Jack Unterweger

Infobox Serial Killer
name=Johann "Jack" Unterweger


caption=
birthname=
alias=
birth=birth date|df=yes|1951|8|16
location=Judenburg, Styria, Austria
death=death date and age|df=yes|1994|6|29|1951|8|16
cause= Suicide
victims=10
country=Austria
Czechoslovakia
United States
states=California
beginyear=1976
endyear=1992
apprehended=27 February 1992
penalty= Life imprisonment

Johann "Jack" Unterweger (16 August 1951 – 29 June 1994) was an Austrian serial killer who murdered prostitutes in several countries.

First convicted of a 1974 murder, he was released in 1990 due in part to a campaign by intellectuals and politicians, who regarded Unterwerger as an example of rehabilitation. He became a journalist and minor celebrity, but within months of his release, Unterwerger started killing again.

He committed suicide following a conviction for several murders.

Biography

Early life

Born to a Viennese [girl] and an unknown American soldier, Unterweger grew up in poverty with his grandfather, whom he described as an abusive alcoholic. Unterwerger's aunt, however, refuted this information about his grandfather, stating that Unterwerger grew up in a poor but loving environment.

He was in and out of prison several times during his youth for petty crimes, and for assaulting local prostitutes. In 1974, Unterwerger murdered 18-year-old German Margaret Schäfer by strangling her with her own bra, and was sentenced to life in prison.

Imprisonment and first release

While in prison, Unterweger became an author of short stories, poems, plays, and an autobiography, "Fegefeuer – eine Reise ins Zuchthaus", which was adapted into a motion picture. Austrian intellectuals, including Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek, made petitions to pardon Unterweger.

He was released on 23 May 1990, after only 15 years of his life term, thought to have been successfully "resocialized".

Upon his release, Unterwerger hosted television programs which discussed criminal rehabilitation.

More murders

Law enforcement later found that Unterweger killed six prostitutes in Austria in the first year after his release.

In 1991, Unterweger was hired by an Austrian magazine to write about crime in Los Angeles, California, and the differences between U.S. and European attitudes to prostitution. Unterweger met with local police, even going so far as to accompany them on their patrols of the city's red light districts. During Unterweger's time in Los Angeles, three prostitutes—Shannon Exley, Irene Rodriguez, and Sherri Ann Long—were beaten, sexually assaulted with tree branches, and strangled with their own brassieres.

In Austria, Unterweger was suggested as a suspect for the prostitute murders. In the absence of other suspects, the police took a serious look at Unterweger and kept him under surveillance until he went to the U.S.—ostensibly as a reporter—observing nothing to connect him with the murders.

Law enforcement eventually had enough evidence for his arrest, but Unterweger was gone by the time they entered his home. After law enforcement chased him through Europe, Canada and the U.S., he was finally arrested by the FBI in Miami, Florida, on 27 February 1992. While a fugitive, he had called the Austrian media to try to convince them of his innocence.

Trial and death

Back in Austria, Unterweger was charged with 11 homicides, one of which occurred in Prague. The jury found him guilty of nine murders by a 6:2 majority (sufficient for a conviction under Austrian law at the time). On 29 June 1994, Unterweger was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

That night, he took his own life by hanging himself with a rope made from shoelaces and a cord from the trousers of a track suit. He is reported to have used an intricate knot identical to that used on the murdered prostitutes.

Because he died before he could appeal the verdict, under a technicality of Austrian law, Unterweger is officially to be considered as innocent, despite the original guilty verdict; Unterweger's case was one of those considered in a review of this Austrian legal principle.

External links

*http://www.francesfarmersrevenge.com/stuff/serialkillers/unterweger.htm
* [http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/profiling/profiling_2/index.html Jack Unterweger] at the Crime Library