Angel of Death by Lainz

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The Austrian station aids Waltraud Wagner (* 1960), Irene Leidolf (* 1962), Stefanija Meyer (* 1940) and Maria Gruber (* 1964) were referred to as Lainz's angel of death . They jointly murdered a large number of the hospital's patients in the Lainz Hospital in Vienna between 1983 and 1989.

The series of murders began in 1983 when Wagner said he was fulfilling a patient's alleged wish for a lethal injection of morphine . She saw in this "act of grace" only an " assisted dying " without particular guilt, whereby this crime would also have to be punished with a maximum of five years imprisonment. This depiction of “killing out of compassion” and “merciful redemption” contradicts the brutal approach of the four women, especially Wagner and Leidolf.

display

As early as 1988, the suspicion was expressed through an auxiliary nurse that flunitrazepam (trade name: Rohypnol) had been administered to patients in the ward. The suspicion reached the senior doctor, who filed a complaint. Police investigations were initially unsuccessful. When the patient Franz Kohout suddenly suffered from hypoglycaemia in 1989, even though he was not diabetic, the senior physician reported again. Initially, the four ward assistants were only given leave of absence, but arrested on April 7, 1989 after an examination in the hospital. Numerous deceased patients were exhumed and autopsied to re-examine the causes of death, and an unusual accumulation of water in the lungs was found. Since this occurs more frequently in patients with a poor general condition, no compelling suspicion of killing could be derived. A fatal insulin overdose in another dead man eventually led to the arrest warrants .

The crime

The victims were either poisoned with an overdose of insulin or the sleeping pill Rohypnol ; others were killed with water. This "oral care", as the cynical self-term, was carried out according to the following scheme: One station assistant held the head and the nose, the other fixed the tongue and poured water until the victim was suffocated. The victims are said to have fought violently. In patients who were already known to have a water lung , this could appear as natural death.

Perpetrators in the process

Waltraud Wagner

Wagner was seen as the driving force behind the murders. She seemed to have had a great influence over the other co-defendants, and they probably had a certain respect for her too. She defended herself by saying that she had “only redeemed” patients who “were almost dead anyway”. In the first interrogation she confessed to 49 killings, according to her statements "only euthanasia ", later she revoked and confessed to ten crimes. The court found 32 murders proven, saw no reason for mitigation and sentenced Wagner to life imprisonment .

Irene Leidolf

She only described herself as Wagner's assistant, she would have instigated everyone. It provided detailed information about Wagner's cynicism . Patients who “cause difficulties” or “get on my nerves” would “get a ticket to the afterlife”. They believe that Wagner would have killed "more than a hundred" people. Despite numerous circumstantial evidence, Leidolf was acquitted of most suspicions and received life imprisonment for five proven murders.

Stefanija Meyer

Born in Yugoslavia, she accused Wagner and Leidolf as the main perpetrators of having “only murdered out of pity”. She confessed to the murder allegations (no excuse in the direction of euthanasia) and also named some victims that Wagner could no longer remember. Meyer also gave information about Wagner's cold-bloodedness and explained that special precautions for the murders in everyday ward life were not necessary because nobody would have checked anyway. Since the court only assumed complicity, she received a relatively mild sentence of 20 years in prison for four murders, although she was a single perpetrator in one case.

Maria Gruber

She was the youngest and hadn't been in nursing for long. She claimed to have resisted the calls to kill a few times, but then gave in to the insistence of her colleagues and murdered two people. Gruber received 15 years imprisonment and was released after 12 years.

Favorable environment

All four perpetrators were able to act relatively carefree and independently. Neither the increased drug consumption nor other suspicious processes (such as the increased number of deaths in the night shifts of the convicts) were questioned. According to witness statements, there were rumors of a "death row", but these were only general. The ward cared for a large number of geriatric and multimorbid patients; there were hardly any experiences of achievement or healing successes. In places there was a shortage of staff, a large number of auxiliary staff (ward assistants) performed therapeutic care activities that only qualified staff should have carried out. The four convicts only had one completed course to become a station assistant, in some cases the diploma training was started and broken off after a short time. There were also large hospital wards and corridor beds. The buildings and stations were partly in a very worn condition. In particular, the public outraged the flimsy statements made by the superiors who didn't want to hear anything. There were hardly any checks by senior nurses or doctors. The then mayor of Vienna , Helmut Zilk , drew a (rather incongruous) comparison with doctors in Auschwitz and dismissed the head of the department primary surgeon Franz Xaver Pesendorfer, who was later rehabilitated. The four "angels of death" wanted to instigate at least one other person to murder, who, according to their own statements, refused twice, but did not file a complaint. It was not possible to substantiate the knowledge of other people in the court proceedings.

The consequences

The case went around the world in 1989, and many nurses in Lainz reported insults and threatening phone calls. In places the press reported very sensationally and superficially. So designated z. B. A high-circulation Austrian newspaper W. Wagner as a secret prostitute and later had to revoke it. Otherwise, it was criticized why auxiliary staff also had to perform therapeutic care activities and why no one was held responsible for this. Attempts at appeasement by the top head of the nursing service of the city of Vienna, a superior general, also outraged the rest of the nursing staff. Certain reform projects and changes brought only modest results in the long term. The Lainz Hospital was later renamed Hietzing Hospital , and the associated nursing wards were renamed the Geriatric Center Am Wienerwald , where further systemic nursing scandals occurred later . Up to the present day there are repeated convictions internationally of caregivers who in some places killed hundreds of patients entrusted to them for various reasons and motives, assumptions about a high number of unreported cases remain speculative.

Release from prison

The two main perpetrators, Wagner and Leidolf, were released from prison on August 7, 2008 after more than 19 years in prison. Her two accomplices had already been released from prison earlier and are said to have started a new life under a different name.

filming

The events were filmed under the title The Murderer Sisters in Vienna. Peter Kern is the producer and director of the film . The film premiere took place in November 2011.

Web links

literature

  • Pándi, Claus: Lainz - Pavilion 5 . Background and motives of a criminal case. Vienna 1989

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Markus Lust, Markus Höller: The story of the murdering nurses in the geriatric center in the Vienna Woods. In: Vice. August 31, 2018, accessed on July 1, 2019 (Austrian German).
  2. ↑ Lazar Backovic: Austria's biggest care scandal: "Anyone who annoys me gets a free bed with God" . In: Spiegel Online . April 12, 2014 ( spiegel.de [accessed July 1, 2019]).
  3. ↑ news networld Internet service GmbH: - 20 years after the care scandal in Lainz: The 42nd August 3rd 2010, accessed on July 1st 2019 .
  4. ↑ Lainzer murder series: "Now it's over with the Black Forest Clinic". April 5, 2019, accessed July 1, 2019 .
  5. ↑ a b murder of 42 seniors: angels of death lead new life. Retrieved July 1, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Gisela Friedrichsen :: "Waltraud, I need no bed" . In: Spiegel Online . tape April 14 , 1991 ( spiegel.de [accessed July 1, 2019]).
  7. ^ DIE ZEIT (archive): When the scandal in the Vienna General Hospital became public, chief physician Franz Xaver Pesendorfer had to resign. What is it about the allegations against him ?: Never chatted . In: The time . July 14, 1989, ISSN  0044-2070 ( zeit.de [accessed July 1, 2019]).
  8. ↑ ORF Online: "Murder Sisters" released from custody. August 7, 2008