A serial killer wrote poetry, and everything was different

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Austria is home to Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, as well as the imprisonment of Natascha Kampusch and the famous "Austrian beast father" Josef Fritzl (who imprisoned his 18-year-old biological daughter Elizabeth Fritzl in his cellar for 24 years and sexually assaulted her many times, causing her to give birth to seven children). This sharp contrast seems to make Austria a paradoxical country.
Today’s protagonist is also from Austria. However, his experience is slightly different – ​​he seems to blur the line between elegance and cruelty – after all, his writing has also captured the hearts of countless writers and readers.
Jack Unterweger is the perfect prisoner, and he has proven through his prison experience that no matter what crimes a person has committed in the past, it is never too late to turn over a new leaf.

Winterwig committed many crimes in the first half of his life, including sexual assault and even murder. He was convicted of murder in 1976 and was supposed to serve a life sentence, but Winterwig suddenly saw a ray of hope while serving his sentence. Although he was just in his early 20s at the time, Winterwig had published an autobiography and even a collection of poems in prison. People like Winterwig's poems, and some Austrian school textbooks even include the criminal's poems. After all, in people's eyes, these poems are definitely from the depths of a poet's soul. In people's eyes, Winterwig is a real poet.

Of course, people more often regard Wentwig as a living proof that anyone can turn from evil to good - at least, those supporters who called for Wentwig's early release and campaigned for it thought so. However, these beautiful imaginations were soon shattered. Shortly after Wentwig was released in 1990, he suddenly went on a killing spree and brutally ended the lives of at least nine women.

A murderer's atonement

In 1976, Jack Wentwig was arrested on suspicion of murder, a case that ultimately landed him in prison for life. Just two years earlier, he had dragged an 18-year-old woman named Margaret Schäfer into the woods, raped her, and strangled her with her bra.
This was not his first crime. Wentwig had 16 crimes on his record, most of which were sexual assaults or violent assaults on prostitutes. Just a month before his first murder, Wentwig beat a woman, tied her up, and raped her with an iron rod.

Of course, it was inevitable that Winterwig would continue to degenerate into a bloodthirsty murderer, but no one could have guessed what he would experience after being imprisoned. Behind bars, Winterwig quietly sat down and began to write poetry, novels, and his autobiography, titled Purgatory (Fegefeuer – eine Reise ins Zuchthaus). It seemed that overnight, the most dangerous man in Austria suddenly changed his appearance and became the most famous best-selling author in Austria.

The Soul of a Poet

"No subject is more poetic than the death of a beautiful woman," Jack Wentwig wrote in prison. "There comes a moment in a woman's life when she must become beautiful before she is loved, and there comes a moment when she must become beautiful after she is loved."
As a murderer who took pleasure in torturing and killing prostitutes and even ate the bodies of his victims, such expressions are indeed shocking. But don't forget that it was this writing style that earned Winterwig, who was in prison, the respect and support of the Austrians, and his supporters included even the country's most respected intellectuals and social elites.

Winterwig's autobiography successfully deceived the world, and even more successfully convinced people that he was just a sensitive person who became crazy because he had to grow up in an environment without maternal love. By using his ability to play with words, Winterwig deceived many people and made them believe that he had completed his transformation and deserved to be free.

A petition to release the devil

When the news of Wentwig's work spread, thousands of people immediately petitioned for him, hoping that he could be released immediately. In the words of these supporters, it doesn't matter what Jack Wentwig did. What matters is that he proved that art can heal any wounded soul, so he must be released. According to a statement signed by supporters, "The Austrian judicial system will be thoroughly tested in the case of Wentwig."
There are many well-known names among Wentwig's supporters. Two Nobel Prize winners in literature, Elfriede Jelinek and Günter Grass, have joined the petition campaign. The two novelists not only called for Wentwig's release as soon as possible, but also praised his works. Jelinek explained (many years later) that those words left a deep impression on her, "especially his clear and beautiful literary description of childhood." (www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-nov-27-et-book27-story.html)
Another influential supporter, journalist and commentator Peter Huemer, described the petition campaign as follows:

"Wentwig represents a kind of hope for intellectuals. No matter how many problems there are, or how bad they are, we must always cheer up to face and solve them. Therefore, we believe in Wentwig from the bottom of our hearts, and we hope from the bottom of our hearts that he is worthy of trust."

Indeed, all of Austria believed him. When he served the minimum term of his sentence in 1990, Winterwig was released. As Winterwig returned to society, the warden announced:

"We will never find another prisoner as perfect as him, one who is completely ready to be free."

The Soul of a Serial Killer

No matter what Wentwig's supporters say, he killed eight people in his first year of release.
In these cases, Winterwig followed his usual killing methods: the female victims were dragged into the woods by him, beaten, and finally strangled to death with their own underwear. Faced with these cases with extremely obvious clues, the media was obviously unwilling to focus their suspicion on Winterwig, so they gave the serial killer in these cases a name: the Vienna Woods Killer.

When Wentwig was planning this killing trip, he participated in a talk show and was interviewed. The TV show praised Wentwig highly and highlighted his two identities - as a prisoner who successfully accepted reform and as a writer who successfully gained fame and fortune.

This successful TV show earned Wentwig an invitation from another media (an Austrian magazine), who sent him to Los Angeles to investigate and report on the "terrible situation" of local prostitutes. In Los Angeles, Wentwig stayed at the notorious Cecil Hotel. Here, he went out at night and specifically killed the prostitutes he had met and interviewed. (www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2007-nov-27-et-book27-story.html)

The collapse of a poet's image

Since the police had questioned Jack Winterwig several times during his crimes, by the time the police had enough evidence to arrest Winterwig, he already knew that the police were investigating his case and were suspecting him. So Winterwig quickly escaped, but he would contact the media and the police from time to time to keep himself in the spotlight and explain why he had not yet surrendered:

"I can't accept being sent back to prison, but the news has ruined me socially. I have no intention of staying in Austria now."

(www.theguardian.com/books/2007/nov/10/features.weekend)
In fact, it was his obsession with what other people thought of him that led directly to his undoing. When FBI agents arrested him, they led him to believe that they were reporters from the business magazine Success, and that he would be paid $10,000 to tell them his side of the story. He was fooled—instead of sitting down with a conniving reporter, as he had imagined, he walked into a room full of U.S. marshals.
On June 29, 1994, Jack Wentwig was convicted of murder for nine murders - it is not ruled out that he may have killed more people.
“I will appeal,” Wentwig said in court.
But he didn't do that, and that night he hanged himself in his cell, using a rope made from the laces of his sports suit and his shoes.
As for the knot he used to hang himself, it was exactly the same knot found on the bodies of all the victims he strangled.

By Mark Oliver

Translated by Lupin the Third

Proofreading/Kinda Kazuichi

Original article/allthatsinteresting.com/jack-unterweger

This article is based on the Creative Commons Agreement (BY-NC) and is published by Lupin III & Kindaichi on Leviathan

The article only reflects the author's views and does not necessarily represent the position of Leviathan