Vienna’s Black Widow

One of the most sophisticated serial killers, who went down in Austrian criminal history as the Black Widow, was Elfriede Blauensteiner. Outwardly a devout woman, she was a devious and extremely greedy murderer who slowly and remorselessly poisoned her victims with doses of poison. Elfriede Blauensteiner was 64 years old at the time of her crimes and addicted to gambling. As she was constantly in need of money, she sought out wealthy victims in need of care, whom she met through personal ads. She took them into her care and forged their wills in her favor with the help of her lawyer, Harald A. Schmidt. She administered large amounts of the blood sugar-lowering drug Euglucon and the antidepressant Anafranil to her victims. When her victims lost consciousness due to intoxication, she placed ice-cold towels on them. Before they froze to death, she called the emergency doctor. Death only occurred in the hospital. She used the drugs so skillfully that no suspicion of poisoning was initially raised. The police were led to her by the death of Alois P., who died in Rossatzbach on November 21, 1995. He had named Elfriede Blauensteiner as his sole heir. His nephew, who had been cheated out of his inheritance, reported Elfriede Blauensteiner to the police. On January 11, 1996, she was arrested by the police on suspicion of murder. The trial became a real media spectacle. Right from the start, Elfriede Blauensteiner skillfully staged herself by raising a golden crucifix like Pontius Pilate with the words: “I wash my hands in innocence.” Elfriede Blauensteiner was a calculating murderer who knew how to lead the court by the nose. She confessed to several murders, but recanted her confessions shortly afterwards. After a trial lasting almost four weeks, she was sentenced to life imprisonment in Krems on March 7, 1997, for the murder of Alois P. Her former legal counsel, Harald A. Schmidt, was acquitted of involvement in the murder. However, he was sentenced to seven years in prison for aggravated fraud, falsifying a will, and aiding and abetting intentional bodily harm resulting in death. In 2001, a second trial was held at the Vienna Regional Court, in which the black widow was found guilty of murdering her neighbor Franziska Köberl and her acquaintance Friedrich Döcker on April 20, 2001. Elfriede Blauensteiner had murdered these two people with the help of a cocktail of drugs in order to get their money. She is said to have been involved in a total of six deaths between 1992 and 1995. In addition to Otto Reindl, who was in need of care, she is said to have murdered her second husband, Rudolf Blauensteiner, and Erwin Niedermeyer with drugs. She was legally convicted and clearly found guilty of murder in three cases. On November 16, 2003, she died of a brain tumor after six years in prison in Schwarzau am Steinfelde. Her story was immortalized in the film “Die Gottesanbeterin” (The Praying Mantis), which was released in 2001. In it, a woman leads the perfect double life, on the one hand as a frugal wife and on the other as a gambling addict who kills cold-bloodedly out of greed. I would like to conclude with a quote from William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth: “Nothing is as it seems.”