Corpus Delicti, Knowledge Solution, Issue 4, June 1997
by Friederike Blümelhuber
It is amazing with what ignorance Europe in general, and Austria in
particular, approaches the process of criminal profiling [6]. The USA is
the world's leading producer of serial killers with 76 percent. Europe
comes in a distant second with merely 17 percent [5]. In my opinion, this
statistical data has to be questioned, because law enforcement does not
always recognize the serial nature of crimes and link them together as an
undeniable series [6]. Even though Austria is a small country, we already
have had some cases where criminal profiling could have been very
helpful and probably would have prevented the death of some victims. In
my opinion, this problem will become even more serious in the European
Community, because travelling between countries is now as easy as
travelling between states in the USA, which especially helps a serial killer
to elude the authorities.
The roots of criminal profiling began in the USA in the late 50s. Jack
Unterweger, who committed his first homicide in 1970, soon began
crossing jurisdictional and international boundaries. At the time, Austrian
authorities had no idea how to apply profiling techniques and did not
understand the concept of crime scene signature. If profiling techniques
had been utilized at the times that the crimes were committed by
investigating authorities in Austria, Unterweger's earlier crimes would
have been linked together much earlier.
From 1968 to 1975, Jack Unterweger committed 16 delicts ranging from
burglary to sexual abuse, many of which exhibited the typical
characteristics of his later crimes. Both of his first two sexual crimes, a
rape and a homicide with sexual features, show essential features of his
later deeds.
The first homicide was committed by Jack Unterweger on his neighbour
Margret Schäfer, with the help of the clandestine prostitute Barbara
Scholz. Barbara Scholz asked Margret Schäfer to join her for a ride in a
car together with her and Jack. After a short ride, Jack caught Margret
Schäfer, bound her hands with a belt of her coat, and then together with
Barbara Scholz, burglarized Margret's apartment. Finally, they drove into
the woods, Jack forced her to undress, and, as Margret Schäfer refused,
knocked her with his fist and then again and again with the cudgel
against her head. After having bound her once again, he drug her to a
tree, covered the body with leaves and strangled her with her bra wound
tight around her neck, which caused Margret Schäfer's death.
The expert testimony of Prof.Dr.Klaus Jarosch in the trial 20 Vr 552/75 of
the Court of Salzburg says: "Jack Unterweger is emotionally
impoverished, sensitive and excitable, he tends to sudden fits of rage
and anger. His physical activities are enormously aggressive with
sexually sadistic perversion�. He is an emotionally impoverished,
explosive, aggressive psychopath. The later development to a habitual
criminal is most outerly probable, he is an incorrigible perpetrator.
Recidivism has to be expected with certainty."
At this first sentence for murder of Jack Unterweger, I think it would have
made sense to look for some special features. His upbringing can be
described as harsh, his childhood as deprived. He was brought up by his
grandfather who was a notorious drinker and who changed his
mistresses faster than his shirts [9].
While serving a life sentence for murder, Jack Unterweger started to
write and became famous. His work had considerable commercial merit,
and in a relatively short time Unterweger had published a book and
several plays. His charisma began to grow alongside his fame, and
despite of the formerly mentioned comments on his personality, Jack
Unterweger was granted parole in May 1990 [7], much earlier than would
normally have been expected, given the seriousness of his crime. Shortly
after his dismissal in September 1990, his next victim was murdered.
To be fair, one has to take into account that the late finding of some
victims made things more difficult. Because of this reason I will give a list
of the victims, not in the sequence of being murdered, but in the
sequence of being found.
# name date of death date of finding country lying on… state of dressing injuries muti- lations physical evidence 1 15.9.90 Czech Republic undressed, with jewelry strangled & stabbed none 2 31.12.90 Austria dressed, with jewelry strangled none 3 5.1.91 Austria undressed with jewelry strangled & stabbed none 4 20.5.91 Austria undressed with jewelry strangled with tights none 5 23.5.91 Austria undressed with jewelry strangled w bodytrikot none 6 20.6.91 USA nearly undressed strangled with bra none 7 30.6.91 USA undressed strangled w bra/belt none 8 4.7.91 Austria undressed with jewelry unknown none 9 11.7.91 USA dress, with wrist watch strangled with bra none 10 5.10.91 Austria undressed with jewelry unknown none 11 16.4.92 Austria unknown unknown unknown data obtained from [1],
[2], [3], [4] and [6] Another essential piece of behavior evidence had also been missed: as
experience has taught criminal profilers, some types of serial killers may
deliberately seek ways of inserting themselves into an investigation. This
was exactly what Jack Unterweger did. Even Hofrat Max Edelbacher,
head of the security office of the Viennese Police Department, answered
frankly all the questions of the "reporter" Jack Unterweger [9]. Probably
Unterweger would have been able to continue his career as a serial killer
much longer, if he had not murdered three prostitutes in Los Angeles.
After these three murders, Unterweger's situation dramatically changed.
Jim Harper, a homicide detective working on this case, recognized the
common features of three crimes, where three women had been
strangled with their own bras, that had been knotted and wound
tightly around their necks. These three bras were taken for
comparison to Lynn Herold of the LA County Crime Laboratory, whom I
had the honor of meeting in 1995 at The FBI Symposium in San Antonio,
Texas. Herold is a criminalist, a professional whose job is to apply the
physical sciences to the analysis of physical evidence from a crime
scene. Each year she examines countless pieces of evidence from
thousand of crimes. She regards her work largely as puzzle solving.
Ligature used for strangulation is a particular enthusiasm, and Herrold
teaches crime scene personnel how to remove them from bodies. Since
the way a knot is tied can often indicate who committed the murder, the
knot is never untied. Instead, the ligature is cut close to the knot, leaving it
intact. This had been done with the bras.
When Lynn Herrold examined the bras, she found that they had been
expertly stripped down to act as lethal garrotes. It was inconceivable, she
said, that more than one person had committed these crimes [3]. A
criminal profile was not prepared until Jack Unterweger's detention,
pending investigation, when the FBI was put in charge of the case.
Finally, I would like to specify the facts which all cases had in common.
Jack Unterweger had been present at the time of the murder in every
single case. All targeted women belonged to a high risk group; they were
both strangers and prostitutes. Prostitutes are at a high risk for being
targeted by serial offenders because they are a transient population.
However, they represent a low risk for the offender, for this same reason.
The offense was planned, the victim was transported to the crime scene
(by car), and the dead bodies had been hidden. The victims were
predominantly naked when found, and some of them were stabbed, but
none of them showed any kind of mutilations. Jewelry was not taken from
the victims.
All together, the crime scene characteristics were typical for a
psychophatic, well organized perpetrator. But these are nevertheless
only clues. The actual evidence proving Jack Unterweger was the
murderer of at least two of the above mentioned women, was more than
one-hundred red PAN-fibers found on Heidemarie Hammerer
corresponding to Jack Unterweger�s red scarf, and the DNA-analysis of
a hair found in Unterweger�s Ford Mustang belonging to Blanka Bokova.
The professional criminal profile was prepared by Gregg O. McCrary,
James A. Wright, and John E. Douglas (all members of the National
Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes NCAVC, a division of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation) as late as February 14, 1992. This
profile mainly dealt with the Czech case and the seven Austrian cases of
murder, and led to the conclusion that all eight cases show the typical
signature of one single person. After comparing the eight European
murders to the three in the United States, the experts came to the
following conclusion: If we succeed to prove, that the perpetrator of
one of those cases of murder was present at the same time and in
the same area of the other cases of murder, it is highly probable
that this one perpetrator committed all eleven homicides [1].
After the guilty verdict of the court in Graz, Austria, Jack strangled himself
in his cell using exactly the same knot he had used for strangling his
victims.
Bibliography
Blanka Bockova
14.-15.9.90
back, covered with leaves
Heidemarie Hammerer
5.-6.12.90
stomach, covered with leaves
Brunhilde Masser
25.-26.10.90
stomach, covered with leaves
Sabine Moitzi
16.-17.4.91
stomach, covered with leaves
Karin Eroglu
7.-8.5.91
stomach, uncovered
Shannon Exley
19.-20.6.91
stomach, uncovered
typical knot in the bra
Irene Rodriguez
28.-29.6.91
back, uncovered
typical knot in the bra
Silvia Zagler
7.-8.4.91
stomach, covered with leaves
Sherri Ann Long
3.-4.7.91
back, uncovered
typical knot in the bra
Elfriede Schrempf
7.-8.3.91
stomach, covered with leaves
Regina Prem
28.-29.4.91
parts of skeleton were found
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