Amid these murders, Unterweger was hired by another Austrian magazine and on June 2, 1991, he traveled to Los Angeles, California in the United States.His task was to write about crime in the United States. Specifically how attitudes towards prostitution vary between the two countries.Unterweger was able to arrange several ride alongs with police in L.A.He focused specifically on areas populated by prostitutes. A few have offered public mea culpas, such as Guenther Nenning, one of Unterweger's most vocal supporters. Perhaps, Nenning postulated, some blame should be affixed to Viennese intellectuals for "breaking into this life and then abandoning him."

Gene bumps or not, the eight-member jury was unpersuaded. After nine hours of deliberation, the verdict was rendered as lightning and thunder crashed theatrically outside the courthouse. Two jurors voted for acquittal on all counts. A majority -- which holds sway under Austrian law -- chose acquittal in two Austrian cases where little more than the bones of the victims had been found. But a majority also voted for conviction in the nine other cases, including the three from California. I told him, 'If they can conduct the DNA test, then the Devil's going to catch you,' " lawyer Lehofer recalled. "And he said, as he always said, 'I'm not guilty.' " After his release, Unterweger became a literary celebrity, appearing on talk shows and booking speaking engagements. Fegefeuer was made into a feature film, and the former murderer became a journalist. Sentenced Again and Suicide The real story, which Malkovich will bring to a Vienna stage in an opera-chamber theatre production which premieres tonight, was that Unterweger, the reformed prisoner turned celebrated poet and journalist, had begun a brutal killing spree within six months of his release. Information researched and summarized by Chelsea Newton & Tiffany Waller | Department of Psychology | Radford University | Radford, VA 24142-6946" (PDF).Those who befriended him are left to mull over a cautionary tale of good intentions gone awry. "For a while it was chic to listen to the convicted murderer who had turned good," one writer observed in the daily Die Presse. "But not many of those who supported him then like to talk about it now." Just as Unterweger was championed by myriad writers such as the Nobel prizewinners Elfriede Jelinek and Günter Grass, Abbott was lauded by his country's literati, including Norman Mailer and Kurt Vonnegut, whose support of him also led to his early release. Six weeks later he bludgeoned a man to death.

In 1974, Unterweger murdered 18-year-old West German national Margaret Schäfer by strangling her with her own bra, for which he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 1976. While incarcerated he wrote short stories, poems, plays, and an autobiography, Purgatory or The Trip to Prison – Report of a Guilty Man, [7] that later served as the basis for a documentary. [8] Several figures, including Austrian writer Elfriede Jelinek, have since questioned whether Unterweger actually wrote Purgatory. [9]

1931 – W.K Norton

Unterweger was born in Judenburg, Austria in 1950. His father, an American GI from whom he was estranged, met Unterweger’s mother Theresia, while he was stationed in Europe. She was an Austrian waitress and, by some accounts, a prostitute, the New York Daily News reported. A few days later, a teletype arrived at headquarters. Inspectors in Graz were investigating the murders of two prostitutes that preceded the Vienna murders, and they were wondering if the Vienna police could assist. At 4.50 pm the next day, February 15, Graz headquarters got a call from Unterweger, asking to speak with officer Hütter (he had cruised around the red-light district with him in September 1990). "Why are the Graz police persecuting me? They have no evidence, so what is the meaning of this arrest warrant?" Hütter told him that it would go better for him if he cooperated.

wrote in final despair: "Please not Unterweger!" The obnoxious hoodlum that Unterweger obviously was took a big dump on humanity, kindness, and trust. In the summer of 1991, Unterweger traveled to Los Angeles to write about prostitution in Southern California. The obliging Los Angeles Police Department even gave him a ride in a patrol car so he could observe the seamy underworld up close. During the five weeks of his visit, three prostitutes were strangled with their bras: Shannon Exley, 35; Irene Rodriguez, 33; and Peggy Jean Booth, 26. He came to write about the terrible conditions American prostitutes have because they don't have a union at all," said Malkovich, who plays Unterweger in The Infernal Comedy: Confessions of a Serial Killer. "But of course, he didn't necessarily improve their conditions because, you know, he killed them all after he'd interviewed them.On December 31, 1990, Heidemarie’s body was discovered by hikers in a heavily forested area about 10 miles outside of Gratz. The body had been left exposed to the elements, but her body was relatively preserved due to the cold temperatures.Heidemarie had been covered in leaves. It appeared that she had been redressed at some point with the perpetrator leaving her legs bare.A piece of material from her slip was found lodged in her mouth.

In 1974, Unterweger committed his first murder. He killed a German citizen, 18-year-old Margaret Schafer, by strangling her with her bra. He was convicted for the crime in 1976 and was sentenced to life in prison. When Unterweger confessed to the 1976 murder, he said that he had envisioned the victim as his mother, causing an intense rage to come over him.

The Crimes

Four more prostitutes who worked in Vienna went missing within one month of each other. They were all strangled with an article of their own clothes. It was clear to the Austrian police now that they were dealing with a dangerous serial killer. Once again he had left behind no evidence, no suicide note, nothing except a lifeless body and the echo of the impassioned plea of innocence he delivered at the end of a two-month trial. "I was a rat, a primitive criminal who grunted rather than talked, an inveterate liar. The prosecutor is right: I consumed women rather than loved them," Unterweger had told the court. "But I'm counting on my acquittal because I'm not the culprit. Your decision will affect not only me but the real murderer, because he's laughing up his sleeve." That night, Unterweger hanged himself in prison. One Austrian politician dryly quipped that it was Unterweger’s “best murder.”