Jack Unterweger had a passion for writing. He churned out plays, children’s books, novels, magazine articles, and sensitive, touching poems.
In his spare time, he indulged in his other obsession — murdering prostitutes.
It was 1976 when the man who became known as the “Vienna Woods Killer” was first sent to prison, for the December 1974 slaying of Margret Schäfer, 18.
A few days after the girl disappeared, hunters found her naked body in a wooded area. She had been beaten and strangled with her bra.
Police connected Unterweger to the crime through a confession from his girlfriend. She admitted helping him abduct Schäfer. He was 24 when he was arrested for the killing in January 1975.
At his trial, Unterweger blamed the crime on his mother, Theresia.
In August 1950, Theresia gave birth to a son who would never know his father, an American soldier with whom she had a fling in Italy.
By some accounts, she was a waitress, by others, a prostitute.
Yet another voice called her a “tramp with no time for you,” Unterweger would write years later. The voice was that of his grandfather, Theresia’s father.
When Jack was a toddler, his mother was arrested and went to jail. Her child was sent to live with his grandfather in a cramped cottage in the Alps, wrote John Leake in his 2007 book on the case, “Entering Hades: The Double Life of a Serial Killer.”
Unterweger depicted the man as a violent alcoholic. “His fists were my teacher,” he claimed, “and I was a good student.”
By his teens, Jack already had a long criminal record, including an arrest for assaulting a prostitute.
At his trial for Schäfer’s murder, he told the court that the girl sent him into a rage because she reminded him of his mother.
He was sentenced to life in prison.
It might have been the best thing that ever happened to him. The barely literate convict made good use of inmate rehabilitation services. He learned to read, then to write, and discovered a surprising talent for putting words together.
In the early 1980s, he published an autobiographical novel, “Purgatory or The Trip to Jail — Report of a Guilty Man.” The book became a best seller, was made into a movie, and earned him a legion of influential fans. He started giving readings of his works from jail.
In the eyes of Austria’s cafe intellectuals, the tome was proof that even a monster could be saved, and that its author deserved his freedom.
Unterweger declared that writing the book had released him from his demons. He no longer recognized the killer he had been.
Among the smart set, he was celebrated as a shining example of resocialization, the hope that criminals, no matter how violent, could be cleaned up and returned to a productive life in society.
On May 23, 1990, Unterweger walked out of prison and into the life of a literary star — expensive suits, a white Ford Mustang convertible, and media adulation. His play, “Scream of Fear” went on tour. He appeared on TV talk shows, his slight form — a slim five-foot six —draped in white silk suits.
Underneath, though, there lurked another character, a wiry tough guy, covered in tattoos. He willingly displayed this side for public view, as well, Leake noted.
The following spring, missing prostitutes from Vienna and Graz started turning up dead. Seven women were murdered, strangled with their bras or other garments.
Meanwhile, the prison poet had taken up broadcast journalism and ventured into Vienna’s red-light district to ask prostitutes if they were afraid of the phantom killer.
He also interviewed Police Chief Max Edelbacher for the same broadcast. At first, Edelbacher didn’t make the connection between the reporter politely questioning him and the murderer who had been released a year earlier. His wife pointed it out to him when he told her about the interview.
“Don’t you know who that is?” she said. Edelbacher put him under surveillance, just in time for Unterweger to head to Los Angeles. He arrived in June 1991.
Saying he was conducting research about local crime, Unterweger persuaded LA cops to allow him to ride along with them on a tour of some of the seedy spots. Then he went off on his own, wandering around the region.
Soon after, three sex workers vanished. They were found later, strangled with their bras.
Unterweger returned to Austria, where police had started to investigate him for prostitute murders. He also was a prime suspect in slayings in LA and Prague.
So, with a new 18-year-old girlfriend in tow, he went into hiding.
Authorities traced his route from Switzerland to Paris, and then to the United States. In February 1992, federal agents nabbed him in Miami Beach.
Prosecutors had little physical evidence against him. Red fibers from a scarf he owned was found on a body. Hair discovered in his car may have been a match to one of the murdered women.
In June 1994, after a two-month-long trial in Graz, a jury found him guilty in the murders of nine prostitutes. He was sentenced once again to life behind bars.
Hours after the sentencing, the prison poet wrote the last line of his sour life. Using a drawstring from his jogging pants, he hanged himself in his cell.
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