Johann "Jack" Unterweger was an Austrian serial killer who committed murder in several countries – Austria, West Germany, Czechoslovakia, and the United States. Initially convicted in 1974 of a single murder, Unterweger began to write extensively while in prison. His work gained the attention of the Austrian literary elite, who took it as evidence that he had been rehabilitated.
After significant lobbying, Unterweger was released on parole in 1990. After his release, he became a minor celebrity and worked as a playwright and journalist, but within months he resumed killing women. Unterweger hanged himself in prison after being convicted of nine more murders in June 1994.
In 1974, Unterweger murdered 18-year-old West German national Margaret Schäfer by strangling her with her own bra, and in 1976 he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. While imprisoned, he wrote short stories, poems, plays, and an autobiography, Purgatory or The Trip to Prison – Report of a Guilty Man, that later served as the basis for a documentary.
In 1985, a campaign to pardon and release Unterweger from prison began. Austrian PresidentRudolf Kirchschläger refused the petition when presented to him, citing the court-mandated minimum of fifteen years in prison. Writers, artists, journalists and politicians agitated for a pardon, including the author and 2004 Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek; Günter Grass; and the editor of the magazine Manuskripte, Alfred Kolleritsch.
Unterweger was released on 23 May 1990, after the required minimum fifteen years of his life term. Upon his release, his autobiography was taught in Austrian schools and his stories for children were performed on Austrian radio. Unterweger himself hosted television programmes which discussed criminal rehabilitation and he worked as a reporter for the public broadcaster ORF, where he reported on stories concerning the very murders for which he was later found guilty.
Jack Unterweger was working as a journalist when he committed a string of murders
The killer chose to stay at the now-notorious Cecil Hotel
In 1991, Unterweger was hired by an Austrian magazine to write about crime in Los Angeles and the differences between U.S. and European attitudes to prostitution. He met local police, even going so far as to participate in a ride-along of the city's red light districts. During Unterweger's time in Los Angeles, three sex workers—Shannon Exley, Irene Rodriguez, and Peggy Booth—were beaten, sexually assaulted with tree branches, and strangled with their own bras.
The twisted killer stayed at the Cecil Hotel, in tribute to ‘Night Stalker’ Richard Rodriguez.
Jack Unterweger began drinking from a very young age.
By the age of 16, he was an accomplished pimp, later boasting: “I wielded my steel rod among the prostitutes of Hamburg, Munich and Marseilles.
“I had enemies and conquered them through my inner hatred.”
His first murder victim was 18-year-old Margaret Schafer, strangled with her own bra after being sexually assaulted, in 1974, and dumped in the woods.
Victims Blanka Bockova (left) and Silvia Zagler
Unterweger's involvement went unnoticed until years after his first murder
Unterweger was released on 23 May 1990, after the required minimum fifteen years of his life term. Upon his release, his autobiography was taught in Austrian schools and his stories for children were performed on Austrian radio. Unterweger himself hosted television programmes which discussed criminal rehabilitation and he worked as a reporter for the public broadcaster ORF, where he reported on stories concerning the very murders for which he was later found guilty.
Unterweger killed women in different countries around the world
Incredibly, in his new role as a reporter, Unterweger even covered the deaths of the Austrian prostitutes, interviewing the chief of police of Vienna about the brutal crimes.
Before Austrian police had linked him to the crimes, Unterweger flew to LA - after being hired by a magazine to write an article on crime against sex worker in the city.
Shannon Exley (left) and Irene Rodriguez were also killed by the monster
Sherri Long, another tragic victim of the sick killer
Once there, they were beaten, sexually assaulted with the branch of a tree and repeatedly choked with their bras using his signature knot.
Three sex worker — Shannon Exley, Irene Rodriguez, and Peggy Jean Booth, who also used the name Sherri Long — died this way during the summer he spent at the Cecil.
In Austria, Unterweger was suggested as a suspect for the sex worker murders. In the absence of other suspects, police took a serious look at Unterweger and kept him under surveillance until he went to the United States—ostensibly as a reporter—observing nothing to connect him with the killings.
Unterweger hid his crimes by working as a journalist
He was extradited back to Austria where he was found guilty of nine murders and sentenced to life without parole, in 1994.
On the night of his sentencing, he made use of his deadly knot for the final time - tying shoelaces together to hang himself in his cell.
That night, Unterweger committed suicide at Graz-Karlau Prison by hanging himself with a rope made from shoelaces and a cord from the trousers of a track suit, using the same knot that was found on all the strangled sex workers.
Prior to his death, Unterweger had asserted his intention to seek an appeal, and therefore, under Austrian law, his guilty verdict was not considered legally binding after his death, as it has not been reviewed and confirmed by the court.
Over the course of his life, Jack Unterweger seduced many women and was known as a "Casanova". To this day, many of his ex-lovers are still convinced of his innocence; one of his most vocal advocate is lawyer Astrid Wagner.
Lawyer Astrid Wagner.
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