The most rewarding thing about researching this story was getting to know the people who told me about Jack and themselves. In a world in which few of us find enough time for our closest friends and family, they made time to meet me (a random American guy theyd never heard of) and to share their invaluable experiences and knowledge.
Special thanks to Dr. Ernst Geiger, Max Edelbacher, and other police officersErnst Hoffmann and Leopold Etz in Vienna, Franz Brandsttter and Helmut Golds in Graz, and Fred Miller, James Harper, and Steve Staples in Los Angelesfor patiently answering my thousands of questions with care and candor. I am also indebted to Dr. Geigers wife, Eva, and his daughter, Katja, for sharing their highly personal recollections.
Among criminal justice officials, no one had more contact with Jack than Dr. Wolfgang Wladkowski, and I am indebted to him for sharing his fascinating anecdotes, as well as his vast knowledge of criminal law. Graz D.A. Karl Gasser took time out of his busy day to tell me exactly why he prosecuted Jack with such passion and conviction.
For the defense, I will always be grateful for my many entertaining evenings in Graz with Jacks attorney Dr. Hans Lehofer, talking about Jack and the trial. Astrid Wagner helped me to understand Jacks charismahis immense vital energy, which enveloped her the instant she met him. She also pointed out with great clarity the faults of Jacks opponents (though she never persuaded me that they outweighed Jacks own).
I am indebted to Bianca Mrak and Carolina for telling me about their lives with Jack. Both women have had to come to terms with the fact that they were intimate with a serial killer, and they were generous to talk to me about it.
Thanks to Margit Haas for our many fun nights in Vienna, talking about Jack and everything else.
The reporters who covered the case at the timePeter Grolig and Paul Yvon in Vienna, Hans Breitegger, Bernd Melichar, and Doris Piringer in Grazmade time for me even when they themselves were under deadline pressure. The late Gnther Nenning generously shared his candid and contrite reflections on his participation in the campaign for Jacks release.
Thanks to the Austrian director Willi Hengstler for his fascinating account of writing a screenplay with Jack and for granting me full access to his voluminous correspondence. Alfred Kolleritsch also gave me copies of his correspondence with Jack when he was a fledging author. Thanks also to the American director Robert Dornhelm, who called me during a break in his hectic schedule to tell me his bizarre account of hearing Jacks pitch for yet another film. In Hollywood, Frances Schoenberger met with me to discuss my project, just as shed met with Jack to discuss his projects fourteen years earlier.
On countless afternoons, Dr. Andrea Berzlanovich regaled me with coffee and cakes at the Vienna Institute of Forensic Medicine, carefully answering my questions. Dr. Manfred Hochmeister gave me a crash course on DNA, and Professor Peter Leinzinger told me about the findings of his autopsy on Jack. In Los Angeles, Dr. Lynne Herold told me dozens of fascinating stories about her work at the crime lab. Dr. Reinhard Haller was an invaluable source of information about Jacks psyche from a clinical perspective.
Maybe its just my own insecurity, but I have sensed that few people have much faith in an authors first book. From the moment John Marciano first suggested that I write a book about Jack, he has been a tireless supporter and counselor. I dont think I would have written it without him. Amy Fine Collins and Jay Fielden also gave me support and helpful advice from the beginning. Jack Radisch, a dear friend and former California prosecutor, carefully reviewed the entire typescript.
In the same spirit, I wish to express my profound gratitude to my agent David Halpern, who has always kept the faith in this project, offered invaluable editorial advice, assuaged my anxieties, and demystified the publishing business. Last but not least, I wish to thank my brilliant editors Sarah Crichton and George Miller. They placed their bets on an unproven author and showed me how to shape this wild story into a book.
INTERVIEWS
POLICE: Ernst Geiger, Max Edelbacher, Ernst Hoffmann, Leopold Etz, Franz Brandsttter, Helmut Golds, Fred Miller, James Harper, Ronnie Lancaster, Steve Staples, Shawn Conboy.
FORENSIC SCIENTISTS: Andrea Berzlanovich, Lynne Herold, Peter Leinzinger, Manfred Hochmeister, Walter Brschweiler.
PSYCHIATRISTS AND CRIMINAL PSYCHOLOGISTS: Reinhard Haller, Gerhard Kaiser, Gregg McCrary.
JUDICIAL OFFICIALS: Wolfgang Wladkowski, Karl Gasser, Franz Perschl.
JACKS ATTORNEYS: Hans Lehofer, Anna Schmidt (Lehofers assistant), Peter Cardona (at his trial in 1976), Joseph Slama.
JOURNALISTS AND PHOTOGRAPHERS: Peter Grolig, Hans Breitegger, Bernd Melichar, Frances Schoenberger, Paul Yvon, Doris Piringer, Ulrike Jantschner, Gnther Nenning, Sonja Eisenstein, Thomas Raab, Andreas Hermann, Martin Vukovitz.
FILMMAKERS AND EDITORS: Willi Hengstler, Robert Dornhelm, Alfred Kolleritsch.
JACKS FRIENDS AND FAMILY: Margit Haas, Astrid Wagner, Bianca Mrak, Carolina, Charlotte Auer, Odelia Vizthum.
VICTIMS RELATIVE: Rudolf Prem.
POLICE AND COURT FILES
The Special Commission (SOKO) for investigating Jack Unterweger assembled: 1. Police and court files on his entire criminal career going back to the early 1970s. 2. Police files on all of the cases under investigation in Vienna, Graz, Vorarlberg, Los Angeles, and Prague. Included in the files are investigative reports on each of the crimes before Jack was identified as a suspect. Altogether, the files amount to thousands of pages of crime scene descriptions and photographs, autopsy reports, witness statements, interrogation transcripts, wiretap transcripts, forensic scientific evaluations of evidence, Interpol correspondence, correspondence between courts in different jurisdictions, and previous indictments, as well as letters, photographs, and other documents seized from Jacks apartment. The files document not only Jacks crimes but alsohis education. In every confrontation with the police and courts, he learned something about the way they work. Quotations from the files are cited in the chapter notes.
DIARIES
As Jack noted in one of his diary entries, he had a mania for keeping records of his daily activities. The diaries document five distinct periods.
1. THE PRISON DIARIES: Starting in 1982, his breakthrough year as a writer, Jack made notes of his publishing triumphs, his correspondence and phone conversations with influential persons, his increasing numbers of visitors and admirers, and his extraordinary privileges as a prison inmate. His entries during the months between April and July 1983 pertaining to Inspector Schenners renewed investigation of the Marica Horvath murder (see chapter 43) are especially noteworthy. As far as I know, no other journalist or writer has seen the prison diaries.
2. THE MISSING DIARY (APRIL 27, 1990SEPTEMBER 4, 1991): When the police searched Jacks apartment, they found his prison diaries as well as a diary of his life between September 1991 and February 1992. Conspicuously missing was the diary of his life from May 1990 through August 1991 (roughly the time frame in which the eleven women were murdered). Geiger believed that Jack had kept a diary of the period but had hidden it because it was incriminating.
After his arrest in February 1992, Jack told the police that he had quit keeping a diary when he was paroled in May 1990, but had started again in September 1991 when he learned that he was a suspect for the murders. He claimed that he had resumed his old habit in order to document his whereabouts in case additional murders were committed.