Brawl Behind Bars

Homeless killer beats up Stückel murderer

At age 16, K. – who, at his own request, does not wish to have his identity concealed – became a killer of two homeless people. Now he has beaten up two convicted murderers.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Daniel Scharinger, Reinhard Holl, Zwefo)

Austria’s most dangerous inmates in a bloody brawl: The long-sought-after “phantom double murderer” (19) injured a notorious life-sentenced inmate and the instigator of the bloody attack on a young woman—some of them seriously—at the Garsten Correctional Facility in Upper Austria. Now he faces an even longer prison term.

With approximately 250 beds, Garsten Prison in Upper Austria—a former Benedictine monastery—is the state’s second forensic-therapeutic center for the detention of mentally ill offenders. It houses Austria’s most dangerous inmates, who, while criminally responsible at the time of the crime, are classified as mentally ill.

They have written a gruesome criminal history
Two of them have written a chilling criminal history. One was a phantom who, for weeks, spread fear and terror among the homeless in Vienna as a knife-wielding assailant.

During the trial, the 16-year-old at the time of the crimes revealed an “uncontrollable urge to kill” and described how, at night in secluded spots in his hometown of Vienna, armed with a stiletto knife, he searched for “easy victims.” Two men died; one woman narrowly survived. The verdict: 13 years’ imprisonment under the Juvenile Criminal Code, combined with institutionalization.

At age 16, K. – who, at his own request, does not wish to have his identity concealed – became a killer of two homeless people. Now he has beaten up two convicted murderers.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/Daniel Scharinger, Reinhard Holl, Zwefo)

Cellmate stabbed girlfriend 200 times
The cellmate of the now 19-year-old is also a notorious life-sentenced inmate. Fifteen years ago, the then 22-year-old law student was unanimously convicted by a jury of murdering his girlfriend (21). In what is known as “overkill,” he stabbed the young woman 200 times while she was in bed. He then dismembered her and disposed of the body parts in the trash.

My client is off drugs. He felt pressured by his cellmate and didn’t know what else to do.

Strafverteidiger Manfred Arbacher-Stöger vertritt den Obdachlosenkiller

Bild: Anja Richter

During a cell visit supposedly to exchange pills, things escalated between the two convicted felons. The homeless man, half the age of the 38-year-old dismemberment suspect, beat him up (“He hit me 30 to 40 times on the back of the head”). The arm of the convicted murderer’s glasses also broke.

“Help, I’m being beaten”
Just two weeks earlier, the 19-year-old—whose internal “justice traffic light” is on red for high risk—had inflicted an open nasal fracture on a cellmate. This inmate is certainly no stranger either. He was convicted as the instigator and getaway driver following the robbery-murder of a 20-year-old woman in Zell am See (Salzburg). During the attack behind bars, he panicked and dialed the prison guards’ emergency intercom: “Help, I’m being beaten!”

The charge of aggravated assault will likely extend the prison sentence for the former “Knife Phantom of Vienna.”