Missing for eight years

Killed and buried: Murder charges in the Jenni case

After eight years, Jenni Scharinger is finally set to see justice served.(Bild: Krone KREATIV/LPD Wien, Andi Schiel)

Jenni Scharinger had been missing for nearly eight years—ever since the then 21-year-old law student disappeared from her Vienna apartment in January 2018. At the end of 2025, the young woman’s ex-boyfriend confessed to the crime. He now faces murder charges.

The victim’s mother had never believed that her beloved daughter had left of her own accord—as the “missing woman’s” boyfriend had long claimed. And so the retired teacher had never stopped investigating Jennis’s mysterious disappearance; nor had she stopped conducting excavations in a forest in the Hollabrunn district. Where she had suspected her child’s body was buried.

For nearly eight years, Jennis’s mother fought tirelessly to ensure that the crime against her child would finally be solved.

Andreas Schweitzer, Anwalt der Opferfamilie

Bild: Martin A. Jöchl

Last fall, Clemens T.—who had changed his name to Mairon K. in 2024—had increasingly come under the scrutiny of the criminal investigation department. An undercover agent had made contact with him via a dating app; the now 33-year-old man from Lower Austria had subsequently written extensively in chats about methods for best disposing of a body...

The man now charged with murder during a site inspection a few months ago in Vienna-Brigittenau.(Bild: Martin A. Jöchl)

In late 2025, the trained gardener then confessed to the crime. He told the criminal investigation department at the time that he had “unintentionally strangled” his ex-girlfriend on the morning of January 22, 2018, in her apartment in Vienna-Brigittenau during an argument. He then led the officers to a secluded wooded area in Allentsteig, where he had previously hidden the victim’s body under leaves and branches.

Since then, he has been held in pretrial detention at the Josefstadt Correctional Facility. He was examined long ago by court psychiatrist Peter Hofmann. Diagnosis: The defendant suffers from a severe personality disorder with strong narcissistic tendencies. He has a pronounced compulsion to control and reacts to rejection with aggression.

The fact is: Jenni Scharinger had wanted to break up with the man...

My client says he is very relieved to have confessed. 

Astrid Wagner,  Verteidigerin des Beschuldigten

Bild: Klemens Groh

How did Mairon K. live in the years following the crime? He worked sporadically, repeatedly entering into new relationships, which were often ended due to his outbursts of aggression. Some of his ex-partners are currently undergoing psychotherapy due to traumatic experiences with him. Most recently, he had been living with a new girlfriend in a house in Lower Austria. She, too, had reported him to the police in the fall of 2025 after he had hit her.

The exact date of the trial against the 33-year-old has not yet been set. The trial is expected to take place this summer.

If convicted of murder, the defendant faces life imprisonment, plus commitment to a forensic-therapeutic center for an indefinite period. This is the harshest sentence that can be imposed in Austria.