THE STRANGLER OF VIENNA

Taihape Daily Times, 29 December 1917, Page 6

THE STRANGLER OF VIENNA

, VICTIMS CHOSEN FOR THEIR WEALTH. The Vienna newspapers record the close of a most sensational murder trial in the Austrian capital. The trial occupied the Criminal Court of the Fifth District four days, and the convicted defendant, Frau Leopoldine Kasparek, will have to pay the extreme penalty for thrTaufuer of at least four elderly women victims, provided, of course, she does" not secure a commutation of her sentence. The woman—who is only twentythree years of age—is one of the most desperate women criminals Ttr the annals of the Austrian police. She comes from a respectable family, and is the wife of a soldier who has Been fighting on the Russian front since the outbreak of the war. Frau Kasparek, following her husband’s call to the colours, began her criminal career by committing numerous thefts, robberies, and acts of extortion. Both in 1915 and 1916 she was arrested repeatedly, but always escaped with short terms of imprisonment, because she pleaded that she had been driven to her crimes by want. Since she -left the workhouse the last time the woman has aTtsnrpted at least fourteen murders and robberies, and in four cases she was successful. All her victims were wealthyelderly women whose confidence she contrived cleverly to win. Her method was, says the “Express,” simpicity itself. After gaining admittance to the apartments or the old women she strangled them into iusensihllitj-, and then proceeded to ransack the victims’ rooms. Ten of her victims recover T's, but three were found dead, and ’oT:e died in a hospital. In every- case the murderess managed to escape unobserved, ahu her crimes remained unsolved and apparently- insoluble mysteries for manymonths until she was finally caught in. the act when she strangled Frau Marie Wurish, a seveuty-ycar-oIQ widow, and applied the torch to the old woman’s house in order to cover up the murder. / - The murderess after her' arrest made a daring attempt to escape from prison. To get herself transferred from the prison to a hosplßTl she swallowed a large darning needle, which uid to be removed from her body by an operation. A? sooir as she had strength enough she attacked one of her nurses, an elderly Sister of Mercy, whose garb she donned after strangling her almost to death. She succeeded in getting out of the hospital, but. was recaptured witaTh half an hour. Frau Kasparek, at her trial, displayed an almost incredible cynicism. She exhibited not the slightest trace of remorse, boasted of her deeds, and roundly cursed both judges and jurors. After the death sentence had been pronounced it took the combined efforts of six stalwart policemen to drag her out of the court, and on the way back to her prison cell she fought like an infuriated tiger.