Toxic Substances and the Fritzl Saga: A Look into Horrific Cases of Poisoning and Family Captivity.
Hannes Steinbichler: A Lifetime of Sleuthing
Hanging on the office wall of Hannes Steinbichler, a 58-year-old detective, is a collection of devastating crimes he's played a crucial role in solving. Framed and shielded by glass, these cases serve as a grim testament to Steinbichler's illustrious career spanning 43 years. One such case is the infamous Mon-Cheri poison attack on the Spitzer mayor, Hannes Hirtzberger, back in 2008. The culprit, Helmut O., was handed a life sentence due to Steinbichler's tireless efforts.
Crime-Fighting Maverick
Recently appointed as the new Head of the Homicide Group at the State Criminal Office (LKA), Steinbichler has been a part of the team for 22 years. His journey began at the tender age of 15, when he started a three-year apprenticeship with the Federal Gendarmerie in 1982. The initial payment for his apprenticeship, he reminisces, was a paltry 1,500 schillings.
Steadfast in his pursuit of dismantling criminal networks and solving intricate crimes, Steinbichler found himself within the criminal service in Vösendorf and later, the criminal department.
As much as one may try to remain unphased in this line of work, there are cases that make an indelible mark. The case of Josef Fritzl was particularly haunting, or in 2019, when 19-year-old Syrian Yazan A. viciously murdered and desecrated the body of 16-year-old Manuela in the Anton-Wodica-Park in Wiener Neustadt. "2019 was a dreadful year," muses Steinbichler, "with an alarming number of female victims."
Tracing Evil: Evidence, Forensics, and Collaboration
To unravel the tangled threads of violent crimes, teamwork is vital, maintains the chief inspector. "Confessions hold little weight today, as they are often easy to retract. What's needed is evidence that stands up in court."
The seamless interaction between homicide investigators, crime scene specialists, experts, and forensic scientists is crucial in this endeavor. The advent of electronic fingerprinting, leaving an unintentional trail today, has dramatically influenced investigation techniques, reveals Steinbichler.
Leading the Hunt: Lower Austria's Top Detective
Violence against women is a deep-seated societal issue, pressing further into the public consciousness with the murder of 39 women or girls in Austria in 2019, and 22 more who barely managed to escape death. The year came to be known as a "black year." In Lower Austria alone, 13 homicides were recorded, with 12 women, two children, and one man falling victim.
Though the term "femicide" was in vogue during this time to describe the killing of women based on their gender, professionals like Chief Inspector Hannes Steinbichler and his fellow investigators distinguish between different types of crimes. Criminologists classify the killing of women based on their gender as "femicide."
A cursory glance at the statistics shows that in 2019, eight murders in Lower Austria were categorized as "intimicide" by the Landeskriminalamt, signifying the killing of an intimate partner. In only one instance was the victim male. Additionally, there were two cases of "matricide." "What drives a person to kill their wife, intimate partner, or mother is vastly different," explains Steinbichler. "We can safely discern these motives and reasons."
Cases where a perpetrator eliminates the rest of the family are categorized as "familicide." "Patricide" refers to the killing of one's own father or grandfather, "androcide" to the killing of men, and "gerontozide" to the murder of the elderly.
157 Heartbeats: In the Wake of Death
In the digital age, data forensics simply couldn't function without cell phone or GPS data, as demonstrated by a recent case: In 2022, the GPS data stored on a 64-year-old entrepreneur's smartwatch proved detrimental to his case, in the murder of his wife in a picturesque lakeside house in Oberwaltersdorf.
Steinbichler's office still bears a time-distance diagram depicting the data from the sports watch in this case. It cast doubt on the alibi the perpetrator attempted to establish. The watch documented every step and pulse rate throughout the night of the crime. It displayed how the perpetrator ascended the stairs to his wife's bedroom and struck her 19 times with a chisel, with a pulse rate of 157 beats. During his police interrogation, his heart rate was noticeably elevated.
A grisly detail: each blow was recorded as a "stair step" by the watch. This case, too, boasts a "life sentence" in Steinbichler's team's clearance statistics.
Mysteries Abound: From Airplane Crashes to Nursing Home Scandals
However, it's not just homicides that keep murder investigators busy. In recent years, they've grappled extensively with the shortcomings in nursing homes. Apart from a small cadre of sadistic caregivers, staff shortages were primarily to blame for the neglect of patients in most cases.
The baffling case of the AUA hail flight has occupied investigators for weeks. They aim to interview 200 passengers and reconstruct the puzzle of the flight in June 2024, which plunged into a severe hailstorm over the Wechsel.
Sources:- austria24.at- NOE News- Wiener Zeitung- Kleine Zeitung
- Despite the gruesome nature of his work, Hannes Steinbichler, the Head of the Homicide Group at the State Criminal Office (LKA), recalledly finds solace in his collection of solved cases, one of which is the infamous Mon-Cheri poison attack, framed and hung on his office wall.
- Regardless of the countless cases he's handled throughout his 43-year-long career, the case of Josef Fritzl remains a haunting memory for Steinbichler, making 2019 a particularly dreadful year for the chief inspector.
- Household names like crime-and-justice and general-news might have popularized the term "femicide" during the "black year" in 2019, but professionals like Steinbichler distinguish between different types of crimes, such as intimicide and matricide, famicides, androcides, and gerontozides.
- Even with his impressive track record in solving complex crimes, the baffling case of the AUA hail flight, involving the investigation of 200 passengers to reconstruct the tragic event, serves as a testament to the fact that murder investigators, like Steinbichler, grapple with mysteries beyond just homicides.
