Four Angels of death

Four Angels of death

A killer’s troubling behavior can alert potential victims but for some unfortunate citizens of Vienna Austria there were no such clues. The motivation was obscure, the location unusual, the perpetrators unexpected. If this was a shocker of the world, what really happened here in Vienna, Max heads criminal investigations in Vienna's South District. In 1989 he and his team were called to the Lions General Hospital, this is the one of the darkest Hospital. They're specially dealing with very elder people. In the preceding three years an alarming number of elderly patients were dying in just one wing, pavilion five. Investigators soon found out why. It's so terrible because you never would expect in a hospital that this is a murder station. Angels of Death nurses, who kill patients usually act alone and never tell anyone, not so in this case. Angels of Death are often motivated by sympathy for their victims or a lust for attention, in pavilion 5 the motivation was very different.

There was a lot of stress, a lot of overworked nurses and in this time in 88 and 89, more than 60 to 65 people were in one room. The night shift only two nurses could care for these people. Elderly patients were demanding, too demanding. They have an alarm next to the bed and they were using this alarm each 5 or 10 minutes. For one group of nurses, the solution was eternal silence. And it became anger and then started to select such persons who were really active in calling them. Ringleader, Waltraud wagner and three others had a pact, a pact made even crueler by their methods. In Vienna Austria forensic scientist professor Johan miss, would uncover one of his country's worst serial murders and the unusual murder weapon, water.

The nurses were drowning their patients. Drowning is a form of asphyxia, there will be an initial shock and an attempt to hold one's breath. When they can no longer hold it, they're going to exhale that breath and inhale water. That is going to be incredibly uncomfortable, they say about 45 to 60 minutes it took some patients to die. The technique should have defied suspicion, many patients already suffered from pulmonary edema, fluid in the lungs. That was assumed that they could get away with it because you can't distinguish between liquid from pulmonary edema and liquid from tap water. For almost three years, they did get away with it and with other methods, overdoses of insulin and sedatives. Then they became like sisters of death and they became more and more safe in their relationship because nothing happened. There were the kings and queens, they decided about life and death. Although the nurses would cite their motivation as frustration, the scale and daring suggests another factor to criminal profiler Candice DeLong.

I think what it has to do with is the risk, can I do this horrible thing, can I cross this line Society says if I cross it's all over for me right in front of other people and get away with it. That thrill, that extra risk is why they do it. The killing might have continued had the nurses not been so proud. Bragging is a common behavior that we see on the part of serial killers in particular sadistic serial killers. In particular when you have a group of them together, they're proud of what they do. A witness overheard them boasting and reported them to the police. When questioned two of the nurses confessed. This was very interesting with his two ladies, Wagner and Gruber, it was like falling stones from the shoulders of the body devoted to speak. The police and hospital administrators could scarcely believe the magnitude of the murders.

The police had to investigate more than 300 cases. Excavations and post-mortems were difficult. Evidence of drowning often lost to decomposition but enough was collected to prove 38 cases of homicide, with many other cases indeterminable. This was extreme the numeric kind and Samantha continents, we had such cases that nurses killed somebody but I think this was one of the largest cases worldwide and there this was a shock around the world. What really happened here in Vienna. Just as rare four Angels of Death working together. Nurses Valtra Wagner and Irene Leidolf were convicted of multiple murders. They serve life sentences, the other two were convicted of manslaughter and attempted murder and sentenced for 15 years.