Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
A spectacular murder case that still sends shivers down the spine today took place in Wiener Neustadt in 1973. It was 3 March 1973 when 11-year-old Gabriele K. was on her way home from school. As she did every day, she walked through the Akademiepark, an 186-hectare recreational area. She had no idea that she would encounter her murderer there, who would brutally snuff out her young life. But before that, she endured not only pain but also agony. For her murderer dragged her into some bushes in broad daylight, where he sexually assaulted Gabriele, strangled her and then tortured her to death with a pencil. Gabriele’s killer had rummaged through her schoolbag to find the pencil. He used it to write the word ‘cold’ three times on a piece of paper, presumably to test whether the pencil was hard enough, before ramming it into Gabriele’s body several times. The pencil pierced both the girl’s heart and her lung. Who could possibly be capable of such a heinous act? The whole of Austria was paralysed with shock. Following the gruesome crime, the Akademiepark became a no-go area. The pencil murder made headlines far beyond the country’s borders, which is why the Austrian police were under enormous pressure. Shortly afterwards, several suspicious men who had been in the vicinity of the crime scene were arrested. One of them was Herbert Postl, a 30-year-old unskilled labourer who was regarded as an eccentric. He came from a dysfunctional family with many children, had a criminal record and had not completed any vocational training. To the police, Herbert was the perfect killer, as he allegedly possessed knowledge of the crime – though he could just as easily have learnt this from the newspapers. In order to convict Herbert of the murder, he was subjected to a 48-hour marathon of interrogation, during which the police even used violence against him, until Herbert finally confessed. However, Herbert later retracted this confession. Nevertheless, Herbert remained in custody for over two years until his trial in the spring of 1975. Yet Herbert was fortunate, as he had a dedicated lawyer on his side and the jury acted with integrity. After five days of proceedings, Herbert was acquitted due to lack of evidence. From then on, however, his life was a constant ordeal. He never even received compensation for his time in custody, despite his acquittal. Herbert Postl died in 2016 at the age of 74, having lived a secluded life with his wife Leopoldine in Wiener Neustadt until his death. In 1999, there was a surprising turn of events. Newspapers reported that the murder of Gabriele K. was finally on the verge of being solved, a case which until then had languished as an unsolvable cold case. This was because a hair, which had allegedly once been found near the crime scene, had resurfaced in the investigation file. According to a DNA test, it belonged to Werner W., a locksmith’s apprentice who had already been arrested at the time. After weeks in pre-trial detention, he was released due to lack of evidence. However, he had the renowned star lawyer Dr Rudolf Mayer on his side, who simply refuted what was considered to be conclusive evidence. Although the hair clearly belonged to his client, nobody could say with certainty when or how it had ended up in the investigation file, or whether it had actually been found at the crime scene. Consequently, Werner W., a married family man, was released as a free man from Wiener Neustadt Prison. It has been over half a century since the murder of Gabriele K., a case that has been and continues to be the subject of numerous TV crime series, books and podcasts. Yet to this day, Gabriele K.’s murderer has not been convicted.
