The Lainz Angels of Death

Predominantly serial killers work alone, but every once in a while they cross paths and become a crime team. The Lainz Angels of Death is an extraordinary case in the fact that there were four of them. Maria Gruber, Irene Leidolf, Stephanija Meyer, and Waltraud Wagner were nurse aides at the Lainz General Hospital in Austria, who systematically murdered scores of patients between 1983 and 1989.

Lainz General Hospital was built in 1839 and is one of the largest medical facilities in Vienna, Austria. Pavillion 5 at Lainz was reserved for difficult cases – older patients who were unruly, mentally ill, or otherwise required special attention, many of which were terminally ill. In such a setting death was no real surprise, but in 1983 death received a helping hand. Waltraud Wagner, a 24-year old nurse’s aide was stationed on Pavillion 5, was the ringleader and first to commit a murder. A 77-year old patient begged Wagner to end her suffering, eventually Wagner obliged the old woman with a morphine overdose. Wagner discovered she enjoyed playing God, holding the power of life and death in her hands.

Charismatic and charming Wagner used her natural-born leadership skills to recruit 3 more nurses to join her. All these women worked the night shift on Pavilion 5. Maria Gruber 19 years-old was a nursing school dropout and single mother; Irene Leidolf 21 years old was married but preferred hanging out with the girls, and Stephinija Meyer a 43-year-old divorced grandmother who had emigrated from Yugoslavia.

The original modus operandi for these murderous women was to overdose patients with morphine or other tranquilizers. Eventually, Wagner introduced them to the “water-cure” which involved one of the women holding the patient’s head and pinching their nose, while the other would pour water down their throat. Such a sadistic method was agonizing and could take between 45 - 60 minutes for the victim to drown. The murderous quartet believed that because many of the patients were elderly and it was common for them to have fluid in the lungs, the drownings would be undetectable.

Pavilion 5 soon became a concentration camp. The slightest sign of annoyance or complaint from a patient, Wagner and her disciples would plan the patient’s murder for the following night. According to Wagner annoyances included snoring, soiling their sheets, refusing medication or buzzing the nurses for help at inconvenient times. At such times, Wagner would announce “This one gets a ticket to God.” At first, the killings were random and sporadic, but by 1987 their frequency grew. Rumors of a killer in Pavilion 5 began to spread through the hospital and had become known as the “Pavilion of Death”.

Nurses who kill (aka: angels of death) are often motivated by sympathy for their patients or a lust for the attention of being seen as a savior or hero in a crisis. According to the opinion of former FBI profiler and criminologist Candice DeLong, this was not the case for these women. The scale and daring of these women suggest that the thrill of crossing the line and getting away with their crimes was satisfying.

Bragging is a common aspect of sadistic serial killers and these four murderesses were proud and often bragged to each other about their victims. This would be their downfall. Wagner and her accomplices would like to have a few drinks after work, reliving special cases that amused them, laughing over the victims dying expressions or the ones that convulsed. In February 1989, during one of their drinking sessions, they were giggling over the death of Julia Drapal, who was treated to the “water-cure” for refusing to take her medication and calling Wagner a common slut. A doctor of the hospital seated nearby and picked up bits and pieces of their conversation. Horrified with what he heard, he immediately informed the police and after a six-week investigation, the Lainz Angels of Death were arrested.

The investigation involved the examination of around 300 deaths, but as drowning does not leave any evidence, the police were only able to collect enough evidence for 39 homicides. In custody, the death angels confessed to 49 murders. Wagner allegedly claimed 39 as her own. “The ones who got on my nerves were dispatched directly to a free bed with the good Lord,” she stated. Stephanija Meyer admitted to helping Wagner out on several of the homicides and Irene Leidolf stated that she was convinced that Wagner had committed 100 murders in the last 2 years of their spree. As the trial drew closer, Wagner became increasingly reluctant to speak of her crimes and no longer boasted about the 39 victims, but claimed it was a maximum of 10 patients killed to ease their pain.

The judge and jury were unimpressed, calling the death angels’ spree the most brutal and gruesome crime in Austria’s history. Wagner was convicted of 15 murders, 17 attempted murders, and two counts of assault and sentenced to life in prison. Leidolf also received a life sentence for her involvement, while Mayer and Gruber received 15 years each for manslaughter and attempted murder charges. All four women have since served time and are released from prison. Wagner and Leidolf were both released in 2008 for good behavior. Mayer and Gruber were released a few years earlier and were issued with new identities as a precaution against vigilantes.