had been discarded on the lower floor, which contained a universal key purchaseable from hardware stores.

The investigators immediately established a connection to Schriefl's murder, as this crime scene was less than a five minute walk away and the perpetrator had acted in a similar manner. In addition, in both cases, the killer had taken an article of clothing as a "trophy". The police suspected the perpetrator lived in Per-Albin-Hansson-Siedlung, one of the largest municipal housing estates in Vienna, with over 11,000 inhabitants at the time. [6] [7]

What followed was the most extensive investigation in Austrian criminal history. The investigators examined around 1,000 people in Favoriten alone, including all 580 male residents of the complex who were older than 13 years. In addition, all 650 apartments were checked, in one case even with a court order. The entire floor on which Christina had been murdered was cut off and taken to the laboratory, with assistance provided by the Wiesbaden department of the German Federal Police. Hundreds of posters were put up in the area, on which Christina was shown in a color photo montage with the clothes she had worn on the day of her murder, with the Viennese municipality assuming all costs. The award for vital information about the crime was 160,000 schillings (around 22,000 euros on present-day currency). [8] [9]

On 13 February, the officials finally believed that they had caught their killer: an officer from Lower Austria, who had been stationed in Vienna years ago tracked down 20-year-old Werner K. In 1984, he had sexually molested nine little girls in elevators in Per-Albin-Hansson-Siedlung, including one at the staircase where Beranek's body was found. The officers also found out that he had gone to the same school as Schriefl, and had no credible alibi for the night of the murder. Despite these coincidences, he was exonerated by a blood group test for Schrielf's killing, and proved to have a solid alibi on the night of Christina's death. [10]

On 17 February, Christina Beranek was buried in the crematorium of the Vienna Central Cemetery. Among the more than 400 mourners was then-Interior Minister Franz Löschnak.

Murder of Nicole Strau

On 22 December 1990, around 5:30 PM, 8-year-old Nicole Strau was on her way home after visiting her uncle, who lived in Simmeringer Hauptstrasse. She used tram line 71 and then changed to bus 15 A, but after that, her trail was lost.

Her body was found the next day at around 10:20 AM in the Laa Forest. The forensic examination determined that Nicole had been raped, with the cause of death being strangulation, her killer using a broken branch to beat her, and her shoelaces to ultimately strangle her.

In this case, over 1,600 people were investigated for possible involvement, but the killer remained elusive. [11]

Investigation

All three murders occurred in the same area, were young females, raped and strangled. The murders occurred in 26 months, with the killer(s) uncaptured. As the first two victims were murdered in almost identical ways, this led investigators to believe for a long time that they were dealing with a serial offender. Almost 4,000 people were examined and questioned, including hundreds of men who had already been convicted of sexual offenses.

Additional investigations conducted by the crew of Aktenzeichen XY… ungelöst on the murders of Schriefl and Beranek (September 1989) and Strau (January 1991) failed to uncover new leads. [12]

At that time, there were no genealogical tests in Austria, only the less precise blood group tests.

When the DNA database was introduced on 1 October 1997, Alexandra Schrielf's DNA was among the first to be included. The only thing missing now was a sample from a suspect.

Arrests and convictions

In September 2000, chance came to aid the investigators. Herbert Petsch (born 1968) was involved in a scuffle and attacked the intervening police officers, for which he was therefore arrested for civil disobedience. At the time, it was customary to take an oral cavity swab from suspect for this class of offenses, including for Herbert Petsch. Three weeks later, a DNA match was made to the Schriefl case. Herbert Petsch was arrested on 1 October 2000 on suspicion of murder. He was among the first suspects questioned after the night of the murder in 1988, but due to a mistake at the Forensic Medicinal Institute in Vienna, an incorrect blood type was determined from him, and he was eliminated as a suspect.

As a result, the files for the other two murders were reviewed anew. The 25 closest suspects in the Nicole Strau case were again scrutinized, with the criminalists asking each of them for a DNA sample. Only one, Michael Petzl (born 1966), a known criminal, could not be located. At the time of Nicole's murder, he was in a relationship with her aunt, from whom he received an alibi at the time. On 27 September 2001, he was arrested near his home. He refused both to testify and to give a DNA sample, much like he did back in the 1990s, and was simply forgotten. This time, however, he was ordered by a judge to give a sample, which was applied in spite of his persistent refusals. On 28 November, he was linked to Strau's murder via his DNA.

In the meantime, Herbert Petsch was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on 11 December 2011, for Alexandra Schriefl's murder, spared from the maximum sentence of 19 years. [13] [14] On 13 June 2002, his appeal was discarded and the sentence finalized. He was additionally charged with Beranek's murder, but since DNA traces couldn't be acquired anymore, the proceedings were discontinued. Criminal psychologist Thomas Müller and public prosecutor Ernst Kloyber testified, however, that Herbert Petsch was certainly guilty of the killing. [15] [16]

On 2 December 2003, Michael Petzl was sentenced to life imprisonment for Nicole Strau's murder. During the sentencing, the jury's decisions caused a stir. Although the chances were less than one in a quadrillion according to forensic medicine, one of the jurors pointed out to another person with the same genetic characteristics. For example, there was a 7:1 guilty decision on the sexual abuse charge. Two of the jurors believed him to the rapist, but not the killer. For the murder charge, the decision was 5:3 for his guilt. If only one other juror had voted otherwise, the decision would have been 4:4 and the accused would have been acquitted. [17]

Television

An episode from the documentary series Im Kopf des Verbrechers, presented by Joe Bausch, was dedicated to this case.

See also

Related Research Articles

The Boston Strangler is the name given to the murderer of 13 women in Greater Boston during the early 1960s. The crimes were attributed to Albert DeSalvo based on his confession, on details revealed in court during a separate case, and DNA evidence linking him to the final victim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dennis Rader</span> American serial killer (born 1945)

Dennis Lynn Rader, also known as BTK, is an American serial killer who murdered at least ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, between 1974 and 1991. Although Rader occasionally killed or attempted to kill men and children, he typically targeted women. His victims were often bound, sometimes with objects from their homes, and either suffocated with a plastic bag or manually strangled with a ligature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chester Turner</span> American serial killer (born 1966)

Chester Dewayne Turner is an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death for sexually assaulting and murdering fourteen women in Los Angeles between 1987 and 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altemio Sanchez</span> American serial killer and rapist

Altemio C. Sanchez is a Puerto Rican serial killer who is known to have raped and murdered at least three women, and raped at least 9 to 15 girls and women in and around Buffalo, New York, during a 31-year span from 1975, though perhaps earlier, to 2006. Sanchez is also known by the monikers Bike Path Rapist and Bike Path Killer.

Henry Louis Wallace, also known as the “Taco Bell Strangler”, is an American serial killer who killed eleven black women in South Carolina and North Carolina from March 1990 to March 1994. He is currently awaiting execution at Central Prison in Raleigh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Wright (serial killer)</span> British serial killer (born 1958)

Steven Gerald James Wright is an English serial killer, also known as the Suffolk Strangler. He is serving life imprisonment for the murder of five women who worked in Ipswich, Suffolk. The killings took place during the final months of 2006, and Wright was found guilty in February 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timothy Wilson Spencer</span> American serial killer (1962–1994)

Timothy Wilson Spencer, also known as The Southside Strangler, was an American serial killer who committed three rapes and murders in Richmond, Virginia, and one in Arlington, Virginia, in the fall of 1987. In addition, he is believed to have committed at least one previous murder, in 1984, for which a different man, David Vasquez, was wrongfully convicted. He was known to police as a prolific home burglar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Grim Sleeper</span> American serial killer (1952–2020)

Lonnie David Franklin Jr., better known by the nickname Grim Sleeper, was an American serial killer who was responsible for at least ten murders and one attempted murder in Los Angeles, California from 1984 to 2007. He was also convicted for rape and sexual violence. Franklin earned his nickname when he appeared to have taken a 14-year break from his crimes, from 1988 to 2002.

Colette Aram was a 16-year-old British trainee hairdresser who was abducted, raped and strangled as she walked from her home to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, on 30 October 1983. The murder was the first case to be featured on the BBC television series Crimewatch when it began in June 1984. However, despite receiving over 400 calls as a result of the programme, Nottinghamshire Police were unable to catch the killer, and it was not until 2008 and following advances in forensic technology that police were able to develop a DNA profile of the suspect. Paul Stewart Hutchinson was finally charged with the murder in April 2009. He initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea to guilty on 21 December 2009 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 2010. Following his sentencing, Crimewatch ran a recap of the murder and investigation on BBC TV on 27 January 2010 exposing several inaccuracies reported in the press about his background, notably a lie about being a psychology graduate.

Ronny Rieken is a German child murderer. In 1996 and 1998, he killed two girls in the area surrounding Cloppenburg, northern Germany. Rieken was the first German criminal to be caught as a result of mass DNA screening. In 1998, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, which he is serving at Justizvollzugsanstalt Celle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Killing of Nicole van den Hurk</span> 1995 murder case in North Brabant, Netherlands

15-year-old Nicole van den Hurk disappeared on her way to work on 6 October 1995, in Eindhoven, in the Dutch province of North Brabant. Her body was found in the woods between the towns of Mierlo and Lierop, November 22, 1995.

Leo Egidius Schiffer was a German serial killer, who was known as The Strangler of Aachen. Between 1983 and 1990, he murdered five girls and women between the ages of 15 and 31, abusing three of them sexually. His crimes were known as "hitchhiker killings" or "Disco-murders". In 1985, the program Aktenzeichen XY… ungelöst covered his case.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Little</span> American serial killer (1940–2020)

Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 women between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.

Lyndon Fitzgerald Pace is an American serial killer and burglar. Between 1988 and 1989, he robbed and killed elderly women primarily in Atlanta's Vine City neighborhood. Among his burglary victims was Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King Jr.'s widow. Pace was convicted of four murders, but was not tried for a fifth, receiving a death sentence for his crimes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent Groves</span> American serial killer

Vincent Darrell Groves was an American serial killer who, between March 1979 and July 1988, murdered at least seven girls and women in Denver, Colorado. His guilt was conclusively proven in four murders with the help of DNA profiling in 2012, 16 years after his death, as a result of which his total victim count remains unknown. According to the Denver Police Department, based on circumstantial evidence and a number of testimonies, Groves could have been responsible for more than 20 murders.

The Denver Prostitute Killer was an unidentified American serial killer responsible for the murder of at least 17 women and girls in Denver and its various suburbs between 1975 and 1995, however in 2005, based upon results from DNA Profiling, it was determined that the most likely killer was Billy Edwin Reid who was previously arrested and charged with the 1989 murder of Lannell Williams and Lisa Kelly. Reid was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for those specific murders, The killings were grouped together only in 2008 – until then, each of these crimes were considered to have been committed by different people.

Juan Chavez was a Mexican serial killer who, between 1986 and 1990, killed at least six gay men in three cities in Los Angeles County, California. Chavez claimed to authorities that the murders were an attempt to terminate AIDS, which, in the 1980s, received worldwide panic. On June 21, 1999, he was sentenced to five consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole, but died from suicide by hanging in his cell at Folsom State Prison shortly after.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Kappen</span> Welsh serial killer (1941–1990)

Joseph William Kappen, also known as the Saturday Night Strangler, was a Welsh serial killer who committed the rape and murder of three teenage girls in Llandarcy and Tonmawr, near his home town of Port Talbot, in 1973. Kappen is also suspected of committing a fourth murder in February 1976.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Murder of Helen Gorrie</span> Unsolved UK murder and miscarriage of justice

The murder of Helen Gorrie was a high-profile child murder which occurred in the grounds of Merchistoun Hall in Horndean, Hampshire in 1992. 15-year-old Gorrie was found half-naked and strangled in the spot popular with courting couples only ten minutes from her home, after going out one night to meet a 21-year-old man named John Corcoran. She had met him the night before as he cruised around the area in his vehicle, and he had asked her to meet up with him that night. The murder of the schoolgirl made headline news at the time and featured on Crimewatch. Corcoran was suspected of strangling Gorrie after she refused his sexual advances, and in 1999 he was convicted of her murder, as well as being charged with the rape of a 14-year-old girl in 1990. In 2003 Corcoran was released on appeal, on the grounds that the judge's final summing up had been deficient. The police revealed that there were no grounds to re-open the investigation and that they were not looking for anybody else, although the case remains officially unsolved.

Events in the year 1988 in Austria.

References

  1. ↑ "A girl tied to a tree, strangled" (in German). Arbeiter-Zeitung. 27 October 1988.
  2. ↑ "New lead in the Schriefl murder case: Was a trio of perpetrators at work?" (in German). Arbeiter-Zeitung. 2 November 1988.
  3. ↑ "Viennese disco murder: an autopsy also suggests the act of a trio" (in German). Arbeiter-Zeitung. 3 November 1988.
  4. ↑ "Disco murder:old customers under examination" (in German). Arbeiter-Zeitung. 4 November 1988.
  5. ↑ "Regular guests of the disco gave Alexandra the last escort" (in German). Arbeiter-Zeitung. 12 November 1988.
  6. ↑ "10-year-old abused, murdered in residential building" (in German). Arbeiter-Zeitung. 4 February 1989.
  7. ↑ "Murder in Favoriten: six months ago, a 13-year-old was attacked" (in German). Arbeiter-Zeitung. 6 February 1989.
  8. ↑ "Testimony triggers the greatest criminal investigation in criminal history" (in German). Arbeiter-Zeitung. 9 February 1989.
  9. ↑ "Sex murder in Favoriten: Now the first house searched in the settlement" (in German). Arbeiter-Zeitung. 10 February 1989.
  10. ↑ "The police thought they knew Christina's murderer" (in German). Arbeiter-Zeitung. 16 February 1989.
  11. ↑ Are there any witnesses to the Strau murder? (Wienweb.at) (in German)[ dead link ]
  12. ↑ "Aktenzeichen XY ungeloest 08.09.1989 – Bestie von Favoriten". YouTube (in German). Retrieved 4 October 2019.
  13. ↑ Girl murderer calls for new trial (in German). Upper Austrian News. 3 September 2008.
  14. ↑ "RIS – 15Os23/02 – Justiz (OGH, OLG, LG, BG, OPMS, AUSL)" . Retrieved 30 May 2017.
  15. ↑ Schriefl murder: Supreme Court confirms 15 years imprisonment term (in German)
  16. ↑ Beranek murder case remains unsolved: proceedings are discontinued (in German)
  17. ↑ Judgment in the Nicole Strau murder case: Life sentence for Michael P. (in German)
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.