Tibor Foco

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Tibor Theodor Foco (born April 18, 1956 in Linz ) is a former pimp and 250 cm³ motorcycle mountain champion who is said to have murdered the 23-year-old prostitute Elfriede Hochgatterer on March 13, 1986 . He was sentenced to life imprisonment on March 31, 1987 and escaped in 1995; since then he has gone into hiding. A suspected accomplice, Hans-Peter Löffler, was sentenced to 18 years in prison, but acquitted when he was reinstated in 1996.

The murder

Elfriede Hochgatterer was badly mistreated on the night of March 13, 1986 in Linz and then killed next to the tracks of the Western Railway by a gunshot in the face from a revolver . Her body was found the next morning. The body was undressed in the area of ​​the abdomen. Hochgatterer had worked 200 meters from where the body was found, and next to it was the red-light bar Bunny , owned by Tibor Foco. Traces of blood were found in this area.

The investigations

Tibor Foco was arrested the next day on suspicion of having committed the competitor's murder . However, he always denied the act and first received an alibi from his ex-wife . She later revoked this. The then lover Focos Regina Ungar, who also worked for him as a prostitute, also first denied the act, but finally stated after various other versions that she had been forced to shoot Hochgatterer by Foco. After a month, she suddenly named the leather goods dealer Hans Peter Löffler as an alleged accomplice, who was then arrested.

The process

The trial against Foco, Ungar and Löffler began on February 23, 1987 in the Linz Regional Court. On March 31, 1987, Foco was sentenced to life imprisonment, the alleged accomplice Löffler to 18 years. Ungar appeared as a key witness and was acquitted for "apologetic emergency".

Löffler achieved the resumption of his proceedings in 1992. He was acquitted in August 1996. The main witness, Ungar, had withdrawn her testimony in 1993 on the grounds that she had been forced to make the incriminating testimony by the Linz police through mistreatment. In 1997 the criminal case against Foco was resumed. The case is pending because Foco escaped from custody in April 1995 and has since gone into hiding. When the judgment against Foco was overturned, the Higher Regional Court relied on Löffler's final acquittal. In addition, exonerating facts were ignored. Thus came no blood or semen on the victim's body from Foco, also ensured hair he could gutachterlich not be assigned to and immediately after the arrest no were at Focos hands gunshot residue was detected.

Escape

Foco, who was in custody, was allowed to study at the Faculty of Law at the University of Linz, which he subsequently visited several times. On April 27, 1995 at 8:25 am, Foco arrived at the University of Linz with two prison guards. Foco was later able to move away from his guards. From a toilet on the third floor of the Juridicum, he got a garage key and tear gas spray that had been hidden there by an escape assistant. After a further 7 minutes and 30 seconds, the fleeing Foco reached a rented garage and drove away with the black Kawasaki ZX 750 F “Ninja” motorcycle, chassis number ZX750F017290, across Marienberg to Leonfeldner Bundesstraße. The motorcycle could not be found until today. The escape had apparently been planned over years. As early as 1993, mobile phones were bought by helpers and smuggled to Foco in the prison to enable him to communicate with the outside world. The escape motorcycle was bought and made available, the garage near Linz University was rented and equipped with a black tank bag with clothes, provisions, cosmetics and a sleeping bag. The maintenance of the motorcycle was carried out by a mechanic from Foco's former motorcycle racing stable.

Inconsistencies in the case

  • The Linz police are said to have committed numerous investigative errors and to have driven witnesses or tortured, according to Ungar.
  • One of the investigating detectives is now married to the ex-wife Focos, who withdrew the first alibi .
  • An expert was broken into and evidence was stolen; a complaint was only made after five years.
  • The key witness Regina Ungar, who lives in Florida in the USA , revoked her confession on March 5, 1993.
  • Finally, the jury at the time intervened for the retrial.

After the escape

In 1996 the alleged accomplice Hans Peter Löffler was acquitted in a three-day retrial and received compensation of 235,949.93 schillings plus interest. In a judgment in spring 1997, Foco was granted safe conduct until October 1, 1997. A deposit of 100,000 schillings was made. Tibor Foco did not return and let the bail forfeit. In April 2000, the Linz Regional Court again brought charges on suspicion of murder and issued an international arrest warrant . In February 2005, safe conduct was again assured in the event of Tibor Foco's voluntary return.

The former head of the Linz Institute for Criminal Law, Dr. Wegscheider, today represents the volatile Foco in a legally friendly manner.

Foco's whereabouts are still unknown despite various rumors. Foco's interests were taken care of by his parents, who appeared in the media several times and demanded that the proceedings be terminated completely.

In media reports about the case nowadays, Foco is mostly seen as an innocent victim of police and judicial arbitrariness . This is also shown in the TV film Die Geschworen (with Christiane Hörbiger in the title role), which handles the case artistically freely.

Most Wanted

As of March 6, 2020, Tibor Foco is on Europol's wanted list alongside Friedrich Felzmann as “Austria's Most Wanted” .

Relatives

  • Tibor Foco has family roots (also) in Hungary.
  • His ex-wife later married a criminal investigation officer who was investigating the murder.
  • According to lawyer Wegscheider, his wealthy parents Theodor and Christine "allegedly died" in 2015.
  • The only relative is a half-brother, with whom Tibor Foco had no contact during the time of his imprisonment.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tibor Foco with a new picture and voice sample wanted kurier.at, May 20, 2015, accessed March 6, 2020.
  2. ↑ 25 years ago: Foco case - The execution of Elfriede Hochgatter , OÖ Nachrichten, March 12, 2011
  3. ↑ Parliamentary question 5747 / J XX.GP
  4. ↑ Patrick Burow: The dictionary of legal errors . Bastei Lübbe, 2013, p. 52
  5. ↑ a b Tibor Foco. Chronology of the escape . Search documents of the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior (PDF; 9.44 KB)
  6. ↑ Compensation for detention in the Foco case , court and prisoner, Marcus J. Oswald, May 19, 2008
  7. ^ Tibor Foco. Facts . Search documents of the Austrian Federal Ministry of the Interior
  8. ↑ Chronicle: Tibor Foco disappeared for 25 years orf.at, March 6, 2020, accessed March 6, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Foco, Tibor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Foco, Tibor Theodor (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian motorcycle racer and alleged prostitute murderer
DATE OF BIRTH April 18, 1956
PLACE OF BIRTH Linz