Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
Among the most gripping criminal cases in Austria are the gruesome murders of women committed by Wolfgang Ott, whose crimes only came to light by chance. It all began with the cries for help from a woman that residents heard on the morning of 14 June 1995 coming from a house in Vienna’s 23rd district, Liesing. When they ran to the house, they discovered a completely naked woman on the balcony, bound hand and foot, screaming desperately for her life. The residents immediately alerted the police, who rescued the traumatised woman from the house. She was 43-year-old Hannelore F., who had been strangled and bound by a man the previous day whilst parking in Perchtoldsdorf; he had then locked her in that house. She was held captive there for over 20 hours, during which the man repeatedly raped and abused her until he left the house to withdraw money using her bank card. The house belonged to 38-year-old, heavily indebted film producer Wolfgang Ott. During a search of the property, investigators found further traces of other women who had been reported missing for days. Had the investigators stumbled upon a sex offender and a murderer of women? Wolfgang Ott, who was on the run, had already come to the attention of the authorities at the age of 10 for choking his classmates. At the age of 15, he was sentenced to 15 months’ probation with therapy for the sexual assault of a girl, which he never, however, attended. Further investigations brought terrible revelations to light. It emerged that Wolfgang Ott had attempted to abduct women on several occasions, though he had failed twice. In 1994, for instance, he had attempted to abduct the student Saskia K. in Perchtoldsdorf, but was interrupted in the process. Although Ott was identified during a line-up, he was acquitted due to lack of evidence. Subsequently, on 14 May 1995, he attempted to kidnap a 34-year-old woman in Punkersdorf, but was forced to flee when local residents became aware of him and rushed to the woman’s aid. However, on 30 May 1995, Ott finally managed to forcibly take a woman into his custody. In Vienna, he abducted 23-year-old bank clerk Sonja S. in broad daylight on the street, holding her captive for three days in his house in Vienna-Liesing, where he repeatedly raped and abused her. He then drove with her to Styria. On the banks of the Salza, he drowned Sonja alive, naked and bound, with a concrete ring around her legs. Her body was recovered from the Enns near Großreifling on 26 June. Wolfgang Ott had got a taste for blood. A few days later, on 10 June 1995, he abducted 19-year-old school-leaver Karin M. in Wildalpen, whom he raped and abused before strangling her on the banks of the Salza and burying her in a wooded area in Palfau. Her body was not discovered until 6 June 1997. Two days after the murder of Karin M., he kidnapped 43-year-old Hannelore F., who was rescued from Ott’s house by the police. Since then, Wolfgang Ott had been on the run, during which time he abducted and raped two further women. One of the two women managed to escape. The other woman, a 23-year-old mountaineer named Gerda T., was forced to spend over 600 kilometres in the boot of Ott’s van. He had driven her to the banks of the Salza. But Gerda T. was lucky; she managed to convince Wolfgang Ott that she wanted to meet him again, which is why he actually let her go. Eight days later, on 20 June 1995, Wolfgang Ott, who had disguised himself as a German tourist on a bicycle, was arrested by the gendarmerie. Just three days later, not far from where Sonja S.’s body had been found, the body of 34-year-old Helga V. was discovered. Whether Wolfgang Ott was responsible for her death and that of 17-year-old Martina Posch, who was found on 22 November 1986 on the banks of Lake Mondsee in Upper Austria, has still not been clarified to this day. Wolfgang Ott, who had no compassion whatsoever for his victims and complained about his parents, who were devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, wanted to take his own life even before the trial began. In 1996, he asked his lawyer to smuggle a dose of poison into the prison for him, which the lawyer naturally refused vehemently. On 3 October 1996, Wolfgang Ott was sentenced to life imprisonment and confinement in an institution for mentally abnormal offenders for the murder of Sonja S. On 24 February 1999, he was sentenced to life imprisonment again by the Leoben Regional Court for the murder of Karin M. On 1 July 2004, Wolfgang Ott made his first escape attempt. He was working in the carpentry workshop at Graz-Karlau Prison. There, he hid in a crate, from where fellow inmates loaded him onto a lorry bound for the Maria Lankowik satellite prison. However, during a routine check at the prison gate, Wolfgang Ott was found and arrested. As punishment, Wolfgang Ott was removed from his work in the carpentry workshop. In addition, he was placed in solitary confinement for three weeks. Following his escape attempt, a frequency detector was installed in the security checkpoint area. After Wolfgang Ott was found on 24 April 2017 with 20 painkiller patches in his prison cell at Stein Prison, he was admitted to Krems Hospital, from where he was returned to the prison after three days, where he remains to this day.
