Werner Kniesek

Werner Kniesek

Werner Kniesek (born November 17, 1946 in Salzburg ) is an Austrian serial killer who went down as one of the most dangerous criminals in Austrian criminal history. He tortured and killed a family of three while on leave .

First crime

Werner Kniesek, who was born out of wedlock and grew up in Salzburg, attracted attention in his youth when he skipped school several times, stole and often ran away from home. He had never met his father and his mother was overwhelmed with him, which is why she wanted to put him in a home. When he found out, he stabbed his mother with a knife, stole the money from the critically injured and fled to Germany , where the 16-year-old was arrested in Hamburg and transferred to Austria. Kniesek was released after two years in juvenile detention for attempted murder. After several break-ins he shot a 73-year-old woman apparently without motivation and was sentenced to eight and a half years imprisonment in 1973 for insanity . In January 1980 he was to be released early for good conduct. A few weeks before his release, he was given three days' leave from Garsten Prison to look for a job. He had been convicted seven times since he was 16, spent 15 years in prison and spent 13 months in the workhouse.

Triple murder in St. Pölten

With the money Werner Kniesek received from illegally produced schnapps in prison, he bought a gas pistol in Vienna and took the train to St. Pölten on January 16, 1980 , where he pretended to be a carpet salesman and took a taxi to the Am Kupferbrunnberg had brought. Arbitrarily he broke into the Altreiter family's villa in Fuchsenkellergasse, where he met 26-year-old Walter who had been in a wheelchair since he was three and held him. When his 55-year-old mother Gertrude and his 24-year-old sister Ingrid came home that evening, Kniesek overpowered and tied them up in the hallway. Since the mother believed in a robbery, she wrote the perpetrator a check for 20,000 shillings.

Shortly afterwards, Kniesek tortured and strangled the son with his bare hands, dragged the corpse from the wheelchair to his mother, tortured her as well and strangled her with a noose three hours later. Ingrid Altreiter was abused by Kniesek for between seven and eleven hours and then also strangled. Her body was covered with welts, bruises and dozens of burn marks. Before she died, she had responded to a call from her fiancé, saying that she was in a hurry, had no time and had to cancel an upcoming meeting. Kniesek is said to have been nearby. He also killed the family cat, lay down and fell asleep next to his victims. A 21-year-old lodger may only survive because she swapped her day off with a colleague and was therefore not at home.

Enlightenment and conviction

The next morning Werner Kniesek packed the three corpses in the trunk of the family's Mercedes and went on a shopping spree with the cashed check. Kniesek visited a restaurant in Karlstetten and became suspicious when some people noticed the large amount of cash the taciturn man had, who also wore black gloves that he did not take off for the entire meal. He also asked about the next motorway entrance.

An employee noted the license plate number of the Mercedes and alerted the gendarmerie, which then drove to the Altreiter's estate and discovered a broken window. Since there was no trace of the three house residents either, an Austria-wide search for the car and the family was initiated. Shortly before midnight, a radio patrol found the car at Salzburger Südtiroler Platz and was able to arrest Kniesek, who was returning to the vehicle. When the vehicle was searched, the three bodies were discovered in the trunk.

After two days, Kniesek finally confessed that they had murdered the Altreiter family out of the pure desire to kill. The murders were only for his mental satisfaction and he could not rule out further homicides. He even forced Gertrude Altreiter to take her heart drops so that she would not lose consciousness and experience the agony of death better. According to investigators, the Altreiter family became his victims by chance. Before the murder, Kniesek rang the bell of a family of builders and asked for the address of a doctor who was not there. According to the St. Pölten police commander, the dog that was present is said to have deterred him. Kniesek tried to kill himself in a cell of the Salzburg regional court, but was prevented from doing so by judicial officers.

On July 4, 1980 Werner Kniesek was sentenced by the District Court of Sankt Pölten to life imprisonment and to an institution for mentally abnormal lawbreakers . In 1983 he made an attempt to escape from the Stein prison , but it failed.

Impact on the prison system

At a press conference, Justice Minister Christian Broda commented on the Werner Kniesek case and emphasized the importance of scientific, medical advice in the penal system and that if Kniesek had been convicted after January 1, 1975, this crime would probably not have occurred. At this point in time the concept of insanity had been expanded so that perpetrators like Kniesek could be placed in an institution for mentally abnormal lawbreakers , even beyond the expiry of their sentence. Since there are no retroactive laws in Austria according to the rule of law, dangerous prisoners like Kniesek could not be subsequently included in the execution of measures.

Therefore, a nine-member working group was formed to record prisoners who had been convicted under the criminal law that existed until 1975, but who, according to the new criminal law, could fall into the group of mentally abnormal lawbreakers and who are potential recidivists. These could then also not subsequently be transferred to the implementation of the measures, but would serve their remaining sentence in a special institution.

filming

The movie scared of Gerald Kargl based on the crimes of Werner Kniesek.

literature

• Andreas Zeppelzauer, Regina Zeppelzauer: Murder. The most spectacular murder cases in Austria. Stocker Verlag, Graz 2005, ISBN 978-3-85365-215-2 .
• Alexandra Wehner: Traces of Evil. Ueberreuter, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-8000-7310-8 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Police: Unbelievable what's going on in his brain
2. ↑ A whole family exterminated: For the pleasure of killing
3. ↑ It was like some kind of compulsion
4. ↑ A tragic incident proves the importance of the new penal system