Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
The Viennese public was presented with a truly gruesome sight in the courtroom of the Vienna court on October 26, 1932. Two large preserving jars were placed in front of the judge’s bench, containing charred bone fragments and small pieces of flesh. Next to them stood a children’s bathtub, which had been used to transport the dismembered body parts, and a chopping block on which the body had been cut up, on top of which lay a saw and an axe with dried bloodstains, which had been used to dismember the body. This gruesome ensemble was intended to show the jury the terrible crime that the defendant Franz Gruber had committed against the 38-year-old widow Marie Walter, for which he now had to answer in court on charges of murder. This crime would probably never have come to light had it not been for the fat fishermen Johann Böhm and Johann Watzlawik, who on April 10, 1932, discovered palm-sized pieces of flesh near the Simmering gasworks at the confluence of the main collection canal and the Danube Canal. Fat fishermen were often unemployed people who collected and skimmed floating fat from the canal system in order to earn extra money by selling the raw material for industrial purposes. These two fat fishermen brought 80 pieces of this meat to the Simmering police station. Lecturer Dr. Schneider from the Institute of Forensic Medicine examined the pieces of meat, which clearly came from a human being. A total of 280 pieces of flesh were fished out of the water, which came from a 90-kilogram woman who had been pregnant at least once, as evidenced by the stretch marks on her stomach, and was about 35 to 40 years old. The detectives meticulously searched through the missing persons reports until they came across 38-year-old widow Marie Walter from Wichtelgasse 73 in Vienna’s 17th district, Hernals, who had disappeared without a trace on April 14. Her description matched the pieces of flesh found. Just a few days after her disappearance, her sister Anna Magerl had found a note in her apartment that read: “Circumstances force me to disappear for a few days!” But why would Marie Walter travel without her 7-year-old daughter, who was now living with neighbors? Her last partner was Franz Gruber, better known as “Breserl.” The detectives paid him a visit at his apartment on Koppstraße, where a human pelvic bone had been found nearby the day before. In the apartment, the detectives found half-burned bone fragments in a trash can. A search of the apartment was then carried out, during which further charred bone fragments were discovered in a colonial bucket and a kettle in the laundry room. A saw with blood splatters was also found. Franz Gruber had allegedly used this to dismember a captured Spitz, eat it, and burn the remains. Franz Gruber was arrested. In the meantime, Marie Walter’s sister, Anna Magerl, had taken her own life. She felt guilty about the death of her sister Anna. When Franz Gruber learned of Anna’s death, he accused her of killing her sister Marie in a fight. Anna, with whom Franz had begun an affair after Marie, then asked him to dispose of her sister’s body, which is why he had dismembered Marie. First, he packed the body parts into parcels, but as the blood seeped through the wrapping paper, he washed the body parts, took them to the laundry room in a children’s bathtub, and burned them. However, the stench was so unbearable and the fat was oozing out of the oven door that he decided to cut the body parts into even smaller pieces. He did this with a pickaxe. He burned some of them and stuffed others into the sewer. Since the pelvic bone was too large, he wrapped it in packing paper and hid it near his apartment. Anna Magerl then cleaned the apartment and laundry room. Of course, the detectives did not believe Franz Gruber’s version of events and were ultimately able to convince him to tell the truth. He now testified that he had strangled his former partner Marie Walter during an argument because she had threatened to report him for embezzlement. He emphasized that he had acted in the heat of the moment. He then partially dismembered her body in her apartment and either burned the first parts of the body or stuffed them into the sewer. He dismembered further parts of the body in his apartment. On October 26, 1932, the trial of Franz Gruber for the murder of Marie Walter began. Three days had been scheduled for the trial. Although Franz Gruber had confessed, he recanted his confession on the first day of the trial and again accused the deceased Anna Magerl of murdering her sister out of jealousy. On the second day of the trial, Franz Gruber changed his statement again. He had to be led into the courtroom by six court officials because he no longer wanted to participate in the trial, as he was constantly being booed and insulted by the audience. This time, he claimed to have strangled Marie Walter in the heat of the moment. Thousands of Viennese residents were present during the subsequent inspection of Franz Gruber’s apartment. On the last day of the trial, the court finally announced the verdict that the jury had reached in an hour-long deliberation. Franz Gruber was sentenced to 20 years in prison, aggravated by hard labor every quarter and solitary confinement in a dark cell on each anniversary of the crime. An appeal for annulment by Franz Gruber was rejected by the Supreme Court on February 7, 1933. In 1942, Franz Gruber died of natural causes in Garsten prison.
