According to a psychiatric report, the homeless Pole, 51, is considered healthy, but is considered highly dangerous due to a severe personality disorder. The hearing is scheduled to last for two days and the verdict will come on Tuesday.
He is accused of murdering a 74-year-old pharmacist in Donaustadt on the night of January 1, 2023, and murdering and stabbing a 31-year-old mother of two in Floridsdorf on the night of January 8. Like the pharmacist, the woman also died from multiple injuries.
The defendant initially claimed that he had nothing to do with both these cases. He is not the person accused by the government lawyer, but his name is completely different. When the presiding judge of the jury court, Wolfgang Attel, asked whether he would plead guilty or not, the man said: “I don’t know anything.” After this, he repeatedly gave the same answer to the court’s questions. He could not remember the bloody acts.
According to his lawyer Astrid Wagner, his client could not even imagine that he had committed such brutal murders. He is “a peace-loving person”. The man, who has already appeared in court several times in Germany, was convicted based heavily on DNA traces found at the crime scene, as well as the victims’ blood on his clothes and surveillance camera photos. The two people killed may have been accidental victims of a suspected violent criminal.
Based on the psychiatric expert’s findings, the prosecution has also requested that the 50-year-old be placed in a forensic therapeutic center in case he is convicted pursuant to Section 21 Paragraph 2 of the Criminal Code (StGB). According to his defense attorney, the man is currently undergoing treatment in prison for his personality disorder and severe alcohol addiction – the man has been drinking since he was 13 years old. For Wagner, accommodation must also be considered due to his insanity according to section 21/1 of the Criminal Code. The man told his lawyer “about the black people” who were torturing him. If he is convicted as charged, Pole could face ten to 20 years or life imprisonment as well as execution measures.
The accused, who last lived in a tent on a Danube island during the warmer months, tried to break into regular open houses in Vienna’s districts above the Danube during the cold season to find food and a place to sleep. Will happen. To do this, he leaned firmly on the doors and when they opened, the man entered. In both cases he probably surprised the physically weaker victims and immediately attacked them.
The prosecutor said in his opening statement that what the defendant did “cannot be described in words”. The two victims’ lives were “ended in the most cruel and disgusting manner”, the prosecutor said. And addressed the jury: “What you will hear today will be harsh and cruel.” Even experienced investigators were shocked by this brutal act.
The defendant broke into the pharmacist’s home on New Year’s Eve. Before going to the depositor’s apartment on the first floor, he first searched for liquor on the ground floor, which he collected in a carry bag. There he attacked the pharmacist viciously. The man had massive head injuries and signs of abuse all over his body. The 74-year-old man’s legs were tied. The defendant stayed at the pharmacist’s house for three hours after the crime and ate something. He even took a bath there and changed his clothes. When he left, he took the victim’s wallet and shoes with him.
He then drove to Graz, where the man tried to withdraw money using the victim’s ATM card. According to the court, it is no longer possible to determine when the 51-year-old traveled to Vienna again. On the evening of January 7, he finally broke into the 31-year-old man’s home in Floridsdorf and fatally shot the woman in the head and stabbed her several times with a knife, while her children were on the first floor. The young mother died on the night of 8 January. In this case too, the defendant is accused of staying home and drinking heavily. He changed his shoes again and took the slippers of the victim’s husband with him. When he returned from a skiing holiday in the afternoon after the crime, he discovered his dead wife. The children were still in the house.
The suspect was arrested on the evening of January 8. Although police were at the home of the 31-year-old man who was killed after the second murder, the 51-year-old man returned to the crime scene in the evening after forensics were completed. At 9:45 pm he also knocked on the door of the house, and the journalists covering the case caught sight of him. The journalists immediately called the police. An hour later, the 50-year-old man broke into the house through a basement window, where alert officers caught and arrested him. In an alcohol test while in custody, his blood alcohol level was 2.9 parts per milliliter.
Six experts presented their views on the first day of the trial on Monday. Then the first of the 16 witnesses is examined. The hearing will continue on Tuesday and the verdict will also be announced.
