Of my paternity I knew only a name…The G.I. came from Trieste, his home was in New Jersey…Perhaps he gave coveted dollars or silk stockings for it. Perhaps it was a great but doomed love between the soldier and a girl who was too young and without the means to be my mother.
-From Purgatory, by Jack Unterweger
Wir singen jacky jacky
Jacky Jack Unterweger,
Jeder kennt ihn,
Den Frauenmörder aus Wien! |
We sing jacky jacky,
Jacky Jack Unterweger,
Everyone knows him,
The woman-murderer from Vienna! |
-Vienna soccer hooligan song
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"Austrian justice will be measured by the Unterweger case".
-Concluding statement of petition for
Jack Unterweger's early release from
prison. The son of an American soldier and an Austrian country girl, Jack Unterweger was one of the most infamous-and divisive-figures in post-war Austrian history. Following his spectacular transformation from murderer to critically-acclaimed author, he became know as the Paradefall ("Parade Case" or "Poster Boy") for criminal rehabilitation in Austria.
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Jack's arrival at LAX,
June 11, 1991
click to enlarge |
Upon his release he moved to Vienna and continued his career as an author and playwright, producing plays on stages all over Austria. He also nurtured a new career as a freelance journalist.
Among his talents was his "astonishing effect on women." Good-looking, confident, and funny, Jack lurked around Vienna's cafes and nightclubs, seducing dozens of women during his eighteen months of freedom. Though some described him as an exciting and tender lover, the renowned court psychiatrist Reinhard Haller described him as a "malignant narcissist with sadistic tendencies."
The intellectuals who advocated his release from his first life sentence, including the Nobel Prize laureate Elfriede Jelinek, regarded Jack Unterweger as a talented author and fully rehabilitated offender. The FBI special agent Gregg McCrary, who was an expert witness at his subsequent trial for the murder of 11 women, regarded him as a "uniquely high-functioning psychopath" and a rare example of an international serial killer.
