The Dismembered

One of the most brutal murders in Austrian criminal history, which even led to a parliamentary debate on tougher sentencing, took place on January 8, 1960. But first things first. On the morning of January 12, 1960, a pensioner found large meaty bones wrapped in paper in a trash can in Vienna’s 8th district, Josefstadt, on the corner of Lange Gasse and Florianigasse. The old lady thought they were beef shanks and brought them to the dog of her scrap metal dealer. When the dog was happily gnawing on the meat bones in the afternoon at the storage yard in Vienna’s 16th district, Ottakring, a customer of the junk dealer noticed that the bones came from a human being. She immediately took the bone away from her dog and alerted the police, who passed the bones on to the forensic medicine department. They determined that they were the upper and lower legs of a young woman, which had obviously been cut up first with a saw and then with a hatchet. According to the forensic experts, the woman had been murdered about four days earlier. The homicide division took over the investigation and launched a large-scale search for the remaining body parts. They concentrated on the area around the first discovery site and quickly found what they were looking for. Further chopped-up body parts were discovered in the courtyard of Florianigasse 17. At the same time, the caretaker, Johann Rogatsch, aroused suspicion by trying to keep the investigators away from the basement. However, they were not deterred by the 27-year-old, multiple-convicted violent criminal. There were already blood splatters in the stairwell leading to the basement. In the laundry room, meat remains were found in the drain, and a saw with bloodstains and bits of flesh stuck to it was found in the basement compartment belonging to Rogatsch’s caretaker’s apartment. Johann Rogatsch, who had served a prison sentence for burglary and aggravated assault and had spent four years in prison for statutory rape, was considered a prime suspect. In addition, his partner Franziska Weber had been missing for exactly four days. According to him, however, she was supposed to be staying with her son at her grandmother’s house in Langenlois. Investigators initially suspected that the dead woman might be Rogatsch’s partner, whom he had murdered and dismembered. But this turned out to be a mistake, as Franziska Weber was indeed in Langenlois. This was also confirmed by witnesses and her train tickets. In the meantime, investigators dug up a female head in the basement. This enabled them to identify the dead woman on January 12, 1960. She was 18-year-old student Ilse Moschner. A student who still lived with her parents and worked part-time as a debt collector for an insurance company, just like her father had done. Four days earlier, she had not returned home after a collection round. Her father had immediately reported her missing and even set out to search for his daughter himself. He retraced her route from Friday, during which his daughter was supposed to have collected a total of 3,000 schillings. But shortly before Florianigasse 17, he gave up due to exhaustion. The only customer there was Johann Rogatsch’s partner. However, she had a watertight alibi. The investigators were certain that Franziska Weber had nothing to do with the murder of the student. The only possible perpetrator was Johann Rogatsch, whom the investigators were now interrogating in the security office. During the interrogation, Johann Rogatsch confessed to killing the student in the heat of the moment. After taking his partner and her son to the train station, he returned to their shared apartment at Florianigasse 17. The young, extremely attractive student Ilse Moschner was already waiting there. She wanted to see Franziska Weber. Weber was away, which made the student angry and she spoke rudely. Rogatsch then struck her on the back of the neck with the flat of his hand. The young woman collapsed and did not move. Rogatsch panicked. The police would not believe a man with a criminal record. So he disposed of the body by dismembering it. However, investigators ruled out a crime of passion. Rogatsch kept coming up with new details and even accused his partner’s ex-partner of the crime. However, the latter had a solid alibi. The investigators were certain that the hot-tempered Rogatsch had planned the crime well in advance. He deliberately sent his girlfriend to her grandmother’s house, knowing that the young student would come to Florianigasse to collect the insurance premium, as she had done twice before on the day of the murder. The autopsy revealed that the student had suffered several blows to the head with a sharp object. In addition, the body parts were covered with knife wounds. When Rogatsch was confronted with this, he admitted that he had struck the student several times with a crankshaft and then stabbed her with a knife. The investigators reconstructed the course of events as follows. Johann Rogatsch had invited the waiting student into his apartment. He paid the insurance premium with a 50-schilling note. The student had to make change, so she sat down on the sofa. Then Rogatsch became intrusive. When the student resisted, he struck her in the neck. He then hit her on the head with a crankshaft and stabbed her brutally. The motive for the murder was not only the money he took from the student after the crime, but was primarily sexual in nature. This was indicated by the mutilation of the corpse. It clearly bore the hallmarks of a sex murderer. He not only dismembered the corpse, but also cooked each individual body part and probably ate some of them before disposing of the rest. On June 22, 1961, the trial against Johann Rogatsch began before the Vienna Higher Regional Court. He pleaded not guilty, claiming that his confession had been coerced by police officers using violence, which quickly proved to be untrue. During the trial, forensic pathologists refuted Rogatsch’s account of the killing. According to them, he had strangled Ilse Moschner, sexually abused her, and left her to bleed to death before dismembering her. On June 30, 1961, Johann Rogatsch was unanimously found guilty by the jury and sentenced to life imprisonment with solitary confinement on the 8th of each month, the day on which he had brutally murdered Ilse Moschner. Rogatsch, who was serving his sentence in Stein prison, was transferred to the special security wing because of his violent outbursts and disruptive behavior. On January 15, 1974, he was strangled in the prison’s recreation room by fellow inmate Ernst Karl. Karl claimed to have acted in self-defense, as Rogatsch had tried to force him to break out of prison and take hostages. When he refused, Rogatsch attacked him, so Karl strangled him. For this act, he was even celebrated as the avenger of Stein by the other inmates. Johann Rogatsch, whose seized tools of the trade are on display in the Vienna Crime Museum, was buried in Stein on January 18, 1974.