The death cries

A murder case that remains unsolved to this day occurred in Laxenburg in June 1998. On June 10, 1998, Margit W. wanted to help her 79-year-old mother Maria with gardening work at her house on Andreas-Toifl-Gasse in Laxenburg. When she arrived, all the doors were open. Full of concern, she entered the house and found her mother lying dead in a pool of blood in the living room. She immediately called the police, who assumed it was a robbery-murder. Around 10 a.m., a neighbor had seen a man standing at the fence in front of Maria Macvan’s house. She spoke to him and told him that no one would open the door for him. But the man insisted that the woman was at home. By chance, neighbor Walter Tesch, who was sitting in his car on his way to work in Vienna, overheard the conversation. He himself was a police officer and therefore drove slowly past the unknown man to get a better look at him. He later described him as a slim man between 5’7“ and 5’11” tall with a well-groomed appearance. The man was wearing dark pants and carrying a large shoulder bag. He also spoke with an Eastern European accent. Another witness who had caught a glimpse of the stranger was a construction worker. Based on these three witness statements, a composite sketch was made, but it did not lead to any hot leads. Another important witness, who had not seen the mysterious man but had heard him, was a woman who had heard loud screams from a woman at around 10:15 a.m. as she was riding her bike past the scene. However, since her friends had not heard the screams, she dismissed them as her imagination. When she heard about the murder of Maria Macvan, she realized that she had heard the pensioner’s death cries as she fought for her life. The police reconstructed the course of events as follows. The perpetrator had attacked Maria Macvan in the vestibule at the staircase leading up to the house. He then dragged the defenseless woman, who lived alone, into her living room, where he killed her with a 17-centimeter knife. He then stole her wallet, which contained only a few hundred schillings, her keys, two necklaces, and five silver coins that Maria Macvan had received from the municipality on her 75th birthday. All in all, a meager haul for murdering someone. At the scene of the crime, the police found a fingerprint on the door and a DNA trace, but neither could be linked to anyone. The police followed several leads, including one to a 28-year-old Bosnian man, who had an alibi. A serial robber who had already attacked 23 elderly women also came under the investigators’ scrutiny. However, he had a perfect alibi, as he had been arrested four days before the crime. The search for the perpetrator extended to the drug scene. But no lead led to Maria Macvan’s murderer. More than 20 years have passed since the murder of the 79-year-old pensioner. Her daughter Margit W., who is now 80 herself, wishes so much that her mother’s murderer will finally be caught. But whether this will ever be the case is anyone’s guess.